Today was the Oriental Dog Parade! This is a highly anticipated event, (a fund raiser) drawing 88 entrants this year. The weather cooperated, blustery but sunny. For the most part everyone was very well behaved, with lots of posing for pictures in between the butt sniffing and grass marking. They ranged in size from 3 lbs to 125lbs, most dressed to look like their owners, or vice versa.

Cutest.

On the back of Rasta Dog "Fred Spot Marley", he even had dreads.

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The work continues here. Steve has built and fibre glassed the new dinghy chocks/aft storage container. I'll post pics when it's installed. I've been busy scanning the contents of the file box onto the hard drive, so we can throw away (shred) 10 years of taxes, insurance papers, Visa statements, etc. The scanning part isn't so bad, but the renaming and moving of each thing is awful. I'm at the point where I'm just going to put all the rest in a general file as a big random mess. Info will be in there somewhere, should we ever need it.

Product Testing

Behold, the amazing $2 bar of skin softening, rash removing, give-me-a-whole-new-personality, lavender and green tea, goats milk soap. This very highly recommended stuff is supposed to help me not break out from all the sunscreen I have to wear to keep my dermatologist happy, but turns me into a scratching, miserable mess. It's called After the Sun and made by Beekman 1802, in New York. If it works half as well as it smells, (and it honestly smells so good, I want to just take a small nibble) then I'm cured. I'll let you know. You'll have to let me know about the new personality.

Daily Walk

Chairs along the sea wall, waiting for a good cup of coffee and a little chat.

The Chowder Cook Off at the Oriental Inn.

The always changing board at the Fulcher Seafood counter, today was a salmon kind of day.

We've been walking a lot around Oriental this winter, working off the seafood and rum. For a very small village, there's always new stuff to see. What I'm really liking is that now when we wave at the cars driving by, (very-upper-Midwest-small-town-can't-stop-it-reflex: you wave at everyone going by), we usually know the driver. If Steve were still in the Air Force, this would mean it's time to move. Since we're retired now and can make up our own darn minds about what to do and where to do it, we think we'll stay a few more weeks. Try out those chairs by the seawall.

Little Red Bird

Spring is springing out all over here. 70 and sunny today. We saw our first dandelions this week and the birds are building all over the place. The magnolia trees are budding, I hope we're here long enough to see them in bloom, they're my favorite. I saw this little red bird this morning up by the dock house and couldn't find it in my Audubon Guide. It was bright red all over and had stripes on it's stomach, sparrow sized (the bird, not the stripes). Anyone?

We've been doing a lot of boat stuff lately, trying to make the most of the 110 power while we still have it. I'm looking forward to leaving the dock and doing some exploring on the Outer Banks before all the tourists show up. Time to feel like sailors again.

Where Was February?

February always seems to go by the fastest, not just because it's the shortest month. It seems to be a little bridge between winter and spring and you never quite know what will happen. This year was no exception. We got to MN in time to spend a week with Mike before he died and the rest of the month sped by. The funeral went well, (as well as funerals go), the weather even cleared for the service at the cemetery. Lots of old friends and relatives for Steve and his sisters to see and catch up with. We spent a lot of time just sitting and talking, planning, reminiscing. Lots of "remember when Dad"... brought home 100 lbs of coconut (it was a GREAT deal)... 25 miles of Saran wrap(ditto)...10 bikes(also a Great Deal, but this was after the kids were gone). Mike loved a Good Deal and had a hard time passing one up. I learned more about Steve, his sisters and his dad than I've ever known before. There are about 12 years between the oldest sister, Patty, and the youngest, Bev, so the perspectives varied interestingly. The other NFM's and I watched and listened, storing info for future use.


Hannah and Grandma Jean wrapping the few caramels that Hannah didn't eat.

Steve and his mom went through recipes, looking for specific treats from his childhood, specifically, his Grandma Kate's strudel. This led to a couple of marathon caramel making sessions. If you've never had homemade caramels, I hate to tell you what you're missing. Made with butter, heavy cream and brown sugar, they're smooth and creamy, slightly sticky, buttery. It's a good thing we brought a gallon bag of them back with us, I could use a caramel fix right about now.


Steve, Lynn, Bob, Joleen, after about 100 wings, each.

We stopped to see a few friends on our drive back, Capt Randy Larson and his son, Zane, in Iowa, and Bob and Joleen Dewald in Knoxville. Great to see them again. Zane is so grown up, I wouldn't have recognized him. Thanks for the hospitality, food and beds. Thanks to advice from Bob and Joleen, we drove through the Great Smoky Mountain National Forest, on the border of TN and NC. WOW, beautiful, even in the snow, it rivals the drive through Glacier NP in Montana and Moab canyon in Utah. Two thumbs up.

