Records

DONE - Earl: telephoned. He blows the lines Monday the 19th. His winter bill is $810.00 this year, up $30, due November 15. - Generator serviced. - Chimney swept in September. TO DO THIS WEEK 1. The dishwasher: its year of warranty is nearly up, and the wheel…

We go up north on the 16th to close. I have telephoned Earl and Pike Bay. R. has agreed to look for his passport before we leave and not after; it has to be renewed before Norway, and he has known that since January. Hannah comes at five. Ellen and Mark are d…

Jan. 6 - "What We Can Know" - Connie's Feb. 3 - "Flesh" - Marlene's (I was in Alabama) March 3 - "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" - Ellie's (670 pages) April 7 - "My Ántonia" - Ruth's (my suggestion) May 5 - "The Emperor of Gladness" - Margie's June 2 - "R…

Eighteen years ago this morning I was in the library at Tamarack Hill, shelving the new picture books, when Bunny came to the door herself instead of buzzing. Ellen had gone in at five. I taught until 11:30, because there was nobody to take the kindergarten,…

Jan. - "A Long Way from Chicago" Feb. - "Caddie Woodlawn" (a Wisconsin girl, for a Colorado one) March - "The Incredible Journey" April - "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry"

- Oil and filter, air filter, spark plugs checked, battery tested, valves checked. - 74 hours on the clock. Two real outages since May, 40 minutes and 2 hours. - Propane 61 per cent. Kivela before closing if it is under 50 by then. - Paper is in the truck and…

- One butternut squash, about 3 lb, halved, seeded, face down on a pan, 400 degrees, 45 minutes, until a knife goes in. - An onion and one apple (a Cortland), chopped, softened in butter in the big pot. - Scoop the squash in. 4 cups vegetable broth. A little…

They are both tired. Hannah has an anatomy examination on Thursday and recited the bones of the hand to R. over the pie, in order, and he checked them against his own, counting on his fingers. The RAV4 has four new tires as of yesterday. We had our flu shots…

Michelin CrossClimate 2, the same size. $981.06 with mounting, balancing and an alignment check. Back after 50 miles to have the wheel nuts checked. I am going Tuesday.

The ramp crew finished yesterday for the year. Seventy-one ramps since 2016, per their count.

The ramp crew finished for the season today. Seventy-one ramps since 2016, by the organizer's count. He came home with sawdust in his hearing aids. An email arrived on Monday, in capital letters, to say that the warranty on my car is about to expire and that…

---------- From: Vehicle Protection Center <notices@vehicle-protection-center.example> Subject: FINAL NOTICE - Coverage for your 2022 TOYOTA RAV4 expires in 5 days MARGARET OSTRANDER 1846 HAWKSTONE DR MADISON WI 53711 Our records indicate that the factory war…

- Rear shocks, both. Originals. - Oil. - Brakes looked at: front pads 5 mm, rear 8 mm. Fronts next year. - $389.75. - Tires: 6/32 in May. Gary says one more winter. Due this fall: the registration sticker, and the insurance. Peg is to ask Linda once more abou…

R. was at the front, twenty-four, with the mustache, and he had the hearing aids in. He tapped his ear to show me that he could hear. I had the veil in my hand. I do not know whether I got it loose.

While I was there: the worn prong on my engagement ring, which Ingrid pointed out two years ago, has been retipped at last. $85.00.

1. The lentil thing (below). 2. Squash soup, with bread. 3. Mushroom and wild rice loaf, the Christmas one. 4. Egg bake with spinach and cheese. 5. Pasta with the garden's tomatoes, while there are any. 6. Bean chili, the pot without meat. 7. Lefse, potatoes…

She moved into the dormitory on Friday. Ellen and Mark brought her up with a carload, and we came at ten with lunch, a fan, and a small toolbox from R. with her initials on the handle of the screwdriver. The room is a concrete box on the sixth floor with a vi…

- Sellery Hall, B tower, room 614. Sixth floor. - Her roommate is Sanvi, from Schaumburg, who is studying engineering. - Post goes to the hall's front desk with her name and room number; they send her a message when something comes. - She answers messages fas…

