Each spring we get trees through Oneida County Soil and Water Conservation District. We have mainly planted spruce trees as windbreaks, but also some white birch and lilacs. This year I ordered 50 spruce trees, 10 lilacs and 10 red oaks. The trees came in on Saturday morning. I traveled to Schoharie on Saturday for our High School reunion meeting and left for Bellevue, Nebraska on Sunday morning. Kathryn ended up planting all the trees with a little bit of help.
We have a kestrel family living nearby and frequently see one of them sitting on a nearby telephone wire surveying the pastures for grasshoppers, frogs and small mice. This past weekend we got a close look as the kestrel camped out on top of our laundry post looking for pond dwellers.
Our major home project this weekend was assembling a closet organizer for Eric’s room. Once having done one of these I am sure we could assemble the 2nd one much faster.
We also stripped wallpaper in the living room, cut up some of the nail-less boards and got the windows washed with help from Kaitlyn.
Eric had his 2nd baseball practice (Minor League B). Practice mainly consisted of one coach pitching and one coaching helping the kids hit and everyone else hanging out in their position in the field. Each kid stood in batting until they got 3 hits and ran to 1st base on the 3rd pitch.
Below Eric lined up as a mid-fielder deep behind the pitcher and then demonstrates his swing. He seems to be a line drive hitter.
After the 3rd hit, drop the bat and run to 1st. After a minute of standing cool on 1st base Eric peeked over to see if Dad caught all the action.
Right now baseball is fun and he is enjoying learning new things. It certainly is less work (running) than soccer.
Our weekend began on Thursday evening. Eric had his final swim lesson at the Holland Patent pool. He is doing basic strokes; crawl and backstroke. He is jumping off the diving board. He is treading water and learning to dive off the side of the pool.
From the swim lessons I took him to his 1st little league baseball practice. It is playing Minor League B in which the coach pitches to the kids. He played short stop in the field and took his cut at batting and made a 3 hits out of six or seven pitches. The practice was cut short due to lighting. The next practice is scheduled for Tuesday night.
We continued our home remodeling. I removed the TV sliding tray from our entertainment center moved all our computer equipment into the entertainment center and co-located it with the desk in the living room. We working on getting the layers (and layers and layers) of wallpaper and plaster from the foyer.
I removed nails from all the molding and wood which had been pulled out of the house. Eric and Trevor sorted through the wood pile claiming boards to use for their log cabin.
We did two coats of paint, ceiling and walls in Eric’s room – Barely Beige on the walls and one wall of a dark, brick or Spanish red. Saturday night Eric slept on the coach and despite the room being finished on Sunday night the fumes were too much to have him sleep there Sunday evening. His closet is opened up and is the last item to be completed. Yet to be completed is the painting, installation of the shelves and drawer unit and the sliding doors.
Eric had vacation on Good Friday and spent the day at Trevor’s, riding his bike and crashing into wood and brush. Saturday Kathryn went grocery shopping and Eric went out for lunch with Molly Skelly and her boyfriend. We largely spent the day picking up the house, moving furniture, sweeping, mopping and recovering from the construction. Even though the walls were exposed sheet rock it was nice to get our living room back. Late in the afternoon I drained the hot tub and hooked up the warm water to Eric’s Slip & Slide. He held Slip & Slide competitions (Speed, Distance, Stunt and Freestyle) versus imaginary competitors. I sat in the lawn chair with a cold beverage and announced the events.
Sunday we were joined by the Barb/Joe, and the tribes of Ed and Billie Jo for Easter. First, up was an Easter Egg hunt to recover the 74 eggs stuffed and hidden by Kathryn. Next we enjoyed a feast of salmon, orange roasted pork loin, scalloped potatoes, salad, broccoli, and blue berry muffins followed by dessert of pies and jellyroll. It was yummy.
We managed to get everything picked up after our guests left and crashed for the night.
For the past 28 years we have done an April Fools Dinner. The format is crazy attire, sloppy food, eating dessert first, and using kitchen utensils. Below you can see our table setting; no plates or normal bowls. Eric and Jim are properly dressed for the occasion.
First on the menu is pudding; scooped and eaten from coffee travel mugs by Eric and Kathryn .
Next is spaghetti – whatever way you can get it in your mouth.
Now why doesn’t this catch on as a National Holiday?
Eric has been in Tiger Cubs this year. It is the earliest year of Boy Scouts. Right after the den started meeting, the den leader quit. The overall coordinator asked if any of the parents would take on the role of den leader. I declined but offered to lead for a month and/or help out in portions of meetings. In the confusion some of the boys bolted to the Floyd den, but Mitchell, Josh, Janaru and Eric stayed.
With a small group we were able to complete all five chapters of the Tiger Cubs handbook and thus the boys will be earning all beads/badges/awards for this level.
Last night we took a nature walk along the nature trail which parallels Cincinnati Creek in Trenton Town Park. We found and discussed thorn apple trees, white pine trees, and pussy willows. We saw mallard ducks and red-winged blackbirds. We looked at skunk cabbage, beaver chew and old golden rod. We discovered last year’s bird nests and Janaru detected minnows. After wards we made a picture frame which will contain a picture of the boys taken right before the hike.
