Bookmark61 is taking a few days off work so we can begin the huge task of sorting through all the boxes in the attic. We did this several years ago, so this time we shouldn't need a dumpster. Since we've had a problem with critters in the attic, Brett put down a drop cloth to protect the carpet in the big room upstairs before bringing any of the nasty cardboard boxes down. That was some good planning. Our goal for this project is to get everything packed into plastic bins to keep the dust and critters out. Our other goal was to find the missing tiger picture.

We found all kinds of forgotten things, interesting things, unexpected things, and things we have no memory of whatsoever. Among the forgotten things were the letter pillows I made for Krysten that spell out her name. The "Y" is missing, but it might show up later. Among the interesting things:

5 gallon bags filled with Happy Meal toys from the 1990s.

Among the unexpected was when Brett opened a box in the attic to see whether it was something to sort now or save for later and a flying squirrel leapt out and onto his chest. I thought he'd fallen or a tower of boxes had tumbled onto him or something until I heard him kind of laugh and say, "Well, that was unexpected!" He carried two boxes down and then left to go get the live trap. Except when he got the trap out of the backyard, there was a chipmunk in it. So he took the chipmunk across the field to toss it over the creek in the hope that it won't find its way back to our yard. While he was gone, I looked at the open attic door, and our open bedroom door, and the ladder that was blocking our bedroom doorway so I couldn't close the door, and the two big boxes waiting to be sorted. I was kind of nervous about opening them. Finally I got up my courage and shook the box on top. When nothing scurried in response I opened the box and started sorting very carefully.

The stuff we have no memory of owning went straight into the pile that's being donated to our church rummage sale. At the end of the afternoon, our attic is still full and our upstairs room looks like this:

Piles for Krysten to sort, piles for the rummage sale, piles for the trash, piles to possibly sell on eBay, piles of papers and pictures to look at more thoroughly... We did make some progress, though. Look what we found:

The long lost tiger picture! There is a drive-thru zoo in Gentry, Arkansas called Wild Wilderness Safari. My dad loved to take his grandchildren there to feed the giraffes and touch the python and, in my adventurous daughter's case, chase the tiger cub and pull its tail. We've been looking for the picture for years. Here's a better view of it:

She likes to give me a hard time about standing there with a camera while she did this, but her Grandpa was right behind her, just barely out of the picture. The second after I took this shot, the tiger turned and tried to grab her around the legs, but my dad had already yanked her to safety. I have a photo of that somewhere, too, but it's all blurry.

I'm sure there will be more stories and photos to come as we tackle this project.

My photos are beginning to show up!

It was an exciting weekend in my usually quiet corner of rural Michigan. Saturday was The 'Duh's big village festival where yours truly beat out a blueberry chocolate pie to win the brutally competitive Pie Baking Contest. If you ever want to win a baking contest, remember the acronym JAR (Just Add Rum).

On Sunday I skipped church in order to spend three hours pouring orange juice for bikers at the Ride To Remember. It's an escorted motorcycle ride through two or three rural counties in memory of first responders who lost their lives on 9/11. Proceeds go to the local chapter of the American Red Cross. I just happened to have my camera with me and managed to slip away from my onerous orange juice duties long enough to shoot a few photos.

A few of the escort vehicles: city police, city fire department, sheriff's department motorcycles, ambulance, news station, township fire department, sheriff's department cruiser, Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle.

A few of the volunteers. We were labeled for easy access.

Haha! I took a photo of somebody pouring their own OJ. Oops!

The red fire truck in the collage photo was there to hang a large American flag from their ladder over the intersection where the ride began. It made me feel very special that they remained there after all the motorcycles and support vehicles were gone and waited while we cleaned up and packed all the tables, flags, bags of trash, leftover food and tee-shirts into the remaining Red Cross vans and allowed us to drive under the flag, too.

A few of the motorcycles.

Color guard from one of the law enforcement agencies.

The small fire truck from one of the local townships was carrying a piece of the World Trade Center.

I slipped away just before the ceremony started and shot a few photos from the second story of the courthouse. I also shot a video of all the bikes and escort vehicles leaving, but stupid Windows 8 is not letting me upload the video onto my laptop. Just try to imagine the roar of a couple of hundred motorcycle engines and the sirens of all those emergency vehicles. It was pretty awesome.

How was your weekend?

As requested both here and on Facebook, here is the recipe for my now famous (at least in The 'Duh) Captain Morgan Spiced Pear Pie. But first, we're going to start with the pie crust recipe which I got from a website. It was either The Pioneer Woman's blog, or somebody else's site that got it from The Pioneer Woman's blog. I can't remember and I'm leaving in a few minutes to help the Red Cross feed hungry bikers at the Ride to Remember, so I don't have time to look it up. I am attributing this recipe to The Pioneer Woman because I know she is somehow associated with it. This is the best pie crust recipe and can be made in advance and stored in the freezer. I made mine several weeks ago and it turned out light and flaky and delicious.

NEVER FAIL PIE CRUST

1-1/2 cups shortening                         5 Tablespoons water

3 cups flour                             1 Tablespoon white (distilled) vinegar

1 egg                                             1 teaspoon salt

In large bowl, work Crisco into flour. In small bowl, beat egg with fork (or whisk) and work into the flour mixture. Add water, vinegar and salt. Stir until all ingredients are incorporated. (If dough is too dry, add water 1 Tablespoon at a time.) Form three equal balls of dough and place each into a large freezer bag. Slightly flatten each ball with a rolling pin (rolling over the freezer bag) until about 1/2" thick. Seal bags and freeze until needed. To use, remove from freezer, remove from bag, and thaw about 15 minutes. Roll to 1/2" bigger than your pie pan. Place in pan and pinch and tuck edges to make smooth.

