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.