Little House on the Prairie: 21st Century Edition

Chapter 23: Indian War Cry

2016-02-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

"The drums seemed to beat in Laura's head. They seemed to beat deep inside her. The wild, fast yipping yells were worse than wolves. Something worse was coming, Laura knew it. Then it came---the Indian war-cry."

The morning after the prairie fire, Pa goes whistling out to his plowing. When he comes back for lunch, he is black with soot, but very happy. The long, prairie grass doesn't bother him. Now it is easy to break the sod.

But there is something funny going on with the Indians down in the creek bottom. Every day there are more and more Indians, and every night the noises they make get louder and louder. Pa brings Jack into the house, shuts the door, and pulls in the latch string. No one may go outside until daylight.

All night, every night Laura listens to the Indians yelling and the drums beating. One evening before he goes to bed Pa gets out his bullet mold and begins to make bullets. He melts the lead and pours it into the bullet molds. He doesn't stop until all the lead is used up and his pile of bullets is very big.

Laura and Mary lie in bed and watch him. "Why are you making so many bullets, Pa?" Mary asks.

"Oh, I have nothing else to do," Pa says. But Mary and Laura know that Pa is tired. He has worked all day and could go to bed. But instead he sits up and makes more bullets than they have ever seen him make at one time before.

Laura and Mary wonder. No Indians come to the house anymore. Pa and Ma look worried. Mr. Scott and Mr. Edwards come to the house and talk to Pa about building something called a "stockade". But when Laura asks questions, the grownups never answer them.

One night Laura sits up in bed and screams. Something woke her up. Something terrible. And then she hears it again. It is loud and terrible. It makes her feel like she is falling down forever. She screams to Pa, "What is it? What is it?"

"It's the Indian war-cry, Laura," Pa says.

Pa explains that the Indians are talking about war by yelling their terrible war cry. They dance around their fires and beat the drums and talk about war. But Pa says Laura should not feel afraid because Pa and Jack are there, and the soldiers are at Fort Gibson and Fort Dodge.

Laura still feels afraid.

The war-cry goes on and on, but once there is a new sound in the night. Closer and closer comes the sound of galloping hoof-beats. Laura looks out the window and sees a black Indian pony running past with an Indian brave on its back. Then the Indian is gone.

Pa sits up all that night, listening and watching. He listens and watches all the next day, and all night the next night. During the day the prairie is quiet and still, but no one goes outside. At night the Indians dance and yell their war-cry.

Laura and Mary are so tired that they fall asleep sometimes, but the war-cry always wakes them up again. Pa and Jack stay awake watching, but one time during the daytime Pa is so tired that he falls asleep right while he is sitting up at the table watching. He only sleeps a moment, and then wakes back up again.

"Don't let me sleep again," he tells Ma.

That night is the worst of all. The Indians yell back and forth, getting louder and louder. Up and down the creek, the drums beat and the Indians call their war-cry. Pa says they are quarreling with each other. Just before dawn, the war cries stop and Laura falls asleep.

When Laura wakes up, Ma is cooking lunch and Pa is sitting in the open door watching a big party of Indians head across the prairie. Two large groups have already gone past while Laura slept and Pa says they have broken up the group. They will not go together to hunt the buffalo.

There are no Indian drums that night. No war-cry to keep Carrie, Laura, and Mary awake. Everything is quiet. Even Jack sleeps soundly on the floor of the little cabin.

The next day Pa decides it is time to go exploring. Things have been quiet for a whole night so clearly there is no danger. He is gone all day, but when he comes back he has good news for everybody.

"The Indians did fight with each other. They wanted to go on the war path and kill all the settlers in Indian territory, but the Indian brave that rode past the first night argued and convinced the Osages not to fight the settlers. The other Indians didn't want to fight the Osages, so they all left."

"That Indian brave is one good Indian," Pa says.

Thoughts: Boy, that Pa! It's a wonder he survived as long as he did. If I was Ma, I surely would have clanged him up the side of the head with a frying pan long before this. And I love the parents' belief that the children would somehow fail to notice the whole "warring nation" thing going on next door. Let's just not talk about it so they won't worry. There are some things I am glad modern life has helped to change.

But what to do for this chapter?

North Dakota is rather free of wars right now.

I mean, Canada isn't exactly a hotbed of aggression at the moment. And Minnesota and Montana have been at peace with us for many years now. Like...forever. Has ANYONE ever been mad at North Dakota? Even if there was any conflict, I'm pretty much a peace-lovin' gal myself, so can't say that war appeals to me as a hobby choice.

"One evening Pa took his bullet-mold from the box under the bed."

However, it just so happens that I know a dedicated practitioner of the ancient art of the mountain man. Someone who would be able to guide me through the old-fashioned process of lead bullet pouring. Thankfully, these mountain man-types are usually very happy to have someone take an interest in their craft and I was able to spend a fun afternoon learning about bullet-making.

Lown Schipman runs Mountain Man Fishing from his home. The local tire shop provides him with buckets of wheel weights that he melts down and turns into fishing weights and handmade lures to be sold in the nearest fishing town.

Each time he gets a fresh bucket, the tire weights are cleaned and melted down into lead bars.

After that, it is time to melt and pour. First the molds are heated over the melting pot for a while. If the mold is too cool, the molten metal won't have time to fill the whole cavity before it hardens. Once the mold is hot it goes under the pot, you pull the lever on the side, and out pours the lead.

Definitely a big improvement on the old by-the-fireplace method.

But the fishing weights are just for business. This mountain man also has bullet molds for pleasure---and of course he has the muzzle-loading gun to match each mold.

When I was there, he was making bullets for a .44 pistol.

I think.

I am not a mountain man, so it's like a foreign language to me.

"Pa sat for a long time on the hearth, melting lead and making bullets."

After watching him demonstrate his craft it was my turn. Nothing intimidating at all about plunking my butt down to handle molten metal. Nope, all in a days work for this girl.

Yeah.

The bullet molds are smaller than the fishing weight molds and you have to put the mold right up to the spigot of the melting pot. This means you can't see how full the mold is getting. I was worried that the lead would overflow, but it just goes to the top of the mold and stops. Unless you take the mold away while the lever is still down, it's not going to spill.

In fact, the lead hardens a little and you have to break it away from the pot.

The bullet is cool enough to leave the mold almost as soon as it is poured. When you hit the top of the mold to release it, it knocks the excess off and leaves a nice, round bullet behind.

Lown could do it in one quick tap, but I had to flail away at the mold several times to knock the top piece of the mold loose.

"Laura and Mary lay awake and watched Pa. He had never made so many bullets at one time before."

Beautiful! My very own home-made bullets! I had planned to fire some of them off today, but sadly, that didn't work out this visit. The fact that it was snowing and no one wanted to go outside might have had something to do with it. And mountain man thought he may be, Lown is not down with shooting in his living room.

Actually, Lown might be, but Mrs. Mountain Man would definitely have something to say about it if he ever tried.

But he did show me the pistol my bullets are used for and how it is loaded. I don't want to get too technical, but it involves bullets, powder, and firing caps. The hammer of the gun hits the cap, which makes a spark, which lights the gun powder, which explodes, which propels the bullet from the chamber.

Pretty amazing, actually.

As I learned about different bullets, guns, and how each one functioned, I was thankful I had the luxury of being mildly interested in a scientific chain reaction and not dependent on it for my survival! The thought of those chunks of lead ripping through my flesh, causing pain, damage, and death is not the most pleasant one.

Far better to use it for target practice and pleasure shooting.

I'm just glad I have that option!

Chapter 22: Prairie Fire

2016-01-09T20:05:00.001-08:00

"One day Laura and Mary were helping Ma get dinner. Baby Carrie was playing on the floor in the sunshine, and suddenly the sunshine was gone.

'I do believe it is going to storm,' Ma said, looking out the window. Laura looked, too, and great black clouds were billowing up in the south, across the sun."

It is spring on the prairie. The snow has melted away and as far as Laura can see, the hills are covered with long, dry prairie grass. Pa has harnessed Pet and Patty to the breaking-plow. He works all day turning over long rows of rich prairie sod. Pa says this year he will plant sod potatoes and sod corn in the thick strips of sod and by next year roots will all be rotted away and he will have beautiful plowed fields to seed.

Every day Laura sees more and more Indians. They are gathering for their big spring hunts. Sometimes they come by the house and Ma always gives them food or tobacco. She doesn't want the Indians to be angry.

Jack is kept tied up all the time because he still doesn't like Indians coming to the house and Pa is worried he will bite one and make trouble.

One bright afternoon Pa is turning over more sod in the field and Ma is getting dinner. Laura and Mary are helping like the good little girls they are. But something funny happens. All of the sudden, the sunshine goes away.

Ma looks out the window and sees dark clouds rising up to cover the sun. She thinks it's going to storm, but then they see Pet and Patty running towards the house, with Pa leaping along behind them.

"Prairie fire," Pa shouts

Ma runs to the well and begins filling the big tub with water. Pa ties up the horses and brings the cow and calf up to the stable. Laura runs to gather up the sacks that Pa had thrown out of the stable.

Pa is plowing now, as fast as he can, yelling at Pet and Patty to go faster. The fire is coming closer and closer as Pa plows a long furrow up the west side of the homestead, across the south, and down the east. Ma has the tub of water full now, and Pa helps her carry it to his furrow.

Laura watches as Pa starts a fire on the other side of the long furrow. He wants it to burn towards the fire and make a safe area around the house. Ma follows along behind with her wet sacks, beating out any fire that tries to cross the line.

Rabbits, prairie chickens, and snakes hurry across the yard, running away from the prairie fire. Jack doesn't care---he knows a great danger is coming and stares at the fire.

Pa's fire grows and stretches away from the house. The prairie fire roars and rushes. Then the two of them meet and the sky is filled with smoke, wind, and noise. All Laura can see is fire all around her.

And then the fire is past.

Pa and Ma put out any little fires that got started in the yard. She tells Laura and Mary not to worry. "All's well that ends well."

Laura watches as the little prairie gophers stick their heads back out of their holes and look around the burned, black prairie. Later the birds fly overhead, then the rabbits began to hop by, and finally the snakes and prairie hens come back.

Mr. Edwards and Mr. Scott come to check on the Ingalls family. They are worried the Indians started the fire to try to hurt the settlers, but Pa knows that the Indians have always done this in the spring. The fire burns the old grass and makes room for the new grass to grow. Soon the whole prairie will be green again and the buffalo will come.

Thoughts: You might think that since it's been over two years since I last posted, I've been working hard on a really amazing post.

You might think that, but you'd be wrong.

I simply fell victim to a common, but life-altering condition. I got a job.

It turns out that working actually takes up quite a bit of spare time. Who would have thought? But even as the months turned into years, it was always my goal to get back to this blog someday. I still haven't read all the way through the book series, and I'm not about to stop now!

So here I am, with an important message of fire safety. Wildfire preparedness, to be exact.

"Prairie fire!" Pa shouted. "Get the tub full of water! Put sacks in it! Hurry!"

The time to get ready for a ready for a wildfire is before the fire, of course. Fires can move at an amazing speed, leaving you very little time to react. There are certain steps anyone can take to help their home survive in a wildfire situation. For this post, I decided to go over some of these steps and see how my own house rates. You can find more information here .

Would my house survive a prairie wildfire?

(Spoiler alert: No.)

The biggest survival factor for any home in a wildfire situation is defensible space. This is an area around the home that is kept free of fire fuels, weakening the fire before it comes close to your home, and giving fire fighters an area to fight from. In a fire situation, if your home is clearly not defend-able, fire fighters will conserve resources by moving on to those homes they have some hope of saving.

What is defensible space?

It is broken up into 3 zones. Zone 1 is closest to the house and reaches out at least 15 feet---more if there are hills or heavy fire fuels surrounding the home. This area needs to be kept clear of anything that will burn easily. Bushes should be kept trimmed and away from the house. Trees are a risk, but if you have them, they should be kept right up next to the house, all the overhanging and dead branches should be trimmed off, and all other trees should be kept far away from them so fire can't spread from tree to tree.

Hmmmm.

I think some of those branches might be considered "overhanging".

Just a little.

"Pa's little fire was all around the house now, and he helped Ma fight it with the wet sacks. The fire blew wildly, snatching at the dry grass inside the furrow. Pa and Ma thrashed at it with the sacks, when it got across the furrow they stamped it with their feet. They ran back and forth in the smoke, fighting the fire"

Grass is supposed to be kept well watered and always trimmed. I guess I get half a point here because my grass is currently covered with snow. Never mind how long it was in the summer. It's not summer now, is it?

I do have a little bit of open space around the house, but at no point do I ever reach the minimum of 15 feet, let alone the recommended 30. I also have shrubs, flammable structures, and my propane tank all located too close for Zone 1.

Maybe I'll do better in Zone 2.

Well, actually no.

"The prairie fire was roaring now, roaring louder and louder in the screaming wind. Great flames came roaring, flaring and twisting high. Twists of flame broke loose and came down on the wind to blaze up in the grasses far ahead of the roaring wall of fire."

Zone 2 is all about reducing dry, dead fuels under your trees. Ladder fuels are things fire can use to climb from the grasses up into the tree tops. Any shrubs, long grass, and dead branches should be cleared out from under all trees in Zone 2. Trees are also supposed to be spaced so there is at least 10 feet of open space between the crowns of the trees.

I'm pretty sure the whole "branches completely intertwined down the entire tree row thing" doesn't meet the specifications. Not to mention the long grass, shrub, dead tree limb landscaping theme I've got going on.

I do have one thing kind of right in Zone 2. I don't have a wood pile because I don't have a wood stove, but my burn pile IS located more then 30 feet from the house.

Zone 3 begins 100 feet from all structures. That's pretty much off my property and has no trees at all, so I guess I win that one.

"Pa said that the fire had not missed them far, but a miss is as good as a mile."

Boom. Prairie wildfire preparedness.

Does anyone know the name of a good insurance agent?

Chapter 21: Indian Jamboree

2013-09-27T09:47:00.001-07:00

"Winter ended at last. There was a softer note in the sound of the wind, and the bitter cold was gone. One day Pa said he had seen a flock of wild geese flying north. It was time to take his furs to Independence....

Before dawn the next morning Pa hitched Pet and Patty to the wagon, loaded his furs into and drove away."

It is almost time to plow the fields and plant a garden. Spring is in the air and Pa needs to go to town. He will buy the things they need, plus a plow and some seeds. Ma is afraid to have him go because of the Indians, but she knows that he must.

After Pa leaves, Laura and Mary count off the days until he'll be home again. It takes one, two, three, four day, and maybe on the fifth day Pa will be home. Laura and Mary play outside waiting for him. They want to see him as soon as he comes out of the creek bottoms.

Suddenly, both girls stop playing.

"What's that?" asks Mary.

Laura has heard the strange noise, too. "It's the Indians," she says.

It is such a funny sound, floating on the breeze. It doesn't sound like any song Laura has ever heard, but she can tell it is made by many, many Indians. They don't sound angry, but the song goes on and on.

Ma calls both girls inside and pulls in the latch string. Jack is in there, too and they all stay in the house for the rest of the day. When it is time to do the chores everyone helps. Mary brings in wood and Laura helps Ma to feed and water the animals. All the time the strange singing continues, faster now and louder.

The sun sets and the prairie is shadowed and gray. Ma cooks supper over the fire while Laura and Mary watch out the window. They both want Pa to come home tonight. How Laura shouts when she hears the wagon coming!

Ma makes both girls stay in the cabin while she helps Pa carry in the packages. He has already put the new plow away in the barn, but there are many other fascinating bundles to explore. Laura and Mary jump on Pa as soon as he comes in and he hugs both of them before going out to unhitch the horses.

Then it is time to open the packages. Pa has brought brown sugar, a little white flour, some cornmeal, salt, and all the seeds they will need to plant. He also brings out a box of crackers and a tiny jar of little green pickles. Ma's face shines. She has been longing for pickles and Pa remembered.

Pa unwraps one more package and it is a piece of pretty calico, enough for a dress. "Oh, Charles, you shouldn't! It's too much!" Ma says. But she is beaming and Pa beams back at her. Then Pa looks at Laura and Mary out of the corner of his eye. He takes off his jacket and hat and stretches out by the fire.

Laura can't wait any longer and climbs onto Pa's lap. "Where is it? Where's my present?" she says, beating him on the chest.

Pa laughs and brings two beautiful black rubber head bands out of his pockets. One has a blue ribbon and one has a red ribbon. He gives the blue one to Mary first because she was patient. Then he gives Laura hers and both girls put them on. They have never seen anything so pretty.

While they eat their supper, Pa tells Laura and Mary about the seeds. He has brought every kind of seed they need to grow a garden.

Pa also mentions to Ma something he heard in town. "They say that the Indians have been complaining about the settlers on their land and the government is going to make all the settlers leave."

"Oh, Charles, no! Not when we have already done so much work!" Ma exclaims.

"I'm sure they won't do that. They'll just make the Indians move on again. The government always lets the settlers keep new land. We don't have to worry."

After Laura is in bed, she lies awake and listens to the Indians singing and singing. She thinks about what Pa said.

Thoughts:
When I decided to do this post about gardening I never expected it would include the entire process from seed to harvest! But this has been a very busy summer for our family. We made 3 trips, including one to Wisconsin for my grandfather's funeral after he passed away at age 98. So I haven't had a lot of extra time for blogging.

But now it's fall and time to get ready for another Long Winter. Break open the books and start up the computer. Summer's chores are over!

Now I just have to deal with all of Winter's chores...

I began my garden with a bag full of hope, with packages of possibilities. I intended to have a big, beautiful garden this year because next summer I'm planning to keep things simpler with a smaller one.

"Pa told Laura and Mary about all the seeds. He had got seeds of turnips and carrots and onions and cabbage. He had got peas and beans. And corn and wheat and tobacco and the seed potatoes. And watermelon seeds."

I always start my own seeds; I did that even back in California. There I could plant my seeds outside in my driveway as early as the beginning of March. I covered them with plastic to keep the frost off at first, but that never lasted long. Soon the beautiful spring weather chased off winter's chill.

The plants I grew were always very strong and healthy. I never had any planting shock with them because the seedlings were already acclimated to the outdoors.

When I moved up here, my methods had to change a little bit! Most people start their seeds late March/ early April, but indoors only, please. There's still snow on the ground in April and 2 more months to go before the last danger of frost. Plants tend to turn out a little spindly if you don't have a fancy growing set-up with lights and well-spaced racks.

Which I don't.

And this year I didn't even get my seeds planted until May. Caleb and I made a trip to Seattle, WA in April, and what with one thing and another, it was May before I got around to doing my seeds. That was way too late to be starting, but hope springs eternal in this breast, at least. I hoped I'd be able to plant them in early June and they could catch up with the rest of the world through my tender care and loving ministrations.

So, that didn't happen either....

My grandpa passed away in June and I didn't get my plants in the ground until the beginning of July. Part of what slowed me up was waiting to get the ground plowed. I know a sturdy pioneer girl would have gotten out there with a shovel and made it happen, but I'm only an imitation pioneer, not the genuine article.

I waited for someone to plow it for me.

Finally my dad took pity on me and went down to Williston to buy an attachment for his beloved tractor. Or...it had very little to do with me because it doesn't take much for my dad to find a reason to get more tractor equipment.

"Ma said, "But, Charles, you didn't get yourself a thing!"

"Oh, I got myself a plow," said Pa. "Warm weather'll be here soon now, and I'll be plowing.'"

