Uncle Tom and Dad arrived in Great Falls on Sunday; I joined them late Monday evening. Judy organized and hosted all of the out of town guests with such love and graciousness. We spent many hours at her home looking at pictures (old and new), visiting and being fed wonderful meals. Judy Riesenberg and her husband, Russ, have a beautiful, blended family with children, spouses and grandchildren.

Robert's other children -- Lyndon, Arles and Shirlene -- plus some of their children and grandchildren -- were also part of the gatherings. I hadn't seen Lyndon since we were both in our early 20s. What a talented, handsome, kind man he is. It was so nice to reconnect with them after so many years. Isn't it interesting how a person can just pick up visiting with people you were once close with, and it is if the years between just melt away?

Dad, Uncle Tom and I managed to get going early enough from our motel both mornings to do some mini-tours of Great Falls. We took pictures overlooking Black Eagle Falls and Rainbow Falls (both on the Missouri river) and toured a rainbow trout hatchery and the Lewis and Clark exhibition.

Photo © Shari Larson
Jim Miller & Shari Miller Larson & old buggy in museum.

To Betty [Weiland Droel]: I met Ruth [Weiland] and Ken Kitto and we had fun chatting about our mutual relatives, like Anita [Pfingsten Weiland].

What a wonderful family of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren Robert and Jeanette have to carry on their name! They must be looking down from heaven, smiling.

Shari

Photo © Shari Larson
Back row: Russ and Judy Riesenberg, Alvin Baker, Jim Huisman; middle row: Glenda Baker, Betty Huisman & Lyndon Miller (we think); above the uncles: Arlys Simingsen, Shari Larson, Shirlene Searight (& her husband, we think); in front: Tom Miller & Jim Miller.

Photo © Sarah Steinhauer
Beetle on new leaf.

Update -- Virginia's rehab progresses
by Capt. Jack Adair
Coon Rapids and Alexandria, MN

Arvid -- if still living -- would be 91 years old, but he passed away in 1977. Arvid was principal at Little Falls Middle School.

When we finished our meal, I noticed some elderly folks nearby, so I went over. I excused myself and asked if they were local folks, to which they said they were.

When I asked if they knew Arvid, they were surprised; they all knew him, in fact sitting there was a lady, age 102. She told me she taught first grade in Arvid's school and this 102-year-old-lady's daughter was a student of Arvid's. She spoke kindly words about him.

This elderly lady appeared to me to be about 80 years, as she was very spry and her hearing was better then mine. She spoke of knowing him many years. Arvid died in his early 60s of an apparent heart attack while sitting in his living room.

I told her Arvid taught me how to ice skate on the creek at Dwight, North Dakota, where we all were raised. I remember buying his old shoe skates for 50 cents.

She also said she was related to Arvid's wife, who lives in Little Falls.

So if you want to know anything about anything, just ask the right people, like I did. (Some might say, "None of your business," but don't let that discourage you!)

I understand there is a statue (full size) to his honor located on the school grounds.

The hail is being mean this year, and how much damage did it do to your garden, Doug? And then there was the threatening frost to yours, Elaine. I must have hard work to find something to worry about ... but I love flowers! I always have, but I have never had a whole lot of luck. Now my flowers are all in bowls or pots. --Dorothy

Elaine said:

When spring came, I was wondering how I would be able to take care of my flower garden with my medical problems at that time. However, helpful sister DeLoris came over and cleaned off all the old tops of the plants and cleaned up the flower garden for spring.

After all the unseasonably cool weather and frosts, it is now looking very pretty. The seven colors of iris are blooming, the daisies are so refreshing, the Memorial Day peony is about through blooming, and several other flowers are showing buds.

My flower garden is mainly perennials, as I do not like to bend over and plant little plants out each year. It seems there is something blooming all through the summer with much less work than planting annuals. One thing I did notice was that many more tender plants came through the winter well, but the hardest hit was the Canadian Morden shrub roses, which lost lots of branches on them.