North Carolina didn't warm up much while we were gone. We're definately ready for some fun in the sun. For all the snow we saw, you'd think we'd have gotten in some skiing, but, noooo, just a lot of driving in the slush.

The Great TTH Debate

Here in the potluck-casserole-country that is Minnesota, you can have long, serious Tater Tot Hot dish discussions. Do green beans actually add to the flavor, yes or no? To cheese, or not to cheese? Cream of mushroom or celery? And should that cream soup be mixed with the ground beef, or layered? Should the tater tots be arranged in nice orderly, hay bale like rows, or artistically jumbled? Should the whole thing be spread thin in a cake pan to have more of the crispy edges, or thicker, in a casserole pan?

Lynn, Hannah, Amanda and Steve playing king of the snow pile.

Thank You

To all of you who have been so supportive and sent prayers and good wishes, thank you. Steve's Dad, Mike, passed away Friday, at his home, with his family by his side. The funeral was this week. We've gotten to spend a lot of time with our daughters, Steve's sisters and families. Hot dish, brownies and laughter have played an important role in our grieving and healing process.

A Delicate Beauty

It's snowing in Minnesota. I know because I'm watching it out the window. Steve and I drove to his parents farm last week to try and do what we can to help his mom, as his dad looses his battle with prostate cancer. Mike chose to stay at home and spend his last days on the farm where he's lived all his 78 years. He's confined to his bed now, so we sit to keep him company, get him a sip of water, straighten the covers he keeps throwing off. Steve's four sisters, spouses, grandchildren and great grandchildren have all been coming and going. Mike is a lucky man.

So we are sitting, doing embroidery, playing guitar, while Jean sees to some of the final plans and has a little time to herself.

Name That Yellow Thing

So, I was taking this class last week and in the corner of the stairway was the object seen here. It's metal, about 24" tall, marine use. Prizes to whomever can identify it. Somebody else out there has to know what it is!

I took a captains course last week, and I passed!! Now I can be a Captain, just like my idol, Captain Morgan. (What do you mean, he's not a real captain, he has the hat and everything.) I'll have what's usually called a '6-pack' license and no, believe it or not, it doesn't have anything to do with alcohol. It means that if we wanted to, we could carry up to 6 passengers without having to be inspected by the Coast Guard. Steve is taking the same course, but his is an online version and he'll test in March. Not that I'd make a big deal of it or anything, but I did pass the test first... All we have to do is finish the mountain of paperwork, get physicals, drug tests, eye tests, CPR and First Aid, raise our right hands and get our Oath notarized, figure out how many days of sea time we have in the last 7 years and get 3 character references. Yes, character references. I can't possibly see why the Coast Guard would possibly care what kind of character I have. If my references all say that I'm an a******, will they deny me a license? What if I have no character at all? What if I am a character? What if I were just a bunch of black lines? Whoops, that's caricature, sorry.

Ice, Ice Baby

To me, sailboats are tropical things, warm water, sun, fun, ice in my drink. So there's just something inherently wrong with seeing ice around a sailboat. And something VERY wrong with seeing ice around MY sailboat. I was leaving for class early this morning and the boat was surrounded by ice. Ice. It took me a minute to figure out why the water had those funny cracks in it. The marina was ice from the inside docks to the breakwater on the other side of the channel. My first reaction was one of Steve's favorite military acronyms "WTF, over!" My second reaction was to call Steve and tell him to poke his head out and take a look. His reaction is not printable. I went off to class, came home later this afternoon, it still hasn't melted. I have to take my hat off to the Tourism Council in Oriental and their version of the winter weather that we all believed. There are quite a few people here, like us, walking around saying "What happened to warm and sunny?"

We are both keeping busy studying for captains licenses and radio upgrades, fixing, mending, etc. Adjima is lost without her sunspot to sleep in and has declared herself the Inspector Of Everything and is making a pest of herself. It's a good thing she's so perfect in all other ways or it would be really annoying.

The Running of the Dragon is a New Years Eve tradition in Oriental, the idea is to touch the dragon as it goes by, to assure good luck in the coming year. I touched it and wished for warmer weather. This year it was at 8pm only, due to some 'hooligans' who vandalized the teeth last year during the midnight running. Hard to believe that in a town of 900, the hooligans were never apprehended. We went with a group of new friends and had a great time.

New Years Day found us out in the cold again, this time for the annual "Instead Of Football Regatta". Sailing on Bristol Star, a Bristol 41 belonging to new friends Kevin and Louise. It was our first time to go racing, ever, and Kevin and Louises' first time to have their new boat out of the slip. With a crew of nine, you would think we would have paid closer attention to the race, instead we drank Manhattans and rum (not together), had cheese and crackers and fudge. The great thing about this regatta, is that the mandatory skippers meeting was at M&M's after the race ended and then, over big steaming cups of soup, they drew the winners from a hat. That's my kind of racing.