Barb Lassa is a member of our Grand Ave Artists.

She takes wonderful photography.  You should check her website out.

"Cow Patti" at the HORSE EXPO in Madison, Wi.  She is a wonderful vendor to be next too, as well as having wonderful products.

Check her FaceBook page out-

CREATIONS BY COW PATTI

Recipe Exchange04/19/2014

2 Comments

  I love browsing new recipes, and my family (of course) has our favorite recipes that stay in our meal rotation!

If you have family favorites, or just something you would like to try or share, feel free to post the recipe here!

The first two replies (Must Include Recipe) to this blog will receive a one week "evening" meal plan complete with grocery list and recipes.

Shrimp Taco's or Fish Taco's

    This is one of the recipes I received for the one week :evening" meal plan.

      If someone else hasn't already done the recipe exchange...you should try it.  And get a weeks worth of recipes along with a shopping list of what you need to get.

The side is done by TEAM USA.  What a beautiful job.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

NIGHT MARES            by: Roxine Karbowski

     Carl was a quiet man. He didn't talk much.  He would always greet you with a big smile and a firm handshake.  Even after living in our neighborhood for over 50 years, no one could really say they knew him very well.

     Before his retirement, he took the bus to work each morning. The lone sight of him walking down the street often worried us.   He had a slight limp from a bullet would received in WWII. he had survivied WWII, he may not make it through our changing uptown neighborhood with its ever-increasing random violence, gangs, and drug activity.

     When he saw the flyer at our local church asking for volunteers for caring for the gardens behind the minister's residence, he responded in his characteristically unassuming manner.  Without fanfare, he just signed up.

     He was well  into his 87th year when the very thing we had always feared finally happened.  He was just finishing his watering for the day when three gang members approached him.  Ignoring their attempt to intimidate him, he simply asked,  "Would you like a drink from the hose?"

     The tallest and toughest-looking of the three said,"Yeah, sure,"  with a malevolent little smile.  As Carl offered the hose to him, the other to grabbed Carl's arm, throwing him down.  As the hose snaked crazily over the ground, dousing everything in its way, Carl's assailants stole his retirement watch and his wallet, and then fled.

     Carl tried to get himself up, but he had been thrown down on his bad leg.  He lay there trying to gather himself as the minister came running to help him.  Although the minister had witnessed the attack from his window, he couldn't get there fast enough to stop it.

     "Carl, are you okay?  Are you hurt?" the minister kept asking as he helped Carl to his feet.

    Carl just passed a hand over his brow and sighed, shaking his head.  "Just some punk kids.  I hope they'll wise-up someday."

     His wet clothes clung to his slight frame as he bent to pick up the hose.  He adjusted the nozzle again and started to water.

     Confused and a little concerned, the minister asked,  "Carl, what are you doing?"

     "I've got to finish my watering.  It's been very dry lately,"  came the calm reply.  Satisfying himself that Carl really was all right the minister could only marvel.  Carl was a man from a different time and place.

     A few weeks later the three returned.  Just as before their threat was unchallenged.  Carl again offered them a drink from his hose.  This time they didn't rob him.  They wrenched the hose from his hand and drenched him head to foot in the icy water.  When they had finished their humiliation of him, they sauntered off down the street, throwing catcalls and curses, falling over one another laughing at the hilarity of what they had just donw.

     Carl just watched them.  Then he turned toward the warmth giving sun, picked up his hose, and went on with his watering.

     The summer was quickly fading into fall Carl was doing some tilling when he was startled by the sudden approach of someone behind him.  He stumbled and fell into some evergreen branches.  As he struggled to regain his footing, he returned to see the tall leader of his summer tormentors reaching down for him.  He braced himeslef for the expected attack.

     "Don't worry old man, I'm not gonna hurt you this time."  The young man spoke softly, still offering the tattooed and scarred hand to Carl.  As he helped Carl get up, the man pulled a crumpled bag from his pocket and handed it to Carl.

     "What's this?"  Carl asked. 

 "It's your stuff,"  the man explained.  "It's your stuff back.  Even the money in your wallet."

      "I don't understand,"  Carl said.  "Why would you help me now?"

     The man shifted his feet, seeming embarrassed and ill at ease.  "I learned something from you," he said.  "I ran with that gang and hurt people like you, we picked you because you were old and we knew we could do it .  But every time we came and did something to you, instead of yelling and fighting back, you tried to give us a drink.  You didn't hate us for hating you.  You kept showing love against our hate."

     He stopped for a moment.  "I couldn't sleep after we stole your stuff, so here it is back."

