My beloved husband is out of town, sitting somewhere in Canada in a truck pulling a bottle of propane. He emails me this morning at 6:49am with the following:

I slept in the middle of a slide that was half a mile wide 1200 ft long and 450 ft deep. It completely obliterated a town. They tunneled a path through it for the Crows Nest Hwy.  It happened at 4am. Nice way to wake up!  Have a good day. Love ya.

My reply?

WHAT? Where were you?

I worried all morning until he finally sends me the following:

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

hmm… maybe I should of told you it happened in 1903. Crows nest pass. The town was called Frank. Its not there anymore.

~faint~

When I finally got over it, I emailed him back:

Don’t you know it’s not April 1st yet? I have been worrying about you all morning!!! You got me!

To which he replied:

Here I got you and I wasn’t even trying!! Good thing you pray for me ’cause maybe that slide wouldn’t have missed me by 103 years. I could have parked to sleep in crows nest gulch and woke up underneath Crows Nest pass! Whew! That was close!! Thanks honey!

~faints again~

Tags: Dennis

Let me share a story that really shouldn’t be called a story, because really it’s a “truth,” although my husband would disagree. After 10 years, he still won’t let us live it down.  Let me share with you.

About ten years ago, we lived in Oregon, right down in the Willamette (Will am et -as in ‘set’) Valley and planted a large garden each year. In about March, we gathered seeds, trays, and soil to get a good “greenhouse” started for our beloved tomato plants. Dh was the head of the garden and always prepared these little seeds for the few months in the home before being transplanted. He lovingly set them on a table next to the window in the dining room and placed toothpicks in the soil and used plastic kitchen wrap as a covering.

Before leaving to go out of town for a few days, he exhorted us NOT to touch his precious seedlings, which varied between 1 and 4 inches in height, by that time. Kissing him good bye, we all assured him that all would be well.

Meanwhile, we were occasionally hearing a strange sound in the living room chimney. We all guessed there was a mouse up in there and thought it would eventually go away. The little noises were heard for several days, throughout the day.  We’d comment on them, but mostly ignore them.

One bright day, one of my boys, who would have been about six at the time, and his little sister, who was probably about four, were in the living room minding their own business. The rest of us were in varying parts of the house. I was in the dining room, doing some schoolwork with some of the children. All of a sudden this indescribable noise, accompanied by screams, came from the living room when a black bird of some kind came down the chimney and was floundering in the large fireplace. I ran into the room just at the moment the bird hit the screen, which fell over, freeing the feathered creature. The fowl hit the living room window and fell to the floor behind the couch, spreading soot and ash everywhere.

We guessed it was a crow or blackbird. I called for a son to, “quick! Go get Daddy’s fishing net out of the boat!” Peeking behind the couch, we discovered it was a small black, iridescent duck!

Presently, son ran back into the room with the long handled net. I tried to get a good grab at the duck, but it decided this was not a good situation and took flight in the living room and headed for the dining room, straight to the windows and, you guessed it, the trays of seedlings! I quickly ordered a child to open the back door, which was directly next to the windows. Floundering sufficiently in the trays, and with much prodding, the duck finally made its way out the back door and the house became still. Whew!

We looked at each other, looked at Dad’s starts, and said, “he’ll NEVER believe THIS!”

To this day, he still pokes and prods us about that. When something isn’t quite right, or there’s a hammer missing, he’ll say, “I bet that duck did it.”

Tags: Dennis, Family, gardening

I know it’s been awhile since I have written….yes… I have all kinds of excuses, the main one being…life happens. And just to prove my point, I thought I’d share a bit about a morning I experienced last week.

Too much excitement before 5am

My alarm didn’t go off at 3:50 like it was supposed to in order for me to take my oldest son, Ben, to work. I did awake to Ben knocking on my door at 4:10.  I hurriedly jumped out of bed and got dressed.  We left as soon as I got my coat and shoes on.

Thankfully, he started the pickup for us an hour earlier, which didn’t do a whole lot of good because the draft in the pick up is so bad, we shivered the whole time.  It was somewhere around 15°.

I got him to work fine, but when I came up our driveway, there was a huge snow drift that I got caught up in and lost it. I was stuck in the snow.

I went into the house. It was 5 am by this time and I was supposed to wake Dennis, anyway. I told him about it. I tapped on the boys’ bedroom door to wake up Joe and Eric.  Nephew Steven woke up, as well and between the three of them, they shoveled me out.

Dennis was up by this time and went out to check on things. He moved the [unstuck] pickup, then found that the door had froze open.  He couldn’t get it to loosen, so he headed over to the other pickup (the one with little to no brakes) and began to get it started.  Meanwhile, Joe took a screw driver to it and got it releasing fine. Dennis came back to mess with it and found that we had no tail lights or dash lights.  Evidently, we blew a fuse.  At the time, he thought it was wiring.

His car is in another city, the van’s battery is dead, the other pickup has no brakes, David’s van is at the motel with his folks. What was he to do?  Dennis starts to unthaw the older Chevy pick up, which has no brakes.  We couldn’t find the window scraper, remembered the flashlight is in David’s van…at the motel.  The good news is, though, that this pick up has 4 wheel drive, so off we went.

Our driveway goes down hill with a drop off on both sides, then heads back up with a curve in it, so Dennis, not wanting to get stuck, gooses it. I gasped, as I hadn’t gotten my seatbelt latched.  The three boys are in the back seat.  My nephew begins sweating.  Dennis stops! He backs up the driveway in the dark, then goes for it again.  He tells me he was carving a way through that snow drift for when I come home.  Okay… good…we need a path to get home.

We get to where Dennis’ truck is parked.  He set my brake. We all went into the little store because Dennis forgot his coffee and the boys and I went in to find a scraper. We go back out, said our good bye’s and pull out onto the street.  I almost immediately turn right and proceed onto the on ramp of the freeway when suddenly, this overwhelming cloud overcomes us all. Steven rolls down his window right fast and I pull over on the on ramp.  I tell the boys to (in the dark) run as fast as they can back up to the truck stop and catch Daddy… but don’t get hit! Remember? It’s about 15°. Nephew, Steven, is wearing only a sweatshirt. It’s black.  Joe is in his jammie pants and his hunting snow outfit, which keeps him warm and is hunter orange, so we thought surely Dennis would see them his headlights even shone on the boys, but HE DIDN’T SEE THEM!  They were waving at him and he drove on by.

Fortunately, before I left, I saw my mil’s cell phone sitting by our phone and took it with me, “just in case.” So, seeing the boys’ plight, I called my brother-in-law, who was snoozing peacefully at our house and woke him up. I told him what was going on. I didn’t know whether to move forward or what.  I didn’t want to burn something up! He finally told me to move a little while he was on the phone with me.  I did and it was fine!

We came on home.  No problem… until the driveway.  I did the turn and gassed it.  I aimed for one of the tracks Dennis made for me but instead, I must have caught part of the drift and it sucked me in. I gassed it more and made it up, up, up… then it died.  It wouldn’t start again, but we were home and all thankful!

There’s really more to the story. It has turned into a bit of an ongoing saga. Let’s just say, as it stands now… It’s a week later and the van is still dead, with one battery removed (diesels have two batteries), the pick up with no brakes is sitting up on our road, broken (probably a fuel filter), the yellow pick up has been pretty good…after we dug it out of a snow drift and in spite of it’s draft, and God is good to take care of us.

Tags: Ben, Dennis, Eric, Family, Joe, Vehicles, winter