Whatever his motivation, the end result was a beautifully tilled garden spot. Surely things were looking up for food production on the prairie....

Over a month over-due for planting, my seedlings were leggy and weak, but I was able---finally!---to get them in the ground.

What a beautiful sight! All those seed trays empty at last!

I had row after row of tomatoes planted. I always over-do the tomatoes a little bit. It's sort of a family tradition with me, and there are so many good varieties I just have to plant some of all of them. Things can get pretty ugly once they all start to ripen, but I usually try to sell some of my excess.

"Pa said to Ma, "I tell you, Caroline, when we begin getting crops off this rich land of ours, we'll be living like kings!'"

That didn't happen this year. My plants grew, all right, and even produced lots of green tomatoes. But with their late start, they'd missed too much of the heat of summer. A tomato needs nice hot temperatures in order to ripen and my plants never got enough warm weather. I ended up with a lush jungle of vines laden with bushels of green, green tomatoes.

Now that it's fall, I've been picking them. Tomatoes will ripen after being picked, and the wise tomato farmer will pluck the last of his harvest and store it inside. This enables him to enjoy ripe tomatoes through November or even December.

The key here is to pluck the last of the harvest. I am harvesting an entire season of tomatoes that ARE ALL GOING TO RIPEN AT ONCE! And where to store all of them in the mean time, I don't know.

I foresee much experimentation in green tomato recipes!

Thankfully, not all of my seedlings turned out to be such divas. My flowers bloomed beautifully, covering the side of my house with brilliant blossoms all summer long and I had lush pots filled with fragrant herbs for cooking.

I always plant pumpkins, squash, and gourds in my garden because I enjoy growing them so much. I don't enjoy eating very many of them, so they usually end up being given away to good homes.

Last year I had a family out to the house to pick their very own pumpkins from my patch. There aren't very many U-pick pumpkin patches in our area (like, none), so it was a fun treat for them, and of course fun for me as well. I'll probably do it again this year, too, though my pumpkins never had the chance to grow very big.

Gardening is certainly a lot of work, but to me, it is well-worth it. At least, I think that at the end of the season. And in the middle of winter when all the world is white and cold. And when the first signs of spring peek over the horizon.

But ask me on a hot day in July, and you might get a different answer!

Chapter 20: Scream in the Night

2013-05-24T15:17:00.001-07:00

"They stood by the fire and listened. They couldn't hear anything but the wind. And they could not do anything. But at least they were not lying down in bed.

Suddenly fists pounded on the door and Pa shouted: 'Let me in! Quick, Caroline!'"

The days are short and cold now. Mary and Laura spend most of the time inside their snug cabin, either helping Ma or playing games with Carrie. Pa goes out trapping and hunting every day.

The winter wind sweeps and howls over the prairie, never still. But one night a loud and terrible scream wakes everyone up. It is not the wind.

"Charles! What was it?" Ma says.

"It's a woman screaming," Pa said. "Sounded like it came from Scott's"

Pa puts on his boots, his heavy coat, and his fur cap. He lights the candle in the lantern, grabs his rifle, and heads out the door. He is going to make sure that the Scotts are alright.

Ma and the girls are left alone in the cabin. Ma tells the girls to go back to sleep, but they are not sleepy. Laura imagines Pa walking along the top of the bluff, the candle shining here and there through the holes cut in the lantern.

It seems like hours go by, and then they hear the terrible screaming again. It seems very close to the house. Ma jumps up to put more wood on the fire. Laura jumps up, too, but Ma tells her to go back to bed. Laura begs so hard to stay up that Ma lets her and they stand together by the fire, listening.

Suddenly, they hear fists pounding hard on the door and Pa's voice shouting, "Let me in!"

Ma opens the door and Pa slams it quickly behind him. He is breathing hard from running. "Whew! I'm scared yet," he says.

"What was it, Charles?" Ma asks him.

"A panther," Pa answers.

Pa tells how he hurried as fast as he could to Mr. Scott's house. But when he got there, the house was dark and still. Pa could not find anything wrong, and he didn't want to look like a fool waking them up. So he turned around and came home feeling silly.

It was just as he was hurrying along the edge of the bluff that the scream came again. It sounded like it was right under his feet. The panther was up in the top of a tree that grew against the bluff and Pa lit out for home as fast as he could run.

Laura is glad Pa is safe. She helps him take off his boots and asks, "Would a panther carry off a little girl, Pa?"

"Yes, and kill and eat her, too. You and Mary must stay in the house until I kill that panther."

Pa spends days hunting the panther with no luck before he meets an Indian in the woods. The Indian uses signs to tell Pa that he shot and killed the panther the day before. Pa is glad and the Indian is glad. All the little girls and little papooses are safe.

Thoughts:
Well, I could have built my own panther in the time it's taken me to get around to writing this post. Spring is a very busy time on the prairie, OK? But at last, I've seized myself by the scruff of the neck with the worst threat of all----no more Facebook on the prairie until I get this posted.

Aaaaaaargh! Going through withdrawal here........

Must concentrate.

For this chapter, I decided to go for a four mile nighttime walk, panthers optional. Of course, a gentle and innocent creature such as myself cannot go walking out after dark alone, so Caleb was cordially conscripted---I mean----invited to join me. The party pooper didn't want me to randomly wake him up in the middle of the night in order to make it more authentic, so I was forced to leave just after sunset.

I could deal with that as long as it would be dark enough that no one could see the latest crazy thing I was up to. Because we had to do the walk by lamplight, naturally.

I wasn't able to find a kerosene lantern to carry and didn't want to wait to order one. As it turned out, I could have knitted one in the time it's taken me to post, but I didn't know that at the time. Plus, I don't think a knitted lantern would actually be that durable.

I borrowed the closest thing I could find---a battery-operated camp lantern from my sister. Clutching a few sad, desperate rags of authenticity about me, I tried to make it more realistic by making a "tin-punch" effect out of cardboard wrapped around the lantern.

I started out by drawing a design on the cardboard strip, then making holes in the cardboard with a hammer and nail. This lasted for the first panel.

Wanting to get out of the house sometime before midnight, I just started hammering randomly around on the cardboard.

Sadly, it was difficult to tell which one was the design.

"Pa put on his warm, bright plaid coat, and his fur cap, and his muffler. He lighted the candle in the lantern, took his gun, and hurried outdoors."

Lantern readied, it was time to throw on our layers and prepare for the trek. It was a warm evening for the season---about 25 degrees---but a south wind was blowing, bringing just a hint of chill to the air.

I wisely decided to err on the side of caution while dressing. After all, I could always take layers off if I found myself too warm.

Caleb posed nobly with the lantern as we were leaving...

Then gave it to me to carry the rest of the way.

My driveway faces south, right into that blessed little breeze. I wasn't even halfway to the end of it before I was ready to turn around, warm clothes notwithstanding. Who needs to walk a full four miles, anyway? I was sure I could come up with something creative to make a blog post out of a walk to the end of our driveway.

But Caleb and I decided to try and make it a leetle ways down the road. Once we turned, the wind wouldn't be full in our faces anymore and we might start to thaw out a little.

"Tiny bright spots of candlelight darted here and there from the holes cut in the tin lantern. The flickering lights seemed to be lost in the black dark."

The lantern really did make dancing little lights, just like in the chapter. Unfortunately, the full moon made much bigger little lights, so we really couldn't see the lantern-light much at all.

But at least we had it along.

In case the moon went out, or something.

Well, once we got started on the road, we just kept going. It's two miles to the end of our road, so a round trip would take us the required 4 miles. It was actually a fairly pleasant walk, as long as you weren't too picky about little things like feeling your toes.

As we got closer to the intersection with the main road, I maintained an unceasing vigilance, ready to leap into the bushes at the first sign of a car. Only there weren't any bushes. Maybe I could quickly cover myself with snow or something....

Thankfully, it never came to that, and I was able to have Caleb snap a quick picture of me before we slunk hurriedly away from the main road.

Finley's looking away because he hates having his picture taken. Maybe I overdid it a smidge when he was a child, but he was such a cuuuuuuuuute puppy....

Seriously! How could I help myself?

"All that time they had been lying and listeing to the wind, and Pa had not come back.

Then, high above the shrieking of the wind they heard again that terrible scream. It seemed quite close to the house."

We made it back home, getting to have the opposite side of our face frozen on the homeward journey. We never heard any panthers screaming, but the migrating geese did set up quite a ruckus as we passed their prairie potholes.

I'd be yelling, too, if I had to stand in snow melt to keep the coyotes from eating me.

There should be a picture right here of Caleb and me triumphantly snug and warm back in our kitchen. But there's not. When we got home, we blew through the house and went straight to our warm beds.

I'm sure Pa did, too.

Whew! Now for some Facebook....

Chapter 19: Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus

2013-03-17T12:00:00.001-07:00

"Laura was anxious because Christmas was near, and Santa Claus and his reindeer could not travel without snow. Mary was afraid that, even if it snowed, Santa Claus could not find them, so far away in Indian Territory. When they asked Ma about this, she said she didn't know."

Winter has come to the prairie. The days are short and cold, but no snow falls. Only rain, rain, and more rain.

Mary and Laura stay close by the fire and work on their nine-patch quilt blocks. Or they work on cutting paper dolls from scraps of wrapping paper. Laura is worried that Santa won't be able to come see them since there is no snow, only rain.

At last it is Christmas Eve. The rain still falls, but by noon the clouds break apart and the sun shines. Laura and Mary can hear the creek roaring down in the creek bottom. Now they know they will have no Christmas because Santa Claus will not be able to get across the flooded, rushing creek.

Pa goes hunting and brings back a giant turkey. It is for Christmas dinner, but Mr. Edwards will not be able to join them because there is no way for him to get across the creek. Ma says it is too bad, having to eat bachelor cooking on Christmas Day.

"A man would risk his neck, trying to cross the creek now," Pa says. "We'll just have to make our minds up that Edwards won't be here tomorrow."

No Santa Claus and no company. Laura and Mary try not to mind too much. They are lucky little girls to have a nice, warm house and a good turkey dinner to look forward to. Ma tells them that they have been such good girls this year that Santa hasn't forgotten them---he will surely come next year.

But Laura and Mary are still not happy.

At night Laura and Mary lie down in their beds. Pa and Ma sit silently by the fire. Ma asks Pa to play the fiddle, but he says, "I don't seem to have the heart to, Caroline."

Ma gets up. "I'm going to hang up your stockings, girls. Maybe something will happen." Laura's heart gives a leap, but then she remembers the swollen creek. Nothing can happen. But Ma hangs up the stockings, anyway, one on either side of the fireplace.

The next morning, Laura wakes up when Jack begins to growl and the door-latch to rattle. Pa lets Mr. Edwards into the house. His teeth are chattering and his voice is shivering. He says he carried his clothes on his head while he swam the creek.

"It was too big a risk," Pa says.

"Your little ones had to have a Christmas," Mr. Edwards says. "Nothing could stop me after I fetched their gifts from Independence."

Laura sits bolt upright in bed. "Did you see Santa?," she yells.

Mr. Edwards says he did, and Laura and Mary are so excited they pepper him with questions. It is hard for them not to peek while Ma puts the presents in the stockings, but Laura and Mary listen to Mr. Edwards tell the story of how he met Santa in Independence and how Santa asked him to deliver the gifts for two sweet, pretty, good little girls on the Verdigris River.

At last Ma says the stockings are ready. Laura and Mary race to the fireplace and begin to explore their treasures. The first thing they find is a bright, shiny, new cup, one for each of them! Then they each find a stick of red and white striped candy. Next are pretty cakes sprinkled with white sugar, and then down in the toes, each girl gets a bright copper penny. Oh, there has never been such a Christmas!

Ma, Pa, and Mr. Edwards look like they are about to cry, but Laura and Mary are just happy, happy, happy.

Thoughts:
Imagine if you gave your children a Little House Christmas. One tin cup, one small cake sprinkled with white sugar, one candy stick, and one bright, copper penny. OK, you can be really nice and allow for inflation---give them 15 cents. You might get excited shrieks on Christmas morning, but I doubt they'd be from joy!

It can be hard to impress the jaded young whippersnappers of today, but every year parents keep trying. They know that almost nothing feels better than seeing that look of pure delight on their child's face and knowing that they put it there.

"When Ma opened the door, Laura and Mary heard the creek roaring. They had not thought about the creek. Now they knew there would be no Christmas, because Santa Claus could not cross that roaring creek

But sadly, as we all know, not every child is able to experience a happy Christmas. In fact, on a global scale, probably most children don't get one. That is why a program like Operation Christmas Child is so valuable and has such enduring success. For those of you who don't know, Operation Christmas Child is a program that collects shoe boxes filled with small toys and gifts by donors and sends them to needy children around the world.

I've always wanted to fill a shoe box like all the "cool" people, but could never get past the mid-November collection date. They collect the boxes early to allow for shipping to the various countries in time for Christmas. And I never had my "Christmas" hat in place and operational until after Thanksgiving.

But last year I managed to pack one shoe box and get it mailed off by the collection date. That's all it took---I'm a shoe box addict now.

The year is still young, but I've been collecting things for boxes, hitting all the post-holiday sales to pick up little odds and ends on clearance. So far I've collected a pretty decent size pile, and if I keep this up all year, I'll be able to pack a bunch of boxes to bring happiness to little kidlet hearts.

Some of the things I've found so far are gloves (those stretchy kinds that are $1 for 2 pairs this time of year), jump ropes, hair sets, little handbags, and animal shaped soaps from the after-Christmas sales, mini dinosaurs and mini purses from the party favor area, stickers, heart stamps, and disc shooters (you may thank me, grateful international parents) from Valentines day, and various other little things.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Edwards! Thank you!," they said, and they meant it with all their hearts. Pa shook Mr. Edward's hand, too, and shook it again. Pa and Ma and Mr. Edwards acted as if they were almost crying, Laura didn't know why. So she gazed at her beautiful presents."

But I wanted something that I could hand make. The Operation Christmas Child Pintrest boards have lots of good ideas, some of which I hope to try by Christmas. However, I wanted to come up with something original for this blog----some little project that could be made to make some child as happy as Mr. Edwards made Laura and Mary with his simple gifts.

So I (out of my very own head, said with pardonable---yet modest----pride) designed this easy-peasy T-shirt bean bag.

Don't freak out if it looks difficult and complicated. I made the first one and thought the whole way through that it wasn't going to work---my seams weren't straight, it didn't look right, etc. But as soon as I cut the fringes, it looked fine and worked just the way I'd hoped. Afterward, I helped my 12 year old nephew make his own, cutting, sewing, and everything, and it turned out fine, too. It's really a very forgiving project.

Step 1: Pick T-shirts in whatever color combination you want. This is a great way to use up shirts that are stained or torn.

Step 2: Trace 6 circles on your T-shirts---2 small, 2 medium, and 2 large, varying the colors. I used a 9 inch, an 8 inch, and a 6 1/2 inch circle.

Step 3: Cut out circles. OK, so this one is a no-brainer, but I'm trying to be complete with my instructions here.

Step 4: Sew one of the medium circles to one of the large ones. I measured three inches in from the edge of each fabric piece to make my seam line . Repeat with the other medium and large circle.

Step 5: Put the small circles on top of the two circles you've sewn together. Measure 3 inches in from the edge of the smaller pieces of fabric. Sew the small pieces to the top of the medium circles (the large circles are underneath the medium, already sewn on...you will sew through all the layers). You should end up with two halves that look like this. Now you are ready to sew the halves together.

Step 6: Measure the same distance of three inches from the edge of your large fabric pieces. When you sew your halves together, right sides out (this means all the fabric pieces are on the outside), make sure that you don't catch any of your other fabric pieces in the seam. Keep them pulled back as you sew. At the end, leave a small opening in your seam to stuff the beans through.

If you're like me, it will never be big enough and you'll have to open it more to make it work.

Step 7: Fill the bean bag with beans to the desired weight. When you have it as full as you want, stitch the opening shut, either with the sewing machine if you can make it work, or by hand-sewing.

Step 8: Now you are ready to clip the fringe. Work with one layer at a time, being careful that you never clip through a seam.

Step 9: I found it worked best to make cuts dividing it into fourths, then cut fringe in each of the fourths until every layer has been completely fringed. It should look like this when you are finished...

Step 10: Shake it out and play with it to your heart's content! This is a super-fun, awesome update to the classic bean bag.

Even if you're not a handy person and the mere thought of sewing sends you into a cold sweat, I hope you will still give shoe boxes a try. You don't have to make everything yourself like some mutant Martha Stewart clone; with a little time and forethought, a shoe box can be stuffed very easily and inexpensively. It's a great way for kids to realize how blessed they are and it gives them a chance to give back just a little.

"Pa, and Ma, and Mr. Edwards sat by the fire and talked about Christmas times back in Tennessee and up north in the Big Woods. But Mary and Laura looked at their beautiful cakes and played with their pennies and drank water out of their new cups. And little by little they licked and sucked their sticks of candy, till each stick was sharp-pointed on one end.

That was a happy Christmas."

Chapter 18: The Tall Indian

2013-02-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

"Indians came riding on the path that passed so close to the house. They went by as though it were not there......

"I thought that trail was an old one they didn't use any more," Pa said. "I wouldn't have built the house so close to it if I'd known it's a highroad.'"

Autumn hangs over the prairie. Nature is busy preparing for the long, cold winter to come, and the Indians are busy making preparations, too. Many, many Indians ride past on the little trail that goes right past the house. It makes Ma nervous and it makes Jack very angry. Jack believes that the trail belongs to Pa, and he tries very hard to keep the Indians off of it.

One evening, the family looks up and sees a tall Indian standing in the doorway. Jack jumps at him, but Pa catches the dog just in time. Pa ties Jack to a bed post and goes and squats by the fire with the tall Indian. They sit there together while Ma finishes supper, both friendly, but neither one speaks. Ma gives Pa and the Indian their suppers on two tin plates and they eat right there by the fire.

After supper, Pa shares his tobacco with the Indian and they smoke their pipes. When the pipes are empty, the Indian tries to say something to Pa, but Pa can't understand. He shakes his head and says, "No speak." They sit a while longer and then the Indian stands up and goes away without a sound.

Pa says the tall Indian is probably an Osage. He thinks the Indian tried to speak in French, but Pa doesn't speak French. Ma is worried about the Indians and hopes they keep to themselves. Pa tells her that the camps around the little house are friendly and if they treat the Indians well and watch Jack, they shouldn't have any trouble.

The very next morning, Pa looks out the window and sees Jack standing on the Indian trail. There is an Indian on his pony and Jack will not let him pass. The Indian raises his gun, but Pa grabs Jack and pulls him out of the way. After this, Jack has to stay chained to the house in the day time and to the stable door at night. There are horse thieves around and Pa wants Pet and Patty to be safe.

Winter is coming and the animals are all wearing their thick, winter coats. Pa goes out and sets his traps, bringing back wolves, foxes, beaver, muskrat, and mink. He dries the skins and piles the hides in the corner.

One day, while Pa is hunting, two Indians walk into the house. Jack is chained up, and the Indians help themselves to all Ma's cornbread and all Pa's tobacco. They know that Pa is gone because his gun is missing from the hooks above the fireplace. One of them grabs all the furs sitting in the corner. Ma stands there with the girls close to her. There is nothing she can do.

The other Indian argues with the one holding the furs. Finally, he drops the furs and both Indians go away. Ma sits down and hugs Laura and Mary. Ma's heart is beating fast, but she smiles and says, "I'm thankful they didn't take the plow and seeds." Laura is surprised, but Ma explains that the plow and seed for next spring is in the bundle of furs.

