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some back story is required here….Those that remember our mom might or might not know that she liked to start fires…talking bonfire type fires here…and she also liked to know what was going on around her…..like in having a scanner to listen to police/fire that type of thing. If there was a fire truck on the move close to where she was, you could bet she would get in her vehicle and chase it down the road….or maybe even get there first ROFL.

Yes, we have a burn barrel and yes I know they are technically not allowed. However I fail to see the difference between a fire pit and a burn barrel, so if anyone asks….it’s a fire pit OK? We both enjoy getting a roaring blaze going, so channeling our mom, no question about that.

Now to get back to the UFL (unidentified flashing lights). I was chatting with our other sister on the phone the other night when Patti came flying in the house yelling “Get in the car, hurry up” so quick bye to the older sis and in the car with younger sis I went. She had been taking Zoe for a walk in the twilight hours when she spied what looked to be a whole bunch of emergency lights flashing . Yep channeling Mom again….had to know what was going on, so down the road we flew, drove through the area she thought she had seen them, but guess what….NOTHING, hardly even lights on in a house much less emergency flashers! Stymied, we drove around the long block and back towards home, when we went by a home close to ours that has an enclosed back yard and guess what……FLASHING LIGHTS strung about around the perimeter ….not real visible unless you were at just the right angle. Of course I will not let Miss Patricia live this one down anytime soon.. If you see her out and about—be sure to ask if she has seen any more flashing lights?

Good Grief anyhow! That’s what you get for being interested (Nosy) in what is going on around you! What do you’all do for fun?? We manage to amuse ourselves quite well. The other funny thing that happened while we were on our little drive was a text message from Patti’s daughter wanting to know if everything was ok…..they had spied us driving out of our garage (after dark) and thought something might be wrong….we just can’t get by with anything…..I guess we are not allowed out after dark and yes that’s probably a good idea. We just didn’t know we were being watched, ROFL. Comes under the heading of “watch out for your aged neighbors” ?????

On a more positive note, we are making great strides on the deck. In the process of painting it now, in between the wind, heat and rain, it is slowly getting done. We have the lattice to put up around the bottom. With any luck it will be done within the week. Hurrah! The inside of the garage is back on hold unfortunately as we wait for “the man” to finish up another job and get back to us. Big sigh here. We have gotten so much done in the last year that she should be happy with what’s done, but somehow it only makes us want it to be FINISHED! We have planted some trees, getting some grass growing in the dirt fill zones and flowers in containers. Next year we will be able to concentrate more on the landscaping. Oh and we have clothes line poles to be put up but having trouble finding someone to do it that has an auger. Where we wanted to put it, the ground is way too hard for a hand hole digger. Anybody know who has an auger?? (that wants to help out some aged folks?) LOL

For those related to us, there is an impromptu Parrow family reunion coming up in Havana on August 13, at the civic center. You can find more details on facebook as the date nears. Well, if I am still on facebook, I might be in facebook jail by then. If you didn’t know, I have gotten in trouble for violating community standards…….this all started over the Havana group page that I administer. I had posted obits for former grads of the school. Evidently for some unknown reason, they find obituaries in violation of community standards….makes no sense to me and of course they don’t explain what the problem is, they just delete my posts and send me a little message. I have hit the response to that saying I object, but they don’t answer that either, just register my objection I guess…..I am clueless here, so I am going to just keep posting them and see what happens.

Hope you’all are well and enjoying the summer! Come and see us sometime!

Are you some of the people that grew up reading The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder? We sure are and we have survived our own Long Winter! It had been over 50 years since I had spent a winter in North Dakota and I am happy to state that I managed to live through it, with many layers of clothing and avoiding the outside whenever white stuff was falling from the sky. It never fails to astound me that our ancestors were able to survive the frigid temps back in the “good ole days”. They certainly were some sturdy stock!

It has been so long since I have posted that I’m sure that I have missed some high lights of the last year….here are a couple of things that were interesting…first up–watching a bean field harvest up close. Certainly amazing the size of the equipment now days. This is in the field just west of our little homestead.

