Aspen Sticks

I finally delivered the peeled aspen stick order that I was preparing back around July 4th. I left two hours behind schedule on Sunday evening, but it all worked out because I pulled into Mora, MN just three minutes before the gentleman from Texas that was picking up the order. Couldn't have timed it better.

The photo shows a portion of the sticks that were stored in my house for lack of a garage or shed space. I'm a fairly casual person when it comes to my house, so it was no big deal to have 6 foot sticks stacked in every corner imaginable. Once in a while someone would trip on one and a few would clatter to the floor. No injuries, though. The worst casualty I can think of was Meggy's ball. Inevitably, it would roll back behind a pile. Meg would pace, and whine, and whimper. Tug us over to view the tragedy. One of us would have to crawl and reach for it's slobbery blucky-ness back amid the dog hair dust bunnies. Do that a couple of times and you'll never forget to break out the nozzle attachment on the vacuum to go that extra mile in housekeeping ever again.

The drive to Mora was good-good traffic, nice road, good music, lots of time to myself to think, pretty scenery...But I was tired to begin with. I left Bemidji at 5pm and returned home a little after 12:30am in the middle of a severe thunderstorm. Not only am I thankful for the inch of rain the storm brought us, but I'm pretty sure the anxiety of trying to stay on the road helped me stay awake those last few familiar miles-the ones I think I can drive with my eyes closed. How tempting that always seems after too much driving.

Our driveway is very closed in with trees and I was worried I'd be walking the last mile home if one had fallen in the storm. But all was well. The worst of the high winds seemed to hit a bit North of us. Tornadoes were reported. Our neighborhood was remarkably undamaged, considering. And I was soooooo glad to be home. Crawled into bed and hoped to sleep in.

Got my wish.