UPDATE!

This is Mary Losure. Dave and Heidi, my wonderful son and daughter-in-law, still live in their converted granary, but as you can see, the granaryliving blog has been,well, empty and deserted for some time now.

But Heidi's cyberspace presence is still as vibrant as ever!

You can see her latest project at http://dakotafire.net/

Happy Easter!

Here are a few photos of our little egg-dying party at home.

This is Sofi's "Easter" egg! And she didn't need any help spelling it, by the way.

I almost took the last egg, but Sofi caught me and asked for it.

Hmm, guess I should have moved the dye closer to the middle of the table. Oh well, he managed.



Notice that Erik is using a spoon now ... but do you see any clue that he didn't use one before?!

And egg-dying is followed naturally by ... a little dancing with a light saber. Oh, why not?

... Dave is all ready to play the Easter bunny tomorrow! He really sets the bar pretty high for Easter -- and it's all his doing. I'd just give them a chocolate bunny and some Peeps and call it good ... but Dave has a whole scavenger hunt set up for them, culminating in new summer toys. He says he can spoil them at Easter ... and that I'm the one who established that every trip to Aberdeen ends in a stop at Twist Cone.

Though that's not quite true. We don't stop if it's not open ... or if it's raining.

Clearing out the photo backlog

I've had a request for more photos of the kids. And they're cute enough, why not?

We did have some nice walks, even when there was snow on the ground.


Erik wanted to bring the shovel along on our walk. Sofi ended up carrying it for a while.

That walk was not the most easy going! Our big-tired jog stroller did the job, though.


Sofia took this picture -- she really captured the spirit of the moment!

Mom and I are helping to cover my sister's babysitting needs until summer -- which Sofi and Erik love, of course. Here the crew had fun in the dress-up box!

Happy April!

It's amazing how many people I've heard mention how hard this winter was on them. One woman told me that had never had problems with depression in the winter until this year -- but this year she found she just didn't have the energy to get things done.


I must say the winter really got to me this year -- and I didn't realize how much it had affected me until we started to feel spring around here and I felt the weight of winter worry lift. Suddenly, with a little warmer weather and a little more sunlight, things that had seemed to overwhelming to contemplate became doable again.

Well, it probably wasn't just the weather. Two unexpected deaths in the family also weighed heavy this winter, both very sad in themselves and reminders that we're still grieving the loss of Dad. But even those griefs seem easier to bear when there's a garden to plant and chicks to start, and walking weather has started again.

The wind blew enough to shake the siding and the window casings in the early hours of Monday morning. It slowed during the day, and by the time I went for my walk in the evening, it was utterly still. The wind had helped dry the yard and the road, and I was pleased to be able to put on my sneakers again instead of snow boots or rubber boots.


It was so nice to be outside! March, I have to say, is the worst month of the year in the Dakotas, even worse than the 31 days of January -- in January we know there will be no respite to winter and we're not expecting one (if a January thaw shows up, we count it as a special blessing), but by March we're expecting at least some hint of spring. We received nothing but a sea of mud, to be immediately covered up by a think blanket of heavy snow. We'd shaken our fists at winter all through March, but April's arrival with a quick thaw, a drying wind and sunshine took the fight out of us. For a moment, we could just be.

And I am thrilled that the birds are back. Great waves of geese have been passing overhead since last week, stopping to gather in a field for a raucous reunion for an hour or a day before they're on their way again. On Saturday, the sloughs were still covered with ice; by Monday evening, they were brimming with ducks and geese, and with killdeer skirting along their edges. Twice while I was walking a squadron of ducks (they looked like fighter jets in formation) flew very low overhead -- they didn't quack at that moment, so all I heard was the frantic flapping of their wings, like a dozen airborne fans. I viewed it as a sign of respect (though I am also glad they didn't decide to "unload" at that moment!).

I think part of the reason I like the birds so much is that we keep facing the same problem in different forms in all the groups I'm involved in -- too few people. Everybody leaves for places that are warmer and have more Starbucks. It is nice that at least for a while we have a crowd here! Even if they don't sign up for township board, they at least seem to like their time here while they're winging through.

Happy New Year!

Well, all, this is part of my New Year's resolution: Write more. So hopefully you'll see some more posts on this page!

Current news from the granary house: The kids have just come in from playing outside for a few minutes while Dave shoveled a path to the woodshed (again). A drift forms between the house and the woodshed whenever the wind blows, and boy has it been blowing the last few days -- wind chills down to 40 below. We also received about 10 inches of snow in the two storms, Thursday and Friday. It was difficult to see the other house at times on Thursday.

Thankfully, that's not the case today. The sun was shining nicely when we woke up this morning, so we could clearly see just how much snow there was to deal with: Over two feet of snow in front of the front door; five-foot drifts in front of the barn (where our RAV4 is) and the shop (where Mom's car is); another big, long drift between us and the chicken coop; the aforementioned drift on the way to the woodshed; and every door on the buildings just named iced down. Oh, and the roof of the studio needed to be shoveled.

