OWWWWWWWWWWWEEE!

OK, this first part happened yesterday, but I didn't have a chance to write anything.  This is too funny to not post!  

Yesterday morning, before going to school, Aaron had to go feed the goats.  I was watching as he walked into the rather open area of the old barn we have here and all of a sudden, he ran back out.  Even from the distance I was at in the house, I could tell something flipped him out.   I thought it was either the skunk that got Maddie last month or maybe the fox that had been seen in the chicken coop and yard recently.  Not so!  

I hollered out to him and asked what was up.  He says something about a dead pigeon landing on him!      In my jammies and slippers, I ran outside to the barn to try to figure out what he was talking about.   Turns out when he walked into that part of the barn, he scared an OWL that had been dining on a PIGEON it had caught.  Aaron's walking into that part of the barn scared the owl to the point that it DROPPED the pigeon it was munching on and it almost landed on Aaron!!!    :lol:   We looked, and there was the dead, bloody, pigeon, laying on the ground, not far from where Aaron had walked into the barn!  What a HOOT!  (No pun intended!)    The sight of that pigeon and Aaron's story actually made it worthwhile to run to the barn in my jammies and slippers and freeze my butt off!    :lol:    I guess it just goes to show that you never know WHAT is going to happen when you live in the middle of nowhere!  

Now onto today!    

Maddie, our goofy, but much-loved German Shepherd has been drinking entirely too much water (LOTS of it), so I took her to the store today as I planned on calling the vet when I got there.  Had I NOT brought her in with me, they would have wanted to see her right away and I would have had to drive all the way home to get her and then all the way to Medford to the vet.  Seeing as I brought her with me, of course, they didn't have an opening until 4 p.m.!    While she would have been much more comfortable staying home, she did great staying at the store with me, and not bothering folks that came in.  Of course, 90% of them had to go up and pet her and she just loved the attention (of course, she gets NONE from us!  ;) )

The good news/bad news is that the vet can't find anything wrong with her.  I brought in a urine sample and they tested that.  Nothing. Then they took some blood and tested that.  Nothing.  I guess that's good and bad . . . she doesn't have a urinary infection, and her kidneys, etc., all tested fine and nothing indicated diabetes.   Now we have to figure out what the real deal is.  It's entirely possible that this is psychological -- as she's got separation anxiety already, and adding another cat to our household could be causing her to act out in weird ways, including drinking too much water, as strange as that sounds.

We now have to measure all the water we put in her bowl and see how much she drinks.   It's a bit difficult as we also have the three cats drinking out of that bowl, but the vet said he can figure that all out.  Once we figure out how much she's really drinking, then we can try to figure out what may be the cause.   So, that's a work in progress.

While I was at the store today, I received a call from Abby's school.  She had been complaining of an upset stomach, so I thought for sure I'd be leaving to pick her up from school.  NOPE!  That sure wasn't it!   The kids had been outside for lunch recess and Abby was, as usual, playing with the boys, and somehow, managed to have a boy's mouth smack her in the head!  I'm not sure who was injured more . . . Abby's head, or the poor boy who managed to CHIP his tooth on Abby's HEAD!      

The nurse was just calling to let me know what happened and it wasn't bad enough that Abby needed stitches, thank goodness!    

Now, before you think I'm a total ghoul, please know that Abby asked me to take a picture of the wound.   The reason she wanted a pic was because she couldn't see it!   The first time she saw what had actually happened was when I took the pic below.  It's not that awful, but if you're squeamish, please don't look!  



I took care to wash her hair tonight and very carefully towel dried it and then put some salve on the injury.  I'm sure she'll be fine!  

Unfortunately, we had some not so good news today, as well.  Greg's Aunt Gladys (83 years old) -- his mother's sister (she lived up the block from us when we lived in Milwaukee -- we've always been rather close to her), was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  She had a lumpectomy not too long ago and it was thought that they got it all.   We found out today that they did NOT get it all and she is going to have a mastectomy on Friday.   Please, if you could add Aunt Gladys to your thoughts and prayers, we would sure appreciate it.  She's a wonderful lady, and was like a second mom to Greg.  We love her dearly and she's been though a lot in her 83 years.    

I hate to end things on a sad note, and I know Aunt Gladys would, too, so let's end this thinking about Aaron having a dead pigeon dropped on him!    :lol:

Happy Trails!

Julie

Mom learns a lesson! Only took 16 years!