Last fall our neighbor to the north removed his old fire truck from the property….we were sad to see it go but wonder if he took it to be restored. Needless to say it didn’t leave under its own steam!

We also managed to celebrate some birthdays–a couple I have pictures! –Brody and Patti.

And we even had a high school graduation to attend! Congrats Ty!

On the homestead front we have made some progress…the garage is almost all sided…well of course we ran out of siding so that is on hold for just a bit BUT finishing is now in our sights on that at least. Deck is still in progress; we have managed to plant some flowers, but no garden this year. We still have walls to put up inside the garage, workbench to assemble, etc, etc, etc. Nothing is totally done but we are moving forward! We are both itching to start some projects so we really need that garage finished!! Patti has been keeping busy with mowing—not just our acreage but also mowing for the city which has been quite the ordeal so far….I have lost track of how many times she has gotten stuck. Ground is still really wet in many areas and of course we are getting more rain today. Gene and I ” weed whacked” the Catholic cemetery yesterday and got the peonies cleaned out and fertilized. Neither of these jobs stay done though, just an endless cycle until the snow flies again…..and its already well into June. Temps in the 80’s and now we have AC running instead of the heat! I will not complain about the heat though! Bring it on!!

We got this framed wall hanging from our realtor in Tupelo. We bought and sold our house with her and we thought this was a pretty unique gift. Thinking now that we should change the name of our blog but don’t really have any ideas for a name change….any suggestions??

All comments and questions and ideas welcome! Let me know if you are reading this and if we should continue ok? Peace and Love to all!

Gosh it’s been a while since I have done a blog so decided it was way past due. We are just trying to survive the North Dakota winter. It’s been bitter cold and lots of snow. We judge how bad the day is by looking for South Dakota, which is just a scant mile south of us. Here are some photos from yesterday. The first shot is looking to the east, next is whiteout view to the west and lastly…after the storm (taken from same place as the whiteout view) All taken from inside through the window!

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The sunrises and sunsets have been just glorious, Here’s a couple shots of them. The first is sunrise shot taken on by way to Britton on Jan 14, next is a sunset from Dec 13.

For anyone that doesn’t know…Havana ND where we live is just 1 mile north of the South Dakota border (and about 45 miles from Minnesota border) so we are tucked down here in the SE corner of the state. The SD line is very visible in the next shot, the tree line (Trachta’s trees) are just south of the line.

Yeah I know…obsessed with the weather…..We have been keeping busy doing jigsaw puzzles. Pretty exciting life. Weather permitting we make a grocery run or head to the doctor. After the Santa day, we both came down with covid but recovered quickly. Here’s a pic of Alice with Santa that evening. It was a fun time with potluck dinner, cake walk and bingo.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas. We surely enjoyed being back home for the holidays! We had our traditional Indian tacos for Christmas and played rob your neighbor for gifts. Jeremy and Brandi even brought Dexter along so it was a rollicking time!

Construction on our garage has mostly stalled for now. We anxiously await spring and the end of the garage project. (and the start of a gadzillion more!)

Happy New Year everyone! Stay warm!

Well, its been a while since a blog post so thinking it’s way over due….way over due like a lot of things in our life lately. Our patience has been tested again and again.

We have been in our new home since about the middle of July. We have waited patiently for finish crews to show up. At long last, the finish “person” showed up to work on the interior. He said it would take 3 days. So the job was basically to finish the connecting seam inside in living room and master closet, install one door frame, cut off carpet in 3 doorways and put down threshold, threshold on floor seam in closet and living room and patch a few cracks that occurred in moving…..doesn’t sound real tough? well take away the floor seam since they sent the wrong threshold and the rest of the project took 4 days. This was I guess because he had to drive for 1 and 1/2 hours to get here so could only stay for 1 1/2 to 2 hours per day. I’m guessing he was getting paid mileage. At any rate, the inside is still not done and of course the material needed is on back order for the floor. As to the outside, no better luck there. We have been told for over a month that we are “next in line” to get the outside skirted and sided on the open ends. Now the latest news seems to be that the crew has all quit? seriously? Makes you wonder how these places can stay in business. Hope they are not looking for a glowing recommendation from yours truly.