When Pa comes home and hears the news, he looks sober. But he says all is well that ends well.

Thoughts:
I'll bet Ma wanted to clock him one when he said that! A mother always has a harder time being pragmatic about the risks to her kids. But it was an era of risks. A mother could only hope to keep all her kids alive through childhood; many didn't make it.

So for this chapter I attempted something very dangerous. Something that I doubt I will ever try again.

I invited my family over for a silent meal.

I thought it would be a fun and interesting to experience an evening of non-verbal communication. What a challenge it would be, especially for the kids! But we're a creative bunch, so I figured we'd come up with some great ways to communicate.

We sounded like a bunch of deranged squirrels.

The evening got off to a late start due to the delayed arrival of our guests. My carefully prepared meal languished on the counter, but some of my righteous indignation evaporated later when I discovered that it hadn't even finished cooking all the way. That's OK, I like crunchy french fries....

My guests arrived and had a shocked, yet stunned reaction to the news. And then I got my camera out. So they had to re-do shocked-yet-stunned several times before I got a photo I liked. Authenticity, baby!

"Pa dragged Jack to the bedpost and tied him there. While he was doing it, the Indian came in and squatted down by the fire.

Then Pa squatted down by the Indian, and they sat there, friendly but not saying a word, while Ma finished cooking dinner."

The idea was that we would all get our plates, pose for a few squatting pictures, and then relax into a comfortable dinner on the floor. The process was hampered by the fact that nobody but me knew what was going on.

Everyone milled around like sheep in the kitchen.

I motioned for everyone to get their plates.

People started to get their plates. And eat from them.

Noooooo! Don't eat from them, pose with them! Communicated through shrill, deranged squirrel squeaks.

My guests looked understandingly puzzled. First, I invited them for dinner, then motioned them to get their plates, then squeaked at them shrilly when they tried to eat.

Let's try this again.

I led them boldly into the living room.

They sat on the floor.

Squat! Don't sit! Shrill, deranged squirrel squeaks.

After many rounds of squirrel charades where I demonstrated taking my plate, squatting, and smiling for the camera, most of the group caught on to what I wanted. So I pushed the timer and hurried to get in the picture.

Note to self: if you ever want a flattering self-portrait, do not squat in front of a camera.

By this time the kids had caught onto the possibilities of our situation. Somehow Noni and I didn't inspire awed obedience while frowning fiercely and squeaking. So the kids started running amok. After all, if they got in trouble, they had plausible deniability. "How was I to know you didn't want me rappelling from the ceiling? You didn't SAY so!"

Finley began to see the potential of having all the plates down at nose level. If we didn't want him to poke his snout in hopefully, we would have been at the table, wouldn't we?

The actual meal went rather quickly. After all, if you don't pause to converse, you can do a lot more chewing.

"Laura and Mary were close together and quiet on their bed in the corner. They couldn't take their eyes from that Indian He was so still that the beautiful eagle-feathers in his scalp-lock didn't stir. Only his bare chest and the leanness under his ribs moved a little to his breathing."

My guests were supposed to get up and leave after the meal, just as the Indian had done. However, nothing so far had gone according to plan, and this was no different. Having eaten, the kids were ready to play.

Devon showed us a few of his new wrestling moves. Noni kindly allowed herself to be taken down. Devon has not yet attained, shall we say, heavy-weight status as a wrestler.

Then everyone tried a round of Indian leg wrestling. This was a bit of a challenge since some of us (mainly me) had forgotten just how it worked. I found squirrel squeaks less than adequate in explaining the process, so I was unprepared. Of course that was the reason Damon beat me. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Caleb got a nice ego boost by wrestling Devon. I wonder who's going to win????

At last, the company left. Noni had to squeak very sternly at them, but eventually even the last stragglers trickled out. It was so nice to be able to speak again! Not talking is WAY more tiring than talking.

All in all, the evening was fun and definitely memorable, but I still don't want to give up speech. I don't know how parents that can't talk manage....they must have some very obedient kids! Or some very forceful sign language.

Chapter 17: Pa Goes to Town

2013-01-30T08:32:00.001-08:00

"Before dawn, Pa went away. When Laura and Mary woke, he was gone and everything was empty and lonely. It was not as though Pa had only gone hunting. He was gone to town and he would not be back for four long days."

Laura and Mary stay in the house with Ma all morning. It is too big and empty outside with Pa gone. At noon Laura and Ma goes outside to move the cow's picket line to fresh grass. Then they go back inside until evening chore time.

Ma is just putting on her bonnet to go milk the cow when all the hair stands up on Jack's back and he rushes out of the house. They hear a yell, "Call off your dog! Call off your dog!" It is Mr. Edwards. Pa asked him to come by each day and check on Ma and the girls. He has come at chore time so he can help with the chores.

But now he is on top of the woodpile with Jack growling and trying to get to him. Ma makes Jack let Mr. Edwards down, but Jack keeps an eye on him the whole time he is doing chores.

That night everything is dark and lonely. A wolf howls out on the prairie, but Laura is not afraid. Ma has pulled the latch string through the stout door and Jack is in the house with them. Nothing can get to them; they are safe.

The next day is empty and long like the first one. Mrs. Scott comes to visit and talks to Ma. She says interesting things about massacres, but Ma changes the subject. Later Ma says Laura will have to be older before she can know what a massacre is.

Mr. Edwards comes again to help with chores and Jack chases him up the wood pile again. Laura and Mary think about Pa, camping that night in the town of Independence. Tomorrow morning he will shop and by tomorrow afternoon he should be on his way home again!

The wind blows bitterly cold for the next two days. Pa must travel into the wind to reach the little log cabin. On the second day, Laura and Mary begin to watch for Pa. They wait all afternoon and all evening, but Pa doesn't come. Only the wind blows and blows and blows.

Ma lets them stay up and wait for Pa, but finally Laura falls asleep sitting up on the bench. She falls right onto the floor and Ma says they must go to bed. Ma sits by the fire in her rocking chair waiting and waiting.

Laura doesn't even know when she falls asleep again, but next thing she knows, Pa is standing in the cabin. His clothes are cold and his boots are caked with frozen mud. He is very tired, but he wraps Laura and Mary in Ma's shawl and takes them on his lap. He is glad to be home.

Pa drinks a cup of nice, hot coffee and shows Ma and the girls the treasures he has brought from town. First he shows them a flat, square package wrapped carefully in brown paper. It is full of eight small squares of glass for their window! Ma is so pleased; now they will be able to look out the window this winter.

Pa also shows them a little paper sack full of pure, white sugar. Ma puts it away carefully to be used when company comes. Pa has also brought lots of nails, salt pork, tobacco for him, and cornmeal for corn bread. It is so nice. Now they will have enough of everything all winter long.

Thoughts:
It's kind of interesting to read this chapter just as I'm gearing up for another monthly shopping trip. Once a month I go buy out Walmart and haul home hundreds of different kinds of items---pet supplies, groceries, household items, etc., etc. You know, just the simple necessities for modern life. Perhaps I should surprise Caleb by coming back this time with only cornmeal and sugar. Wouldn't he be excited!

Now, I know that the cornmeal Pa picked up in Independence was already ground at a mill somewhere. Even in those pioneer days, women had risen up in rebellion against the ancient method of hand milling. In fact, grist mills date back before the Roman Empire. Those ancient housewives must have been feisty!

But I wanted to try grinding corn the OLD-fashioned way. It seemed more authentic. More real. More in touch with history. More like I had no mill to use.

So I went out in the bitter cold and selected two nice rocks. It was a complicated selection process with stringent requirements----mainly I had to be able to kick them loose from where they were frozen to the ground.

Then they went through an important seasoning process where I scrubbed off all the dirt and dead vegetation. There was a limit to the amount of crunch I was willing to accept in my corn muffin.

I dried the rocks and placed a handful of popcorn kernels on the bottom rock. Popcorn kernels are smaller than regular grinding corn, but still work.

Then I started to grind the corn. Turns out dry corn is pretty hard...the kernels went flying and suffered no noticeable damage in the process. But I kept at it, though I did mentally downsize the amount of cornmeal I planned to get.

It was around this time that Caleb got home from school. Slam! "I'm starving, Mom! What's for dinner?"

He walks into the kitchen and sees me with my two rocks, grinding away at the corn.

"I'm making supper as fast I can, Sweety."

"Are you kidding me!?"

Have you ever seen a teenage boy cry?

My dad also stopped by, but somehow didn't want to stay for dinner. I don't know why---cornbread and chili beans is one of his favorite meals. He did let me know a fascinating historical fact: Old-fashioned stone-ground grain had powdered bits of rock in it and actually ground off people's teeth over time.

Hmmmm. Maybe I'll just mix the cornmeal in only ONE special muffin!

I worked at it for about twenty minutes before I got bored. My family never would have made it back in ancient times! Or they would have learned to like REALLY crunchy bread. By the time I finished, I had quite a bit of powder on my grinding rock-----but still mixed in with large chunks of hardened corn. So I mentally downsized my expectations yet again and ran it all through a colander.

I ended up with about a tablespoon of extremely....hearty cornmeal. And I think almost half of it was actually corn!

Fiesta Surprise Cornbread:

2 1/2 c flour
2 c cornmeal
1/2 c sugar
4 t baking pwd.
1 t salt (I think I would increase this by at least 1/4 t next time)

Mix together

2 eggs
2 1/4 c milk
1/2 c melted butter
1/2 c frozen corn
1 4-oz. can green chilis
1 can sliced olives

Mix in separate bowl and fold into mix; add small amount of water if needed. Pour into greased pan and bake at 350 35-40 minutes until done.


That's an OLIVE, not a rock.....

Ready to eat the delicious "special" muffin that has the homemade cornmeal mixed in it......

First bite......

Mmmmmmmm! Tastes good.

But even Caleb can hear the chunks of corn? grinding in my mouth....

Delicious! I would recommend this recipe to anyone.

Though you may want to leave out the authentic stone-ground part......

Just a suggestion.

"Everything was alright when Pa was there. And now he had nails, and cornmeal, and fat pork, and salt, and everything. He would not have to go to town again for a long time."

Chapter 16: Fire in the Chimney

2013-01-24T14:29:00.000-08:00

"The prairie had changed. Now it was a dark yellow, almost brown, and red streaks of sumac lay across it. The wind wailed in the tall grass, and it whispered sadly across the curly, short buffalo grass. At night the wind sounded like someone crying."

It is fall. The days are growing shorter and cooler. It is time for Pa to go to town. He couldn't go during the heat of summer because it would have been too hard for Pet and Patty. Pa gets the grass-hay cut and stacked by the barn, ready for winter. Now all he has to do is go hunting so Ma and the girls won't run out of meat while he is gone.

The next morning Pa takes his gun and heads down into the creek bottoms. There are lots of geese and wild ducks by the creek, resting on their way south. Laura and Mary hear a shot echo in the woods and they know Pa has got some meat.

That afternoon the wind is cold and fierce. Pa is still not back from hunting, but Ma calls Laura and Mary into the house. Ma builds up the fire and sits rocking Baby Carrie. The wind blows and blows.

Laura hears a crackling noise in the chimney. Ma hears it, too, because she leans forward and looks up the chimney. Then she gets up, puts Baby Carrie in Mary's arms and pushes her into the rocking chair. Ma hurries outside and Laura runs after her.

The whole top of the chimney is on fire! The chimney-top is made of sticks and mud, and all the sticks are burning up. Ma grabs a long pole and starts hitting the burning chimney, trying to knock it away from the house. Laura grabs a pole too, but Ma tells her to stay away. Burning sticks are falling all around them and Ma doesn't want Laura to get hurt.

Laura runs back into the house. Burning sticks are falling down the chimney and the house is full of smoke. One big stick rolls off the hearth and right under Mary's skirts. Mary is too afraid to move, but Laura grabs the great, heavy rocking chair and pulls it backward, moving Mary and Baby Carrie to safety. Then she grabs the burning stick and throws it back into the fireplace just as Ma comes in.

"That's a good girl," says Ma. She pours water all over the fire in the fireplace. Soon there is nothing left but a very smokey house. When Pa comes home, he finds the fire out and the house very cold. He goes to cut green sticks and builds the chimney up again so Ma can roast the four fat ducks he brought home.

Soon the house is snug and warm again. Pa says he will head for town early the next morning. Ma is happy. Now she can mail a letter to the folks back in Wisconsin. They can write back during the winter, and she might even hear from them as early as next spring.

Thoughts:
Well, another challenging chapter. When is Laura going to do something like read a book, do a demure sewing project, or play on the computer? All this death-defying stuff wears a person out!

What a narrow escape they all had! It would be bad enough to have to fight a fire now, with hoses and water, and the fire department on the way because you called them on your cell phone. But Ma and the girls were out in the middle of a (dry) prairie with no resources except what their own efforts and ingenuity could provide.

And then to do all of that in a long dress and heavy petticoat. It's no wonder so many women suffered horrible burns or lost their life after their clothing caught fire. But for Laura's quick actions, Mary and Carrie might well have been buried out there on the windswept Kansas prairie.

So what to do for this chapter? I had no intention of lighting myself on fire, no matter how educational it might be. But there was no reason not to light someone ELSE on fire. Especially someone like Flamin' Fanny.

I started by going to the thrift store to find a dress I wouldn't feel bad about burning. It had to be ugly enough to deserve incineration and made of a cotton-type material, similar to the highly flammable calico that most pioneer dresses were made out of. I found one that fit both criteria nicely. And a big thank you to the kind-hearted thrift store ladies who tried to find something nice to say about it.

"My. That dress is....interesting, Mabel."

"Yes, it is, Nancy. You don't see something like that every day. It's...........pretty."

Ladies, I'm going to burn it alive. You don't have to try so hard.

The dress wasn't quite long enough, so I added to its splendor by sewing a panel of brightly colored sheet material around the bottom. Lovely.

Then I had to wait several days for the temperature to get out of the minuses and the wind to die down. I had no intention of suffering while I burned Miss Fanny. At last the day dawned with mild enough conditions go conduct my little...experiment.

Because this is a family blog...

Fanny was constructed by Caleb out of a couple of 2x4's with an attractive pumpkin head. She was dressed in a full cotton sheet for a petticoat to give her those extra layers of combustible comfort. Then we fitted her dress over the top and fixed her hair. Voila, Flamin' Fanny, the Fearless Frontier Female.

The idea was to build a small fire at the feet of Fanny, then document her dress catching fire....perhaps smoldering a bit first, then a finger of flame licking up her gown, and finally, the tragic conflagration. That was the idea, anyway.

Didn't quite work out that way....

I built the fire alright, using cardboard and old shingles. I lit it in a couple of places, but the wind was still brisk and the little flames guttered and went out. It's 15 degrees outside, and I don't have much time to lay a pretty fire and coax it to life.

Time for the gasoline.

I am actually a HUGE chicken when it comes to fire, and while a male-type would probably splash some carelessly from the can onto the little firelet, I wasn't about to do any such thing. I poured a little bit on a shingle and laid it on the fire.

Let's just say it "caught".

By the time I could take 3 steps back from the fire, grab my camera, and turn it on......well, Fanny was already fully involved. It wasn't just because of the gas. She was actually starting to go before I even got the shingle over there. It was just that her dress went up SO quickly.

If she were a pioneer woman, she would have had 10 seconds or less to respond and get the fire out before it got critically bad.

So here is the first shot I got off of poor Fanny...

At this stage, I think she could have still been saved. Some quick thinking and some stop-drop-and-roll, and she could have gotten the fire out. The same things that made it so dangerous---her thick petticoat and long dress---would help to protect her in those first few seconds...which I imagine were usually spent running and screaming; perhaps trying to tear the dress away.

"'Don't cry, Laura," Ma said, stroking her hair. "Were you afraid?"

"Yes," Laura said. "I was afraid Mary and Carrie would burn up. I was afraid the house would burn up and we wouldn't have any house. I'm--I'm scared now!"

The next sequence of photos (and the video that follows) were all taken during the same minute---the last minute of Fanny's life.

Her hair went fast.....

VERY fast!

As you can see, she was not only in flames within a minute, but her dress was almost wholly consumed in those 60 seconds.

It was a very thrilling and educational experience, but one that was sobering as well. For too many women, Flamin' Fanny's fate was a terrifying reality; maimed or killed in the line of duty---by the very uniform required of their sex. It was a graphic reminder that nostalgia is a whole lot more romantic than actually living during "the good ol' days".

Poor Fanny!

Chapter 15: Fever 'n' Ague

2013-01-15T16:22:00.002-08:00

"'Charles, do look at the girls," she said. "I do believe they are sick."

"Well, I don't feel too well myself," said Pa. "First I'm hot and then I'm cold, and I ache all over. Is that the way you feel, girls? Do your very bones ache?"

Mary and Laura said that was the way they felt. Then Ma and Pa looked a long time at each other and Ma said, "The place for you girls is bed.'"

Blackberries are ripe, and every long, hot afternoon Laura goes with Ma to help pick them. They grow in the brier-patches down in the creek bottom. Clouds of mosquitoes follow Ma and Laura wherever they go in the bushes. The mosquitoes like to suck the sweet juice from the blackberries, but they like to bite Laura and Ma just as much.

It is hard, itchy, pokey, sticky work, but every day they bring home pails full of berries to dry in the sun. And every day they eat as many berries as they want. Next winter they will have blackberries to stew.

Mary stays with Baby Carrie because she is older. There are hardly any mosquitoes in the house during the day, but at night, if there is no wind, the mosquitoes come in swarms. Pa burns smudge fires of damp grass to keep them away, but a good many come anyway.

Pa can't play his fiddle in the evenings because of the mosquitoes. Mr. Edwards does not come visiting anymore because of the mosquitoes. Pet and Patty and the colt and the calf and the cow are miserable because of the mosquitoes. And Laura is covered in mosquito bites.

"This won't last long," Pa says. "Fall's not far away, and the first cold wind will settle 'em."

But one morning Laura doesn't feel good. She feels cold even in the hot sun. Mary feels sick too. Ma feels Laura's cheek. "You can't be cold," she says. "Your face is as hot as fire."

Pa says he feels sick, too. Ma puts the two girls to bed in the middle of the day. Laura doesn't really go to sleep, but she doesn't feel awake either. She hears voices talking. Ma feeds her broth from a spoon. She feels Pa's hand shake while he gives her a cup of water. The water runs down her neck and the cup rattles against her teeth. She feels Ma's hand brush against her cheek and it's as hot as fire.

"Go to bed, Caroline."

"You're sicker than I am, Charles."

At last, Laura opens her eyes and sees bright sunshine. She hears Mary crying for a drink of water. Pa is lying on the floor by the big bed and Jack is pawing at him and whining. "I must get up. I must. Caroline and the girls." Pa tries to raise his head, but it falls back again.

All the time, Mary is crying and crying for water. Laura sees Ma's red face looking over the edge of the bed. "Laura, can you?" she whispers.

"Yes, Ma," Laura says. Laura gets out of bed, but she falls down. Jack licks her face and Laura grabs him to pull herself up again. She crawls all the way to the bucket and all the way back again. Mary drinks the whole dipper full of water and stops crying. Laura falls into bed again.

The next time Laura wakes up, she sees a coal-black face above hers. The face smiles and a deep voice says, "Drink this, little girl." Laura swallows the bitter medicine and falls asleep again. When she wakes up, she sees a big woman stirring the fire. It is Mrs. Scott and she stays with the family until they feel better.

