The Interchange

Here an old road, there a new road, everywhere an orange barrel or a sign, and cranes by the dozens, and workers by the hundreds as work on the Milwaukee Marquette Interchange continues! Amazing! They are building a new interchange within the old one with relatively feew closures of the system.

Pickup Load

Going to make a few sandwiches?

Rebecca Lenore

Rebecca Lenore, my third grand daughter, was born October 24 in the Netherlands. The parents are daughter Beth and son in law Dan Stafford. It must be the year of the girl!

Sixflagszilla and the Spiders

Each October Sixflagzilla and the Spider Family take over a bit of the infrastructure at Six Flags Park near Gurnee, Illinois.

Only Five Months of __________ ! Can You Guess What?

See this story in the Ironwood Daily Globe! Just one more reason to escape to somewhere else!

Try Parking This One Downtown

I've seen a few of these moving south on I35 between Duluth and the Twin Cities. I don't know what the cargo is but it must be very, very heavy! One of these days I'll get a better shot.

Here is a view as I met a couple of the behemoths on the highway between Duluth and Brainerd. I was told by a driver who lives in Duluth that the cargo is a generator/turbine for a wind farm. They arrive in Duluth on ships from Europe and are then transported by truck to sites in the Midwest. Can you imagine that sitting atop the "pole" and having propellers that are maybe a hundred feet long attached as well? I would like to see one of these lifted to it's position! I'll next try to find out how heavy the thing is. Any help will be appreciated! Check out this site for pictures of the unloading of blades earlier this year

Copper Country Snowflake to be Famous

Check out the Ironwood Daily Globe article on snow flakes. A Copper Country snow flake will be on our postage stamps and can be seen on the lower left above. The picture of the four flakes comes from the usps web site.



usps.com/communications/news/calendar/fdevents/06_snowflakes.htm.

Its Time To Go To XM

I ran to Minnesota yesterday with a driver who has an XM reciever in his Volvo. He convinced me to get to town ASAP to pick up my hardware and start enjoying XM variety. I think I'll enjoy it!

Its High School Bowl Season.

I took time this week to stop in Ironwood and have a visit with my brother, his friend, and my nieces husband, Larry, who is the father of the well informed Randy Rovelsky, captain of the Westwood High School Bowl team. They were televised this evening and easily beat the opposition. Keep up the answering Westwood!

The Brownie!

I picked up one of those Duncan Hines Hungry Man Dinners today on the way home. Its in its second "nuking" phase as I write. The first part of the "nuking" involves 4 minutes and then carefully removing the silly little brownie. Now a "t-v dinner" as they were called in the old days is supposed to save dishes so when one removes the brownie the best place to put it is into ones mouth"

Fall 2006

Driving around the northwoods is always a special treat in late September and early October. The colors of fall never grow old to this old lover of the color season. Its one spectacular view after another.

The Ohio Show

Yes, it was Hillsboro, Ohio, for the weekend draft horse festivities....all 400 miles one way. A good time was had by all as we met some very nice Ohio folks and put the horses through the paces. In the picture you see Jeff commanding the six horse hitch around the arena. This is the last event we'll be attending this season and I look forward to next summer and fall when the horses ride again!

Driving Around the Horses!

He drives them around at the shows. Meet our "horse driver" Jeff Batton. At 23 he is probably one of the regions best having worked with his family's draft horses and "pulled" his own team at age 9 or so! Jeff drives them as a team in harness, as single cart hitch, as a team hitch, unicorn hitch, four hitch and as a six hitch. Imagine the skills needed to control six plus tons of horse from the seat of the wagon telling Jim and Doc and Marcus and Mike and Sam and Chief to do their things! Its been fun helping the crew and just watching the shows. Lets go again guys! This weekend we're planning to be off to Hillsboro, Ohio, to the Southern Ohio Draft Horse Show and Field Days. It'll be a four day adventure, the first such trip for the Wilderness Farms team.

The Wonder of a New Silky

Julia was treated with a brand new bigger girls silky when I visited there to see the baby Genevieve. (Genevieve also got a new baby silky). Julia wasted no time showing off the flannel side and then the silky side and later the silky became a swimming pool! She reportedly now keeps both the older and the newer silky in her bed and when awake doesn't let either get too far from her.
Ahh, the wonder of a blanket!

Do You Have Experience In This Area?

It is difficult to tell if there is a message here.
Nonetheless I must declare that as a result of the
past few weeks of horsing around I have new
experience working with a certain part of the
horses to add to past experiences working with
such! The dreams still occur once in awhile of some
of those experiences of the distant past!

Some Welcome Time Off!