We do love our new home but struggling to get it finished and get the garage built before winter. We are stuck right now waiting on the outside finishing to be done so that we can put up permanent steps and decks on the exterior, none of which can be done until the outside skirting etc is done. So that’s where that all stands. dead stop at the moment.

We have been managing to keep busy. We have started hanging pictures in the house since the interior walls are now done and dry wall mess is over. New washer and dryer, and electric stove to replace the standard gas one have all been installed. We can wash clothes now-hurrah! and cook!

We took in a lot of the Havana Hammer softball games and some of Alice’s T-ball games too. We got library cards and are working on ND plates for our cars. We hit the Monkey Hut most Tuesday nights to enjoy someone else cooking! Add to that being in close proximity to family and it makes for happy old ladies! All in all the summer has been flying by. Much of the time we spend wrangling our dogs as …you guessed it….can’t put up the fenced yard until the rest is done. GRRRRRR.

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their summer and hope you will come and see our house whenever you are in the area……just be warned..no hand rails on steps to go inside…entry can be perilous until further notice.

If you know anyone looking for work…..boy have we got a deal for them…send them our way please! Seriously though, the trailer company has said they will pay someone to do our house finishing if we can find them…..good grief….how sad is that?

Keep smiling and remember its better to be patient than to be A patient!

We all grew up with this expression “knee high by the 4th of July”, referring to the corn fields. I always kinda wondered—whose knee? knee high with my height and a 6 foot man are quite different right? As it turns out, the whole expression is outdated and according to what I have read, the saying should now be “as high as an elephant’s eye”. So there! Here is what the Iowa corn council has to say about it “Years ago, knee-high corn in early July was thought to indicate high yields for the year. However, fast forward to the present day: Knee-high stalks in late June and early July signal trouble to farmers. With significant advances in agricultural technology, genetics and improved Plant Health, today’s farmers can expect corn to reach far higher than the knee come Independence Day. According to the Iowa Corn Growers Association, under good conditions, Iowa corn plants typically reach a height of 8 feet by midsummer.” Now you know, adjust your sights accordingly. Our main wish is that we find a field of sweet corn somewhere that is doing as well as the field corn around here, which for sure is knee high by anyone’s knee ,but I am at a loss as to how high an elephants eye is. Depends on the size of the elephant huh?

In other news, or more aptly, lack of news…….the new home progress has come to a halt, we have the footings in place, water lines scheduled to be dug and even have a brand new electric pole. But we have been pushed back for delivery date of our home into mid July. So we are waiting, not very patiently but what can you do….it seems every construction and delivery is running waaay behind.

To keep busy we have taken on helping with the picnic tables at the park in Havana. They were in sad shape with peeling paint and many rotten boards. Jessie on the park board (with help) moved them all to the power source so that we could work on them and also replaced all the rotten boards. We are down to 3 to finish out of 10 so making progress, but plan to take today off and maybe work on a flower project for the civic center instead, or maybe just rest….that’s boring though!

Patti and I both hit the car wash this week as our poor cars were so filthy from driving on gravel roads that the view out the back windows was non existent. Too bad they won’t stay clean, but for a few hours at least, we relished having shiny clean cars LOL

All in all, we are keeping busy and looking forward to being “Home in Havana” at some point in July! You’all keep your fingers crossed for us!

Progress is being made on our efforts to relocate to our roots!

I just love this piece of land and all the history that came before. Growing up in Havana, this land was where our Grandma Anna lived. The land behind the tree line here was part of our pasture and now is an open field. What I didn’t realize was that our Great Grandma Odile and her son Joe also owned this land from 1924 to 1931, so this piece of land has even more history than we knew. And yes…we have a stellar crop of dandelions. Maybe we need a new career making dandelion wine??

Cousin Becky and Nephew in law Chris have been working hard hauling in dirt and getting the ground ready for our home. Where would we be without family….don’t even want to think about it! We have learned more about setting up a mobile home than was even imaginable, and we are not done yet! Keep your fingers crossed as things continue to roll along. We are so blessed that things have fallen into place for us, from a quick sale of our home in Tupelo, to getting out of town before the tornado, safe travel with our caravan to ND (made possible by so much help from Tanya and Chris!) and a BIG thanks to Cody and Heather for a roof over our heads as we work towards our permanent home. We are sure enjoying the little ones too! Alice has been able to spend some days with us, and Patti continues to try and make friends with Breanna! Tonight we are going to baseball game in Havana to cheer on the guys!