He asked what I wanted for the fiftieth. I said Sogndal, and for him to walk up the hill with me this time instead of going off to look at a bridge. He said there is a bridge on the way. It rained on the fish boil, and they held it anyway, under a tarp. R. ha…

DECIDED 1. The week of August 14 to 21, 2027, at the cabin, all fourteen. No hall, no caterer, no speeches. 2. Then the two of us to Norway in September, about two weeks. Sogndal first, to Astrid and Knut. Then wherever Ray's bridge is. 3. No Ephraim that yea…

WHO SLEPT WHERE - Lake bedroom: Ray and I. - North bedroom: Kate and Samir, with June (5 on the 12th) on the trundle. - Back bedroom, the twins: Ellen and Mark. - Sofa bed: David and Julia. - Bunkhouse: Hannah (17) lower lake side, under the blue quilt; Owen…

Hannah is seventeen and off to college in seven weeks. Owen is fifteen and six feet tall and eats standing up. Lucas, twelve, fried the walleye on the Fourth, all of it, at his grandfather's elbow, with R. saying nothing but "now" at intervals. Maeve read on…

Six jars go back to them. Two to Marianne Trost. Two to Earl.

Two loon chicks, hatched last week. Jack Niemi has put the floating signs out. Arnie walked over this morning by himself, with the cane, across both yards, to bring the rhubarb, because Bev was at church. It took him some time. I watched him come the whole wa…

- 41 present. - Balance $8,655.20. Dues stay at $85. 52 paid. - Loons: two chicks, hatched last week, on the island raft. - Water clarity last August 14 feet. - No break-ins for the third winter running. Road: $240 a lot for last winter. To Tom.

From memory, since the papers are in Madison: the frame is guaranteed 15 years and the decking was 5. The dock went in in June 2015, the same spring as the Lund, so the frame should be covered until June 2030. Telephone Rod at Pike Bay on Monday and ask wheth…

60 x 80, ten strips the long way, like the blue. Backed in dark green flannel, bound in red. Label: "Bunkhouse, Skein Lake. Green. 2026. No. 54." The red top is cut and half pieced; the gold is a pile of fat quarters with a rubber band round it.

Lucas telephoned him, by himself, from Denver, to report a rainbow trout of nineteen inches and to ask a question about leaders. They talked for forty minutes. R. came out of the den afterward and said, "He's thirteen in August." I gave him a new tape measure…

Mark conducted; Owen was in the trombones, counting rests with his lips. When they called Hannah Grace Sievert, she walked across exactly as she walked into the lake when she was three, straight, not looking round. At the house afterward she showed me the ins…

- From us: the quilt, and a cheque for $500.00 toward books. - She starts in Madison on August 28. - Thank-you note to Mark's mother, who saved us seats in the shade. Next graduations: Owen 2029, Lucas 2031, Maeve 2034, Theo 2036, June 2039.

Hunter's Star, queen size, 90 x 105. Fourteen greens on cream. Quilted by Kathleen Laufenberg on the long-arm, a pattern of leaves, $196.56 with thread. Backed in a green print of ferns, 6 yards. In one corner, small, in the embroidery stitch: a dock. Label:…

The loons are back, both of them. I heard them last night from the bed, with the window open an inch, and R. heard them too. Jim Hrdlicka came for the opener, with a new hip, and he and R. took Arnie out in the pontoon and came back at noon with four walleye…

- One window screen chewed (back bedroom). No mice in the stations. - The generator's clock reads 58 hours. - Bunkhouse dry. Keypad batteries back in; the heater works. - Starlink started again from Ray's telephone on the drive up. Opener: Ray, Jim Hrdlicka a…

Everything else is in order. Dr. Raghavan asked what I was reading and wrote it on her hand. A tetanus shot in the left arm.

