A Visit to Rhinelander

We were in Rhinelander on Father's Day weekend, so treated the kids to ice cream at Jett's Dairy Bar. While there we spotted some of the artsy new hodags around town... and decided we like 'em.

I've seen similar concepts in other towns. Madison has it's "cows", of course-- each decorated uniquely by a local artist. In Eau Claire you can drive around and look for the chairs shaped like hands, each colorfully painted in a different theme and style.

But... no one else has hodags!!

Before the ice cream, we took the kids to Hodag Park. It's probably been twenty years since I was there. I looked for that "really cool" swing set that had four swings facing each other (so you could kick at other kids while you were swinging), but that was gone and replaced by safer (and more hum-drum) modern playground equipment.

My sister Laurie was also around, having made the trip to Rhinelander to attend a friend's wedding. My brother John had ridden with her from Madison, and helped Dad mow the lawn. And then another of my brothers, Bob, surprised us by also showing up late Saturday night. So the Bragg house was full for Father's Day weekend.

Jon (my husband) has been home most of the summer. His crew is working in North Dakota, but he's postponed his involvement in the project... for awhile. After spending so much time away from home in previous months, he wanted to be a regular guy who gets to mow his own lawn and tuck his kids in at night. He's been doing odd jobs and excavating, meanwhile, to keep the family finances afloat.

We were glad to have him around for Father's Day! Here he is with his youngest three kids. The older three-- Jonathan in Eau Claire and Susan and David in West Virginia-- talked to him by phone on Father's Day.

After our trip to Rhinelander we stopped by Cornell and visited Jon's parents. They hadn't seen Leila walk yet, so enjoyed seeing her test out her new mobility.

And now we're back into our summer routine here. Emma walks over to the neighbor's farm every morning. She pets the horse and feeds the chickens (for which she's paid $1 a day). Then a school bus picks the kids up for summer school. I bring them home in the afternoon, and then (usually) the neighbor kids come over to play.

On Wednesday nights, Emma has baseball. She's had a couple of practices, but this past Wednesday was her first game. She hit the ball a couple of times and made some runs. Her new purple bat, purchased by Daddy, was popular with her teammates, and she's dubbed it her "lucky bat".

On Tuesday afternoons, Michael has bassoon practice. His band teacher warned us that it's one of the hardest instruments to play. There's only one bassoon in the entire band, so we expect lots of solos;).

Michael spent his first lesson learning how to put the big strange thing together... and take it apart. I usually have to assist him in figuring out how to fit it back into the case. But he can make sounds come out of it, and is starting to do some scales.

The reed alone cost $18 (let's hope it lasts awhile-!), but at least instrument rental is cheap... only $50 for the school year. I consider that a pretty good deal.

Well, if it looks like these chickens are in our back yard... it's because these chickens ARE IN OUR BACK YARD.

Their names are Pumpkin and Dot, and they are the chicks that Emma has been raising at our neighbor's up the hill. Jon built a coop and brought them home to roost, this week. We collect an egg every day.

After about a week of acclimating to our yard, we plan on opening the coop door during the day, so they can mill about our yard. Hopefully Coco (our terrier) cooperates with that plan. She's awfully interested in those chickens...

I'll close with a picture of Leila. She's loving the country life, as you can see.