Our new address (eventually) will be 152 Weber Street South, Havana, ND 58043…But don’t send us any mail yet as we have no mailbox! We will keep you all posted as we get back to our roots here in good ole North Dakota!

ok—here’s what has been preying on my mind……I am so tired of this smoke screen of the accusation of disenfranchising blacks from the vote…..Do you’all understand that this is not the issue at all? None of the laws requiring citizens to have legal US identification have anything to do with people of color……..I don’t think ANYONE believes that black people in the US are too dumb or poor to get an ID?? do you??? For pete’s sake, it is almost impossible to live in this country without obtaining an ID. You need it for literally everything. So what is the issue? Illegal immigrants….plain and simple. Read this…..and think about it.

(a) It shall be unlawful for any alien to vote in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, unless— (1) the election is held partly for some other purpose; (2) aliens are authorized to vote for such other purpose under a State constitution or statute or a local ordinance; and (3) voting for such other purpose is conducted independently of voting for a candidate for such Federal offices, in such a manner that an alien has the opportunity to vote for such other purpose, but not an opportunity to vote for a candidate for any one or more of such Federal offices. (b) Any person who violates this section shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than one year, or both. (c) Subsection (a) does not apply to an alien if— (1) each natural parent of the alien (or, in the case of an adopted alien, each adoptive parent of the alien) is or was a citizen (whether by birth or naturalization); (2) the alien permanently resided in the United States prior to attaining the age of 16; and (3) the alien reasonably believed at the time of voting in violation of such subsection that he or she was a citizen of the United States. (Added Pub. L. 104–208, div. C, title II, § 216(a), Sept. 30, 1996, 110 Stat. 3009–572; amended Pub. L. 106–395, title II, § 201(d)(1), Oct. 30, 2000, 114 Stat. 1635.)

So basically the only people that should be unable to vote in Federal elections are those that are not citizens….If they have ID, it should be an ID that plainly identifies them as resident alien or some other designation, hence unable to vote. What we need to be concerned about is not the requirement that OUR citizens have ID to vote, but that the illegal immigrants are not fast tracked to citizenship or issued the wrong ID………this whole business with the border crossing fiasco is just a major ploy by the Democratic party to pad their voter base. All unacceptable and illegal as far as I am concerned.

That’s my rant for the day! We are busily preparing for our departure on Thursday, down to all the last minute details and packing. Wish us luck and good speed on our journey with our little caravan. I’m sure we will have tales to tell when this move is over! Keep smilin’ and keep the smokescreens away from your eyes!

As we wind down our time here in Tupelo, we are appreciating the things that we will miss.

First on the list is the police report from the local newspaper…..an odd thing to miss but one that has brought us much amusement and bemusement since our arrival here. Here are a couple of items from the last couple weeks……ones that either made us scratch our heads or laugh out loud! “A man said he has had two vehicles, a 1967 Buick Electra and a 1970 Chevy C-10 at a south Gloster repair shop for more than five years waiting for the owner to work on them. About a month ago, he took his 1964 Chevy Impala to the shop because it needed work on the heads. In February, he learned that the owner had closed the business and sold all the cars there. The man said the titles to each of his cars was in the glove box of each and had antique tags in his name”….Seriously, he had 2 cars there for more than 5 years waiting for repairs so he takes them yet another vehicle for repair…..that’s a scratch your head with bemusement for sure!

The next item ” A Lily Jean Drive Tupelo woman returned home and found her front door standing open. A deputy arrived. The doorknob was unlocked and the dead bolt was not fully extended to properly secure the door. There was no one inside. Since the residence was in a state of disarray, he asked the woman to check and see if anything was missing. She looked around and said everything was just like she left it.” ok….sorry…thats funny…hence amusement!