I talked with the Clark County Sheriff the other day.  He agreed with me that what we went through was absolutely unacceptable and would be looked into so that it doesn't happen to someone else in the future.    On Friday, I spoke with a Sgt. at the Sheriff's Department who was assigned to my complaint and spent about 1/2 an hour on the phone with her.  I'm not quite sure that she understood as the kept talking about protocol and which county has to handle what.   Frankly, I don't give a rat's a$$ about that.  I want to know that if I need help from the Abbotsford Police Department after 5 p.m., that I can get in touch with them!   That's all I want.  It seemed that I was finally able to get that through to her and I'm hoping something will be done.   For us, it appears that the easiest way around all of this is to simply call from the store, which is in Abbotsford, which is served by the Clark County Sheriff's Department.   That's no comfort for the folks that live near us and have kids in school in Abbotsford.   I'll be revising my Letter to the Editor and will be sending another letter to the Clark County Sheriff's Department.

Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything from the Marathon County Sheriff's Department, which, in my opinion, is unacceptable.  They will be getting another letter from me asking why they have not bothered to address this issue.

We HAVE taken steps to ensure that we NEVER have a problem like that again and that means that both Aaron and Erica now have their own cell phones.   They were absolutely THRILLED when I gave them each their phones.    At least now, I don't have to worry about being able to contact them and find out where they are when they're not where they're supposed to be!  

Aaron is paying for his monthly bill from his job at County Market, and Erica is paying for her monthly bill by working for me at the store on weekends, withOUT complaint!  That's the biggie -- no complaining!     Today was her first day, and she did GREAT!     Doing the happy dance here!   

Aside from our dealings, or lack of them, with the Sheriff's Departments, we seem to be back to a "normal" pattern of life here, whatever that is!       The store is open on weekends again, so I don't have much time to work around the house and I must say really miss that housework!    :lol:    

For the most part, the house is in good shape, but kids being kids, will try to get away with whatever they can.   When it comes to cleaning a room, they decide who is supposed to do what, and then if that person doesn't do it, it never gets done!  I can holler all I want, and they just say "so and so was supposed to do it."  Then when I talk to "so and so" they claim it wasn't their job.  It's frustrating, to say the least.

Yesterday, I told the kids that they had to clean our office (which THEY dirtied up!), their computer room and the family room.  Those are all rooms in the lower level (we have a tri-level).   However, this time, I told them that I didn't care who did what, or who was "assigned" to do what, but that it had BETTER be done by the time I got home from the store.  If if wasn't cleaned "party ready" (a word I used to use when we'd have birthday parties for them at the house and went nuts cleaning everything!) then ALL of them would lose ALL electronics, including cell phones, TVs, video games, computers, radios, etc.    In essence, EVERYTHING they enjoy!    

Of course, there were huge outcries, but I stood firm.   I don't care how you decide who is supposed to do what.  Work TOGETHER to get the job done and all will be fine.  

At 10 a.m., I got a call from Abby that a friend wanted her to go ATVing with him!   WOW!  How cool is that!  They have two (child size)  ATV's, so she could ride one of theirs.  I told her the lower level had to be done or she couldn't go.  Oh, the outcry!    I reiterated what I said earlier about working together and just doing the work.  Believe it or not, but by noon, they had everything cleaned, put away, dusted and vacuumed!!!!!!!!!!  WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!     I damned near fell over when I saw how nice it looked!  

OK, so it only took me 16 years as a mom to figure all this out, but hey, better late than never!  



So, Abby went ATVing with her friend and is now spending the night there!  No surprise in that!  

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow will be as good a day as today!   

Happy Trails!

Julie

Loose Cow!

After thinking about what happened yesterday, I decided that a letter to the Editor was not good enough.   The crap I had to go through yesterday dealing with both Sheriff's Departments was completely unacceptable.   I ended up revising my letter to the editor and faxing it to the Marathon County and Clark County Sheriffs, with a copy to the Abby Police Chief.     I spoke with the Clark County Sheriff about an hour after sending the fax and he agrees with me that what happened was horrible.   He said that they were going to investigate the matter and get back to me.  I just found out at about 8:30, that I had a message from a Clark County investigator earlier today.  I'll have to call her back tomorrow and go from there.   I'll be sure to let ya'all know the results!  

After reading what a friend wrote on our forum, I realized that it was time for cell phones.  Aaron and Erica both now have cell phones so we'll never have to deal with something like that again.   Aaron is paying me the monthly fees for his, and Erica will work off the monthly fees by working for me at the store WITHOUT complaining!   That's the key -- NO complaining!     She readily agreed!    

