Yurt Adventure

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It's not a secret that we love adventures of all sorts but particularly camping adventures.  This began the first year we were married and has continued.  

We started out using a pup tent, and for all newly married couples this is a fine and cozy sleeping arrangement (wink, wink).  After that, we upgraded to a 4-person tent that was really only big enough for 2 people and all of the crap that they need to bring along!  

Then the kids were old enough to come along camping and we had to upgrade again.  We tried one of those cabin tent things that has a partition in the middle so the adults can sleep on one side and the kids can sleep on the other side.  That was so hard to put up that we only used it once.  We decided a better option was to have two tents, one for us and one for the kids.  That worked just fine. 

After the kids flew the coop and it was back to just the two of us who were now in the stage of life where all of the Rice Krispies we ate as children came back to haunt us with snap, crackle, pop if we tried sleeping on the ground in a tent.  

New approach:  camper cabins!  These have been a game changer for us because we can still get the back-to-nature, semi-roughing it feel of camping but with a real bed plus electricity and possibly heat and/or cooling systems.  We've been reserving these cabins for about 10 years now and love it.  

Several years ago when we stayed in a camper cabin at Afton State Park with some friends, we snooped around the yurts that are available at Afton and were intrigued.  The attraction was that it was something completely different than anything we'd done before, plus there was a wood stove in the yurt that would make cold-weather camping a possibility.  

We made reservations for that winter for mid February and were super excited about a new adventure.  Unfortunately, we were not able to stay at that time because there had been a CO2 alarm during the night and the local fire department declared it off limits for 48 hours.  Dang!

This winter, we finally tried again and were able to reserve and stay in the Coyote Yurt at Afton State Park.  I'm here to say, it was heavenly! I won't say that we were completely unplugged because we did make sure all of our devices were fully charged before we got there.  

We arrived at the yurt around 4:00 because Captain had been needed at the Reber Ranch until mid afternoon.  We had to park some distance away from the yurt and haul our supplies in with hand carts.  We've done this before and it's not a terribly ordeal, but on this occasion we were pulling the carts of a muddy incline so it was something of a struggle.  Thank goodness we both thought to bring our muck boots along!

Upon arriving at the yurt, we unlocked the door and stepped inside.  The yurt is round and approximately 20 feet in diameter.  The roof is peaked and has a screened opening covered by a clear plastic dome.  There is a crank apparatus that can be used to open that plastic dome in the summertime to let in a breeze but we opted to forego that pleasure.  

In the center was a 4-person wooden table with two chairs and a bench.  To the right were two sets of twin bunk beds, and on the left was a full size futon bunk bed.  Straight ahead opposite the door was the wood stove. 

View of the right side of the yurt

View of the left side of the yurt

Woodstove in the yurt

Some kindly soul had filled the wood bucket so using the fire starter sticks I had bought at Menards, Captain had a nice little fire going in the woodstove in a matter of minutes.  As he was doing that, I was rigging up our light situation.  There was a bungee cord that went from an anchor on the wall behind the wood stove, up the wall and ceiling through eye hooks and then hung down from the center of the yurt with a carabiner attached.  To this carabiner I hooked our brand new 1200-lumen battery powered LED lantern.  

Holy let there be light, batman--that was as bright as anything I've seen!  We also had two small and one medium battery powered lanterns that we placed a post on each of the bunkbeds so that there was ambient light from all directions, not just from above.  

While the yurt started to warm up, I made up the futon with the flannel sheets I'd brought along as well as a queen size crocheted bedspread and a queen size comforter.  

Meanwhile, Captain was getting the outside fire going because that is where he was going to have to cook supper.  We had stopped at Duff's Meats in Hastings on our way to the state park to pick up some ring bologna to have for supper and sausage patties to have for breakfast.  

While he was doing that, I stayed inside to tend the fire and sit in the rocker by the fire and crochet.  I love it when I can just lollygag around doing nothing while Captain cooks.  Does that make me some kind of chauvinist or just a lazy wife?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Anyway, Captain got the ring bologna and fried potatoes cooked and we had a nice supper at the table.  Normally we use enamel dishware when we camp but since I didn't want to stand outside in the chilly night air and do dishes, we opted for paper plates and plastic silverware.  

