The Champions

On Monday I went to Buffalo City, WI to watch baseball.

Great nephew Anders, #9, and team were in a tournament to determine the league champion.

It was a single elimination tournament, so I didn't know if I would see 1 game, or more.

It was a really perfect night for baseball, although the bugs did about chew my ankles off.

Game 1 the Alma kids played Pepin.

Alma came from behind and won the game.

Anders makes the play at 1st.

Nice snag Anders.

Slugging

Safe at first, and thinking of taking 2.

After a sweet victory, Alma advanced in the tournament to the semi-final round.

Game 2 

The Independence team had to play back to back games, while the Alma kids had a rest between games.  I'm not sure if that played into this outcome, but the Alma kids again prevailed.

Anders gets a hit.

Stretching for the catch and the out.

Another out.

Catch, tag the bag, get the out.

A little razzle dazzle play, but still got the out.

Winning this game moved Alma into the championship game against Cochrane Buffalo City.

Fans were speculating that it would be hard to beat CBC.

But, never say never for this Alma team.

Again, coming from behind, they won the game.

Popped it up, love the expressions on the rest of the team.

Anders getting tall to make the play.

Another out.

Grounder to the 1st baseman.

Tagging the bag

Looking to get 2, but there was no play.

Another grounder to the 1st baseman.

Out #3.

Between innings...getting pumped.

Anders getting a nice rip.

The slide into 2, and he's safe!

Alma wins!

Happy kids, happy coaches, happy fans!

Anders...write your own caption.

Champions

Trophy and medals arrived on Thursday so the team got together for a photo session.

Gosh, I love baseball!

Happy 30!

On Tuesday I went to Luck for Music in the Park. The performers were the Danville Singers from Cadott, WI.  They are personal friends of Aunt Lois (the other great aunt of all the Johansen kiddos).  The music was folk style and it was Fantastik. A perfect summer evening and a chance to visit with friends and family too. 

It had slipped my radar but over the weekend Lois & Larry celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary.  They hosted a gathering after the concert. Lois always goes above and beyond, and her gatherings always have flair and class.  It's prime time for flowers and lawn, Lois and Larry 's backyard is a bit of paradise. A nice way to end the evening.

This morning I snapped a few beauty shots of my day lily collection. Such pretty girls.

 Happy Anniversary Larry and Lois!

The Johansen family is so thankful to have Aunt Lois as part of our family, we are so lucky ❤️. 

Aunt Lois is married to Larry Skow, Larry is a brother to my sister in law, Gus's wife, Lois.  

To make it more confusing, my sister in law is Lois (Skow) Johansen, aunt Lois is Lois (Naiberg) Skow.  I call her Aunt Lois for less confusion, she's great aunt to the same kids I am.  

Florence

Florence Skow was my sister in law's Mother.

 She was one of the nicest people I've ever met. 

Her skills as a crochet artist were second to none!  I'm not sure how many doilies and table cloths and Lord's Prayers and Angel tree toppers and.... she made in her lifetime, but it was in the high numbers. I personally can see 10 doilies in my house, used as valances over the living room and kitchen windows. 

Today I added another. 

Florence made this table cloth for me years ago, I've used it as that, and a Christmas Tree skirt and it's been in a drawer for a long time.  Recently I had an idea that it might look nice hanging from a quilt rack on the wall of my bedroom. 

So, I started the search. One night, when I couldn't sleep, I was digging through closets at 3am trying to find this table cloth but was unsuccessful. 

Today, I continued my search.  

I filled 4 bags for Goodwill along the way, and found the cloth in the first place I had looked, but had somehow missed it. 

I love how it looks in my bedroom, it is perfect.

Thank you Florence, your legacy lives on.

And...the rest of the story.  I posted this on Tuesday but I wasn't thrilled with the quilt rack holding the tablecloth.  It wasn't really wide enough.
So, I noodled on it and did some shopping on line, but couldn't find a 48" rack.
So, I decided I had to create something.
I picked up a 48" piece of welding rod at Menards, wiped off the grease and wrapped it with some fabric.  Then I remembered that I had found 2 glass door knobs during the garage cleaning.
I had save those from my house in Arvada.
The big joke when I bought my Arvada house was telling Dad I didn't know much about the house when I made the offer, but I knew it had glass door knobs.
Okay, so the door knobs became the finials on my rod.

So, there it is, the rest of the story, and I like the ending.