If you had asked me five years ago I ever thought Greg would be chasing a cow, the answer would have been a resounding "what are you smoking?"    BUT, that's just what happened today!   :D   Greg was outside around 1 p.m., letting the chickens out and feeding them, when he turned around, and there was a cow in our back yard!   :lol:      He called to tell me he'd be late to come in and help me because he was chasing a cow!    :lol:   He went across the street and it turns out it wasn't their cow!  It was a cow that managed to cross Highway 29 (65 mph speed limit & LOTS of cars/trucks!), and meander into our yard!   By the time he called me back, it was about another 1/2 mile away!  Our neighbor was going to go chase it down with his ATV, as there was no way GREG could chase it!   :lol:  :lol:

This was not the first instance of a loose cow around here, but the first time there was one in our yard!    I wish I had been home to take pictures!  



Happy Trails!

Julie

Things Can Change in an Instant!

Things were going swimmingly today until about an hour or so after I got home!   Erica (our 13 year old) was to go from the Middle/High school to the Elementary School to help with the elementary program and then walk to our store at 5 p.m.  Unfortunately, we had a bit of a communication problem.  As I'm not in the proper frame of mind to deal with this again tonight, I'll simply post a copy of the "Letter to the Editor" that I wrote and sent to our local paper.   That should give a good idea of what we went through tonight.  

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around all of this and work through my feelings, as is Greg.     Maybe tomorrow, I'll be able to see things more clearly.

Dear Editor:

There has to be a better way.  A better way to contact the Colby/Abby Police Department "after hours," that is!  Today (November 6, 2007, at about 5:50 p.m., I was unfortunate enough to need the help of the Colby/Abby Police Department.  When I called the local number, the call was answered by Clark County Dispatch.  Not a problem, . . . or so I thought.  I advised the officer that our 13 year old daughter was supposed to have walked to our store in the mall after helping out at the "after school" program at the Abbotsford elementary school ended at 5 p.m. and was missing.  I wanted to speak to the Colby/Abby police so that we could immediately start a search for my 13 year old.  Visions of the worst and Amber Alerts were floating through my head.  

The Clark County Sheriff's Department advised that we needed to talk to Marathon County because we live in Marathon County (8 miles east of Abbotsford).  When I explained that my daughter was missing from the ABBOTSFORD Elementary School and I needed a Colby/Abby officer, he stated that he'd send an officer to our store to talk to my husband.  Ten minutes later, as I'm speeding back to town to look for my daughter and talk to the local police, I received a call on my cell phone from the Marathon County Sheriff's Department.  Again, I explained that my daughter was missing from Abbotsford and I needed to speak to the Colby/Abby Police immediately.  She put me on hold and contacted the Clark County Sheriff.  Finally I was advised that they (Marathon County) would take the "report," because I live in Marathon County.  We were frantic that something horrible had happened to our daughter and neither Sheriff's Department seemed to care as they were too busy arguing over which department should be helping me!  Not only that, but the Marathon County Sheriff's Department seemed to think that we were dealing with a runaway or that we had a fight with our daughter and she refused to come home.  It didn't register with either department that our daughter was MISSING. 

While on hold with Marathon County, my daughter called me and I advised the dispatcher that I had my daughter and everything was fine.  Due to a lack of communication in our family, we did not know that she was staying at the school until 6 p.m.   There was no one at the school to answer the phone to find out if our daughter was still there and unfortunately, calls to our daughter's "friends" at the school were unhelpful.  Certainly, we need to improve communication in our family and this was a valuable lesson to us.  Unfortunately, a BIG part of that lesson was not to count on the Clark OR Marathon County Sheriff's departments for help!  

There's absolutely no excuse for the runaround we received by the two Sheriff's Departments.  In a town as small as Abbotsford, I don't understand why Clark County did not/would not immediately dispatch an officer to our store in Abbotsford where my husband was waiting.  That's a problem.  A BIG problem.  To receive the runaround I did from not only Clark County but also Marathon County, and to not take a missing child seriously scares the hell out of me!  

The big question is this:  What difference does it make where we live?  What if we still lived in Milwaukee and were just visiting Abbotsford when my daughter disappeared?  Would I then be transferred to the City of Milwaukee Police Department?  After this, I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what happened!  I certainly hope anyone living outside Clark County doesn't have a problem requiring police assistance in Abbotsford after 5 p.m.!  

Julie Miklaszewicz, OwnerRVing Outpost, LLC

*This letter is NOT in any way directed at the Colby/Abby police department as they had no knowledge of this incident as it was happening.