After we finished supper and cleaned up, it was the relaxation portion of the trip.  I stayed in the rocking chair near the stove and finished a large mandala fugly blanket while I listened to my Roasary study guide podcast and Mike caught up on the news of the world on my tablet.  We literally spent nearly 3 hours like that, and although Bigger doesn't believe me, it was glorious!  

When I snuggled under all those covers on the bed, I used the last of my phone's battery to listen to an audiobook as I went to sleep.  Sometime during the night I woke up to reposition, and I could hear rain pattering on the yurt.  Since I was snug and comfy, the sound was soothing and I went back to sleep.  

We started stirring in the morning around 7:00, and believe me, we just eased into the day leisurely.  When nature called and I had to walk the 100 yards to the facilities, I'm sure I was quite the picture in my blue hoodie, purple polka-dot fuzzy lounge pants, and my muck boots, but I kinda didn't care!

It took awhile to get the coffee made, so we took a little stroll around and spotted two deer crossing in front of us.  Further on we saw another deer that must have gotten wounded during hunting season as she was limping quite heavily.  I also heard a chickadee and a cardinal singing, amongst other birds I couldn't identify.  

She's kind of hard to see, but there is a does just walking into the woods

Back at camp, the coffee was percolating nicely on the fire, so I filled my cup and went inside to start packing up while Captain stayed out by the fire to make breakfast of fired potatoes and sausage patties.  While we were eating at the table, I saw those same three does through the window walking on the opposite side of the yurt where we'd seen them earlier, so they must have just made a big loop on their journey. 

We finished up breakfast, did the dishes, and finished packing and cleaning the yurt before we left.  Let me say, hauling the carts back to the parking area was much easier than hauling them to the yurt!  

We stopped at the ranger office to return the key, and while I was there I purchased the state parking Hiking Club journal and the Passport Club journal.  What can I say--I'm a joiner; I love being part of a group!

From the ranger station we drove to the visitor parking to walk the trail down to the overlook area for a panoramic view and a selfie.  The trouble with our selfies is that my little T-rex arms are too short to get a good picture, and Captain's fingers aren't nimble enough to do so.  But, we do the best we can.  

From Afton State Park, we detoured to Ellsworth for...you guessed it...warm cheese curds!  We only need one more punch on our frequent buyer card to get a free bag of cheese curds.  Suh-weet!

From there we rambled our way home, once again rejuvenated by just a short trip back to nature.  Thanks for coming along with us!  

What's Past Isn't Always In The Past

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Once again, now that I am done with school and find myself with a crap load of free time, I am doing the family research thing.

Last summer, we had three family picnics on consecutive weekends with the Brogans, the Brehmers, and the Prokaskys.  For the Prokasky clan, it was the first time in decades.  I know you know this because I blogged about it at the time.  Get ready, because my plan is to do that same thing again this year!

Meanwhile, I also dusted off my copy of the Benike genealogy that my uncle, Jerry, gave me years ago.  As I dug in harder on that one, I discovered a couple of really cool little tidbits of family history. 

I have said before how my Grandma Clara Prokasky was a live-in maid for Dr. and Mrs. Plummer and my Grandma Clara Brehmer was a day maid for Dr. and Mrs. Judd.  Well, it turns out that two of my Grandma Clara Brehmer's relatives...either cousins or uncles, I'm not 100% clear on that...each worked as a chauffer for Dr. Charles W. Mayo!  I bet they had stories they could have told at the time!

On a sadder note, I just went to the funeral of my mom's cousin, Richard Prokasky.  That only leaves four remaining people from that generation still around to tell the tales:  my mom's sister, Donna; my mom's cousin, Pauline; my mom's cousin, Mary; and my mom's cousin, Ginger.  Look out, ladies, I'm going to make time to pick your brains about family lore and legend!

On a related note (see what I did there?), I recently had cause to visit the Rochester Public Library to renew my library card.  While there, I went up to the reference desk and asked the nice young man behind the counter what resources were available via the library for genealogy research.  

He was very helpful and gave me a quick overview of links on their website to Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, and the Olmsted County History Center.  Then, joy of joys, he led me to a section in the very back of the second floor that had hundreds of books strictly on genealogy and local history. 