With Little League baseball and AYSO soccer soon to start I am glad Scouting is winding down. I had a better time doing the activities with the boys than I anticipated. The small group size helped.
Born: February 18, 1920
Place of Birth: Albany, NY
Death: March 25, 2010
Place of Death: Baptist Health & Rehabilitation Center
Occupation: Homemaker
Organizations: Colonial Heritage Association, Schoharie County Historical Society, Home Bureau, Schoharie Valley Eastern Star, 4-H, Schoharie 50-Plus Club, Cobleskill Regional Hospital Auxiliary, Scho-Wright Ambulance Service, Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church
Mrs. Muller was a member of the Colonial Heritage Association, the Schoharie County Historical Society, Home Bureau at Cooperative Extension, Schoharie Valley Eastern Star, 4-H leader, Schoharie 50-Plus Club where she also served as President, volunteer at the Cobleskill Regional Hospital Auxiliary and Scho-Wright Ambulance Service, a longtime member of Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church where she also served on the Council and was a Sunday School Teacher at the former Community Church in Schoharie.
She was married to William Clifford Muller on May 18, 1941 until his death October 18, 2006. Survivors include her children Jeanne (Lester) Hay of Carlisle, Barbara (C. Joseph) Waring of Delanson, James Richard (Kathryn) Muller of Holland Patent and Robert William (Linda) Muller of Delanson, one sister Marie Muller of Schoharie and several grandchildren, great-grandchildren and several nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by one brother William Tryon in January of 2004.
A service to celebrate the life of Alice Muller will be held at 2:00 PM on Monday, March 29th at the Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, Church Street Central Bridge with burial following in the Old Stone Fort Cemetery, Schoharie. There will be no calling hours.
Memorial contributions may be made in memory of Mrs. Muller to Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, PO Box 273, Central Bridge, NY 12035 OR to Scho-Wright Ambulance Service, PO Box 325, Schoharie, NY 12157.
I spent Friday night, 12 March, with Mom. I called her from Lawyersville and asked her what she wanted me to pickup for dinner. She told me to choose, so I picked up Arby’s as I knew she had eaten from there before and liked their curly fries. We had dinner, visited and I showed her a bunch of pictures that were on my computer. I washed dishes and we looked at the newspaper to see if there was a good basketball game to watch. We ended up watching Georgetown play Marquette in the Big East Tournament semi-finals. We watched with the sound off and either provided our own commentary or talked about other things; Eric’s activities, the re-modeling on the house, etc.
She especially liked the story I told her about Eric’s school having a kitchen fire and him eating lunch in the middle school where their pizza was so much better because they put more salt and more sugar in their recipe. It was a story she asked me to repeat when she was in the hospital later on.
We went to sleep after the game and I slept through the night. About 6:20am I heard a noise in Mom’s bedroom and then some unintelligible speech. I called out “Mom, are you OK?” When I didn’t hear a reply I went in to check where I found her trying to use her walker get to the bathroom. She was slumped over to the left side, her speech was unintelligible, but her intent was clear. I immediately called 911 and worked to get her lying down in her bed. Once I got her resting I called Jeanne and told her of the situation and asked her to inform the rest of the family.
On Thursday night I woke up at 3am and was unable to sleep. After an hour of tossing and turning I snuck out to the hot tub for 45 minutes. It was a clear night and I saw two brief flashes; one to my west and one to the east; that might have been shooting stars. But there was one long, unmistakable shooting star heading south to north directly overhead. I felt strongly that was her passing.
I feel fortunate that I was able to feed Mom several meals and quench her thirst with ice chips while she was hospitalized at Ellis.
You are looking at tickets for the Sweet 16 Syracuse Regional. University of Washington vs West Virginia and Cornell vs Kentucky. Should be great seats!
The UW vs WV was an ugly game where no one could make a shot. We were kidding with the UW fans behind us that the 1st team to break 40 would win the game. WV managed that.
Cornell has a huge crowd in the dome and jumped out to an early lead, but were unable to get the ball inside by penetrating or passing into their 7′ center, Foote.
Saturday we watched VW upset KY to make it into the final four by making 8 of 15 3 point shots in the 1st half – no 2 pointers. They made their foul shots and were able to stem KY’s rally.
When I returned to our house on Saturday evening I was met with the sight of fields burning around our house. It did cause a bit of excitement. Apparently my neighbor decided to burn the weeds and dead grass in the hay field, since it didn’t get mowed and baled last summer.
There was an announced burn ban which took effect the previous Monday. I was told the State Police showed up and issued a ticket. It was still burning at 7:30pm, but died down shortly after that.
Sunday was a beautiful day. Eric and Trevor opened up the sand box while I started recycling lumber by pulling nails. I listened to the NCAA March Madness Tournament – Cornell winning vs Wisconsin and Michigan State winning vs Maryland.