Later, Mr. Tan comes. He is the black man that Laura saw and he is a doctor to the Indians. He was on his way north to Independence when he came to Pa's house. Jack, who normally chased away any strangers, came out and begged the doctor to come in. He did and he found the whole family more dead than alive. Mr. Tan stayed and helped them, then helped the other settlers up and down the creek who were all sick.

"It all comes from eating watermelons," said Mrs. Scott. "If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times..."

"What's that?" exclaimed Pa. "Who's got watermelons?"

Mrs. Scott says that one of the settlers down the creek has grown some. As soon as Pa feels better, he rides away and comes back with a big watermelon across his saddle. Ma doesn't want him to eat it, but Pa just laughs and gets his knife. It goes into the watermelon with a delicious sound. The green rind splits and shows the bright red inside with little black seeds.

Pa eats and eats, but Ma will not taste it or allow Laura, Mary, or Baby Carrie to have any. But Pa eats slice after slice.

Thoughts:
Poor little girls. How awful to be deprived of watermelon! Especially when your Pa is eating it right in front of you. I guess he didn't believe in suffering with the team...

I happen to love watermelon, but I don't think that a blog about me eating a slice of watermelon has much readability. Besides, winter watermelon is gross. I was feeling a bit under the weather for a few days, but nothing that compared with malaria. And it's the middle of winter, so mosquitoes are in pretty short supply---no trying out home-made pioneer repellent.

But this chapter did have one very strong possibility. Berry picking!

Berry picking, you say? In the middle of winter? Why, yes. As it so happens, I put in a few berry bushes this year. They produce the majority of their berries in summer, as you'd expect, but a few hardy berries can still be found in January if you know how to look for them.

So this morning I dressed and went out for a little winter berry picking....

In the middle of my berry patch---no mosquitoes!

"Now the blackberries were ripe, and in the hot afternoons Laura went with Ma to pick them. The big, black, juicy berries hung thick in brier-patches in the creek bottoms. Some were in the shade of trees and some were in the sun, but the sun was so hot that Laura and Ma stayed in the shade. There were plenty of berries."

Actually, it is a little cold to go berry picking in winter. And snow gets down your boots. But it was worth it, because I was able to find enough blackberries for a small batch of jam.

Of course, you have to expect your fruit to be frozen when you pick it in January, so it's best to let it thaw before using it to cook with.

I used to take my kids out into the California heat every August and pick wild blackberries. I'd make jars and jars of jam, and some years that was the only jam we had. As a result, I got heartily sick of blackberry jam and my youngest got wildly sentimental about it. Now we live in a climate too cold for blackberries, so I have to buy them if I want to make any jam.

That was another reason for making jam for this chapter...it's my first home-made blackberry jam in years, and Caleb is eagerly awaiting the green-light to try some. (Not until the photography's done!)

There are lots of recipes for making jam---I used the one that came with the Sure-jell---but basics are the same. Start with everything clean and in good condition---no chipped glass or rusty, bent rings. The ratio of sugar and fruit is pretty important, so make sure you have the right amounts. I didn't have enough fruit for a full recipe, so I used only half a packet of pectin.

You can make jam without any powdered pectin. I usually do, but then, I usually use large amounts of fresh fruit with lots of natural pectin in it. This was my first time using frozen fruit, so I elected to go with more of a sure bet than trying to guess the Shangri-la of "The Jelling Point".

I mashed my berries, taking care to leave hearty fruit chunks. It's not jammy enough if you can't see some berries.

Then I mixed the pectin into the berries and heated the mixture up on the stove. The whole thing has to come to a rolling boil before you can add the sugar.

Once it was boiling hard enough that stirring didn't stop the boiling, I added the sugar in all at once and stirred it in. After that I had to watch it pretty closely; it only has to boil for 1 minute.

Once the one minute was over (plus a little more...I'm not good at watching closely), I scooped out the jam and filled my jars, taking care that the rims were clear of any jam. If there's anything in the way of the rubber ring on the lid, the lid won't seal properly. Oh, good, there was plenty left over to eat right away.

I had to process the jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (give or take...I'm also not good at keeping an eye on the clock), but I'm sure it's safe.

Really.

Of course, once they came out, there was the traditional death watch to see if the jars sealed, but both of them did. Now they are good for a year of shelf-life, but I don't think they'll make it that long around here, especially with Caleb around!

While the jam was brewing, I made batch of whole wheat bread, because there is NOTHING---and I mean NOTHING better with homemade jam than fresh baked bread. Plus bread is really photogenic when you're doing a jam photo shoot...

Who knew food photography could be so fraught with danger?

Back, you FIENDS!!!!!!!!!

"Laura's fingers and her mouth were purple-black with berry juice. Her face and her hands and her bare feet were covered with brier scratches and mosquito bites. And they were spattered with purple stains, too, where she had slapped at the mosquitoes."

At last it was time to dig in and test the jam. Sorry if I look a little wild-eyed. That's really my sexy jam-eating face, in case you couldn't tell.

Oh, yummy! So good. This really would be ruining my diet if I had ever bothered to start one.

It's fun to spend an afternoon making a delicious treat to eat. But it wouldn't be fun to do all the time because you had to, not because you wanted to. (I found that out just in the few years I canned all the family's jam in order to save money.) Now I can go to the store and get 10-12 different kinds of jam if that's what I want to do. I don't have to pick the fruit, clean it, peel it, cook it, or can it. I just open the jar, and if the lid sticks, I complain about that.

Truly, we are blessed in our modern lives. That's one reason I like to take some time to try things "the old-fashioned way". For one thing, should I ever NEED to know how to do this kind of thing, I'll be glad I learned. But mostly, it's just good to be reminded of how fortunate I am every minute of every day simply because of where----and when---I live.

Chapter 14: Indian Camp

2012-12-10T19:21:00.001-08:00

"Pa wondered where the Indians had gone. He said they had left their little camp on the prairie. And one day he asked Laura and Mary if they would like to see the camp.

Laura jumped up and down and clapped her hands, but Ma objected.

"It is so far, Charles," she said. "And in this heat."

Pa's blue eyes twinkled. "This heat doesn't hurt the Indians and it won't hurt us," he said. "Come on, girls!"

Summer has come to the prairie. The wind is hot and the prairie grasses turn yellow under the sky. Pa wonders where the Indians have gone. They have left their little camp on the prairie, and one day Pa asks if Mary and Laura would like to go see it.

Laura jumps up and down in excitement, but Ma is worried that the trip is too much for her little girls. Pa says they will be fine, and soon they start out. Jack trots on ahead, for Pa said he could come today, then comes Pa, and after Pa come two very happy girls.

On they walk into the vast prairie. At last they dip down into the little hollow where the Indians had camped. Laura can't see the house anymore, but she knows it's there. Pa and the girls walk around looking at things. Laura sees the ashes from the Indian campfires, the bones scattered around where Indian dogs had chewed on them, and holes in the ground where the tent-poles had been. There are tracks from moccasins criss-crossing the ground.

Pa shows them how the Indians cooked their food over the campfire. And it is by the fire that Laura makes a wonderful discovery. There---right there in the dust----Laura finds a blue bead glittering. Soon Mary finds a red one. Then Laura and Mary hunt and hunt, filling their little hands with beads.

When it is time to go, Pa ties the beads in his handkerchief, Laura's in one corner and Mary's in the other. The sun is low in the sky and Pa sets a quick pace across the prairie. It is a long way home, and Pa carries Laura on his shoulder when she gets tired. But at last they reach home and find supper cooking on the fire and Ma setting the table.

The girls want Ma to look at the pretty beads they found, and she carefully unties the handkerchief. The beads are so pretty shining in the firelight. Laura points to her pile. "These are mine," she says.

"Carrie can have my beads," Mary says sweetly.

Ma waits to hear what Laura will say. Laura doesn't want to say anything. She wants to slap Mary and keep her beads. But at last she hangs her head and says, " Carrie can have mine, too."

"Those are my unselfish good girls," Ma says.

Ma gives Laura and Mary each a string, and they sit side by side and make a pretty necklace for Carrie. Perhaps Mary feels sweet and good inside, but Laura doesn't. But Laura feels a little better when she sees how happy Carrie is with her necklace.

Thoughts:
Poor Laura. It is hard to have an older sister, particularly one with an unfortunate habit of perfection. Trust me on this. If only Laura and Mary had known how to make paper beads they wouldn't have had to worry about running out of Indian beads. Then they could have worried about running out of paper!

It's hard to imagine, in this crazy modern age where babies get ipads to play with, and little girls shed glitter wherever they go, what it must have been like back then. Think of a kid----any kid you know---and imagine what would happen if you gave them a handful of beads for Christmas. Think you'd get wonder, delight, and surprise? I doubt it.

But for Laura and Mary, this one little event made a memory they cherished their entire lives. I think that's a better deal than a Baby Ipad.

Id never made paper beads before this, so I looked up a handy instructional on the internet. Not to ruin the surprise, but this is a FUN activity. It's pretty easy if your fingers will cooperate, and you just can't get any cheaper than this for supplies. It would make a great activity for older girls who need something to do with their girly fingers besides texting interminably.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Paper-Beads/

The instructions were posted by a group in Uganda that makes and sells just beautiful paper beads. The instructions are easy to follow and it has pictures to go with it. Very nice, and the projects they make are impressive.

But enough about them....I'm going to give you directions, too, just because I can.

Step 1: Select your paper. You can make very attractive and colorful beads using magazine pages, but I used patterned paper like you'd use for scrapbooking.

Step 2: Mark your paper for cutting. Here is where a visit to the other site might come in handy. It's very simple once you get the hang of it, but they have a nice graphic to illustrate.

Decide on the width of your bead. To make a bead 2 centimeters long, measure in from the edge of the paper 1 centimeter. Then draw a line from that back up to the top corner. This will give you a long, narrow triangle. It's a scrap piece.

Now go to the top of the page and measure 2 centimeters and mark it. Draw a line from the mark at the bottom of the page (the 1 centimeter mark) up to the 2 centimeter mark. Got that? You should have a long, narrow triangle shape. You can measure as many more as you want by measuring 2 centimeters over from the point of each triangle.

You can make beads of any size you want. The trick is to measure half the distance in from the edge the first time and then the full distance from then on.

I also found a pencil works better because the black lines show from a pen.

Step 3: Take a thin object----I used a toothpick, but a large needle or smoothed-out paper clip will also work---and wrap the LARGE end of your long, thin triangle around it. Make it nice, even, and tight. Begin rolling the paper, taking care to keep the paper centered. Don't be alarmed if it unrolls repeatedly. Hopefully you will get better as you go along. Let me know if it happens for you---I'm still waiting for it to happen to me!

Step 4: After your paper is all the way rolled, take a little dab of glue and stick down the end of it so it won't unravel. Now slide your bead off and you are ready to make another one.

"Laura picked it up, and it was a beautiful blue bead. Laura shouted for joy.
Then Mary saw a red bead, and Laura saw a green one, and they forgot everything but beads."

Step 5: After the beads are completed, string all of them on some stout wire or string. Make sure it is as wide as whatever you are planning to string them on so the holes don't close off. Paint them with clear varnish---even clear nail polish will do---and let them dry. It will take several coats to get the varnish thick enough.

Step 6: Get your inner designer on and make something gorgeous with your new beads!

I wanted to do a Christmas tree ornament, and had a rough idea in mind. I was inspired by a peacock feather for my color scheme, and I really like how it turned out. But I still don't think you'd look at my ornament and say, "That reminds me of peacock feathers."

I used a variety of sizes, plus I made two pendants by adding another, thinner triangle to the end of my piece to make a really, really long, thin triangle. I also incorporated some clear beads I had on hand.

I can't say enough nice things about this project. It is so fun to take harmless-looking strips of paper and create real beads out of them. And turning them into completed art is even more fun---though I did have to kick my cat out of the "design studio" (read: kitchen) when he wanted to "help."

"The beads made a beautiful string. Carrie clapped her hands and laughed when she saw it. Then Ma tied it around Carrie's little neck, and it glittered there."

So are you ready to see it? My very first paper bead Christmas tree ornament!

Now go make some of your own! You'll have lots of fun and there's no limit to the cool designs you can create---just change the color of the paper to change the color of your beads.

Chapter 13: Texas Longhorns

2012-11-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

"One evening Laura and Pa were sitting on the doorstep. The moon shone over the dark prairie, the winds were still, and softly Pa played his fiddle.

He let a last note quiver far, far away, until it dissolved in the moonlight. Everything was so beautiful that Laura wanted it to stay so forever. But Pa said it was time for little girls to go to bed.

Then Laura heard a strange, low, distant sound. "What's that!" she said.

Pa listened. "Cattle, by George!" he said. "Must be the cattle herds going north to Fort Dodge.'"

The next morning when Laura runs out of the house, she sees two men on horseback talking to Pa. Their skin is tanned dark brown and they have flaps of leather over their legs, and spurs, and wide-brimmed hats. Handkerchiefs are knotted around their necks, and pistols are on their hips.

They say, "So long!" to Pa and "Hi! Yip!" to their horses and gallop away.

"Here's a piece of luck!" Pa says to Ma. The cowboys want Pa to help keep the cattle out of the ravines along the creek bluffs. Pa will get a piece of beef for his help. Pa ties his biggest handkerchief around his neck. He shows Laura how it helps to keep the dust from the trail out of his mouth and nose. Then he rides off along the Indian trail.

He is gone all day and comes home at sunset covered with dust. There is dust in his beard and in his hair and on the rims of his eyes. He doesn't have any beef yet, because the cattle aren't all across the creek.

Pa doesn't play the fiddle and goes straight to bed after supper. Laura lies awake, listening to the wailing cowboy songs far away in the night. After everyone else is asleep, Laura creeps to the window and peeks out. She sees three fires glowing against the edge of the land.

The next day, Pa heads off to work again. All day Laura and Mary hear the cattle bawling and see the dust blowing. Suddenly, a dozen longhorn cattle come rushing up the draw away from the creek. A cowboy on a spotted mustang gallops madly to get in front of them. He waves his big hat and shouts, "Hi! Yi-yi-yi!" as they gallop out of sight.

Laura spends the rest of the afternoon running back and forth, waving her sunbonnet and shouting like a cowboy. Ma finally tells her to stop. It is not ladylike to yell like a cowboy.

Late that afternoon, three riders came out of the west, driving a cow and her little baby. One of the riders is Pa, and he explains that the calf is too little for the journey and the cow is too skinny to sell so the cowboys have given them to Pa.

Ma, Mary, and Laura are so excited and even Baby Carrie laughs for joy. Now they will have milk to drink and butter for their cornbread.

The cow is wild and doesn't want Pa to milk her, but he pushes her against the stable and drives some slabs deep into the ground on the other side. The slabs hold her tight so she can't get away, and Pa milks her. He gets a tin cup almost full of milk.

"Tomorrow I'll build a strong, high yard for the cow, that the wolves can't get into." Pa says.

That night, Baby Carrie enjoys drinking her milk, for they all decide she should have it all. But everyone enjoys the delicious beef steaks and cornbread. As they eat, they listen to the far away songs of the cowboys.

Thoughts:
I already knew from a previous chapter that there are no cows in this area for me to practice milking. OK, there are some wild cows, and that would fit very well with this chapter, but even my bravado quails at the thought of being seen chasing someone's wild beef cattle through a field, trying to milk them.

There are no free-range herds heading through here to the happenin' Canadian cattle markets, so riding the open range wasn't an option either. But, like Laura, I could always embrace the mystique of the lonesome cowboy.

Yes, I would become a cowboy.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

"Laura ran back and forth, waving her sunbonnet and yelling, "Hi! Yi-yi-yi!" till Ma told her to stop. It was not ladylike to yell like that. Laura wished she could be a cowboy."

The first stop on my pathway to cowboy-hood was the thrift store. Cowboys were very thrifty people, after all, and wouldn't have felt any shame in wearing someone's cast off duds. You never can tell when someone will randomly decide to unload hundreds of dollars of beautiful Western finery in just the perfect size for you. But you can tell it wasn't today. I did get a couple of cute shirts and a nice jacket, so all was not lost.

Then I moved on to a fancy-shmancy high-end department store. Yes, I'm talking about Penney's. I haven't bought a new-from-the-store pair of jeans for myself in over 5 years, and when I did, they were always from Walmart. A real cowboy doesn't skimp in the jeans department---cheap jeans have brought out the yodel in more than one hapless son of the range. I was going high quality all the way, baby!

Evidently, in my years of absence from the jean market, it has gotten---ahem--a tad more difficult to find a pair that fits my girlish figure. To save my readers from the trauma I had to endure, I am including a handy field guide to the Language of Jeans.

Low-rise: You'll put the "muffin" in muffin-top, girlfriend!

Boot cut: Made for a giraffe. I'm more along the lines of a pygmy horse.

Flattering fit: If you're a Brazilian super-model. If you're not, don't bother.

Skinny jeans: Free humiliation with every purchase!

Attractive embroidery and design: Will only appear on low-rise or skinny jeans. Those of you shaped like normal people are out of luck.

I should also include a little warning about fitting room mirrors. Don't look in them. Just don't.

It was challenging, but flinty determination is a fitting character trait for any cowboy. I persevered and walked out of there with a pair of jeans I didn't absolutely hate. Score one for me. Now, on to boot shopping.

I'd like to think that back in the old days things weren't quite as expensive, but they probably were. Every part of your wardrobe served an important function, and in the right circumstances could make the difference between life and death. Boot were made by hand, and made to last. I'd priced boots before, so I was a little prepared, but nothing truly readies you for the sensation of staring down at a *gasp* $150 price tag for fancy feet boxes.

I shopped at a couple different stores. I went to the store with the biggest selection first, but didn't really find a pair I really loved. For *gasp* $150 dollars, I want a torrid passion. I finally picked a pair, but they just left me feeling "meh". The boots were pretty, but didn't pop like I wanted them to, so after I bought them, I decided to look at one more store.

The second store had only a couple of pairs in the style I was looking for. But both of them were absolutely gorgeous. I finally picked the one that was a little wider in the leg, since for *gasp* $150 I expected to get quite a bit of mileage out of them (think "Ya-ya Sisterhood of the Traveling Boots") and not everyone has my shapely (read: scrawny) legs.

I also picked up a cowboy hat there, because no cowboy would be caught out on the open trail without his hat. The sun was brutal, and if you lost your hat, you might be forced into wearing----oh, the horror---a sunbonnet. Besides, I looked cute in it.

The next day was picture day! Time to get all dressed up in my duds and put on my best Giddyup. My mom and sister each had an outfit, and we all planned to share the boots around for our portraits. The setting was a rustic barn just outside of town----I arrived just after my mom and sister.

"I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy."

"I see by your outfits that you are cowboys, too."

(It's a Smothers Brothers joke...you had to be there)

Then we got down to the serious business of looking beautiful. At our age, it takes some fierce focusing to pull it off!

It was lots of fun getting to be the Montanan version of a princess for the day. I'm not the type that does the whole "getting fixed up and going out" thing very much, so I really enjoyed shucking off my work-a-day persona for a couple hours. And I got to do it without the actual inconveniences of the real cowboy experience.

Dust, bugs, saddle sores. You can keep them.

I'll just stand around looking cute.

Chapter 12: Fresh Water to Drink

2012-11-16T07:11:00.001-08:00

"Next morning Pa marked a large circle in the grass near the corner of the house. With his spade he cut the sod inside the circle, and lifted it up in large pieces. Then he began to shovel out the earth, digging himself deeper and deeper down."