Out of curiosity, I pulled out a thick, hard cover book on the history of Olmsted County from the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s.  I didn't find any Brehmers, Prokaskys, or Benikes in the alphabetic index of names, but I did find a couple of Brogans. 

Specifically, James Brogan, son of Anthony and Kate Brogan, Irish immigrants circa 1853.  Anthony and Kate settled on 160 acres in section 35 of Elmira Township and lived long, productive lives.  James took over the--I'll call it a homestead--in 1891 just a year before his father passed away.  James eventually married Myrtle Lane, and they started a family, having a son, Boyd, and a daughter, Vera.

When I came home and told Captain what I'd discovered in this history book, his first question was "What happened to that farm?"  Huhn...good question.  We looked in a recent Olmsted County plat book and there was nothing to indicate a Brogan had owned land there in recent years.  Strange...

Later that evening while visiting Gammy, Captain mentioned it to her.  She couldn't think of having ever heard or seen any evidence of that particular parcel of land being Brogan land, either.  So, she called her brother-in-law the next day to find out more.  

G-Rod couldn't remember finite details either, but he did add to the picture.  James and Myrtle had two other children, a son, Lawrence, and a son, Paul.  Paul is Captain's paternal grandfather.  The history is sketchy because the family was fractured during the 1918 flu epidemic when both Myrtle and Vera passed away from the illness.  James, in his grief, was not able to care for the children and because his late wife's parents were either unable or unwilling to step in as care givers, the three boys ended up being taken in by other family members.  Sadly, it appears he was not able to maintain the homestead, either.  I think I remember someone saying he ended up working for the county highway department maintaining Highway 52 or something like that.  

These are the sad details that are inherently part of the research.  It's all well and good to think every story is "all because two people fell in love" with exponentially greater number of people in each generation, but the reality is that life is messy, sad, and sometimes tragic.  

I've talked about how Cubby always gets a little frown and teary-eyed when we are at St. Michael's Cemetery in the spring putting out veteran's flags and she finds a headstone of a child.  The same thing happens to me when I'm researching records of ancestors and find records for "Baby Boy So-and-So" or "Infant Such-and-Such."  I am thankful that infant and/or maternal fatalities are much less common than they used to be!

Anyway, short story long, I'll be boring you to tears with family nuggets of legend, myth, and lore I dig up.  If nothing else, it will be a good documentation of our family history for Cubby to--hopefully--treasure some day.  

Blessings, my friends!

Technological Challenges

 

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Don't you love technology?  Around here it is a love-hate relationship.  

For example, Captain's smart phone crapped out on him yesterday and he had to get a new one.  This created great angst for him because he doesn't like to spend money in any way, shape, or form. First he thought he could just go to Walmart and buy a cheap smart phone and take it to our cell phone carrier to have it activated.

Walmart soon disabused him of this notion...observe my shocked face.

Since he was right across the street from the actual Verizon store, he zipped over there to just buy a dang phone.  

However...

He started out with "I need a new phone, and I want a cheap one."  The seriously uninterested representative working the floor was most unhelpful and simply replied, "We don't have any sales or deals going on right now, so I can't help you."

So home came my crabby husband to cite the whole sad story to me, and got absolutely no sympathy.  

Fast forward to evening when I get a call from Captain who is sitting in the line at CHS Kasson to dump a semi load of soybeans.  He said there was going to be a 90-minute wait before he could dump the beans so could I come and get him and take him to the Verizon store down the street.  

Sure.

It was easy to find him in the line of trucks given that his Freightliner is a deep red and everybody else was driving white or blue trucks.  He hopped from the semi into my van and we sped off to Verizon.  

There was a very nice young man working the floor who only raised his eyebrows when I just said "He needs a phone that's cheap but I'm overriding that and asking for a mid range phone instead."  After much discussion on the pros and cons of various phones plus accessories, we walked out with a new phone for Captain.  Thank goodness because he was getting withdrawal symptoms from not having his phone!

Now, fast forward to this morning when Captain comes tearing into my office where I was doing homework before my day job shift started.

"We have a problem!  I can't charge my phone!"  