1. Height. The nurse made me 5 feet 4 1/2. I have been 5 feet 5 since I was fourteen. - It is the spine, and it is expected. It does not change the bone plan: scan in August 2027. 2. Three years off the alendronate this summer. Still right? - Yes. 3. Tetanus:…

Calls from all three before noon. A card from Hannah with a drawing of the back bedroom window as seen from inside. R. took me to the Nordic Table. I had the arctic char.

2025 - April 24 2026 - April 19

NEW AMOUNTS: - 1 1/4 cups in the morning and 1 1/4 cups at night. Two and a half cups a day, down from three. Same food (Pro Plan Large Breed Adult, chicken and rice), same blue scoop; I have drawn a line on the scoop. - ONE biscuit a day. Carrots and green b…

Kelsey offers one more year for $380.00 the pair. We have decided against. He is NOT to wear them in the boat without the little cord that clips to his collar, which is in the top drawer.

198 entries. Best of show: Pat Hering, hand quilted, at 81. Jeanette Wollin wants entries by February 1 next year.

This year is the first in which Ray MUST take money out of his IRA. - The amount for the year is worked out by Pemberwick from the balance at the end of December and his age. Ask Tom Kittleson, not the custodian. - Tom is sending it in four pieces through the…

The RAV4 sat in the garage for the three weeks we were in Gulf Shores with the truck and has sulked ever since; yesterday it would not start at all. Gary had a new battery in within the hour.

Next winter: have Marlene start it and let it run in the driveway for half an hour once a week, switched fully on, in "ready."

- Ellen: July 18 to 25. - Kate (second): August 1 to 8. - David (third): June 13 to 20. - The Fourth, everyone: July 1 to 8. All three in by March 1. 2027: Kate chooses first. But 2027 is also the fiftieth, and the week of August 14 to 21 is taken by all of u…

Ray: the old filling in the lower right molar (no. 30) is failing at the edge. Dr. Felber recommends a crown before it breaks. Estimate $1,340.00; the Plover plan would pay half. He said he would think about it. Next cleanings August 25.

- One new bird. Life list 312. - Booked 2027: February 6 to 27. Wade says Dottie is thinking of selling in a few years. If she does we are to be told first.

A new bird on Tuesday, the only one of the trip, and I nearly did not raise the glasses for it: a long-billed curlew on the mudflat at the refuge, with a bill like a bent darning needle. That is 312.

Ask Ellen what Hannah would like from us and what she would rather we did not do.

"Night Sky." Twin, 70 x 90. A navy ground with forty pieced stars in whites, creams and three golds, and stitched in pale thread from star to star, the Big Dipper and Orion as they stood over Denver on the night of March 9, 2016. David worked out the position…

R. has begun, without discussion, to clear the corner of the garage where the bicycles used to be kept. "She'll need somewhere to put one," he said. The other planning this winter is 2027. Fifty years in August. We have settled it between us: all of them at t…

Ocean Waves, twin, 66 x 86. All of the blues are Alice Nettesheim's, against white. Backed in a print of small sailboats. Label: "For Theo, from Grandma Peg, 2026. The blues were Alice's. No. 51." Posted Tuesday, insured.

Ray's Social Security: $3,471.00 gross, less $202.90 for Part B and $31.20 for the drug plan = $3,236.90 deposited. Third Wednesday. My Social Security: $1,897.00 gross, less the same $234.10 = $1,662.90 deposited. Second Wednesday. My WRS pension: $2,480.00…

Jan. - "The Westing Game" Feb. - "Tuck Everlasting" March - "Bridge to Terabithia" (I warned Julia, not Maeve) April - "The View from Saturday" May - "Number the Stars" June - "Holes" July - "The Graveyard Book" Aug. - "When You Reach Me" Sept. - "The Girl Wh…

Hannah is seventeen and has applied to Madison, for nursing, and will hear next month. She would be twelve minutes from this kitchen. I have said nothing to her about that. I said it to R., who said, "She'll come for the laundry." Maeve, nine, has read every…

Beds: - Ellen and Mark: Ellen's old room. David and Julia: David's. Kate and Samir: the family room, on the sofa bed. - Hannah: the sewing room, on the trundle. - Owen and Lucas: air mattresses in the den. - Maeve, Theo, June: sleeping bags in our room. Sizes…

Jan. 7 - "Orbital" - Marlene's Feb. 4 - "Time of the Child" - Nan's (I was in Alabama) March 4 - "The Frozen River" - Connie's April 1 - "Three Days in June" - Ruth's May 6 - "Stone Yard Devotional" - mine June 3 - "The Correspondent" - Dee's August 5 - "Wild…

- Warranty: one year from the day it was delivered, parts and labor. The delivery slip is stapled to the receipt. - Clean the filter at the bottom every few weeks: a quarter turn, lift, rinse.