Pa needs to make his trip to town, but before he can go, he must dig a well so Ma will have fresh water while he is gone. Pa cuts the circle into the earth and begins to dig and dig. Laura and Mary must not go near the edge of the well while Pa is digging, but they can see the shovelfuls of dirt that he throws up over the edge.

At last the well is so deep Pa can't throw the dirt high enough to reach the top. He will have to have help from here, so he takes his gun and rides Patty over to Mr. Scott's house to ask him to lend a hand. The next morning at sunup, Mr. Scott arrives to help.

Pa and Mr. Scott make a windlass over the well. It has a handle that turns, and one bucket goes down, and one bucket comes up. They take turns going down into the well to dig; in the morning Mr. Scott digs, and in the afternoon it's Pa's turn.

Every morning before Mr. Scott goes down into the well, Pa sends down a lighted candle. As long as the flame stays lit, Pa knows it is safe to breathe at the bottom. Mr. Scott thinks it's a bunch of nonsense, and one morning, when he arrives before Pa is outside, he begins work without checking the air.

Ma, Laura, and Mary are working in the house when they hear Pa shout, "Scott! Scott!" Then he calls, "Caroline, come quick!"

Ma runs to where Pa is tying the rope firmly around the windlass. He is going after Mr. Scott, who has fainted at the bottom of the well.

"No, Charles! Don't," Ma begs.

"We can't just let him die down there. I won't breathe until I get out."

Ma begs some more, but Pa is firm. He swings into the well and slides out of sight.

After what seems like a very long time, Ma pulls at the windlass and Pa comes up out of the well, hand-over-hand. He climbs out of the well and sits on the ground. Ma sends Laura for some water, and when she gets back, Pa and Ma are both turning the windlass. Slowly the other bucket comes up and Laura sees Mr. Scott slumped over the bucket.

Pa pulls Mr. Scott out onto the grass. He feels Mr. Scott's wrist and listens to his heart. "He's breathing," Pa says.

Pa and Mr. Scott take it easy the rest of the day. The next morning, Pa takes Laura out to the well. He drops some gun powder into the well and lights it. There is a muffled bang and smoke comes up out of the hole. "There, that will drive the gas out of the hold," Pa says.

It takes many more days of digging, but finally there is water in the bottom of the well. When the water comes in Pa almost gets sucked into the muddy slime, and he has to climb out quickly. Soon the well fills with fresh, clean water. Pa makes a strong wooden cover to go over the hole, and Laura and Mary are told they must never touch it. But whenever they are thirsty, Ma lifts the cover and draws a dripping bucket of cool water from the well.

Thoughts:
Gather round, children. It's time for family fun with methane! Oh goody!

Sadly, in the complete absence of volunteers lining up to be nearly suffocated, (I'll just take you to the brink. I promise!) I was forced to look elsewhere for inspiration. It wasn't hard to find; I only had to go as far as the real hero of the story----the lowly candle.

It was the candle that kept everyone safe, and it was in failing to use the candle that Mr. Scott found his life in danger. Candles must have oxygen to burn, and if the well-pit was full of gas, the candle would be snuffed out. Much cheaper than a canary, and not as cruel. Pa Ingalls, the first animal rights activist.

I had a bag of wax shavings that someone gave me, but I was missing a few other key ingredients. Like wicks and something to melt the wax in. In looking up candle making online, I was strictly warned never, NEVER to melt wax without a thermometer. It's best to have a special kettle with the thermometer built in, but at least have a good candy thermometer to avoid over-heating the wax. Which will then burst into flames.

Well, no candy thermometer, and I'm pretty sure that Campbell's soup cans don't come with thermometers built in. But at least I used a double boiler!

Ssh, don't tell anyone, but I got the wick from breaking open a 12" taper I already had. I could have tried to make my own, but I didn't have any Borax on hand. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I began melting the wax at a very low temperature since I was paranoid it was going to burst into flames at the first opportunity. Which it didn't. It didn't even melt, really, besides forming a gloppy mass in the bottom of the can.

Building a log cabin would have been faster. It was time to bring the heat.

Once I turned up the heat to a decent level, the water started boiling and the wax started to melt.

When everything was melted I began the tedious process of dipping the wick into the wax. It was even more tedious than usual because for a while I forgot the important step of dipping the candle in water between each dunking. Because the wax was staying hot, it just slid off each time I dipped it again.

I hadn't done this since summer camp about 20 years ago, OK!

After I started cooling the candle each time I dipped it, the wax started accumulating very quickly. "Very quickly" being a relative term....as in quicker than knitting the Taj Mahal with your teeth.

Ah! Done at last. Sure, the candles could have been a bit bigger, but who wants over-weight candles, anyway? I like my candles slim and delicate. Ethereal, almost.

Since I still had quite a bit of wax in the can, I decided to make a snow candle. It was just for fun, since I didn't have a wick to put in it, but I wanted to see what it would turn out like.

Not good.

Evidently, you're supposed to dig a hole in the snow before you pour the wax.

Well, now I'll know for next time. In the meantime, my parents have some lovely yellow snow in their front yard! I'm sure they'll be thanking me any time now.

"Every morning, before Pa would let Mr. Scott go down the rope, he set a candle in a bucket and lighted it and lowered it to the bottom. Once Laura peeped over the edge and she saw the candle brightly burning, far down in the dark hole in the ground.

Then Pa would say, "Seems to be all right," and he would pull up the bucket and blow out the candle."

Time to take the candle for a test drive. Was the air in our house fit to breathe? Well, that's debatable in any house inhabited by a teenage boy, but the candle burned, so I guess the air hasn't gotten too rank yet.

You never could have proved it by me....

Chapter 11: Indians in the House

2012-10-25T09:01:00.002-07:00

"Mary! Look!" Laura cried. Mary looked and saw them, too.

They were tall, thin, fierce-looking men. Their skin was brownish-red. Their heads seemed to go up to a peak, and the peak was a tuft of hair that stood straight up and ended in feathers. Their eyes were black and still and glittering, like snake's eyes.

They came closer and closer. Then they went out of sight, on the other side of the house."

Pa is ready to make the bedstead when Ma tells him they are out of meat for dinner. So he leans the wood against the wall, takes his gun, and heads out across the prairie. Poor Jack is tied up so he can't tag along and spoil the hunting.

Laura and Mary feel very sorry for Jack, but Pa told them not to let him off the chain. They spend the morning out petting him and trying to make him feel better, but Jack is too sad. But suddenly Jack stands up with a fierce growl, the hair on his neck standing straight up.

Laura looks over her shoulder and sees two Indians approaching. They walk by the girls and go to the other side of the cabin. Laura and Mary wait for them to pass by the other side, but when they don't reappear, the girls realize that the Indians are in the cabin with Ma and Baby Carrie.

Laura wants to do something to help Ma, and she is about to let Jack off the chain when Mary reminds her that Pa said not to.

"But Pa didn't know the Indians would come...." Laura argues.

"He said not to," said Mary, almost crying.

It is hard, but Laura knows she must obey Pa, even though she is scared. The two girls know they must help Ma, so they run across the yard and slip into the house. Laura runs towards Ma, but then she smells a horrible smell and sees the Indians. She ducks behind the wood that Pa had left leaning against the wall.

From there she can watch the Indians as they quietly eat the cornbread Ma had made them. She sees that they are wearing black and white striped animal skins around their waists. Laura knows those are skunk skins. That is what is making the smell.

After the Indians have eaten, they say something to Ma in their own language and softly walk out of the cabin on their bare feet. Ma lets out a big sigh and hugs Laura and Mary.

When Pa comes home he has a rabbit and two prairie hens for dinner. He skins the rabbit and tells the girls he will salt the pelt and peg it to the side of the house. Then a lucky little girl would get a warm fur hat for winter.

During dinner, everyone tells Pa about their adventure. Laura says that if they had turned Jack loose, he would have eaten those Indians right up. Pa turns to Laura and says in a dreadful voice, "Did you even think of letting Jack loose?"

Laura can't speak, but Mary pipes up, "Yes, Pa."

Pa sighs and says to the girls in a terrible voice, "After this you girls remember to always do as you're told. Don't you even think of disobeying me. Do you hear?"

"Yes, Pa." Laura and Mary whisper.

Thoughts:
First of all, let me clarify that it is not my intention to slur any race in this chapter. While it is written from Laura's perspective, a young, impressionable white girl, I am sure that the native tribes had their own choice descriptions to make about the white settlers. In sum, there was a certain lack of political correctness on both sides of the aisle in those days.

Now that I've got that out of the way....I read this chapter with growing horror at the obvious project. Of course, I could have taken the easy way out and made corn bread, but you can't take a chapter this exciting and turn it into a corn bread recipe.

No, the natural project would be to skin a skunk.

I wouldn't even have to kill one myself, because it is the time of year when a young skunk's thoughts turn to love, and the roads are littered with unlucky romantic swains and swainlets. But could I sacrifice so much, even for my literary dedication?

As it turns out, no.

There are limits, even for me, and smelling like a skunk for several weeks is well within the limits of "Ain't Gonna Happen". So the next best thing I could think of was to find a friendly taxidermist and skin something else.

I searched around a little bit. We are in a heavy hunting area, so there are a few guys to choose from, but each one had his own niche. The first one I talked to only does skulls anymore. Well, that was no help to my mission, but he gave me the name of a man in Dagmar who does other taxidermy work.

I called Ralph Summers up and found that he doesn't do skins anymore either, but he still does head mounts. To do a head mount, you have to prepare the head and shoulders of the animal the same way as any animal skin, and he just so happened to have a couple of deer skins that he was going to be working on the very next day.

"'Come on, Mary and Laura!" Pa said. "We'll skin that rabbit and dress the prairie hens while that cornbread bakes. Hurry! I'm hungry as a wolf."

They sat on the woodpile in the wind and sunshine and watched Pa work with his hunting knife. The big rabbit was shot through the eye, and the prairie hens' heads were shot clean away. They never knew what hit them, Pa said."

Alas, the animals had been skinned in the field, so I missed that lovely process, but once in the shop the hide had to be cleaned. All the fat and muscle had to be trimmed off with a knife and the the last, tiny pieces had to be scraped off with a scalpel. You can use a draw knife to clean the hide, but Mr. Summers prefers the knife and scalpel method.

Tiggy was so fortunate to be available as my assistant. She's been bugging me about being a guest helper on this blog, but I'm not sure she expected her debut to be on "Taxidermy Day". Que sera, sera. Be careful what you wish for.

Holding a salted hide.

We arrived at his shop and were greeted warmly by Mr. Summers, a gracious host who took the time to answer all my questions. Taxidermy is a very interesting, albeit disgusting, process. The steps are pretty basic. An animal is skinned, then the hide is prepared by cleaning it thoroughly and salting the hide to aid in drying.

Back from the tannery.

Then it is sent off to a professional tannery. The happy people at the tannery get to use all the smelly, gross chemicals, and you get a nice, soft hide back in the mail. The taxidermist fits the hide to a pre-made Styrofoam form, making sure to reunite the right antlers back with the right deer.

Voila! A beautiful deer mount ready to be the bane of some wife's existence.

The finished work.

It's a nice, clean process for the hunter. After the initial skinning (and let's face it, if you're going to hunt and eat stuff, you're not that squeamish), he doesn't see it again until it's respectably hanging on the wall, staring at him with a glassy, slightly-reproachful gaze. But the middle stages are not so pretty. I know this.

Yes, that's me. Aproned up in protective gear covered with bits and pieces of a previous badger, according to my host. I brought my own gloves, thank you very much. This vegetarian prefers to keep blood and guts at a distance. I'm holding a very sharp, very business-like knife that is used to trim the fat and muscle from a skin. If you're Mr. Summers, that is. For me, it's used to hack comically and ineffectively at the unyielding flesh.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First a video where our experienced host demonstrates the art of fleshing. So quick. So easy.

"Laura held the edge of the rabbit skin while Pa's keen knife ripped it off the rabbit meat. "I'll salt this skin and peg it out on the house wall to dry," he said. "It will make a warm fir cap for some little girl to wear next winter.'"

Not so with me, my little friend. I was afraid of slicing through the skin and making a hole in someone's prize deer skin, but I needn't have worried. That knife wasn't going anywhere for me. It didn't help that I was completely grossed out by the cold, clammy, stretchy dead thing in front of me.

Tiggy did a little better than I did, but she was still pathetic compared to our host's example. I guess there is something to be said for 30 years of experience working with everything from reindeer to African Cape Buffalo.

After the first, rough cleaning of a skin, you get to the finer work. I didn't actually work with the scalpel. Somehow, after watching me flail away with the big knife, Mr. Summers failed to offer me a chance with the scalpel. But we did get to see the skin he was trimming up. It gets completely turned inside out. Did you know that deers' ears can turn inside out? Well, they can, and it is a very unattractive look, let me assure you.

From this.....

To this......

So, will I ever become a taxidermist? I'm a big believer in "never say 'never'", but I would predict the chances are pretty low. This veggie eater is glad to live in an era where flesh-free eating is both possible and practical. But I suppose I would have survived chowing down on furry little animals back then if I'd had to.

Maybe.

Chapter 10: A Roof and a Floor

2012-10-18T20:18:00.002-07:00

"Pa had taken the canvas wagon-top off the house, and now he was ready to put the roof on. For days and days, he had been hauling logs from the creek bottoms and splitting them into thin, long slabs. Piles of slabs lay all around the house and slabs stood against it."

Laura and Mary are busy every day; they are never bored. After they help with chores, they hurry into the tall, tall grass to hunt for birds' nests. They see prairie chickens running here and there, and slithering grass snakes hunting for mice. Sometimes they find soft gray rabbits huddled perfectly still in the grass. And all the time they are minding Baby Carrie so Ma can do her work. No, there is never time to be bored on the prairie.

Pa is busy, too. He is beginning the roof of the little log cabin. He begins at the bottom edge of the roof and fits a slab over the rafters, then fastens it to the roof using real iron nails that Mr. Edwards has loaned him. Nails are very precious, and if one of them jumps out of its hole and sails through the air, Mary and Laura watch until it falls. Then they must search the grass until they find it.

One by one the slabs are hammered on until the whole roof is finished. Pa makes a little trough from two slabs and covers the peak of the roof. Now no rain can get in and they are snug and warm. It is time to make the floor.

Pa splits each log down the middle using his ax and wedge to drive a long crack the length of the log. After all the logs are split, Pa drags them into the house and lays them split side up. He uses his shovel and hollows the dirt out so the round side of each log fits firmly into the ground.

He uses the head of his ax and makes little, careful chops to smooth out any rough places on the wood. It takes a long time, but when he is finished the wood is smooth with no splinters to hurt little feet. Ma tells Pa she is glad to be off the dirt and puts a nice, red table cloth on the wood table Pa had made her.

The last thing Pa does is chink all the cracks between the logs. He fills them with thin strips of wood and then plasters them with mud. No wind can blow through those thick, warm logs and Pa, Ma, Mary, Laura, and Baby Carrie are ready for winter.

Thoughts:
Hmmmmm. Putting in a roof and a floor. Fortunately for me, though unfortunately for this blog, my house came complete with roof and floor. There's no time for me to build a roofless cabin, so I had to improvise. Thankfully, my roof is not without its....er....problems in need of repair.

Actually, my whole roof needs to be replaced, but the finances say that won't happen for a year or two (or three or twenty). But there were a couple spots where the shingles had completely blown off the rafters. I could have gone all Polyanna and tried to convince myself that they were skylights, but I'm kind of a diva that way. I actually want my roof to keep out the blizzards, not welcome them in.

The area to be repaired was about 3'x4', and close enough to the edge of the roof that I could just stand on the ladder for the repairs. Good news, because that meant I didn't have to try and get any scaffolding up there. But it would have been nice to have a solid platform under me. Have I mentioned I don't really like heights?

Actually, I don't have a problem with heights as long as I stay in them. It's that rapid descent from them that I have a problem with.

It actually looks much higher in person.

My dad came out to supervise, because this may surprise you, but I don't actually know what I'm doing when it comes to roofs. My dad would do great in quality control, because if it ain't done right, you're gonna do it again.

Under his supervision, the first step was to fasten a piece of tar paper over the roof-less section. First, I used liquid tar to stick it down around the edges. Liquid tar is a very messy substance that sticks to everything, except possibly your roof. But it is very important, and in spite of its messy nature, it is used everywhere. I ended up with tar on my fingers, tar on the ladder, tar on my clothes, tar all over the ground, and tar my dad's nail gun. I even ended up with tar on my dad, a fact that was not received well by Mr. I-Can-Do-All-This-Without-Making-a-Mess.

"Pa reached down and pulled up a slab. He laid it across the ends of the sapling rafters. Its edge stuck out beyond the wall. Then Pa put some nails in his mouth and took his hammer out of his belt, and he began to nail the slab to the rafters."

Then I got to use the nail gun to tack down the tar paper and put on the shingles. Using the nail gun is exciting because it has a hair trigger. As you stretch out to the limits of your reach (because you are short and shrimpy), and gingerly squeeze the trigger while trying to stay balanced on top of your ladder, it gives you quite a thrill to have 3 or 4 nails shoot out with a noise like a machine gun. Under the circumstances, screaming can be helpful to relieve feelings.

After the tar paper was down, it was time to put on the shingles. Shingling is pretty fun. You glop your shingle up with tar, then plop it on the roof and nail it down with the nail gun. It's important to alternate the pattern of shingles so you don't end up with straight lines going up. It's also important to stick the edges down well with tar, especially around here where 95% of the year is hurricane season.

"The roof was done. The house was darker than it had been, because no light came through the slabs. There was not one single crack that would let rain come in."

My repair job turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself. I even did a couple of spots on the other side of the house once my dad left, but without my quality control inspector here they didn't turn out quite as nicely. In my defense, it was starting to rain, and the wind was starting to blow a lot harder. Not a good time to be up on a ladder, especially when---did I mention it?---I'm not very fond of heights.

"There," Ma said. "Now we're living like civilized folks again."

Just like the Ingalls' house, my home is really starting to come together now. Of course, it's been almost 2 years since I moved in, not one short summer season, but in my defense I have to be both Pa and Ma to my family. That does make things take a little longer. But I can still identify with the thrill of accomplishment that comes from making things better with your own hands. People who can afford to simply hire someone to do their work are sure missing out on a lot---a lot of blisters and aching muscles, true, but also a sense of competence and confidence that no amount of money can buy.

Chapter 9: A Fire on the Hearth

2012-09-25T10:02:00.001-07:00

"Outside the house, close to the log wall opposite the door, Pa cut away the grass and scraped the ground smooth. He was getting ready to build the fireplace.

Then he and Ma put the wagon-box on the wheels again, and Pa hitched up Pet and Patty...Pa was whistling while he climbed to the wagon-seat and took up the reins. Then he looked down at Laura, who was looking up at him, and he stopped whistling and said: "Want to go along, Laura? You and Mary?"

Now that there is a nice, strong door on the cabin, Pa turns his attention to building a fireplace. Ma has been cooking outside in the prairie wind, and Pa wants her to be able to cook in comfort. He prepares the ground for a fireplace, then heads down to the creek bottom to fetch rocks.

Laura and Mary are so excited to be able to go with Pa. They see deer, rabbits, snakes, and squirrels. They play in the warm sun along the creek, chasing frogs and watching minnows dart in and out of the shadows. They see lots of mosquitoes, too, but they don't like them!

At last Pa says they can wade in a very shallow part of the creek. Mary doesn't wade for very long because the pebbles hurt her feet, but Laura wades up and down. The minnows nibble on her toes; Laura tries and tries to catch one, but they always get away.