     He paused for another awkward moment, not knowing what more there was to say.  "That bag's my way of saying thanks for straightening me out, I guess."  And with that, he walked off down the street.

     Carl looked down at the sack in his hands and gingerly opened it.  He took out his retirement watch and put it back on his wrist.  Opening his wallet, he checked for his wedding photo.  He gazed for a moment at the young bride that still smiled back at him from all those years ago.

     He died one cold day after Christmas that winter.  Many people attended his funeral in spite of the weather.  In particular the minister noticed a tall young  man that he didn't know sitting quietly in a distant corner of the church. 

     The minister spoke of Carl's garden as a lesson in life.  In a voice made thick with unshed tears, he said, "Do your best and make your garden as beautiful as you can.  We will never forget Carl and his garden."
     The following spring another flyer went up.  It read: "Person needed to care for Carl's garden."

     The flyer went unnoticed by the busy parishioners until one day when a knock was heard at the minister's office door.  Opening the door, the minister saw a pair of scarred and tattooed hands holding the flyer.

 "I believe this is my job, if you'll have me," the young man said.  The minister recognized him as the same young man who had returned the stolen watch and wallet to Carl.

     He knew that Carl's kindness had turned this man's life around.  As the  minister handed him the keys to the garden shed, he said, "Yes, go take care of Carl's garden in honor of him."

     The man went to work and , over the next several years, he tended theflowers and vegetables just as Carl had done.  During that time, he went to college, got married, and became a prominent member of the community.  but he never forgot his promise to Carl's memory and kept the garden as beautiful as he thought Carl would have kept it.

      One day he approached the new minister and told him that he couldn't care for the garden any longer.  He explained with a shy and happy smile, "My wife just had a baby boy last night, and she's bringing him home on Saturday.

    "Well, congratulations!"  said the minister, as he was handed the garden shed keys.  "That's wonderful!  What's the baby's name?"                 

     "Carl," he replied.

    

Photos by Sam I. Johnson

www.Facebook.com/YARNutopiaByNadiaFuad         www.YARNutopia.Etsy.com

Photos by Sam I. Johnson

This is a wonderful park memorial for the firefighters.

We often forget how much fire fighters and police officers risk their lives doing their everyday jobs.
The bronze statue here shows them pulling out
a fellow fire fighter, which makes you stop and think about what they actually do.  Its not as romantic as sometimes it is pictured in movies and on calendars.
       thank you for being the brave men and women that you are.

This park is often the sight of weddings and graduations.  We had our family photo taken here, and the pictures were awesome.  They were taken by Faud.   You can
check out some of his other work at ....   Images by Faud.  or if you are interested in
getting photos done his phone number is  715-865-6277.  He worked really well with
our 1 1/2 year old grandson, and we got some wonderful family photos.

While looking on the internet I found a few memorials to our police officers.  I was a bit disappointed to see that there wasn't more on-line, and I hope that there are actually more displays of our gratitude to those that protect us here at home.  And it doesn't always need to be for those that have died in the line of service, but to those men, women, k-9's, and Horses, that work for us and with us in our everyday lives to keep ups safe in our own homes, and country.
Thank you.

       I recently received this on my e-mail and thought I would pass most of it on here in my blog.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

      -You're a 19 year old kid.     You're critically wounded, dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam.   It's November 11, 1967.   Your unit is outnumbered  8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense from 100 yards away, that your CO has ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in.
       You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you're not getting out.  Your family is half way around the world,  12,000 miles away, and you will never see them again.
      As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.   Then-over the machine gun noise-you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter.  You look up to see a Huey coming in.  There is no MedEvac markings on it.
        Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you.  He's not a MedEvac so it's not his job, but he heard the radio call and decided he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway.
     Even after the MedEvacs were ordered not to come.  He's coming anyway.  And he
drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 3 of you on board.   Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses and safety. 
     And, he kept coming back!!!  13 more times!!!  Until all the wounded were out.  No one knew until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit 4 times in the legs and left arm.  He took 29 of you and your buddies out that day.
     Some would not have made it without the Captain and his Huey.
                Medal of Honor recipient, Captain Ed Freeman, United States Air Force, died recently at the age of 70.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
        We so often do not hear of our heroes.  Our courageous men and women.
We do hear about the bickering in the political machine, and about the shootings,
and how there are just so many bad things going on.  What about those that do
this type of job daily?  For recognition? For fame? For what?
      Because they are called to,  To do something for the benefits of others.  To go
beyond what most of us would even consider.

            I want to thank them for this.