The blue one, for the lower bunk on the lake side. 60 x 80. Ten strips running the long way, six inches finished, in blues from the scrap tubs. Backed in navy flannel, quilted by me in straight lines two inches apart, bound in red. Label: "Bunkhouse, Skein La…

Me, Kelsey Vanderhoef, yesterday: a mild loss in the high pitches in both ears. No hearing aids. Test again in two years.

A mild loss in the high notes, both ears, usual for seventy. No aids yet. Test again in two years.

R. ate the fish, a potato, and one lefse with nothing on it.

My mammogram on the 21st: normal. Next October.

Oct. 9-10. Truck to Naperville (the dog), then O'Hare; overnight to Lisbon. Marianne had booked the hotel room from the night before, so that we could go straight to bed at nine in the morning. Oct. 10, Lisbon. The old quarter on the hill, by tram and then on…

We go through locks. One of them lifts the whole boat more than a hundred feet in a concrete box, in the dark, with water running down the walls. I did not care for it. R. stood at the rail with his hand on the wet concrete as it went by. Porto was blue tiles…

Bev and Arnie will be one of three lights on the road this winter, and for the first time I asked whether they would be all right. Bev said their daughter has been at them to move to Duluth, and that Arnie told her he will move when the lake does. The boats w…

12. Bunkhouse: heater OFF at its thermostat and at its breaker. Mattresses stood on edge, away from the walls. Sheets, pads and pillows home. Window locks. The keypad stays on the door; its batteries come OUT for the winter and go back in May. 13. The dock ha…

Before we go: - Close the cabin EARLY, October 4 and 5. Boats to Pike Bay on the 3rd; I have telephoned Rod. Earl blows the lines on the 6th. - Ray's cardiology visit is moved from the 14th to the 28th. - My mammogram is the 21st. - Birdie to Ellen's on the 8…

- Kivela filled the tank yesterday. 186 gallons. $446.20. Gauge now 82 per cent. - Generator clock: 41 hours since it went in. 26 of them over the winter. One real outage, June 12, 3 hours 10 minutes, a tree on the line by the highway. It started in ten secon…

They were out three hours this morning and came in with two walleye and a perch. R. cleaned them. Arnie sat on the overturned bucket and supervised, and when I brought down coffee he took the cup in his right hand and then, deliberately, moved it across to th…

Book next year's by March as before; they say they will honour the old guests' rooms if asked by name.

The year after next is the one people make a fuss about. R. says he does not want a fuss. He has been looking at flights to Bergen. Arnie came home on Friday, walking with a cane, the left hand slow. He cannot run the boat. He told R. so himself, at the end o…

Per Ray: - On OUR dock, since Arnie's has steps down to it and ours has the ramp. He will fish from here. - Along the right side of the first three sections, 24 feet, from the shore to where the pontoon ties up. - Aluminum pipe, 1 1/2 inch, on five posts clam…

Seven weeks. She sold two small paintings of her own off the gallery wall to strangers, and was at Bev's every evening for the first week after the stroke, doing dishes, not asked. She had stripped the bunk and folded the blankets the way I do, in thirds. On…

So: September 2, "So Far Gone," at Margie's. Naomi has changed the order.