Then it is time to head back up onto the high prairie. When they get back to the house, Pa unloads the rocks and begins the fireplace. He lays a row of rocks down, then spreads the tops and down the inside with mud. He lays another row of rocks on top and does the same thing again. The walls grow taller and taller until they are as high as the roof.

The next day, Ma suggests that Pa do the rest of the chimney using stick-and-daub. He is glad to follow her suggestion because the rocks were getting very hard to lift to the top of the walls. Soon the chimney is all done, and Pa goes inside and chops out the wall in front of the fireplace. Now there is a large opening, big enough for Laura, Mary, and Carrie to all get inside. The chimney is at the top, the front is the cabin, and the back is the rock wall that Pa built.

That night, Ma cooks supper inside. She is very happy.

Thoughts:
Ooooh, I am so excited! I am finally finishing this chapter and am able to move on. I started this back in the spring, but shipwrecked right at the beginning where Pa prepares the ground by scraping it clean. I mowed a spot to work on my project, but before I could do anything, the grass had grown back already. Spring and summer are very busy times around here, and I've spent the past 5 months chopping the weeds in the same stupid spot, never having the time to actually finish. I felt like a hamster on an exercise wheel!

In reading this chapter, I quickly discarded any thought of building a stone fireplace onto my house or chopping holes in it. Poor thing is already falling down; no need to weaken it further! Outdoor stone masonry was definitely the way to go. I toyed with the idea of building a stone bread oven, but ironically discarded that suggestion because "it would take to long."

I settled on a fire-pit, just the thing for cozy marshmallow roasts and crisp ~~spring~~ fall nights. Like I said, the first thing I did was cut the grass around the area. And then continued that for the next 5 months. Finally, a couple weeks ago things settled down enough that I was able to begin making some new progress.

"Laura and Mary played by the creek, while Pa dug the rocks he wanted and loaded them into the wagon."

Caleb and I started hauling rocks from the many rock piles that litter the fields around here. Years ago, when this land was first broken up for farming, brave pioneers hauled tons of rocks from the fields and piled them here and there across the land. When I first moved here, I was reluctant to touch them without the owner's permission. Turns out there was no need to worry---the farmers just laughed when I asked. It had never occurred to them that someone would want extra rocks, but they certainly didn't mind, if I was crazy enough to want 'em.

When starting a stone project, it helps to keep this rule in mind. Haul 3 times as many rocks as you think you'll need. If you do that, you should have to make only 2 or 3 more trips to get more. Thankfully, we no longer have to use a mule and a stone boat....vans are much easier.

I dug out the circle for the fire-pit. It was difficult to get through the initial layer of matted grass roots; when I tried, I discovered that it peeled back in pieces like the old sod bricks. Maybe I'll have to make myself a soddy after all! The cats LOVED the little circle, with its nice, fresh dirt. They seemed to think I was making it just for them.

"First he mixed clay and water to a beautiful thick mud, in the mustangs' water bucket. He let Laura stir the mud while he laid a row of rocks around three sides of the space he had cleared by the house-wall."

Once the circle was ready and the rocks were hauled, it was time to go get the mud. Of course I headed down to the flooded road, an excellent source for all things muddy. It only took a couple minutes to fill three buckets with squishy, aromatic mud. Clay is best for good daub, but if you can't find any, it helps to have a mud that is 10 % dirt, 10% water, 60% pond slime, and 75% duck poop. All that vegetable matter makes it nice and strong, and the duck poop only adds to the experience once you get to the part where you're squishing it between your fingers.

It was getting late by the time we got the buckets back to the house, but I couldn't resist laying down the first layer rock. Then I couldn't resist squishing them with mud and laying down the next layer of rock. By then I could tell we'd have to get more rock, so I had to quit.

It was a couple days before I had the time to haul more rock, but as soon as I could, I was back out there with a bucket getting a bunch more small rock. We'd hauled enough larger pieces, but quickly found that you needed small ones to fit around the large ones; otherwise your fire-pit ends up mostly mud, with a few large rocks thrown in.

"With rocks and mud and more rocks and more mud, he built the walls as high as Laura's chin. Then on the walls, close against the house, he laid a log. He plastered the log all over with mud.

After that, he built up rocks and mud on top of that log. He was making the chimney now, and he made it smaller and smaller."

The next day, Caleb and I freshened the mud mixture and set in to finish the fire-pit. Here is a free helpful hint if you plan on building your own stone project some day: Put your hair in a ponytail----once you find out it's a good idea, it's too late. I didn't take the time, being so eager to get started, and it turned out to be a rather windy day. I had mud on my cheeks, mud on my ears, mud on my forehead, all from trying to keep the hair out of my face. But the fire-pit was coming along nicely!

We built the fire-pit as tall as we wanted, then laid one final row of flat stones across the top. The fire-pit was finished, but you can't complete a fire-pit without an inaugural fire in it. Only problem was that the weather has been so dry all summer it isn't safe to have any fire, even in a beautiful fire-pit. So Caleb and I waited until a windless night and built a fire anyway. Using a tiny little pyramid of tooth picks.

Even though the fire was small, we had a bucket of water there and the hose going, just in case.After all, it was my own father that burnt a whole wheat field in his youth, after playing with an innocent-seeming candle. I am a firm believer that you can't be too careful when it comes to flames. Still, after dousing the toothpick fire with a five-gallon bucket of water, I think it would have been hard-pressed to muster even a little spark.

"So Ma carefully built a little fire in the new fireplace, and she roasted a prairie hen for supper. And that evening they ate in the house."

But we'd had our hearts set on a nice hot dog roast. I don't care how determined you are, you can't roast a hot dog over a thirty-second toothpick fire. But that doesn't mean you can't roast hot dogs. Not if you are inventive and don't mind your house warming up anyway.

It's been a couple days since we finished the fire-pit, but the new-fire-pit glow hasn't worn off yet. I really like it and can't wait to use it, even if I have to go out in the middle of a snowstorm in January in order to be fire safe.

I am looking forward to relaxed evenings around the fire, laughing, spending time with family, and building memories. Our fast-paced society is able to summon a world of information and entertainment to our fingertips---all within seconds, but we don't often take the time to be with the ones closest to us. Now, no fireplace will magically grab me, force me to sit down, and make me relax, but if nothing else, I'll have to sit out there and make sure the kids don't burn the world up! That's a form of relaxation, isn't it?

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL!?

Chapter 8: Two Stout Doors

2012-03-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

"After breakfast Pa hitched up Pet and Patty, and taking his ax he went to get timber for the door. Laura helped wash the dishes and make the beds, but that day Mary minded the baby. Laura helped Pa make the door. Mary watched, but Laura handed him his tools."

After his encounter with the wolves and having them surround the cabin that night, Pa decides it is time to build a door. He hasn't done it yet because he is out of nails, but there are other ways of door-building than just using nails. Laura gets to help him because there is lots to do to make a door from scratch.

First, Pa takes the saw and saws the logs to the right length to make a door. Then he saws two shorter lengths for the cross-pieces. After all the pieces are the proper size, Pa takes the ax, splits the logs into slabs, and smooths the rough wood nicely.

He lays the long boards on the ground with the short boards across them, then takes his auger and bores holes through the cross pieces and into the door slabs. He drives wooden pegs into the holes and the door is held together.

He makes the hinges out of three straps of leather fastened to the door with pegs, and to the strong door-frame with more pegs. He makes the door latch out of a long, smooth stick that can be moved up and down by pulling a string if you are outside and by using your hands if you are inside. If you wanted to keep someone out, you could pull the string back through the door and there was no way for them to get in.
It is a very good, strong door.

The next day Pa goes hunting because they are out of meat, but the day after that Laura and Pa make the door for the barn. It is made just like the first door, except with no latch because Pet and Patty don't know how to use one. Instead, Pa drills holes through the door and barn wall and fastens a stout chain with a strong lock. No one can get into the stable and no one can get into the house.

"Now we're all snug," Pa says.

Thoughts:
I don't know about you, but after this latest project I'm starting to get a little suspicious about the accuracy of some of Laura's recollections. Like Pa building a door start-to-finish in one day---I mean, I could see a week or so, but one day? I'm not so sure....

Our chapter begins with Pa suddenly getting religion when it comes to solid doors. I'm sure Ma had felt the yearnin' for quite some time, but nothing like a pack of giant wolves around your wiffle-ball house to inspire a man to bump security to the top of the to-do list.

And to be fair, I can totally understand Pa's side of things. He didn't have any nails left, so it was easy to put off door building until he had a chance to get to town for the proper equipment. But sometimes life demands we forge ahead without the ideal setup, and in true pioneer spirit, Pa met the challenge with skill and flair.

As hard as it is to believe in this age of instant assembly, a great deal of the world's lasting creations were made under very primitive circumstances. It was, and still is, possible to build many things without using nails in the process. I decided to carry on this noble pioneer tradition by making something using nail-less construction. Of course, I'm not crazy, so I wasn't about to start out with something hard like a door---making a little footstool was a big enough challenge for a beginner such as myself.

I didn't worry about having the right tools for the job. See, I have a very special father. He has taken for his personal life motto the phrases, "What if?" and "You never know...." He's never met a tool he didn't like, and once he gets his hands on them, they're prisoners for life. Evidently, somewhere in his past, he decided that "What if?" would probably involve building a log cabin from scratch someday, so all I had to do was borrow from his knowledge and store of equipment.

My footstool-to-be

I began with my wood in its most virgin state---well, not quite virgin---the tree had fallen down last winter and part of it was already cut into short sections. I selected a log I judged to be the right size and began the process of splitting it to make a board.

This may surprise you, but I am not actually that skilled with an ax, so the log resembled a toothbrush on each end by the time I got done hacking at it. Once I had a deep enough cut in the wood, I was able to fit the wedge in and begin hitting it with a sledgehammer. This may surprise you, but I am not actually that skilled with a sledgehammer, either. I broke the handle by overshooting the wedge and slamming the wood of the handle down on the iron wedge. Repeatedly. I'm glad my dad loves me!

First one side of the log split off, and then the other. I was left with a thick, rough wood plank just the right size for a cute little footstool. That was the first day.

The next day I began my work of smoothing the board. The rough work was done at first with an ax, but I whined my way out of that as soon as possible. This may surprise you, but I'm not actually that skilled with an ax....still. My arms were killing me, too. No need for Pioneer90X---you burned your calories in honest labor back in those days!

After my shrill keening convinced my dad that the board was smooth enough to move on to the next step, he got out his sculptor's adze for me to use in the smoothing process. A full size adze is like an ax on a hoe handle and used standing over your work, but this one was for handwork use. It helped smooth the ridges in the board and take out the largest splinters, but even with that, you'd still need protective padding before you'd dare sit on it.

When my arms couldn't take it anymore, I took a break by sawing the legs off of branches from my parents' woodpile. It still used my arm muscles, but at least they were different ones! That was the second day.

These are the tools I used in creation of my footstool. Of course, the ax, sledgehammer, and wedge were used in cutting the board out. The other tools are (from the top down): a saw, a draw knife (R), a brace-and-bit (L), a plane, calipers, a ruler, and (L) a pocket knife.

On the third day I began the final work of smoothing it . My dad had told me that in pioneer times, before the invention of sandpaper, they would smooth the roughest parts of the board, but then (especially for floors) they would drag a heavy stone back and forth across the boards until the floor was safe and smooth. Let me tell you, you would have kept your boots on at my house, because this whole sanding-with-a-rock thing is a real drag! It does work though, and my board almost didn't look like a porcupine before I called it good.

Everything was now in readiness for the detailed hand-working. The labor moved into my dad's man-cave--his heated Garage o' Wonder. I clamped the board to a sawhorse and smoothed it still further using a plane and then the draw knife. The draw knife is pretty cool...you lay it almost flat to the board and then pull it towards you, shaving off little whorls of wood as you go.

The board was ready; now to prepare the legs. I clamped each stick by turn to the sawhorse and used the draw knife to trim the bark from one end and to smooth out any bulges that would get in the way of placing the legs properly. Then I sawed a little slit in each end to fit the wedges in when it was time to assemble things. This was the third day.

On the fourth day all my labor got to come together into a finished project...at last! First I used the calipers to measure the circumference of the ends of the legs. I needed to know what size of bit to use to drill each hole, since the legs weren't all one size. Then I used the brace and bit to drill holes in the seat of the footstool, another great opportunity for growing my upper body strength.

After the holes were drilled, it was time to install the legs. To help keep the legs nice and snug in their holes, I was using a wedge construction. It is done by cutting a slit in the end of each leg, then placing a wedge into the tip. When you hammer the leg down into the hole, the wedge is driven in the rest of the way in and spreads the wood so that it fits very tightly inside its socket. Sadly, this meant I had to cut out wedges. This may surprise you, but I am not actually that good at cutting wedges. They were more like chunks. Hey, square is the new taper! At my dad's insistence, I kept at it until I had 4 passable wedges, which I then trimmed to fit the depth of the hole and width of the slit.

Good! Now I was finally ready to put this thing together! Just in case the perfection of my craftsmanship might be a little bit lacking, I slathered the legs with glue before I pounded them into their holes. And no, I didn't make the glue from scratch. I felt I'd achieved quite enough authenticity for one project.

Voila! Pioneer perfection using no nails. But half a bottle of Gorilla Glue. Does that still count?

So what did I learn this time around? Well, for one thing, I learned when doing wood work it is best to spread your legs wide. You end up with an awful lot of very sharp things swinging towards some very sensitive areas.

I also learned a little about how much the value of things have changed. In pioneer days a little girl or boy would have been delighted to receive this little footstool as a gift. They would know that it represented hours of hard labor poured out simply out of love for them and they probably would remember receiving it all of their lives. If I gave it to a kid today, they'd look at it for a second and ask, "Where's the cord?"

In our culture today, if something breaks or wears out, we throw it away without another thought, in full confidence that an anonymous foreign worker in a far-away sweatshop will make us another one. Through this project, I've discovered how much pride and sense of accomplishment we've lost in that system. My footstool is seriously flawed, and until I get the legs trimmed evenly, rocks back and forth like a rocking chair. But I am prouder of it than almost anything else I've ever made. I took a raw piece of wood and wrested a (semi)functional piece of furniture out of it. That is really cool! Much neater than going to the store and getting a mass-produced one that would last a week before breaking.

Chapter 7: The Wolf-pack

2012-03-19T15:17:00.001-07:00

"Early that Sunday afternoon Pa rode Patty away across the prairie to see what he should see. There was plenty of meat in the house, so he did not take his gun.

He rode away through the tall grass, along the rim of the creek bluffs. Birds flew up before him and circled and sank into the grasses. Pa was looking down into the creek bottoms as he rode; perhaps he was watching deer browsing there. Then Patty broke into a gallop, and swiftly she and Pa grew smaller. Soon there was only waving grass where they had been."

It only takes Pa and Mr. Edwards one day to build a strong stable out of logs for Pet and Patty. There is no door for the stable, but Pa drives two strong poles, one on each side of the door, and piles up logs behind them until they completely cover the opening.

Pa finishes late that night, while the moon was shining, and it's a good thing, because the next morning there is a new baby colt waiting in the stable when Pa removes the logs. It has long legs, long ears, and Laura runs to hug it. Pet snaps at her and bares her big, white teeth. Pa says that Laura, Mary, and Baby Carrie must stay away from Pet while her baby is small.

Pa sets Pet out on her picket line and the little baby frisks and hops around its mother. Pa says it is a mule, but Laura thinks it looks like a little jackrabbit, so they name it Bunny.

That Sunday, Pa heads across the prairie for a nice ride on Patty. He is gone for a very long time. Jack begins to act strangely, walking up and down and looking worried. The hair stands up on his neck, then lies down, then stands up again. He paces back and forth, and Pet keeps her colt close beside her. Both animals stare across the prairie in the direction Pa had gone.

"Likely it isn't anything, Laura," Ma says.

Suddenly, Patty comes racing across the prairie, Pa stretched almost flat across her neck. She runs so fast that she runs right past the stable before Pa can get her to stop. Ma and Laura both wonder why Pa is driving Patty so hard, but Pa tells them it was all he could do to hold her back at all.

"Fifty wolves, Caroline, the biggest wolves I ever saw. I wouldn't go through such a thing again, not for a mint of money."

"We'll eat supper in the house," says Ma.

During supper, Pa tells everyone about his adventures. He was delayed many times during the day meeting new neighbors and helping families, so he started home much later than he expected to. As he was loping across the prairie, a wolf pack came out of a little draw and surrounded Patty. They were huge and trotted right along beside Pa and Patty. They walked along together for a quarter of a mile or so, then the wolves went down into the creek bottoms.

"As soon as the last wolf was in the draw, I let Patty go."

Pa talks to Ma some more about the wolves and how they would have eaten him if they'd been hungry. Jack walks around the campfire and stands still to smell the air. The hair on his neck begins to lift.

"Bedtime for little girls," Ma says, cheerfully.

Thoughts:
It was night as I read this chapter for the first time. The cats had been out for their last frolic of the evening, the dogs were inside, and only Snickers was still stubbornly clinging to freedom in the great outdoors. Then a coyote howled.

Another one joined in, or several thousand, because coyotes have a way of making way more noise then their size and numbers warrant. They were very close to the house, out in a plowed field to the east. I called Caleb and we both dashed out to try and find Snickers. He wouldn't come for a minute or so and I began to worry that all the howling had been an invitation to dinner after a successful hunt.

But then Caleb had the idea of using his laser and lured Snickers out of wherever he'd been hiding. Wolves, coyotes, they've done their part to build the mystique of the Wild West. There's just something so...thrilling...about hearing their calls, especially in the dark at close quarters when you're on a first-name basis with their intended prey. Even more especially if you ARE their intended prey.

This was one of the most exciting chapters of the series so far. The danger of the wolves, the thrilling image of Pa dashing across the prairie on his faithful steed. If only I had a faithful steed to dash across the prairie on. Fortunately, I knew someone with a faithful steed and they were willing to let me take a trail ride out at their ranch.

The ranch has been in the family since it was homesteaded three generations ago. In fact, the original homestead cabin is still on the property. The family mixes farming with cattle ranching--raising durum wheat and beef cattle.

When I arrived, the young members of the family competently set out to saddle the horses. Meanwhile, I wandered delicately amongst the cattle pens learning why the bottoms of cowboy boots are smooth. I was wearing hiking boots made for gripping rough terrain. The terrain was not rough, but my boots still gripped, if you get my drift.

They gave me the most patient horse they had, but I still felt the need to regularly apologize to the poor thing. I could almost hear her. "I know WAY more than she does, but she's the one holding the reins?" Here is a picture of me with the long-suffering beast. It probably wondered why it deserved such a fate after years of loyal service.

Getting on a horse is very easy, for those of you uninitiated in the horsey arts. Simply raise your knee level with your eyebrows and slip your foot into the stirrup. Then stand up and slide your other leg gently over the horse's back. Nothing to it.

We headed up the coolie past all the expectant bovine mothers brought into pasture for their blessed events. They looked at us with bemusement, doubtless wondering why we were so foolish as to leave the warmth and shelter of the coolie for the wind-swept prairie beyond. I think I even saw a few of them stick out their tongues at the horses on our way past. But that may only have been my imagination.

"I never wanted anything worse than I wanted to get away from there. But I knew if Patty even started, those wolves would be on us in a minute, pulling us down. So I held Patty to a walk."

