Visitors

The big story this week was the arrival of Becky and her cat, Vanna. Both will be with us until Becky can find an apartment in the Madison, Wisconsin, area. Second to that was our son Toby’s first visit to Heart House. A sub-story was the arrival of an F-0 tornado over Elma as part of a major winter wind storm.

Becky arrived last weekend. She winterized her mobile home in Rice Lake and brought the cat and last carload of household goods down to Heart House and moved into the guest bedroom. We have already enjoyed her company and look forward to having her with us for a while.

Becky’s cat, Vanna, is still getting used to having a house to explore. She is not familiar with dogs and careful of the other cats at this point, but appears to be getting more comfortable as the days go by. We are getting used to the sight of a pure white feline going up and down the stairs and walking through the house.

Toby arrived on Friday after a 7 hour drive from South Bend, Indiana. This is his first visit to our NE Iowa home. We have spent several hours visiting and catching up with news from his and our end. One of Pam’s goals for the visit was to have Toby take home a few boxes of his stuff that we had been saving for him (for twenty years). Toby was delighted to find that we still had his collection of Pok-e-mon cards and football trading cards from the late ’90s. Some of these cards may be worth anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars each. Toby plans to catalog them and do some research to find which cards, if any, have collector value.

The weekend was spent in good company and eating good food. Toby and I took a tour of local holiday lights, including the Elma Park Christmas light display. It was a very nice way to spend the weekend before Christmas.

The down side of the week was a major wind and rain storm that passed through Elma last Wednesday. This storm had been forecast a few days prior so was not a surprise, but the estimate of top wind speeds kept going up. We lost power for about 3 hours and had some dead branches on our yard but suffered no real damage. After the storm passed the weather service classified it as a F-0 event, with winds between 40 and 72 miles per hour. Unfortunately, nearby towns suffered a bit more damage and had no electrical power for most of the following day. One fatality was reported. Damage included loss of roofs and downed trees.

Ahead of the storm we set heat records for the month of December, with temps getting into the mid-60 degree range. The state of Minnesota recorded its first-ever December tornado. With no snow in the forecast for the upcoming week a white Christmas is doubtful. While I would like some snow for the big day, I certainly would not mind a milder winter this year.

In other holiday related news, we finished decorating our tree. A few purchases have arrived, including my Bean Boots and a couple pairs of flannel-lined jeans. Neighbors have added a few more outside lights and decorations to their yards and the town is beginning to look more and more festive. A week away from Christmas and we are pretty well set for it. Becky’s daughter, Caitlin, will be stopping by for a several day visit in the next week and we are looking forward to visiting with her.

Pam has been busy planning menus and organizing the house for Becky’s and Toby’s visit and working on embroidery projects; she is staying busy. I have been scanning more slides and have added photos to my Old Equipment gallery and started to change the John Deere from mower to snow plow. I have been hindered in this by my bad shoulder which is s-l-o-w-l-y improving but is far from normal. I had planned to replace the main drive belt as I know there are cracks in it, but this requires under-tractor work that I don’t feel like taking on. I may just mount the blade and hope the belt holds though the season. Tire chains and extra rear weights have already been installed. As there is no snow in the 10-day forecast I am in no hurry to finish the conversion.

We are finishing the year in pretty good shape, although a couple projects (laundry room, upstairs shower) are not yet finished. I did get my last load of yard debris out to the dump and unloaded, and finished what I hope is the last yard clean-up of the season. The mulched leaves from that session were spread over the Mary Lynn Memorial flower bed located on the east side of the house. I never thought I would be mulching leaves in mid-December but the storm had blown a large number of leaves in from surrounding yards and these had accumulated around the catio, garage, and fence lines. I took advantage of the mild temps and got rid of this accumulation.

We are looking forward to Christmas. At this stage of our lives we buy ourselves items we want or need and generally have a quiet day. This year we will have Becky here and visits from Toby and Caitlin will have punctuated the season with more family visits than has been our norm. One of the reasons we moved back to the Midwest was to have closer proximity to family and friends and this is reflected in our expanded social calendar.

Photo Archive

Family photos are the theme for this week’s post. These were taken in the late ’80s.

I have a few other photos I would like to include here. The first is our good friend Hank Tourtillott using his metal detector near Waldorf, Colorado. The others are of my 1953 Willys truck on the Savage Basin Road near Telluride, Colorado.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

When did tornadic activity get a “Category 0” rating? Did I miss something? I’m assuming a Category 0 means some wind rotation but no funnel cloud. Didn’t we use to call this just a strong storm? In any case, in December in the Midwest, who was expecting a “Category Anything.”

With vaccinations and boosters for visitors to Heart House, isn’t it something to be able to gather together in small groups again?

Happy Trails.