I had not known that she was thinking of it, exactly, but Ellen had, and has been careful to say nothing. The people at the gallery have told her she is good, and she is. She said, "I liked last Saturday better than I've ever liked painting anything." Then sh…

R. does not talk about it. He is quieter than after Don, if that is possible. Arnie is four years older than he is; the stent is six years old. Yesterday evening he took the Lund out alone to the rock bar and sat there for two hours and did not, I think, put…

When they got there the walleye were standing upright on the rocks on their tails, in a row, like people at a bus stop. Arnie pointed at them with the cane, one at a time, as if he were counting, and looked back at R. to see that he had it.

- He was last himself at 6:10, per Bev. She telephoned us at 6:40. The ambulance came from Woodruff in nineteen minutes; from there he went to Wausau by helicopter. - Hannah was there before I was and did the right things in the right order. - He had the clot…

Bev telephoned at twenty to seven. I knew from the first syllable; she did not say hello. He had come to the table for his coffee and could not lift the cup. His left hand lay on the cloth, she said, as if it belonged to someone else, and the left side of his…

We left Hannah in charge of the cabin and the dog. Sixteen, alone on a lake. I telephoned twice the first evening, and R. told me to stop. Bev looked in, she says, "without looking in." We came back to find the porch swept, the dog fed, a new painting drying…

We sit on the porch after supper. She asks me things. What her mother was like at sixteen (exactly as she is now, with worse hair). Whether I minded being called Peg. What Great-Grandma Dorothy thought of Grandpa. Why I stopped working. I answer as truly as I…

- Bunkhouse: Hannah (16), Owen (14), Lucas (11), Maeve (9). - Lake bedroom: us. North bedroom: Kate and Samir, with June on the trundle. Back bedroom: Ellen and Mark. Sofa bed: David and Julia. Porch cot: Theo (7), with the dog. For the record book: Thursday,…

Heronwood Credit Union, Odana Hollow branch - joint checking, ending 3306 - joint savings, ending 8841 - safe deposit box no. 417. Two keys: one on my key ring, one in the bedroom safe in the envelope marked BOX. Ellen has been on the signature card for the b…

On Thursday morning Lucas caught a northern off the end of the dock on a red-and-white spoon: thirty-one inches by R.'s tape, measured twice, because the first time nobody believed it. He was by himself. He played it for what he says was twenty minutes and R.…

She does not eat fish. She does not eat anything that had a face, she says, which in this house in July removes most of the menu. R. considered this for a day and then drove to Northgate and came back with four kinds of beans and a block of something pressed,…

- 46 households present. - Balance $7,902.15. Dues $85, unchanged. 51 paid. - Spent: water tests $425, stocking $600, newsletter $270, loon signs $95. - Loons: one chick, on the island raft. Road, separately: $230 a lot for Earl's plowing and grading last win…

- She sleeps in the bunkhouse: lower bunk, lake side. - Work: the Paddle & Easel Gallery in Minocqua, Tuesday to Saturday, 10 to 5. She leaves at 9:20. - She drives the RAV4 to work. Linda Schroedl says a licensed grandchild driving it with our leave is cover…

It has its first tenant as of yesterday. Hannah has come for the summer. She is sixteen, and she has a job in Minocqua at the Paddle & Easel, Tuesday through Saturday, minding the counter and cutting mats. She is to have the RAV4 for work, and has been taken…

What it is now: - 12 x 16 feet on the old slab. Insulated walls and ceiling. Pine paneling, tongue and groove, finished clear (a water-based satin, two coats; Nate left a quart). - FOUR BUNKS built into the two long walls, an upper and a lower on each side, l…

August 5 - "Wild Dark Shore" - Ellie's Sept. 2 - "Flashlight" - Margie's Oct. 7 - "Buckeye" - Helen's Nov. 4 - "Heart the Lover" - Nan's Dec. 2 - cookie exchange - MINE Two of those are not published yet. Naomi will order when she can.

(May 28: it was. A tubular adenoma. Next in 2030.)