Doubtless by now, you are wondering when I got to the place where I galloped across the prairie, free as the wind. Well, I didn't, OK?! Walking across the prairie as free as the wind turned out to be enough excitement for me. But I crossed a stream and went along a slightly slanted hill....that counts for something, doesn't it?

At last it was time to turn around. I posed for one last glamorous photo to document my equine experience. It was beautiful. My horse reared up as I lounged in the saddle with easy grace. Or at least, that's what it seemed like at the time. The photos look a little different, but I think the exposure wasn't quite right or something.

"Patty headed straight for home, across the prairie. And she couldn't have run faster if I'd been cutting into her with a rawhide whip."

Once we were headed back towards the barn, warmth, and fresh hay, the docile, gentle angels of the first part of the ride began to show another side altogether. What had been a soft, rocking rhythm became a jarring trot that threatened to send my tonsils down into my toes.

Noticing that no one else seemed to be experiencing difficulty I managed to bounce out, "How do you ride so smoothly when they are trotting?"

"Oh, you just rock back and forth like you're in a rocking chair," drifted back the airy reply.

I'm sorry, there was no back and forth.

There was only an up.

And there was only a down.

Within a minute or two I discovered what a mistake it had been to wear my sandpaper jeans that morning. As they rubbed raw parts of my anatomy that are used to far gentler treatment, I thought longingly of flannel and fleece and goose-down.

My knees were a quivering mass of jelly as I tried vainly to absorb some of the impact away from my more-tender portions. I stood on first one leg, and then the other, but no matter how much I clicked my heels together and chanted, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home...." we didn't get there one moment sooner than we arrived.

I slid groaningly off my horse's back, no longer feeling the need to apologize to my "faithful" steed. It had had its revenge. Oh, yes, it had! I swayed up to the van with a rolling gait that would have been the envy of any cowboy, but my whimpers and yelps may have given me away. Perhaps that's why cowboys yodel. I shall have to learn before my next trip, but I think we will wait a bit before tackling galloping. I expect my nether regions should be up to that within a century or so.

On the bright side, the place in my back that's been bothering me forever feels a lot better now. Evidently all that jiggling put something back into place. But a chiropractor is a much gentler method!

Many thanks to the kind family that let me use their horse and took time out of their busy day to take me on a ride!

Chapter 6: Moving In

2012-03-04T19:56:00.002-08:00

"By dinner time the house was in order. The beds were neatly made on the floor. The wagon seat and two ends of logs were brought in for chairs. Pa's gun lay on its pegs above the doorway. Boxes and bundles were neat against the walls. It was a pleasant house. A soft light came through the canvas roof, wind and sunshine came through the window holes, and every crack in the four walls glowed a little because the sun was overhead."

Once the walls on the cabin are built, Pa tells Ma that it is time to move in. He has been hearing wolves howling and wants to have good, solid walls around Ma and the girls. Even though the roof is not on and the floors are not installed, Ma gets busy moving all their belongings into the cozy, well-ventilated home.

Pa stretches the canvas from their wagon over the top of the roof. It blows and snaps in the wind. Pa almost sails away, but he gets it tied at last. He hangs a quilt over the door. Now the house is very snug. That night, the girls are tucked into their beds indoors for the first time since leaving the little cabin in the Big Woods so many months before.

Thoughts:
What a treat it must have been for all of them to sleep inside four solid walls again. Sure, it was still a little breezy with no roof, windows, or door, but it was home. It must have given Pa such a feeling of accomplishment to have carved that security out of the wilderness with his own hands.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make for a lot of blog scope for me. I could sleep with my exterior door off for a night, but it's still the middle of winter. I don't think so! I'm not building a log cabin until I get a chain saw, thank you very much, and I don't need to move anywhere....I still haven't finished unpacking from the last time.

That leaves only one thing. Moon-gazing.

"Mary and Laura lay in their little bed on the ground inside the new house, and watched the sky through the window hole to the east. The edge of the big, bright moon glittered at the bottom of the window space, and Laura sat up. She looked at the great moon, sailing silently higher in the clear sky.

Its light made silvery lines in all the cracks on that side of the house. The light poured through the window hole and made a square of soft radiance on the floor. It was so bright that Laura saw Ma plainly when she lifted the quilt at the door and came in.

Then Laura very quickly lay down, before Ma saw her naughtily sitting up in bed."

Of course, I did my gazing very quickly because it is a little chilly for the sport yet. But, it was the exact same moon that Laura Ingalls had looked at so many years before out there on the Kansas prairie. Pretty exciting, huh?

"Laura heard Pa singing.

Sail on, silver moon!
Shed your radiance o'er the sky-----

His voice was like a part of the night and the moonlight and the stillness of the prairie. He came to the doorway, singing,

By the pale, silver light of the moon-----

Softly Ma said, 'Hush, Charles. You'll wake the children.'"

Chapter 5: The House on the Prairie

2012-02-26T16:35:00.019-08:00

"Here we are, Caroline!" Pa said. "Right here we'll build our house." Right away, he and Ma began to unload the wagon. They took out everything and piled it on the ground. Then they took off the wagon cover and put it over the pile. Then they took even the wagon box off, while Laura and Mary and Jack watched.

The wagon had been home for a long time. Now there was nothing left of it but the four wheels and the parts that connected them. Pet and Patty were still hitched to the tongue. Pa took a bucket and his ax, and sitting on this skeleton wagon, he drove away. He drove right down into the prairie and out of sight.

"Where's Pa going?" Laura asked, and Ma said, "He's going to get a load of logs from the creek bottoms."

Pa drives one more day across the prairie before he stops the wagon and tells Ma, "Here we are, Caroline. This is where we'll build our house." Laura can look across the prairie to the creek bottoms, very near them to the north, and then far away to the east she can see the trees along the Verdigris River. It is a nice spot for a new home.

Pa gets busy right away, chopping trees and bringing them up from the creek bottom to make a nice, snug cabin. Ma helps Pa to lift the logs higher and higher until one big log tumbles down onto Ma's foot. Her foot is sprained badly and Pa says she cannot help with the log cabin until her foot is well again. Ma tries to bear up under her loss.

One afternoon, Pa returns early from the creek bottom with the good news that they have a new neighbor living just across the creek. His name is Mr. Edwards and he is a bachelor. That means he has time to help Pa build the log cabin. In one afternoon, the two men have the walls built up as tall as Pa wants. They put poles across the roof and cut a door and two windows.

After working hard all day, Mr. Edwards stays for supper. Ma has cooked a delicious stew of jack rabbit with dumplings and gravy. For dessert, there is a big piece of tasty cornbread with molasses. After supper, Pa plays the fiddle while Mr. Edwards dances and all the girls clap and laugh. It has been a good day.

Thoughts:
I must give credit where credit is due; there were many men who would not have cared if their wives were injured; they would expect them to work without complaining anyway. So Pa was rather considerate for his day and age. But I wonder how dedicated Ma really felt to getting her ankle well enough to haul logs again. Bet she was glad when Mr. Edwards showed up and all she had to do was the cooking.

"For days Pa hauled logs. He made two piles of them, one for the house and one for the stable. There began to be a road where he drove back and forth to the creek bottoms."

Nothing else would do for this chapter than to experience that most iconic of pioneer tasks, the chopping down of a tree. Behold, the hardy pioneer man, striding off to conquer the wilderness with nothing more than his trusty ax and a steely determination. Oh, yes. That will be me.

If I could only get someone to loan me an ax.

My dad doesn't loan out his axes without their use being personally supervised; I don't see why! My brother-in-law had one he generously allowed me to borrow---I think some of his willingness stemmed from the fact that it was duller than a butter knife---there was a limit to the damage I could inflict on it when it started out in such bad condition.

Ax in hand, I headed out to choose my first victim. The weather was a tad nippy since we'd had a blizzard-let the day before. In fact, the wind was still blowing with convincing fierceness. I bundled up plenty warm to keep out the piercing cold.

My back forty was clogged with snow and most of the windfall trees were covered up. I sure wasn't about to chop down one of my good trees (are you kidding!?), but fortunately, I found a dead snag that wouldn't be any trouble at all to chop down. After all, no sense in choosing a difficult tree for my very first one---better to start with something nice and easy.

3:37: I check the time and head out to my already chosen tree. With confidence and strength, I swing mightily and sink the ax deep into the wood. For about 1/16th of an inch. Hmmmmm. This might take a while.

3:40: The woods echo with the rhythmic ring of ax striking tree trunk. Little by little, I chip away at the trunk. I feel a slight burn in my muscles, but the air is fresh and clear. I feel flushed with vigor---I could go on for hours!

3:44: I check my clock for the first time. Surely it's been an hour, at least. 3:44! I've only been swinging this implement of pioneer torture for 7 MINUTES!!!!!!!! I am going to die.

3:50: Must keep going. I can see some faint progress. Any self-respecting beaver could have done this in under a minute. Why, oh why aren't my front teeth bigger?

3:52: This is it, I can't go on any longer. Death is imminent. Caleb has been begging to get a turn with the ax. I decide to humor the boy for a few minutes. I'll let him know as soon as I can gasp out the words. I scrape the wood shavings off my tongue with limp fingers.

"Caleb----------gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssp, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze--------I've decided to let you have a turn."

3:59: Rested and refreshed from my break, I grasp the ax with renewed strength. Yeah, right. I crawl over to the ax and swing at the trunk while still kneeling down.

4:05: I think it would take a beaver at least 5 minutes to accomplish this much. Maybe. If he had dental issues. Still, I am encouraged. I can't last much longer, but neither can this tree I think.

4:15: In desperation, I grab the tree and try to pull it over. Gasp! Heave! It quivers up top, but doesn't budge down below.

I try to push it over. Nothing.

I give it my best kick with all the force of leg muscles made of jello. Like the Rock of Gibralter.

4:20:That's it----forget pioneer pride. Caleb, get in here and help me pull this over. It's got to be ready to snap. I mean the thing is so old and rotten it's got dentures. With both of us working, the tree finally gives, and with a mighty snap breaks off----a foot below where I was chopping. What?! After all that work!!!! (Note: In the photo below you can see the breaking point more clearly. You can't miss it---it's about 12 inches under the ax chops.)

Well, this pioneer gal has learned a few things......

Lesson 1: Chopping down trees is good exercise. It works shoulders, arms, chest, back, legs, elbows, teeth, spleen, earlobes....you get the idea. I will not be able to move tomorrow. It even hurts to type.

Lesson 2: I would have perished in the wilderness before I got my house built. I guess all those men-folk were good for something. At least I wouldn't have had to be the one chopping all those trees down.

Lesson 3: Sharpened axes are good things. Very good things.

Lesson 4: Chain saws are even better good things. Much better good things.

Lesson 5: Don't judge a person too harshly until you have walked the proverbial mile in their shoes. Sometimes jobs are harder than they look.

Chapter 4: Prairie Day

2012-02-20T06:45:00.000-08:00

"There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.

In all that space of land and sky stood the lonely, small, covered wagon. And close to it sat Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary and Baby Carrie eating their breakfasts....Rabbits were everywhere in the grass, and thousands of prairie chickens, but Jack could not hunt his breakfast that day. Pa was going hunting, and Jack must guard the camp."

Pa readies all his supplies and brings a large tub of water up from the creek. Then he walks across the prairie, finally disappearing from view in the tall grass. Ma makes the beds in the wagon while the girls begin their prairie day by washing all the dishes in the fresh, clean water.

After the dishes are washed, Ma uses the water to wash the laundry in. She swishes the bedding, the dresses, the shirts, the underthings round and round in the water before spreading them on the clean grass to dry.

Laura and Mary are free to explore the prairie around the wagon while Ma works. They play with the gophers, trying all morning to catch one. The gophers are much too quick, so the girls catch wildflowers instead and bring them back to Ma at lunchtime. After eating a corn cake spread with molasses Laura falls asleep on the grass next to the wagon while Ma uses her sadiron and presses the wrinkles out of the clean clothes.

When Laura wakes up, the sun is low in the sky and Pa is coming back across the prairie. He has caught a rabbit and two plump prairie hens. They have a wonderful supper of fresh game as the sun sets on the horizon. Pa brings out his fiddle and fills the air with music.

Thoughts:
What an idyllic setting for this chapter! And don't get me wrong; I like idyllic views just as much as the next person--gritty realism can be a real drag sometimes. But Pa probably came back crawling with ticks and I'm sure Ma's day washing clothes that had been worn for weeks, and then ironing them with an iron heated over the fire, wasn't a picture of prairie peacefulness.

Still, it probably was a nice change of pace to hold still for a day and get at some of the chores that traveling didn't allow. There's no question that the girls had fun running around after weeks of sitting in the wagon. Spring on the prairie is a very pretty time of year, and what fun to have an entire state's worth of land as your campground.

It's turning out to be a little awkward to tackle this section of the story in the middle of winter. I'll probably have to slog through The Long Winter in August, too! So many of the things they did and saw are not the sort of things one tackles in February. Nevertheless, I decided to try hand washing some laundry. Thankfully, the day I chose for the project was a nice warm day in the high 30's.

"Ma brought the wooden pannikin of soft soap from the wagon. She kilted up her skirts and rolled up her sleeves, and she knelt by the tub on the grass."

Tiggy was assisting me for this activity, and she felt that authenticity demanded hauling wild water and heating it on a fire outside. I had a differing view, and whaddya know, my view won. Running water from the faucet and heating it on the stove was plenty authentic for me. While it was warming, we fixed up a clothesline from twine. I only had three things to wash so that was plenty strong enough for the job. Meanwhile, Caleb did his best impression of Pa-ful manliness and climbed trees while the women worked.

I made the water super hot, assuming that it would cool rapidly in the temperatures outside. Whoo-eee! Not rapidly enough, let me tell you! I had bundled up against the cold and expected my hands to be freezing by the time I finished, but no, they stayed plenty warm in that wash water.

The sun was dropping low on the horizon as I swished the clothes around in their hot, soapy bath. Ceecee decided to supervise the process, but didn't actually offer to help. Typical. I wouldn't like to have to do this all the time (my mom's space-age washer is much better, in my opinion), but it was peaceful out there, watching the sun set---there were a few compensations for the harsh life of a pioneer woman. If you still had the energy to lift your head and look at them!

After washing the clothes, I wrung them out.....

And hung them attractively on my clothes line.....

Then remembered that I hadn't rinsed them, so I frantically took them off and swished them in clean water....

Re-hanging them just as the sun set.

"Then Ma took the sadiron out of the wagon and heated it by the fire. She sprinkled a dress for Mary and a dress for Laura and a little dress for Baby Carrie, and her own sprigged calico. She spread a blanket and a sheet on the wagon seat, and she ironed those dresses."

Mwa-ha-ha-ha.
I've always wanted to try this! The days may be warm, but the nights are still nippy. Never fear, when wet clothes are hung out in sub-freezing temps, there is no need for starching or that pesky sadiron. My clothes could have walked inside by themselves if they'd had legs.

There's something refreshingly natural about doing washing by hand and hanging it out to dry in the crisp, fresh air. That is, as long as you're doing it by choice and not because it's the inevitable drudgery of your life. I'm thankful for my modern conveniences and for the generations of women that trudged along with perseverance so that their modern sisters could have a better life. Long live the washing machine! Nostalgia can only carry a person so far!

Chapter 3: High Prairie

2012-02-15T15:17:00.000-08:00

"Pa said, 'Wolves. Half a mile away, I'd judge. Well, where there's deer there will be wolves. I wish....'

Pa didn't say what he wished, but Laura knew. He wished Jack were there. When wolves howled in the Big Woods, Laura had always known that Jack would not let them hurt her. A lump swelled hard in her throat and her nose smarted. She winked fast and did not cry. That wolf, or perhaps another wolf, howled again.

'Bedtime for little girls!' Ma said, cheerfully."

After leaving the rich bottom lands and climbing high onto the prairie, Pa, Ma, and the girls make camp for the night. Pa lets the horses out onto their picket lines. Pet and Patty are so happy to be free of the harness that they roll back and forth in the long, soft grass.

Pa carefully starts a campfire for Ma to make supper on. Mary and Laura help Ma make little cornmeal cakes and fry fat salt pork. Everyone is hungry after such a long day and enjoys the delicious meal.

At bedtime the wolves begin to howl and Laura is afraid. Jack is not there anymore to keep the wolves away. Ma calls Laura and Mary to bed, but Laura doesn't come. She sees something staring out in the grass, eyes glowing in the firelight. "Pa!" Laura calls.

Pa grabs his gun and watches the strange animal. He throws sticks to scare it away, but it doesn't leave. Pa slowly walks toward the creature and the creature crawls slowly towards Pa. Suddenly Pa shouts and Laura screams.

It is Jack! He is safe and he has found them again.

Thoughts:
Well, it's a good thing I didn't drown Finley last week! That would have been awkward. "Oooops, sorry Finley. I guess you were supposed to survive after all." Reading this chapter, I had the perfect activity to go along with it....Getting a new puppy. What better way to experience the joys of being reunited with a pet you'd feared dead than getting a new furry family friend!

Only one problem. There are no puppies here. We live in a rural area where puppy litters seem to be few and far between simply because people are few and far between. And there are no puppies right now.

Unwilling to wait until puppy season to complete this chapter, I went with something a easier to accomplish. I decided to make a little Jack the Brindle Bulldog pet using a pattern copied out of Pet Crafts by Heidi Boyd, a book I borrowed from the library.

I found some brindled flannel at our local fabric emporium, an establishment at the back of the town barber shop, and got busy cutting out the pieces. I traced the patterns free-hand as I had no way of enlarging them and modified them to make them a little more like a brindled bulldog. I also scaled it a lot smaller to better suit my purposes for the completed project.

With right sides together, I stitched the fabric pieces, leaving openings for turning (I never make them big enough and have to snip stitches when it comes time to turn the stuff right side out).

After turning everything right side out, I stuffed the pieces with polyester stuffing and my secret ingredient.

I hand stitched the ears into their holes and closed up the body of the dog by stitching the tail into the opening. Then I embroidered the facial features; I should have done that before I ever sewed any of the pieces together, but I didn't want to mess with it at the time. Of course it was much more difficult doing it later. I do that a lot.

Behold, the completed Jack the Brindle Bulldog. Now to find his destiny.

"Jack was perfectly well. But soon he lay down close to Laura and sighed a long sigh. His eyes were red with tiredness, and all the under part of him was caked with mud. Ma gave him a cornmeal cake and he licked it and wagged politely, but he could not eat. He was too tired."

Poor, POOR Jack, forced to swim for miles before he could break free of the killer current and reach shore. Then he had to make his way for miles through empty prairie filled with wolves, coyotes, and wild cats. How glad he must have been to be safe with his family again. But MY little Jack would not be so lucky, not so lucky, indeed.

Jack the Brindle Bulldog's secret ingredient. I think he looks a little worried, don't you?

Snickers began the hunt before poor Jack was even out of the bag I carried him home in. For a minute I couldn't understand why he was so obsessed with my shopping bag!

"Under the wagon Jack wearily turned around three times, and lay down to sleep."

No rest for our Jack. I set him out on the living room floor and called the cats. Warning: the following scenes are extremely graphic. They may not be suitable for small children or people with sensitive stomachs.

It was AWFUL! Poor Jack will never be the same again. He's been chewed on, rolled on, gnawed on, and licked on by every cat but Hobbes, who can't smell him because of his nose condition. But bulldogs are a tough breed, and Jack is doing OK, even though he has a bit of a nervous twitch. So I guess our story had a happy ending, too.