Not what I had planned

After spending all day Friday and most of the day Saturday working on the garage purge and cleaning, I was looking forward to Sunday in Luck, Wisconsin at the Lucky Days parade. But on Friday, I felt a little tweak in my knee and by this morning it hurt quite a bit to walk. So, since the parade was going to be a lot of walking to take the photos, etc, I opted to stay home and ice & elevate and watch the British Open golf tournament.

But the but the tournament ended so early that I didn't think I should sit around all afternoon. So I decided that I would stain the porch steps because that needed done pretty badly. Well that went well because I wasn't really walking I was mostly standing, my knee wasn't bothering. So after I finish the front porch I moved on to the front deck thinking I was only going to do the hand railing. But when I get that done I figured I might as well finish the job. So I stained the floor decking as well. I had to take a break halfway through to go buy more stain, of course. But it's done, dance of Joy! 

I think you'll be able to tell which are the before and after photos. A couple more big things off my to do list.

Garage

After, still more to do of course. 

What a mess. 

My garage had been a disaster for quite some time. Today I worked through about half of the garage.  I purged and swept and reorganized. 

I had to quit before I got done because I was meeting Glenn and Kathy for Friday night fish fry. First things first! 

I piled a bunch of stuff at the end of the driveway with a FREE sign, hopefully the pickers will be out tomorrow. 

Who does this

On the way to Paul and Maggie's on Sunday, I wanted to drive through the cemetery and give Dad and Ev's plant a jug of water with MiracleGro in it.  Lois was riding with me.  I pulled into the cemetery but to our surprise, someone had taken the pretty red geranium off Dad and Ev's grave.

Who does that?

Seriously, how low can you be to steal flowers off a grave?

It must be something to do that and then enjoy the pretty flowers in your yard knowing they were stolen off a grave.

I sincerely hope Karma is really a you-know-what!

Here's how it looked on Memorial Day weekend.

When I got up Monday morning, I had a plan.

I decided to take a large planter over to the cemetery and start over with a plant.

I'll have to add some colorful plants but at least there is something there again.

I'll re-purpose the stand and a new pot on the grave of my great grandparents next Spring.

 Oh, I added a cement block inside this planter, so if someone wants to steal it,

they will have to muscle it, it won't be as easy as a nice white pot filled with deep red geraniums.

Sunday dinner with the cousins

On Sunday I was invited for dinner to Paul and Maggie Petersen's house.  They live in the house my Johansen grandparents built in 1940.  Also invited was Paul's brother Ronnie & wife Beth and my sister in law, Lois.  It was a fun day of reminiscing and good conversation.  We sat at the picnic table under a tree my Dad had planted for his mother some 70 years ago.

The meal was Danish in design...meatballs in gravy with lingonberry jam on the side, new potatoes with butter and parsley, thinly sliced fresh cucumber in marinade and fresh blueberry pie.

A cold beer or glass of wine and it was a feast.

I grew up across the road from my Johansen Grandparents and spent many hours in that house and in that yard playing.  The driveway is long and a tunnel through 100 year old maple trees.  And the day stirred up my love of my Johansen heritage and my childhood in Wisconsin.

It was a delight.

There was one event at a hayfield that I remembered well, as did the Petersen boys.

Ronnie, 2 years older than I am, and I and Paul were sent to burn hay in a field that had been wind-rowed and the hay had gone bad.  So, I think I was about 13, making Paul 7.

Farm kids were often charged with grown up jobs.

The wind came up and it all went bad. 

I remember being very scared.

Paul remembers being sent to run home for help and he says he ran the whole way,

and it was probably a couple of miles I am guessing.

About when he arrived home, so did his father Vagner who had been alerted to the smoke.

I remember being afraid and not much more other than the fire spreading.

Ronnie remembers that the whole field burned but when it got to the edge, the thick grass and woods, the fire ran out of fuel and stopped.

Maybe we had rakes and hoes and shovels, but mostly we had luck on our side.

After we ate, Paul and Maggie took Lois and I for a ride through the woods back to hay fields.

A few photos of the trail through the woods to the hayfield mentioned above.

 Some grape vines are 2 inches or more in diameter.

I think this is the 100 year old woods.

I'm hoping to get over to Paul and Maggie's this fall, to walk this trail with my camera.

It must be beautiful with all these big maples.

So, it was a wonderful Sunday in West Denmark.