The shed is empty for Nate's crew on the 12th. Where things have gone: - The mower and the gas cans: the lean-to on the back of the pump house. - Rakes, shovels, the wheelbarrow: the boathouse, left wall. - Paint, 31 cans: to the county's clean sweep day in R…

- Colonoscopy: due. Referred to Dr. Iverson; his office will telephone. - A hearing test: referred to Kelsey Vanderhoef. - Bone scan ordered for August. - The ankles: that is the amlodipine. If shoes stop fitting, telephone. BP 130/78, weight 151. TSH 2.4, LD…

At four yesterday afternoon Kate was at the back door with a carry-on, and behind her David, and behind him Ellen, grinning like children who have got away with something. Only the three of them. R. had known for a month and had not let on. I have not had my…

1. Lund 1675 Impact XS, 2015, red and white. Bought new May 2, 2015 from Pike Bay, $21,400 with motor and trailer. Hull number LBBHN482B515. Motor: Mercury 60 hp FourStroke, serial 2B114873. Trailer: ShoreLand'r, bunk type. Wisconsin registration WS 4827 KD.…

211 entries. Best of show to Diane Schuster.

I entered June's baby quilt, borrowed back from Portland for the purpose. It took a third in its class. Pat Hering stood in front of it for some time and then said that the machine work was "very even." The taxes went to Denise on the 7th. R.'s labs are Tuesd…

1. My pension statement (the state's 1099-R). 2. Both Social Security statements. 3. The 1099s from Pemberwick: my IRA, Ray's IRA, the trust account. 4. Interest from the credit union. 5. Property tax receipts: Hawkstone Drive, both halves; the cabin, in full…

- David (first choice this year): July 26 to August 2. - Ellen (second): none. She keeps her turn in the order. - Kate (third): August 16 to 23. - The Fourth, everyone: June 28 to July 8. Hannah has asked, by letter, to live at the cabin from June 21 to about…

- No new birds. The list stays at 303. - Booked 2026: January 31 to February 21. The RAV4: a stone chip in the windshield, low on the passenger side, the size of a lentil. Have it filled before it runs.

Ruthie Lachance came back, by herself, to the same unit. She played cards on Thursday, and when the deal came round to where Gerard used to sit, Norm dealt a hand to the empty chair without thinking, and then everyone looked at the cards lying there. Ruthie p…

R. is in the shop with the space heater, building a bookcase for Maeve, who has run out of shelf. I am reading "The Frozen River," about a midwife in Maine in 1789 who keeps a diary of every birth and death in the town. Fourteen years in here this month.

All four: 60 x 80, wide strips running the long way, six inches finished, ten strips to a top. Blue, green, red, gold, to go with the sheets. Scraps only. Char Hinz wants the deposit for next January by November 1.

Feb. 4 - "Time of the Child" - Nan's. I shall be in Alabama. March 4 - "The Frozen River" - Connie's April 1 - "Three Days in June" - Ruth's May 6 - "Stone Yard Devotional" - MINE June 3 - "The Correspondent" - Dee's, in the garden The fall to be chosen in Ju…

Jan. - "The Secret Garden" Feb. - "Harriet the Spy" March - "The Penderwicks" April - "The Wild Robot" May - "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" June - "Island of the Blue Dolphins" July - "The Phantom Tollbooth" Aug. - "A Wrinkle in Time"…

Julia's mother asked me for the lefse proportions. I gave her Mom's. Three books worth keeping from this year. "North Woods" is one house in Massachusetts over three hundred years. "James" is Huckleberry Finn told by Jim, and is angrier and funnier than I was…

Sizes: - Hannah (16): women's small. Paints, the good ones, from the shop Kate recommended. - Owen (13 1/2): men's medium. - Lucas (11): 12-14. An ice-fishing rod. - Maeve (8 3/4): 10. December's book. Ray is building her a bookcase, cherry, to be delivered i…

Jan. 2 - "North Woods" - Margie's Feb. 6 - "The Berry Pickers" - Connie's (I was in Alabama) March 5 - "Absolution" - Marlene's April 2 - "The Women" - Ruth's May 7 - "James" - mine June 4 - "Table for Two" - Dee's August 6 - "Long Island" - Nan's Sept. 3 - "…

All Benjamin Moore unless it says otherwise. All trim in the house is White Dove, OC-17, semi-gloss. DOWNSTAIRS - Living room: Revere Pewter, HC-172, eggshell (2016, Ray) - Dining room: Monroe Bisque, HC-26, eggshell (2009) - Kitchen: Hawthorne Yellow, HC-4,…

I rolled for four hours and then had to sit down, for the first time. Harlan Nygaard died on October 11, after ricing beside Ray every year since 1996. His grandson came in his place.