One of the things that REALLY got to me was Abby saying "I hope she's OK.  After all, she's my big sister!"   Considering how our kids fight with each other, that just about made me collapse . . .  Even though they fight like cats and dogs, deep down, they really DO love each other!    I guess we're doing something right, after all!  

Thank you, dear Jesus, for keeping our daughter safe!  

Julie

November is here . . .

Well, I guess the holiday season is officially upon us!    November means snow is on the way, and the forecasters are using words like "wind chills" when talking about the outside temps!  

Not much has really happened in the last few weeks.   The most disturbing is that our beloved goat, Blueberry died.  



The only thing we can figure is that it was bloat.   We're still new to goats and as with most folks, figure they can eat anything.   Not true.   The greens that we were getting from the grocery store were most likely the cause.  I've beaten myself up over and over again over this and can only offer that we've learned lessons with Blueberry and the other three goats will have a happy and healthy life with us.  Blueberry will forever be in our hearts.  

Dan and Deb came to visit us for a week in October.  It was lovely to have them visit and I hope they were able to relax a bit and not worry about their motorhome.   They left with a LOT of stuff from the store!   More than I think even they anticipated!   :D    

After Dan and Deb left, we went to the annual Wisconsin Fall Rally at Indian Trails Campground in Pardeeville, WI.  Because it was homecoming weekend, and Erica's on the Flag Brigade at the high school, I left on Thursday with Aaron and Abby.  Greg and Erica drove down Friday after the halftime show at the Homecoming game.   This was the first time I actually drove the 5er without another adult present, and I was a tad nervous, but everything went just fine!    I had beautiful weather to drive in and had absolutely no problems on the road.    

Our friends were very helpful when it came time to get into our site!   They had it all laid out for me:



I had to continue my tradition of NEVER backing into a site at a Wisconsin rally, and we managed to do just that!  It was nice to be pulled into the site, because that way our awning and door were facing the large group campfire.   All our friends helped me to get into the site and get level and otherwise situated.  Aaron is a BIG help and also helped to get everything done and get me unhitched.   All in all, it was a GREAT time with GREAT friends!   It was sad that it was our last outing of the year, but the weather was beautiful, the campfire warm, and lots of liquid refreshments were flowing!   The kids had a great time too, seeing all their old friends.  It's so great that the kids all get along as well as the adults!    

Of course, I did almost all my cooking outside in the Dutch ovens!    We brought the propane burner along and I don't think I'll ever be without it!   I absolutely LOVE it for cooking outside!  



It makes everything so much easier!    I even use it to light my charcoal for the top of the Dutch oven -- a truck I learned from Cee Dub!  

That's about it for now.    

Now that November is here, we're open again on weekends.  It was nice to have the time off and get work done at home, but duty calls!  

Happy Trails!

Julie

Long time, no Posting!

Oh my goodness!  I'm still not used to this blog thing and have a hard time wrapping my mind around posting something at least every other day!  

Lots of things have happened in the last week or so.  We had Dan & Deb visit us (Cap'n Dan & Butterfly Lady, f/k/a Tweet) for a week to not only pick up their goodies, but to spend some time relaxing and not worrying about their motorhome's roof rebuild.   We had a lovely visit (I'm sure Dan & Deb were bored more times than not, as we still had work to do at the store, and geez, we DO live in the middle of nowhere!   Course, I'm hoping that the peace and quiet (at least while the kids were in school), helped them to relax a bit and enjoy their time up here in North Central Wisconsin.

Dan and Deb left on the 10th, and I had to immediately get started on packing the 5er for the 2007 Wisconsin Fall Rally at Indian Trails Campground in Pardeeville, Wisconsin (near Portage).   I was leaving on Thursday with Aaron and Abigail and Greg was coming down on Friday after the Homecoming game with Erica.    This was the very first time I drove the 5er without another adult present.   I was a touch nervous, to be sure.  As it turned out, the ride was quite uneventful.  I'm so used to driving the 5er anyway that it wasn't as big a deal as I thought.   Of course, the weather was good and little wind, so that helped.  When I pulled around the corner to our campsite, I found that our friends had everything all set for us!  Here's a pic of the traffic cones they had set out to outline our site!  



The two traffic cones that appear in the middle of the site are blocking the fire pit!   As usual, with our Wisconsin rallies, I managed to figure out a way to pull into the site, rather than back into it!  This makes about the 10th WI rally that we've managed to figure out a way to pull in, rather than back in!   It's too funny!  I've even managed to back OUT of our site every time as well!    