Chapter 2: Crossing the Creek

2012-02-06T07:10:00.000-08:00

"The rushing sound of water filled the still air. All along the creek banks the trees hung over it and make it dark with shadows. In the middle it ran swiftly, sparkling silver and blue.

'This creek's pretty high,' Pa said. 'But I guess we can make it all right. You can see this is a ford, by the old wheel ruts. What do you say, Caroline?'

'Whatever you say, Charles,' Ma answered."

Pa, Ma, and the girls have traveled for days and days across the Kansas prairie. Now they are approaching a creek down at the bottom of a valley. It is quiet and still in the bottom lands where the blowing wind doesn't reach, but the creek is rushing and gushing along. Pa wonders if it is safe to cross.

Laura wants Jack, their bulldog, to ride in the wagon with them, but Pa says he will be able to swim the creek just fine. They start across the creek, but when they are out in the middle the water suddenly starts to rise. Pa jumps into the creek to lead the swimming ponies across and Ma must take the reins. Ma tells Laura and Mary to lie still in the wagon, then covers them up with a thick, heavy quilt so they can't see and become frightened.

For many minutes the wagon sways in the water and the ponies swim, fighting to keep from being swept away by the flood. At last their wagon scrapes the bottom on the far side of the creek and they pull out of the swift current. Pa is glad they are safe and Ma's face starts to lose its scared look, but where is Jack?

Jack was swimming behind them when the flood hit, but now he is nowhere to be seen. Pa walks up and down the creek bank calling and calling for him, but there is no answer. Pa is sorry that he didn't let Jack ride in the wagon. Now the family must move on, climbing up, up, up out of the bottom lands and onto the high prairie.

Thoughts:

Well, this is a challenging chapter. What to do....what to do? Finley's been looking a little nervous ever since I completed the chapter, but I don't think I'm ready to drown him, even for an authentic Little House experience. I could take him swimming, but there is no liquid water in its natural habitat at this time of year. And giving him a bath in the tub, while it does involve intense canine suffering, doesn't seem like a very good comparison. So I guess Finley is safe...for now.

It may not be the most exciting of all the activities I've tried, but overall, I find making a salt dough map of Laura's journey to be much preferable to offing my faithful companion. My first step was to look up a recipe for salt dough on the internet---really, I don't know what pioneers did before the internet was invented. It is as follows:

Salt Dough

1 cup flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup water.

You can change the ratio of salt to flour, with more flour giving you a smoother dough and more salt giving a grainy, rough texture. Mix it up, form your creations, then bake in the oven at a low temperature until done. This takes approximately forever, but baking them too fast causes bubbling, warping, and cracking.

Following this recipe will give you a dough that looks somewhat like biscuit or sugar cookie dough. Do not be fooled; it tastes like eating the ocean. Of course, it does open up certain possibilities to the practical joke-inclined person, but *I* would never be so cruel. As it turns out, I don't even have to be cruel if I hang around greedy, disobedient people.

See, it happened this way. My bowl of innocent-appearing dough was sitting on the counter when my sister came over. I happened to look up just as she reached in and pinched off a bite.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I screeched, stopping her in her tracks. She looked at me, eyes wide and startled. For a split second we both stood frozen, then moving with lightning speed she grabbed a piece and popped it into her mouth.

Oh, well. I tried. Now there was nothing left to do but sit back and enjoy the show.

Almost immediately her triumphant expression melted into one of horrified disgust. She raced for the trash can, wiping her tongue and spitting all at the same time. Over the sounds of my hysterical laughter I heard her plaintive wail, "I thought you were just trying to keep all the good stuff for yourself...."

So, like I said, there are possibilities for someone if they are so inclined.

Anyhoo, after the dough was mixed, I carefully rolled it out, transferred it to the pan, then traced out the shape from a map I got from---where else---the internet. I labored over it with love and care, working in the basic state shapes while my mom looked up topographical information. Just as I was finishing she handed me the first print out, for Wisconsin. Let's see, where is Wisconsin? WHERE IS WISCONSIN?!

I had completely forgotten to include Wisconsin. Thankfully, there was a little border left around the edges that I was planning to cut off, and since the Big Woods were in the bottom left region of the state, I was able to extend my map just a little. Except my mom, Wisconsin born and bred, seemed to feel that her state was being slighted somehow. Just because there's only a sliver of it showing!

Then it was time to paint it, something that I always enjoy. It is easy to make a painting of a large section of the earth look good; all you have to do is blend some colors together and it looks like it's supposed to. Adding the details was fun, and if the map lasts, I'll paint more as the tales progress. In fact, I had such a good time that I might make a more lasting and detailed one on paper sometime and offer it on the blog. We'll see.

Voila! The finished map of Laura's journey---much faster and less work than riding to Kansas in a covered wagon. Note: The first picture says "Big Woods" not "Bic Woods". That is a 'G' even if it doesn't look like one in the picture.

Of course, I don't think Laura and her family had to worry about giant, marauding kittens eating their settlement, so you can see we don't have everything easy!

Little House on the Prairie: Chapter 1

2012-01-31T18:56:00.000-08:00

"A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. They drove away and left it lonely and empty in the clearing among the big trees, and they never saw that little house again."

The Big Woods are becoming very crowded. Sometimes they can hear a rifle shot that isn't Pa's. The path beside their house is becoming well traveled, with a wagon creaking past almost every day. Pa is ready to move on. The wild animals will not stay in a land so choked with people.

One dark morning, Grandma and Grandpa, all the aunts and uncles, and all the cousins gather around a wagon all packed with things from the little house. It is still winter and the air is cold, but Pa and Ma load the girls up and head off to Indian country. They have to get across the Mississippi before the ice breaks up.

It is a long way to Indian country. They must ride in their bouncing wagon across Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and into Kansas. Laura gets very tired of riding in the wagon, but they keep on, day after day, following the wagon tracks across the prairie.

Thoughts:
It certainly took a special breed of men to be pioneers. And it took an even more special breed of women to agree to go with them! If it had been me when Pa came and made his case for uprooting the whole family to go on a perilous journey so he doesn't have to listen to anyone else's rifle, I think I would have beaned him with a cast iron skillet. But it wasn't me, and so the West was won.

"One day in the very last of winter Pa said to Ma, "Seeing you don't object, I've decided to go see the West. I've had an offer for this place and we can sell it now for as much as we're ever likely to get, enough to give us a start in a new country."

I just love this. "Seeing you don't object." To uprooting the children, leaving behind every convenience you'd managed to scrape from the wilderness, drag your family across five states, and expose them to untold dangers. No, I'm sure Ma didn't object. Men can be so clueless sometimes; he probably thought the silent treatment was consent. But Ma loved Pa enough to go with him.

They had to face a large peril right at the start of the trip. Lake Pepin, a wide spot on the Mississippi River, had to be crossed before the ice broke up. It was late in the season, and there was absolutely no guarantee that their heavily loaded wagon wouldn't go crashing through the ice, drowning all of them on their first day of travel. Obviously they made it or the book series would have been a whole lot shorter, but nerve-wracking much?

Maybe it's because I'm especially not fond of drowning, but this particular experience really jumped out at me. The risk the Ingalls family took, the suspense of a mother not knowing if her decision would cost her children their lives---it's very gripping. So it was a natural for me to pick it for the blog.

Of course I don't have any scary lakes to cross, and I wouldn't cross them if I did (I lack the true pioneer spirit remember!), but I do have the place where the road flooded last spring. It's still underwater and now frozen over. Since I walked the thing while it was still liquid, I knew that it never came over my waist. Still, I felt precautions were in order. A good pioneer expects the unexpected...but doesn't that make it expected? Hmmmmmm.

Life jackets would have been nice, but since I didn't have any on hand, I went with the next best thing---inner tubes. I felt they added a jaunty aspect to our appearance, but certain sensitive teenagers disagreed. Oh, well, no ice time without 'em, so we suited up to the tune of murmured grumbles.

"Pa drove the wagon out onto the ice, following those wagon tracks. All around the wagon there was nothing but empty and silent space. Laura didn't like it. But Pa was on the wagon seat and Jack was under the wagon; she knew that nothing could hurt her while Pa and Jack were there."

The ice seemed thick, but we've had several warm days in the last week which added an authentic aura of risk to the whole endeavor. As authentically risky as one can be over waist-deep water and with an inner tube around one's middle. Hey, if we fell in we could get a cold, you know...

The sun was just setting, casting the whole scene in a golden glow as we made our careful way along the path. The water plants from last summer were still poking through the ice to mark the roadway, but even without them we could still tell where the road was. Over the road was a comforting opaque whiteness that dropped away into a sinister midnight blue on either side.

It is always longer to cross that section than it looks from the shore, whether you're worried about prowling pond slime monsters in summer or catastrophic ice collapses in winter, but eventually we made it and paused for a triumphant photo on the other side. Then we headed back across to try it again, this time on ice skates.

"Laura hadn't thought about it before, but now she thought what would have happened if the ice had cracked under the wagon wheels and they had all gone down into the cold water in the middle of that vast lake.

'You're frightening somebody, Charles,' Ma said, and Pa caught Laura up in his safe, big hug.

'We're across the Mississippi!', he said, hugging her joyously."

We had a great time, had some laughs, and created a fun memory in peaceful and beautiful surroundings, but that's kind of the key point. We only did it for fun; the Ingalls family did it for real and the stakes were a lot higher than getting their feet wet. I can't imagine being that brave (or foolish, depending on your point of view), but I'm glad that people did have that kind of courage, the courage to try new things and places.

Chapter 13: The Deer in the Wood

2012-01-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

"The weather grew colder. In the mornings everything sparkled with frost. The days were growing short and a little fire burned all day in the cook stove to keep the stove warm. Winter was not far away.

The attic and the cellar were full of good things once more, and Laura and Mary had started to make patchwork quilts. Everything was beginning to be snug and cozy again."

As winter approaches, Pa sets out to put in a store of meat for the winter. He has made a deer-lick out in the woods where deer can come to lick the salt Pa puts out. After supper one night, Pa takes his rifle out into the woods. He will stay out all night, and in the morning there will be fresh venison.

But this time, there is no deer hanging from the tree when Laura and Mary wake up. Pa is busy working all day, and it's not until evening that he is able to sit down and tell them the story of his adventures in the Big Woods.

It had been a busy night at the deer-lick. First it was visited by a great big buck, but Pa was so captivated by its size and beauty that he never shot his rifle. Then came a great big black bear, but Pa was busy watching it and forgot to shoot. After that, a mother doe and her yearling visited the deer-lick, but Pa couldn't bring himself to shoot either of them.

Both Mary and Laura are glad that Pa didn't shoot the animals. They scamper off to bed and snuggle down underneath the warm, soft quilts. Pa plays his fiddle while Ma knits by the fire. The long evenings of music and firelight have come again.

Thoughts:
Not too many options for activities in this chapter. I could have gone deer hunting, but since I lacked, oh, pretty much EVERYTHING with which to go hunting, I decided to skip that one. I'm always a little paranoid about being mistaken for a deer anyway. I mean, if hunters can shoot a school bus by mistake, what chance do I have?

Making a doll quilt like Mary and Laura seemed much safer. Of course, nothing but hand-sewing would do, and I decided to keep a journal of my experiences.

Day 1: Today I picked out the fabric for my charming doll quilt. How exciting! I loved shopping amongst all the lovely fabrics; it was certainly hard to choose, but I feel I picked some very nice colors. My quilt will be a thing of beauty.

Day 2: Today I cut out the pieces for my adorable doll quilt. I've decided to do a basic appliqued heart pattern. Nothing too fancy---after all, this is all going to be done by hand. I'm sure it won't take me too long to finish such a simple little piece.

Day 10: Working on getting the hearts ready for application. I tried ironing the edges under, but that didn't work, so I had to do a basting/gathering stitch around the edge before I turned it under. Oh, well. Sewing is so relaxing I don't mind the extra work. I just wish I were making faster progress.

Day 36: Finished readying the hearts for sewing today. Found out that they are too big for their squares. No problem---ha, ha, ha. I still have plenty of fabric, so I'll just cut bigger squares. Crumbs. Just realized that I will have to re-cut all my other pieces now, too. Making this quilt is turning out to be a little more work than I thought, but it's worth it. So few people take the time to create things of lasting worth anymore. The modern world demands instant gratification; I'm glad to do my part to stem the tide and bring back an appreciation of old-fashioned values.

Day 54: Got three of my hearts sewn on. Lost the other one. Please tell me I don't have to start over with another one! I think I'll wait a few days and see if I can find it....

Day 75: Found the heart today. Now to sew it on. Hand sewing is trickier when you have cats that want to floss their teeth on your thread! Sometimes I have to sew standing up just so I can work without being attacked. But my quilt blocks are looking very nice. It's given me new energy to press on. Surely it won't be long now.

Day 92: Learned how to blanket stitch today. Tricky, but used the trusty ol' pioneer standby "You-tube Tutorial", so finally got it. To add to the authentic, rustic appeal I decided to make my stitches random and uneven. It was hard to overcome my native talent for perfect stitching, but I want this quilt to look just as if a young Laura Ingalls had stitched it herself.

Day 133: Finished the blanket stitching. Started to sew the actual quilt together. Am doing the same effect with my seams as with the blanket stitch---rustic and authentic. Beginning to doubt I will ever be finished, but trying to keep the faith. No wonder girls started working on quilts for their hope chest as soon as they could hold a needle! And many of them didn't marry until late in their 60's and 70's just so they could finish!

Day 198: Half-way done with the quilt top. Why didn't I make a hot pad?

Day 247: In the home stretch of the quilt top. Last border to put on. Discovered I forgot to make two of the sides longer to finish the rectangle. Will have to put in extra set of squares in the corners...no one will know it wasn't on purpose. Turns out to be a good thing I forgot, because, as the photo shows, I don't have enough fabric to make it all the way around and have to piece the final 3 inches.

Day 560: Completed the quilt top last night. My fingers have more holes in them than a colander. Whose stupid idea was this anyway?

Day 1,498: I have the quilt pinned to the batting and backing now. Beginning to work on the quilting. Slow going. Might not live to complete it....

Day 2,041: Still quilting. My fingers are killing me, and if I get one more needle under my fingernails, I'm going to scream.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 3,989: Quilting not done yet. Can't last much longer. Fingers three inches shorter...Several of them have left completely in protest.

Day 5,467:Done quilting! Only two more steps to completion--I have to baste on the binding, then stitch it on. I think I feel my strength being renewed. Wait.....wait....nope.

Day 12,468,391: Almost finished! Sewing on the buttons. Hands cramping. I'll never play the violin again..........

Day 3,450,183,693: Done! I made the last snip today. It was an event on par with the driving of the golden spike as far as historical significance is concerned. I think I might do this again sometime--oh, in another lifetime or so.

This is me before I started the quilt.

This is me after finishing the quilt.

Now that my beautiful doll quilt/wall hanging is finished I need to find it a nice home. If you want to be the lucky owner of such exquisite workmanship, post your favorite cookie recipe in the comments and I will draw a name randomly. Then I will sit around eating cookies and getting fat until my hands recover sufficiently to do anything else but lift baked goods to my mouth.

For entry in the drawing post your recipe no later than February 15, 2012. If you don't know me outside of the blog, make sure to check back and see if you won because I will have other no way of letting you know. Also, if you try to comment and it won't let you, just email your recipe entry in if you know me and I will post it. Good luck!

Chapter 12: The Wonderful Machine

2011-11-09T07:06:00.000-08:00

"'It would have taken Henry and Peterson and me a couple of weeks apiece to thresh as much grain with flails as that machine threshed today. We wouldn't have got as much wheat, either, and it wouldn't have been as clean.

'That machine's a great invention!' he said. 'Other folks can stick to old-fashioned ways if they want to, but I'm all for progress. It's a great age we're living in. As long as I raise wheat, I'm going to have a machine come and thresh it, if there's one anywhere in the neighborhood.'

Pa was too tired that night to talk to Laura, but Laura was proud of him. It was Pa who had got the other men to stack their wheat together and send for the threshing machine, and it was a wonderful machine. Everybody was glad it had come."

The closer winter comes, the busier life is at the cabin in the Big Woods. Ma works all day preserving summer's bounty so it can be enjoyed during the winter. Carrots, turnips, and potatoes are all dug and put away. Pumpkins are harvested and cooked down for eating and pie making. Corn is hulled and turned into hominy. The girls help by spending long hours gathering the many different kinds of nuts.

Ma also takes the straw from some of the oats and soaks it. When it is soft, she braids long braids to be used for hat making. Ma can make beautiful hats, and Laura is learning to do it, too, by making a hat for Charlotte.

One exciting day, a clankity-clackity machine comes down the road. It is the threshing machine, run by a crew of men who all expect to be fed. All the extra work in the kitchen is a sacrifice Pa is willing to make, because it saves him untold hours of work in the field. How wonderful the new machine is!

Thoughts:
I happened to be reading this chapter right during harvest time out here on the prairie. From morning until late into the night, giant farm machinery could be seen rushing back and forth across acres of fields. The harvest must be got in, and you can sleep when it's winter or you're dead, which ever comes first.

I wanted to do the chapter using one of the modern harvesters. It would have been very interesting to see how technology has changed since Pa Ingall's day. For instance, I don't think that horsepower is counted in real horses anymore! But just in case that didn't work out, I picked up a cooking pumpkin one of my trips to Williston.

My pumpkin sat for over a month, no doubt growing smug in its belief that it would not be needed after all. Surely I would be able to focus on harvesters and it would be allowed to grow old gracefully as a genteel autumn table decoration. But unfortunately, I never got around to the fascinating study of harvesters, and in the end, it all boiled down, if you'll pardon the pun, to the pumpkin.

"With the butcher knife Ma cut the big, orange -colored pumpkins into halves. She cleaned the seeds out of the center and cut the pumpkin into long slices, from which she pared the rind. Laura helped her cut the slices into cubes."

It was a sad day for my pumpkin, but it had to be done.

"All the water and juice must be boiled away, and the pumpkin must never burn."

I put the cubed pumpkin chunks in water to boil, then went back to cooking and eating lunch. The pumpkin boiled merrily away, and kept right on going! Before I knew it, the water was all gone, and my golden chunks were sticking to the bottom of the kettle with an odor suspiciously similar to char. Well, maybe it wouldn't hurt if the pumpkin burned a little...

After the pumpkin was cooked, I mashed it and began the process of boiling it down. I tried to gain clues from a careful reading of the text--"thick, dark, good-smelling mass", "rich brown stewed pumpkin", that sort of thing. Not exactly a precise recipe! How thick was thick? How dark was dark? And did it count if some of the darkness was from the charcoal?

At long last, I decided the pumpkin must be done. If I boiled out any more moisture, I'd be spraying pumpkin dust when I took the first bite. Now, oh joy, it was time to taste this delectable treat.

"Ma never allowed them to play with their food at table; they must always eat nicely everything that was set before them, leaving nothing on their plates. But she did let them make the rich, brown stewed pumpkin into pretty shapes before they ate it."

Ah! A reprieve! I set to work sculpting. And sculpting. And sculpting. At last, everything that could be sculpted was sculpted.

There remained but to try it. I will draw the veil over the next few moments. Mainly because the one picture I took of me eating it was ridiculously unflattering (at least I know what I'll look like at 50!), and there was no way I was doing a do-over for a better shot. One bite. That was it. No clean plate, no matter what Ma would say about that. I don't know what her version tasted like, but if it tasted anything like mine, treats have improved in the intervening years. I could market that stuff as a dietary aid. Taste it and your appetite leaves you. But Laura was right about one thing, you can make pretty pictures out of it.