Hannah came up with Ellen for it. She declined the fish and the meatballs on principle and was put on the dessert table.

This one runs HOT. Set the dial at 450 to get what the old one gave at 500. A round should take about 50 seconds a side; at 500 on the new one it took 30 and scorched.

I had not known I was still carrying it until it was set down. For five years I have looked at the back step every time I passed the kitchen window.

No change to any pill.

Harlan Nygaard died on the 11th. He riced potatoes beside R. in the church kitchen every November since 1996. R. helped carry him on Wednesday, in the dark suit, and came home and said the casket was lighter than he expected. Two weeks to the dinner.

1. Boats out first. Pike Bay meets us at the landing. Call a week ahead. 2. Dock: Earl and his boy roll it out the last week of October. Chock the wheels. Bench comes off, goes in the boathouse. 3. Water. Breaker 14 OFF (well pump), panel in the hall closet.…

We do not want to haul lake water in pails again. R. says it is because of the freezer. It tests itself on Tuesdays at ten in the morning. The little red Honda has been retired to the boathouse.

- Kohler, 14 kilowatt, runs on propane from our own tank. - On a pad beside the pump house, 6 feet from the wall, exhaust pointing away from the cabin. - A transfer switch by the breaker panel in the hall closet. When the power from the pole stops, it waits t…

The sapphire was new to her. She turned it under the lamp for some time and asked who had chosen it. I said my husband, by himself. She said, "He has an eye," and R., who was pretending to read the paper in the next room, turned a page rather loudly. Carl's c…

- 15 pieces this time: the 14 from 2016 and the sapphire ring. - $25 a piece, $375.00. Two copies of the report; one goes to Linda Schroedl. - Looked at and not appraised, at our asking: the Hamilton, the Oslo pendant, the pearl drops, Carl's cufflinks, the g…

From Madison: north on US-51, about three and a half hours, to Minocqua. Gas in Portage or Tomahawk; there is nothing between Tomahawk and Minocqua but trees. At the lights in Minocqua by the bridge, go WEST on Highway 70. Set the odometer. - 6.2 miles: turn…

- MUSKY, 44 inches. September 17, 2016. Rock bar, north shore, about 7 in the evening. Black bucktail. Arnie netted it. Released. - WALLEYE, 26 inches (Arnie says 24). September 12, 2020. Rock bar, 12 feet, jig and minnow. Kept. - NORTHERN, 26 inches (Jim say…

A tow to Woodruff, to Darrell Maki, who had the water pump out and a new one in by four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. We ate lunch out of the cooler in his waiting room, with a calendar from 2019 and a very old Labrador. Tuesday was forty-seven years. We h…

$738.34. About 61,420 miles. Paid on Ray's Visa.

Hannah set up an easel at the end of the dock on Friday evening and painted until she could not see: the dock itself going out into the water, and the far shore, and the light that comes at about eight. R. looked at it for a long time and asked whether he cou…

- NEW RULE, as of Saturday morning: no lures, hooks or rigged rods are left on the dock, ever. They go in the boathouse on the rack. Birdie found a lure of Lucas's at six in the morning and put a treble hook through her lip. The emergency vet in Minocqua (ope…

Present: 44 households of 53 members. Ginger in the chair. 1. Last year's minutes: approved as mailed. 2. Treasurer (Ray): balance on June 28, $7,118.40. Dues are $85; 50 households have paid for 2024, three have not and will be telephoned. Spent since last J…

June 9. Chicago to Vancouver. A hotel on the harbour. June 10-12, Vancouver, three nights. The big park with the totem poles and the sea wall; the market on the island under the bridge; on the 11th the ferry to Victoria and back, an hour and a half each way a…

R. has not looked at a mountain since we boarded. He has looked at the railway: the spiral tunnels, where the line doubles back on itself inside the rock to gain height. He had a man in the vestibule draw it for him. He has explained it twice to our table com…

Theo and June appeared on the screen this morning from Portland, in their pajamas, and were shown the lake. Kate has claimed the first week of August under the new rule. She was to choose first, and did, on February 27, two days inside the deadline.