And I must admit I used the "we" part very figuratively, as Dave did all this work while I stayed toasty warm, hanging out with the kids and helping Mom with a couple projects. Thankfully the tractor cooperated!

Here's the view of the drift outside the south windows. Notice the brown chunks of ice on top of the drift: That's the brown stuff that freezes into icicles coming off the chimney, which every once in a while breaks off and rolls down the roof. I didn't know that happened until I saw it!

... I've heard a fair amount of grumbling during this last storm. It is a pain. But then, it's the variety of life! We are really living out here. This blizzard will make a fine story later, we will be aware that we can go through such events and survive, and we will be that much more appreciative of spring when it comes. (Though I could say that with more authority if I had had to shovel today. Thanks, Dave!)


... At least we have winter-loving kids. Sofi, Erik and all the cousins had fun outside on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. They can really get up some speed in snowpants on a slightly icy slide!


Even Briella came out for some fresh air!


... The winter fun continued when we went to St. Paul. Sofi became an expert sledder, learning steering tips from her uncle Michael.

There they go!


Erik was a little more tentative, but he eventually had fun on the sledding hill, too.

Happy New Year, all! May it be filled with more blessings than you could think to wish for.

... And a postscript to the relatives: The photo books have been completed, and should be on their way to you shortly!

I heard there was a clamor on the Internet for these photos ...

Yes, everyone's been waiting to see what the chicken tractor looks like!


Dave made it completely from scrap lumber and parts, with the exception of the wheels ($6), the chicken wire, and the hook-and-eye closures I made him get after I scratched myself on the wire closures we had before. He had to learn to weld to get it done, too -- the base 6x8 frame is welded rusty metal bars with wheels attached. Then he arched hog panels over the top of that to create the shape. He built the front end from plywood, and then I helped him stretch chicken wire over the whole works, and put an apron of chicken wire on the inside along the bottom to discourage Fantastic Mr. Fox and whoever else thinks chickens are tasty. (We did have an attempted break-in the other night -- something had put a paw on the chicken wire and managed to rip a few staples. That's as far as it got, though.) A quick door, and a tarp over the top, and it was ready for mobile chicken containment!

It adds that lovely hippies-live-here touch to the farmyard, I have to say! I am just happy we finally got our little chicken chain gang out to work.

The chickens have been in it for about three weeks now, weeding, tilling and fertilizing the garden at the rate of one 6x8 foot rectangle a day. We move it once a day (well, to be honest, Dave moves it once a day -- it's awfully heavy, and I can't get it to move over the ... let's just say overgrown parts of the garden), and in that time, the chickens make a noticeable difference in the amount of weeds in that spot. Go, chickens! Get that garden spic and span!

Dave kept saying they aren't really earning their chicken feed until they start laying, too. I told him he'd better stop wishing for them to lay before he had their nest boxes built! (There are some icky parts about raising chickens -- one of them being that if you aren't vigilant about egg gathering, some chickens start eating eggs, and once they get in the habit, it's tough to get them to stop. Ew. A rollaway nest box is the best way to ensure the chickens don't get started down the wrong path, but Dave didn't feel like building anything that complicated at this point -- a plain old box with a slanted, hinged lid helps, too, in that the egg is out of sight, out of mind.)

Anyway, Dave, Sofi and Erik went to check the chickens last night after supper, and what did they find?

One smallish brown egg!

Yes, our little chicks have become full productive members of society. Almost makes you teary when you think about it.

OK, not really. And actually, it's only one chicken, since we didn't find any more eggs out there today. But I'm sure the rest will step up to the plate (one with a side of bacon on it, preferably) and start laying soon!

Dave took that one egg as a sign and made two nest boxes last night after the kids went to sleep. I did not observe a chicken in one of the boxes yet today, but that doesn't mean much. They aren't very adventurous chickens -- it takes them a while to warm up to new things.

So there's the chicken tractor. The Internet clamor can settle down now!

Guess what we have!

It is sometimes clear to us how new we are to this whole chicken-raising business.

As we watched the chicks grow, we noticed that none of the chicks had any kind of a cock's comb when they were tiny, but that they all started to develop one as they grew. None of them had anything that resembled the traditional silhouette on the top of the weather vane -- but there was one that seemed to have more of a cock's comb than the others. And each day it had a little more, and a little more ... "I'm suspicious of that chicken," I told Dave one day.

And then, one morning, Dave came in and said, "Guess what I just heard!"

There could no longer be any doubt: We had a rooster. Or a morning alarm clock.

And boy, does he ever act like a rooster! A person understand better just what "cocky" means now. He's always the first to run forward to investigate things; when we were working outside near his house today, he started crowing regularly -- just to show us he was the rooster, it seemed like. And he really struts in there. Dave said it's like he's saying, "Yeah, I have eleven ladies!"

We are actually happy to have a rooster. Having one rooster in the bunch means there's no question about the pecking order, so there's no need to fight to establish it. And my aunt Lillian told me that the eggs have less cholesterol with a rooster in the flock.

Sofia has named him "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo." Dave says that's better than the name he was thinking of: "Soup of the Day."