I remember the years of growing vegetable gardens with all the canning that goes with that, too. There are always enemies -- the rabbits who nibble, the heat and cold and wet and dry, the deer and 'coons who know just when the sweet corn is ready, but one has to love it to continue to plant gardens.

I find my flower garden a retreat, a place to relax and meditate and enjoy nature with the birds and bunnies and squirrels. I have many flowers with names derived from the person who gave me a root to start that plant, so one often thinks of that person as one walks through the garden. Also, some friends are made as they walk past the alley and admire the flowers and stop to chat.

I think it's just the farm girl in me that makes me want to continue in spite of the ups and down that we endure with growing things.

Douglas wrote:

I'm a little discouraged on the gardening front ... the hail seems to have KO'ed my rose bushes and rose tree ... although one of the bushes still shows some vital signs. We will see. My sunflowers are coming up! This week is kind of worthless ... doesn't rain and the sun doesn't shine. Kind of frustrating. That's gardening!

LATER: (Thursday, July 3)

My first Tiger Lily bloomed today! I also have two roses and some wildflowers coming up. It's so exciting!

Doug

I am sure the mother is Marian, Steve Miller's wife, and the boy in the high chair is Kurt Larson. The other two are the twins, Sue and Mike. The little fellow must be the brother, but I can't remember his name.

Marian Miller, Susan Miller, Kurtis Larson in the high chair, Mike Miller and Sandy Miller would be my guess.

Darkness had fallen and the desert cooled rapidly. As we picked our way down the rocky slope and onto the dry lake bed, the chill of the night shivered up and down my spine. The lamb must be lost somewhere -- out there.

In the distance, we heard the familiar, crazy yapping of a coyote. Another coyote took to yapping, this one closer than the first. Then a third entered into the maniacal song. They laughed and howled and I imagined they might be discussing the good fortune of the hunt. Checker was keenly tuned in and I expect the black hair on his shoulders may have been standing straight up; I felt a strange prickling on the back of my own neck.

Wading into the sagebrush, it was easy to imagine it as water sloshing at my trouser legs. We followed along the base of the butte (which was now barely visible in the darkness) until we reached the point at which we'd approached it earlier in the day. It was so dark I could barely see the sagebrush in front of me. There was no way I could follow our exact path across the featureless landscape. Checker took the lead and I followed a few steps behind him. Soon the dim, rocky shoreline at the base of the butte seemed very far away.

During lambing time, when I'd fed lambs with a bottle, Checker would lick the milk that dripped from their mouths and I'd say to him, "Po-o-o-r baby!" He'd learned to associate lambs and milk with those words.

Following the advice of the shepherd from Salt Lake City, I'd begun talking to Checker: "Po-o-o-r baby!" I'd say this when I could see where a lamb was lying in the sagebrush, and then I'd let Checker find it. When he did, I'd repeat again, "Po-o-o-r baby!"

He began to associate the words with looking for a hidden lamb.

So, now, I was saying the words to him, and he seemed to understand. I wondered if he knew enough to be following the course we'd charted earlier in the sizzling heat of the day. Was the lamb with the broken leg nearby?

I halted frequently to listen. The coyotes had gone silent. Finally, holding my breath, I heard the faint bleating of the lamb. Checker and I ran on toward the sound. "Po-o-or baby!" I called to him.

(What would someone have thought if they'd seen me running through the desert yelling, "Po-o-or baby! Po-o-o-o-r baby!" But not to worry, there was not another soul for miles around -- with the exception of Sherry and the girls, who were back at camp.)

I stopped frequently to listen and we'd soon honed in on the lamb. Checker circled around, making sure it didn't get away; he would have appeared as a predator to the lamb.

I praised him profusely: "Good dog! Such a good dog!" Scooping the lamb up into my arms, as I had done several times earlier in the day, I held it to my chest. I was amazed, again, by the comfort lambs seem to get from being held by the shepherd.

Somewhere -- out there -- I imagined the coyotes were slinking off into the darkness.

It was a joyous occasion: the lamb nuzzling my chin as we navigated our way back to camp, under the silent twinkling of the stars.