So down the list….things we will miss….early spring, mild winter, friendly people, “Bless your heart”, we will miss our house with the brand new bathrooms and all the fixin’up we did, we will miss having grocery and retail stores so close, we will miss our favorite restaurants, like Chicken Salad Chick, Harveys and Bull Dog Burgers. We will miss all the pretty birds that visited our feeder, the Cardinals and Red headed Woodpeckers especially. We will miss our good neighbor, Miss Rosalind.

Of course, there are some things we won’t miss! The ding dong rooster that another neighbor owns. That thing crows constantly! We won’t miss the hot humid summer heat. And we won’t miss being so far from family and friends! Patti would say that she won’t miss getting stopped by a train constantly, but I will miss the train whistles! We probably won’t miss the helicopters overhead either, that was the down side of being close to a major hospital. They do a lot of air ambulance here and many times we have thought they were going to land on our roof ! I’m sure there are more things we will miss or not that don’t come to mind right now.

We are now planning on a closing date of April 30. Which means we will be on the road as soon as we sign the papers! Hoping everything goes smoothly from here on out. We look forward to seeing everyone! Think happy thoughts for us and safe travels!

Confusion rains down on me so many times in the course of a week. And this last week or so, actual rain has tried to drown my brain on a few occasions also. We have missed all the tornadoes in the area so that is good, but now we really need some nice sunny days to dry things out!

Friday we were expecting a termite inspector to come and sign off on a report that we need for home closing. He was scheduled to arrive between one and three pm……..well you know how this goes when you are waiting for someone to show up in a certain time frame right? Much to my amazement, a gentleman appeared at our door, just a few minutes before one. I answered the door and said “we have dogs, so do you want to start inside the house or outside?” His reply was “Ma’am?????”….so I repeated my question, a little slower and explained that we would keep the dogs away from the area he was inspecting. His reply was “I’ll just stand right here ok?”…….light bulb over my head came on….and I said “you aren’t the termite inspector are you?” “No ma’am, I’m with a lawn service looking for work”…..I quickly said no thank you, we are moving soon and abruptly shut the door and started laughing hysterically. If I had only had a camera to capture his expression….!!! Poor guy must have thought I was a lunatic! Little does he know, not far from the truth!

We are still busy packing up and now just mostly waiting for a final departure date. We hope to be underway headed north no later than the end of April and sooner if we can manage it. We are anxious to get on the road and have this move behind us.

Oh and guess what….the “REAL” termite inspector never did show up…so will have to call somebody else on Monday. Good Grief!

The question for the day! How many pairs of shoes do you have?

One thing that Patti and I will miss from Tupelo will certainly be the Police report in the newspaper. It is a rare day that it does not give us a chuckle or a “what the heck” moment. The latest funny was a report of a man who came home to find his home burglarized. The thief absconded with his 65 inch television and 23 pairs of shoes. Do you know a man that owns 23 pairs of shoes? Really? Do you think the burglar just happened on his shoe stash and said…”Oh, just my size, I’m gonna take ’em all” ???? Or maybe he was a shoe collector and was robbed by another shoe collector (who happened to need a tv too). Just leaves you wondering “what the heck” ! The sad part of the police report is that it never answers our questions about the rest of the story, so we have to make up our own story!

In other news, we have made it through our sorting process and our giant moving sale. Lots of work, but very successful. Our packing is probably 85 percent done as we have mostly kitchen and some clothing left to pack up. Many of the things not packed are what will go in our cars, breakables, etc. We have had a few people look at our house, but no offers yet. The weather has surely changed to all out spring. We went out to eat last nite at I-Hop and were perfectly comfy in t shirts and no jackets. Yesterday, we worked outside, tiding up flower beds and other manual labor. Won’t be long and it will be time to start mowing. We are getting antsy and would love to finish packing and head north!

In the meantime, we have counted our pairs of shoes and between the 2 of us, came nowhere near the 23 pairs that the poor man lost in his robbery. I don’t know if that makes us abnormal or what is considered normal for shoe ownership? So–how many pairs do you’all have anyways!?!?! Waiting for the verdict on that question! Till next time! Think happy thoughts and send that house buyer our way!