CAPTAIN MORGAN SPICED PEAR PIE

9" pie pan lined with pie dough  4-6 red pears, peeled, cored and cut into wedges

1/3 cup flour                                                                              1/4 cup spiced rum

1/2 cup dark brown sugar                                                        Streusel Topping:

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon                                                           2/3 cup flour

1/8 teaspoon salt                                                                       2/3 cup dark brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves                                                    6 Tablespoons chilled butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (F). Pour rum over pear wedges and set aside. Mix 1/3 cup sugar, cinnamon, salt and cloves in large bowl. Add pears and rum, tossing gently to coat. Pour into prepared pie pan and set aside.

Combine streusel ingredients in medium bowl and blend with pastry cutter or fingers until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle evenly over top of pie.

Cover edges of pie with protectors or foil. Bake at 375 degrees for one hour. Cool on wire rack.

Drizzle with caramel topping if desired.

My entry in the Village Festival pie contest.

This is the first time I've ever entered the pie contest. We'll see how it goes!

EDIT 11:35 AM :

I WON!!!

I almost had to do a radio interview and walk in the parade, but I took my $100 prize and ran!

We are beginning the process of cleaning out our attic. The plan is for Brett to bring down a few boxes at a time and I will sort through them, repacking the stuff I want to keep, setting aside stuff for the church rummage sale, and tossing the trash. Our attic has a history of wasps, bats and flying squirrels. I've also seen at least one dead spider in the first batch of boxes I sorted yesterday. There are scary things in the bottoms of the boxes from the attic!

I'm not sure if every bunch of boxes is going to be the same, but the first one was an emotional roller coaster. The first thing I picked up was a plastic bag. When I looked inside it, I found some photo envelopes. I grabbed the envelope on top and opened it; inside were two plastic folders filled with photographs. I pulled out the folder on top, opened it, and was figuratively punched in the gut by the first photo. I'm glad I was sitting down.

It was my dad and the photo was from the road trip Krysten and I took with my parents to California in 1996. The photo was from our memorable stop for a picnic at a state park in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, one of the most beautiful places in this country. That photo made me gasp and tears sprang to my eyes. The next photo made me laugh.

It was Mom in her flowery straw hat, being attacked by tiny hummingbirds. She thought they were big bees or wasps. The hummingbirds were attracted by the Diet Coke she's holding and confused by the brightly colored silk flowers on her hat. You can see that she had dropped her cane, but was holding tight to her Diet Coke. We do not neglect the priorities in my family!

I found three or four envelopes of photos from that trip, including these taken in Kansas where we stopped to see family.

My cousin Lynda, Aunt Pat and Dad. Aunt Pat and Dad are both gone now.

Krysten and Uncle Lou. They immediately became fast friends; not an easy accomplishment with Uncle Lou. He is gone now.

My grandmother. I'm going to take a wild guess that the flash on my camera had stopped working. Grandma was gone a couple of years after this photo was taken.

This one made me smile. It's Krysten standing on the sidewalk in front of Grandma's house watching a train go by at the rail crossing up the street. I remember visiting Grandma when I was younger than Krysten in this photo, and getting excited when the crossing bells started clanging and the barricades came down. I'd run out the door and down the sidewalk to watch the trains go by. It made my heart happy to see my daughter do the same thing. Grandma's house on Market Street is still there, but it is now making memories for another family.

I've looked for these pictures a few times over the years. They've been lost for many years, but now they've been found again. So many of the people I loved in these photos are lost now, though; Grandma, Aunt Pat, Uncle Lou and Dad. Mom is still here in body, but Alzheimer's Disease is causing her to slowly slip away from reality. Krysten, of course, is still with me, but she's a grown woman now, living her own life, making her own memories.

What was lost is found, what is found has been lost. I am thankful for the photographs that stir my memories of this lost moment in time.

There is a beauty to old barns that captivates me. Where many people might see a crumbling eyesore, I see the beauty of old wood and handcrafting. The days are gone when a farm meant a man and his sons, a few acres of tillable ground, horses to pull the plow and a few animals for milk, eggs and meat. Back then, a big wooden barn and a brick grain silo were sufficient to keep the farm going. Now the old barns are mostly used to park the huge machinery needed to till and plant and harvest hundreds of acres. Ugly tin can buildings store the grain while the old phallus shaped brick silo becomes a metaphor of age and decrepitude. I am happy to see farms surviving in this modern age, but sad to see the beautiful buildings from a simpler age left to crumble in the fields.

This, of course, is a metaphor for Xanga. I loved the old, simple interface. I am struggling with this new place, trying to be patient and give it a chance to be productive. I feel like I've outlived the era in which I was most comfortable and have turned over the family farm to the next generation. My beautiful old barn has outlived its usefulness and is now just a reminder of how far technology has brought us. But at least the farm has survived. And maybe... just maybe... this old dog can learn a few new tricks before the world completely passes me by. I did, after all, manage to put a photo in two posts now. It's a start.

Speaking of photos, does anyone know whether our photo files are going to make the migration?

I just unfollowed about 1300 blogs so I can see my subs without having to go through 20 or 30 pages of posts. I'm sure I unfollowed some that I shouldn't have, but I can always fix it later. I don't like having Friends and Subs combined like that. I was expecting it from what @John said in various posts and the interview with @roadlesstaken, but I hoped I misunderstood. What do you guys think of the "Reading" feature? Do you like having Friends and Subs combined? Just curious if it's only me who finds it annoying.

This is different... and a little confusing. It's going to take me a while to get used to the new digs. It's like 2005 all over again. Hopefully it won't take me two years to figure it all out this time. And hopefully I won't always have to use Chrome to get in.

Ha! I figured out how to put a photo into the post; I'm already 18 months ahead of schedule. Yipee!

Let's have a roll call and see who's here.