At this particular rally, it worked out quite nice, because pulling into the site meant that our awning was facing the communal fire pit, along with the two other folks lining the fire pit.  It was nice to not only not have to walk around the 5er to get to the fire, but to be able to keep an eye on whatever was going on outside our door (like cooking, etc.).    

Greg had to stay behind on Thursday because the Abbotsford Homecoming was on Friday and Erica was part of the flag brigade that performed with the high school band at halftime.   She didn't want to miss the show OR the rally, so we did the best we could to ensure that she was able to take part in both.

Since we've been home, things have been hectic.  I've had a lot to do at the store, and of course, with the holidays coming, there's even more to do.  I'm working on getting more gift baskets ready and creating new  ones as well.    

That's about all from the Mik Household these days!    A Day in the Life . . . not really too interesting, but it is what it is!     :D

10-03-07 Who Turned out the Lights?

YIKES!   Two hours into the workday, the lights fizzle and blink and then BAM!   NO POWER!    I look around, the entire mall is out.  OK, well, that's actually good, because it means it's not just our store, which would be REALLY bad!    After 20 minutes, I was outside looking around and talked with some folks who had just pulled into the parking lot.  They lived on the other side of town and their power was out, too.  Turns out the ENTIRE CITY OF ABBOTSFORD was without power!  Not only that, but the City of Colby was out, too!     We heard all kinds of things about what was wrong and when the power would be back and wasn't really expecting it to be back on anytime soon.  

Of course, that put me in a panic!  Being Monday, we had a LOT of orders to get out today, and I hadn't gotten anywhere near enough of them done by 11 a.m.!    As the best report we had was that it would be at least 2:30 before the power was back on, I decided to drive home with my laptop and the UPS printer to work on the orders from home.  I could at least input them into the computer (my laptop has a backup of our program) and print the packing slips.  We'd have to drive back to the store to pack everything up and weigh it and then go back home to print the labels and then back to the store to put them on all the packages, but you have to do what you have to do, right?  

A minor detail to insert here -- I had about 50 miles left that I could drive before running out of diesel!  With no power in the two closest towns, I couldn't fill up!       I was going to have Greg drive to Edgar (about 12 miles) to fill up my truck so I could keep going back and forth!   I'll have to be more careful not to get that low on fuel!  

About 7 minutes after getting back home, I got a call from a friend in town -- the power was back!     Pack everything up again and head back into town.  This time, I made sure to stop at the filling station to fill my truck up FIRST!   I wasn't taking a chance that the power being back was just a temporary thing!      

Had to get everything started up again and start all over.  Fortunately, the computer didn't get fried from the power outage (or possible surge), so everything was working fine (note to self:  buy a battery backup for the computer ASAP!).     About 45 minutes after getting going again, a gentleman comes in and says he has a delivery for us.  Oh MY, our cast iron is HERE from Camp Chef!   Oh, crap!  That's JUST what I need today!  You see, we don't have a loading dock at the store or even a doorway large enough to get a pallet into!   That means everything has to be unloaded by HAND and carried into the store!  The driver was able to get the two pallets of cast iron (all 2,198 pounds of it!) with the use of his lift gate and left them outside the back door for us.   Now, I'm looking at the sky and the weather report is not looking good -- rain appears to be coming!  YIKES!         

I called Greg about 8 times before he finally answered his phone (he was in the shower, getting ready to come in), and had him bring a tarp from home to cover the pallets.   Fortunately, it didn't rain!  

When Greg got to the store, I had just finished printing out all the orders.   We were able to get started on all the packing.  He's doing much better on packing them, and is double and triple checking everything!   If he has a question, he asks me now, instead of guessing, so we're working quite well together and not having any more problems, which is a huge relief to both of us!  

When UPS showed up, I was still printing out the labels, but Lee (our UPS driver) started loading up the packages that were done, and Greg and I were able to keep up with getting them printed and the labels on the packages without him having to wait for us.   As Greg said, it was like doing "wind sprints" to get all that work done in such a short amount of time!  

In between all of this, I called both the high school and the elementary school and asked them to have Aaron and Abby get off the school bus at the store so they could help us unload the two pallets of cast iron.  Fortunately, they were both in good moods and didn't mind helping!  

There's lots of work left to do today, but I wanted to at least get an update on today here as it's been a while since I wrote anything.    

I think I'm going to sleep good tonight!    

Godspeed!

Julie

PS, we still don't know what happened with the power, and as usual, the local Wausau TV news stations ignored us (you would think that two entire towns being in a blackout would be newsworthy, but not according to Wausau!).    I'm sure we'll find out when our little local paper comes out on Wednesday!