Looks like the company's local customers are in an inventory mode so we have a few days of R&R. Its a seasonal thing which I welcome after running hard for months with often short weekends and very busy days. As usual business will pickup again next week and Volvo's wheels will again be turning toward Chicago or the Twin Cities. As for a couple days.....sleep late, take a noon day nap, catch up on chores, and maybe even spend a little money! Later this week the horses will be calling for a ride to the local Dickinson County Fair. Fear not Doc and Jim and Chief and whatever the rest of you guys are called, I'll be there!

The Baby Genevieve and Big Sister Julia

Gosh, I've neglected to talk about my visit last week to Northfield to see the new baby Genevieve. Here she is just a few days old in Dad's hands posing with Julia. Welcome to the family Genevieve! See more pictures of Genevieve and the Northfield crew at Flickr.

The Horses Mouth

Victoria, daughter of Mr G's ranch caretaker, enjoys the horses as much as it appears the horses enjoy her horsing around with them. This one stands docilely as she tugs at his "lips" to expose his teeth!

Volvo 1024

Well, here we are with those horses again but this time with Volvo 1024. Its been two weeks already since we "moved in". I finally got this picture today in Florence where we went to give rides for Trail Days. Two teams in harness pulled wagons and were kept quite busy for 4 hours.

Now as for Volvo 1024.......
It is quite a gem compared to the previous trucks. I think young Gunville decided to add a few amenities like power windows, power mirrors, a cd player, arm rests, more gauges, an engine brake, air ride front suspension, and much more! And the bigger engine built by Volvo adds 25 percent more power! It will take some learning as does any new vehicle but a new "ride" is always welcome.

Volvo 1008 and I Made Our Last Run

Saturday was our last run together. It was a "fun run" to the Alger County Fair with three of the bosses 8 Belgian draft horses. He has taken to a new hobby in recent years collecting and showing his prized Belgians and apparently I have been chosen to drive them about the area to fairs and various events. This was our second event this sumnmer so the crew is learning the process of showing. So far we've done quite well at the two small shows. We'll go to a few more this fall and learn some more.
As for Volvo 1008 the odometer read 680,790 when I cleaned it out today for the next driver. Those were pretty much all my miles except for a few put on while I was on vacations. I made my first run with it on February 19, 2002. Tomorrow I go out with Volvo 2024! I'll report on its first run later.

They Are Here and Some Are Out Already

The new Volvos are here and some have already been put to the test as trucks break down. I'll be in mine in a few days and I can then give you a run down! Ironically Big Jim M got into his new Volvo this week when his old truck's turbo blew up. I seen to recall that he got into a new truck 4 some years ago when he collided with a deer and did in his front end! Sort of fishy.....no?

The World Cup of GADCO

GADCO stands for General American Door Company if you need to know. They have their own "World Cup" going on there. I'll tell you a story. As it unfolded in real life a while back it made my hair stand on end but its sort of funny now. My company pulls loads of doors out of GADCO. One day around noon I was hooking a trailer there when to my surprise a raging horde of 30 or so GADCO employees begins to charge out of the building directly toward me. I thought I'd better put in a call to the undertaker while wondering what I had ever done to deserve this fate. Within 30 seconds however the horde was running right past me to the noon break soccor game to commence in a open lot just beyond the row of trailers. Apparently they do this at noon every nice summer day. While driving around other parts of the Chicago area where many Hispanics work one can see many soccor games in progress during break times. Later that summer I was at GADCO again and they must have had their World Cup tournament play happening because I saw even some of the factory shirts out there in their little golf carts observing the action!

Will They Use Sticks and Brooms?

Could it be that soon the U S forces in Iraq will be driven out of the country with sticks and brooms manned by the common folk who no longer want our troops killing their neighbors, friends and relatives?
Look out Mr. President! Sooner or later they will have had enough!

Sometimes Lots of Wheels are Involved

Folks who haven't travelled in Michigan probably haven't seen trucks like these. Six, seven and eight axles carry the weight of their loads. These trucks gross weight loaded to the maximum legal limit is in the area of 170,000 pounds. They carry more than one and a half times the cargo a typical 18 wheeler can carry. Michigan and neighboring Canadian provinces allow these trucks on their major highways.

Two Years Have Gone with Two Years To Go

Seems like yesterday when I got the call from Julia's Daddy declaring her birth. Now she is according to her Mommy "the sweetest, smartest, most lovable sweetheart baby in the entire universe, and she's having a birthday!" My how time flies. But now in less than two years into the future I will be able to visit her and her sibling(s) and the third Grandchild (wherever in the world that one might be living) for weeks if not months at a time and be sure that they all have plenty of trips to McDonalds for Fun Meals and other "grandfatherly excursions". I truly look forward to spending time with them rather than with Volvo and a load of paper!