Let me back up.  This new Samsung device uses a USB-C to USB-C charging cord which--of course--required the purchase of a special adapter for wall charging.  

Okay, so this morning he can't get the USB-C cord to plug into his phone.  I tell him it isn't rocket science and it can't be that hard.  

Except I am not able to plug the charger cord into the phone either as the visible slot is wider and shorter than the plug in.  

Honestly, I would have loved to help him figure it out and did try through the use of YouTube videos and customer review websites, but that day job thing reared its ugly head and I had to abandon him for the paying gig. 

He stomped off to his office to--what's a nicer word than pout?--contemplate his next steps.  

However, sometimes all the stars line up right for us earthlings, and pretty soon he came skipping into my office with a smile on his face because he found the charging port.  

It was hidden behind a flippy thing on the OtterBox phone case!!  

I laughed and laughed at how complicated we both made something so simple.  

It's like "childproof caps" on medicine bottles that only children can open.  I am quite certain had Cubby been here, she would have solved the issue in seconds for us.  

So, with all of the glitches solved, I must ask...Can You Hear Me Now?!

Calf Country - New and Improved

 

All the babies under a nice roof

I haven't had the opportunity to be "in charge" of Calf Country since Captain finished the shed remodel until after Captain had hernia repair surgery last week.  He's doing well but has that lifting restriction thing going on.  

So I get to be in charge.

Now, instead of individual huts outside with the calves tethered by nylon collars snapped to 6-foot chains, each calf has a 4x4 foot individual pen with a straw bedding that doesn't get wet from rain or cold and wet from snow.

This is also nice for the person in charge because it eliminates standing out in the open which might include blizzards, torrential rain, or gale force winds.  Now we are all nice and cozy under the shed roof.  

It is also nice because the milk house is attached to the south end of the calf shed so there is no more carrying pails of milk from the barn to the huts; it's all right there in one handy-dandy spot.  

So, right now we have nine calves on milk.  For me, I feed them in three groups of three.  That's easy math for this number-challenged girl.  I've been doing this for 9 days now, and it's been going quite well.  

Until this morning.

Today, every one of those little stinkers decided that head butting the pail of milk as I tried to set it inside the pen for them to drink was a good idea.  Turns out I got my "shower" before I got back to the house.  Plus a couple of bruises where the pail came up and hit my arm.  

But they all got fed.  Even the stupid--yes, I said stupid--Brown Swiss calf that simply can NOT figure out how to drink out of a pail unless someone puts their hand into the pail of milk so the calf can suck on their fingers.  

I have a hard time with this because I am short and bending over the pen panel for as long as it takes the calf to drink all the milk gives me a backache.  When I finally get straightened up, I tend to walk like a penguin for a few steps before everything in my spine lines back up again.  

Most of the time, I have a couple of "helpers" when Charlie and Lucy decide to tag along.  

Charlie having breakfast

Lucy just wants to play fetch with her ball

While I'm feeding milk, Captain is able to drive the skid loader to feed the bigger steers.  To save him the aggravation of climbing in and out of the skid loader multiple times, I carry the pail of pellets to dump in the bucket and also run the on/off switch for the bulk bin that has the corn.  This, by the way, is also handily situation on the south end of the calf shed.  

Once Captain and I have both finished up our separate tasks, I carry grain to the newly weaned calves and Captain walks along with me.  

Depending on how early we got started on chores, we might have time to check out what's ripe in the garden before I start work.  

See, I have new hours now because I have a new job.  You all know I've been in school for the last couple of years chasing my Health Information Technology degree.  I'm in my last semester with a graduation date in December.  Being so close to having the degree allowed me to apply for a specialist position in the Health Information Management department--that's the department that deals with all things medical record-related both incoming and outgoing.  I got hired in the section that deals with incoming records.

It's been a nice change of pace after the hustle and bustle of being an administrative assistant, although I do miss the people I worked with in that role.  I have two weeks of training left before they turn me loose on the world, and I truly think  this is what I'll be doing for the remainder of my career at Mayo Clinic.  It will be nice to be settled into it soon.  

Thanks for coming along to Calf Country with me!

Blessings, my friends!