The trees were good size. Those spruce trees were about six to eight inches and nice and tall. It wasn't some of this scrubby stuff either. They were nice trees and they hadn't cut it yet, so it was hard to find a trail. You could look through the spruce. The limbs weren't down to the ground. The limbs were up about 10 or 12 feet in the air before you got any little bits of limbs. You don't find many swamps like that anymore.

Those were quite the days out there at the hay meadow. We were up there a couple of different years. Some of that soup was pretty lean. We had rutabagas, potatoes, carrots, and no meat. We had a partridge or something, but we never did get a deer. Some deer came down there all right, but we never did get one. If that wasn't something.

You couldn't haul that hay out of there until the wintertime. It seemed like every winter they never got it. They were going to go up with a sled and a team of horses and haul the hay in. I never got up there to get hay because it was too cold and too far and I was going to school, furthermore, so I didn't get in on the hay hauling, which was all right. It was awful tough to get that hay out of there. The snow was deep and the horses would go clear to their bellies. I think we left a lot of hay up there.

"Then our speed diminished -- the mulberries were ripe. Jerri and Kyra stopped at every bush, picking and eating without concern for the time. My patience wore thin. Why today? But I joined in: three could pick faster than two.

"Jerri found a cherry tree next, with red, ripe cherries dangling just within reach. We picked a quart and tucked the container into the pack.

"More mulberries. Already purple-faced and purple-fingered, we stopped again, and again. Would we ever get to town, or ever get anywhere today?

"'Hiking schedules just fall apart during berry season,' Jill Durrance said in one of the AT books I'd read. She'd sure had that right. We walked and stopped, walked and stopped, and finally reached Linden at noon." --from Walking North, by Mic Lowther.

Photo © Jerrianne Lowther
Mic & Kyra pack up food boxes for mailing at the post office.

This Week's Birthdays
July 6---James Miller
July 7---Kimberly Johnson
July 8---Trenton Loredo Roberson (5 years)
Happy Birthday!

This Week's Anniversaries
July 8---Shawn and Lori Chap Ostendorf (2 years)
Congratulations!

More July Birthdays
' 
July 1---Suzanne McCorkell
July 1---Jim Smith
July 1---Zachary Elliot Smith (4 years)
July 3---Vonnie Dake
July 4---Brian Lehtola
July 5---LeRoy Dake
July 5---Jennifer Dake Horne

July 13---Zach Bratten
July 13---Ginny Adair
July 15---Tom Morgan
July 15---William Earl Dake
July 15---Sherry Dake
July 18---Callie Printz (7 years)
July 19---Patricia Dake Meyer
July 19---Marlee Morgan Freesemann
July 19---Devon S. Stewart
July 20---Michael Miller
July 20---Susie Miller Smith
July 24---Donna Jacobson Anderson
July 24---Jeni Larson
July 26---Tytus Joshua Myron
July 27---Wyatt Timothy Mellon (11 years)
July 29---Heather Henderson
July 29---Colleen Mellon Scott
July 30---Justin Printz
July 31---Tim Myron

More July Anniversaries
Z
July 1---Ken and Amy Dake Harrison (1 year)

July 19---Dan and Nancy Mellon (39 years)
July 21---Capt. Jack and Ginny Adair (46 years)
July 27---Larry and Sherry Dake (30 years)
July 29---Charles and Ardis Sigman Quick (36 years)

July Special Days
O
July 4---Independence Day

Dear Miss Hetty,

Thanks for the birthday e-card. Usually, birthdays at our house are fairly low-keyed. Our son called this afternoon and asked to take us out to dinner this evening, so that will be the highlight of the day.

Have a great day and God bless.

Sue -- for Virginia Robinson
Seattle, WA

Thanks for sharing this.

Owen and Susan Henderson
New Mexico

Those magnificent beautiful Fairy Slipper Orchids were a spark of excitement as the first picture of The Bulletin this week. One has to look at that picture for a long time to get the full benefit of the intricate design and colors and beauty. Each flower alike, yet so different. Thank you for that most unusual, fragile, delicate, feminine-looking blossom.