Family Reunion

 

Back row:  Steve Haack, Joe Brehmer, Brian Brehmer, Carol Scott, Karen Chatterton, Tom Whipple
Front row:  Mary Wilson, Pauline Williams, Jude Brogan, Dick Prokasky, Donna Busse, Ginger Maliszewski

Over the weekend, we hosted the Prokasky family reunion at the New Haven Township Hall.  This has not happened since October of 1988!

What an amazing afternoon!  My mom didn't talk about her relatives a whole lot that I can remember, so meeting all of this extended family was such a treat for me.  

So, for background, this is my mother's paternal family.  Her dad, Emil Prokasky, was the oldest of 10 children born to Martin and Gertrude (Vogel) Prokasky.  There were 6 boys and 4 girls; one girl died as an infant.  

From those 10 children, there were 19 grandchildren, 31 great-grandchildren, 41 great-great-grandchildren, and 4 great-great-great grandchildren (to date).  Wowza!!  All because two people fell in love, right?

I heard stories about how my mom, her sister, and their cousin doted on one of the younger cousins and sang "How Much Was That Doggy In The Window" to her.  

Image courtesy of Google Arts & Culture

I learned that two of my mom's uncles owned and operated Fisherman's Inn for a time.  

Image courtesy of Post Bulletin

I learned that one of my mom's aunt's and her husband's nicknames were Bert (Bertha) and Doodle (Julius).  Bert, for obvious reasons.  Doodle because he used to bounce the nieces and nephews on his leg singing "Doodledy doodledy doo."  Bert and Doodle; I love it!

I learned that my mom's aunt and uncle ran a bar in Pine Island called the CarcaJou which was in an old railroad car situated where the current grocery store sits.  They also owned and operated an eatery called The Hamburger Stand on Main Street in Pine Island (also know as the Popcorn Stand) that was famous for its onion rings which mom's cousin eventually ran.

I learned that there is a fellow crochet enthusiast in the group, and Captain had a great talk with another farmer who was there.  

One topic of conversation over the course of the afternoon was how people used to "go visiting" on Sunday afternoons, usually to a family member's house but sometimes to a neighbor's house.  How have we all gotten too busy for the face-to-face, personal connection?  

Is it social media that has made it easy to think, Oh, they all know what's going on in my world because I put it on Facebook.  

WRONG!  Well, yes, they know--but there is no interaction...no finding out what's going on in THEIR world...no clicks of hey, I know the same person you know!

Nothing, absolutely nothing, replaces that connection to and solid relationship with our families.  I know that we are all busy and life is crazy, but at the end of the day family is all we have.  

I am so glad that we had a Prokasky reunion, and there are already plans to do it again next year.  I...can't...WAIT!

Parental Validation

 

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You've all read (or should have by now) my stories of parenting wherein Captain and I diverge on philosophies.  Captain is of the "everything is a crisis" school of thought while I am of the "choose your battles" camp.  Captain tended to yell about everything.  I only yelled occasionally.  

But when I did...you can fill in the blank here.  

You know that old saying, "her bark is worse than her bite"?  Yeah, my description is more like "you won't hear the bark until she has chewed your face off."  

Stay with me here because I'm not trying to build myself up as a World Class Beeyatch.  I'm trying to illustrate that a child's healthy respect of an adult has to have just a tiny drop of fear in it.  

The reason I bring this up is because I got the sincerest validation of my parenting choices recently.  Have any of you ever had one of those "Lord, I did something right as a parent" moments when your adult children are talking?  Usually it's because your young adult son took time to help a stranger load something heavy into her car at Fleet Farm or whatever.  You get what I mean.  A warm fuzzy moment.  I've had those, and it's an amazing feeling.  

Recently, however, I had one of a different flavor, but it was just as satisfying. 

I'm going to paraphrase and take some artistic license with the details to protect the innocent here, but the crux of it is that we were recently at a gathering that included many of Bigger's classmates.  They are all in the early 30s now and parents themselves.  

I'm not certain how the conversation got started; probably one classmate started talking about stupid stuff they'd done as teenagers and whether or not they (1) got caught and (2) got in trouble.  One classmate asked the group which of their friends' mom they were most afraid of. 

I had three fingers pointed right at me.  

Huhn?  

The follow-up question, obviously, was "Why" and the unanimous answer was, "Because she didn't flip out about everything, but when she did, she followed through on a consequence."  

It stands out as one of the proudest moments of my life.  Again, I don't want to be known as the Class A Beeyatch, but being known as fair but fierce is okay in my book.  

On the same note, I saw a Facebook reel this morning which actually prompted this post.  It was a male comedian talking about parenting and yelling.  He said you can't just yell at your kids all the time because they will eventually tune that particular frequency out and, in his words, all they hear is a Yamaha dirt bike in the distance.  For my fellow Gen Xers, that means you'd sound like Charlie Brown's teacher.  

Anyway, he said that as a parent, you have to have two discipline voices.  One is the generic yell akin to a Yamaha dirt bike.  But then you have to have what I call the Come To Jesus voice.  My kids--and apparently their friends--know this voice of mine.  

I have a big voice, so my standard discipline voice generally covers a radius of a half mile.  Everybody in the neighborhood knows my kids are in trouble.  That's the voice to use when someone didn't finish their chores.  

The Come To Jesus voice is a full two octaves lower than that, is soft, and it's deadly.  And usually has fewer words.  This voice is what comes out when the child pulled out the old nugget about being old enough to do what he/she wants (i.e. stay out to the wee hours drinking and then not get up in the morning to do the expected chores).  This conversation will then move into Come To Jesus territory and end with  me saying in that two-octave-lower voice "If you are living under our roof and we are paying the bills, you do what I want you to do."  And here's the kicker.  The voice drops another half octave and ends with "Are we clear?"

I didn't pull out the Come To Jesus voice often, but those times when I did are still talked about.  And I'm okay with that.  

I have had two outstanding Face The Consequences situations as a parent; one with each kid.  I consider them to be the pinnacle of my parenting career.  And neither one actually involved the Come To Jesus voice, now that I think about it.  Hmmmm.

But, we must have done something right because between the two of us, Captain and I raised two children who became functioning, contributing members of society with respectable lives of their own.  That's what parenting is supposed to be, in my mind.  

Call me a Big Old Meanie, but if I run into any of my kids' classmates and get a bear hug and a story about how I terrorized them...that's a red letter day in my book.  

Call me crazy.  

Cart Ahead of the Horse

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Remember a year or two, or maybe three, ago when I got all hopped up about genealogy and family trees?  I was so excited at that time when I found a family tree builder website with associated search engines to trace public records, etc., that I just started throwing people on my family tree all willy nilly until suddenly I had almost 3000 people!

That was so overwhelming when I created a family book with all those people in PDF form that I saved it and walked away for awhile because my brain was exploding.  This is actually typical behavior for me and my ADHD brain....jump in, get overwhelmed, abandon.  Like my husband when he starts assembling something without reading the directions first.  

I really do want to get this genealogy research organized, not only for my own benefit and information but for the cousins I am discovering along the way.  Therefore, I went to the ever reliable YouTube and searched "genealogy tips" so I could learn from subject matter experts.  Side note...that search will also make your brain explode because there are thousands of videos!  

I finally found one Amy Johnson who dumbed it all down enough to my level, and through her wisdom I realized that I put the whole grove of family trees into one Tree of Life that was entirely too unwieldy to be of any practical use.  I needed to break the great big tree down into smaller saplings.  I'm here to tell you, it is a helluva lot easier and faster to add people to your family tree builder than it is to remove them!  

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I started with the Prokasky sapling because I have recently re-connected with some Prokasky cousins and have planned a Prokasky family reunion.  I think the last one was just after Captain and I got married, so that's 35-ish years ago.  

I got all of the Prokasky relatives removed from the Brehmer (and everybody else) tree onto their own tree and ended up with 137 entries.  I'm missing a lot but for now, that's manageable, and I was able to create a very nice genealogy print out of those people that I can now share with my cousins at the reunion.  

I am now working on removing all of the Benike relations (my dad's mom's family) from the Brehmer tree and will re-create a Benike tree.  This will also include  the surnames of Schwanke, Laabs, Rabine, and Schacht for starters.  So. Many. People!!

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I have started reaching out to people I think may have documents or records that will add to my research, so if I show up on your doorstep someday...don't be surprised!