- Starlink. The dish is on the gable of the boathouse, the lake end, where it sees the most sky. - The cable runs under the eave, down the corner and underground in conduit to the cabin, 62 feet. - The router is in the main room on the shelf by the television…

Emergency contacts as set up: Ray, then Ellen. It is charged at night on the kitchen desk.

(May 17: a tubular adenoma, like the two in 2014.) My own turn is next spring.

Both my eyes are done now, the second on the 9th. Yesterday I read the hymn numbers on the board from the back pew, without glasses, for the first time since I was about forty.

Reading glasses, +1.75, from the drugstore. Three pairs: kitchen, sewing room, handbag. Drops for the left eye run to May 7. My driver's license says corrective lenses; ask at the DMV whether that can come off.

ICE-OUT, SKEIN LAKE. Date the lake is open from our dock to the island. 2004 - April 21 (from Gordon Sundquist's calendar, the year we bought) 2005 - April 16 2006 - April 12 2007 - April 22 2008 - May 1 2009 - April 24 2010 - April 3 2011 - April 27 2012 - M…

Connie drove me there and back; R. in a waiting room is no use to anybody. The shield came off this morning. The refrigerator is white. I had thought for some years that it was cream. My own face in the bathroom mirror was a surprise. The left eye, which is s…

DROPS, right eye only (the prednisolone, the bottle with the pink cap; shake it first): - Week 1: one drop, four times a day. Breakfast, lunch, supper, bed. - Week 2: three times a day. - Week 3: twice. - Week 4: once. Then stop. RULES - The plastic shield, t…

- Kate (first choice this year): Saturday, August 3 to August 10. Telephoned February 27. - David (second): June 15 to 22. - Ellen (third): July 27 to August 3. - The Fourth, everyone: June 29 to July 6. Ray and I will be in Madison for David's week and for E…

- Gerard Lachance, in the next unit, died on the night of the 14th. - Three new birds: American oystercatcher, sandwich tern, yellow-crowned night-heron. Life list 290. - Booked 2025: February 1 to 22.

The cards were not played on Thursday. Jeanette made a casserole instead, and six of us sat in Ruthie's unit and ate it off our laps. I walked a long way down the beach on Friday by myself. Sanderlings, willets, one oystercatcher.

There is a lens that corrects the astigmatism as well, at a price, out of pocket, for each eye. I said yes before R. could look at the figure. He looked at it afterward and said, "They're your eyes."

- Which first? The right; it is worse. March 12. The left on April 9. - What goes in? The plain kind Medicare pays for, and glasses still for my astigmatism; or a "toric" lens that corrects it, $1,150.00 an eye out of my own pocket. I said yes to the toric. -…

Jan. - "Pippi Longstocking" Feb. - "The Tale of Despereaux" March - "Half Magic" April - "The Borrowers" May - "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" June - "Because of Winn-Dixie" July - "The Cricket in Times Square" Aug. - "Matilda" Sept. - "The Trumpet of the…

Samir's parents had us all on Christmas Eve. Nabil and R. went off into a corner and talked about culverts for an hour and a quarter. Leila sent me home with a tin. This was the first Christmas I did not send a card to Lorraine. I had addressed the envelope b…

Sizes: - Hannah (15): women's small. She has stopped eating meat as of October; no beef sticks in that box. A set of good coloured pencils, 72, and paper. - Owen (12 1/2): men's small. Skates 8. - Lucas (10): 12. A fillet knife, with Ray's letter about how it…

Jan. 3 - "Demon Copperhead" - Marlene's Feb. 7 - "Foster" - Connie's (Lorraine's last meeting) March 7 - "Trust" - Ellie's April 4 - "The Marriage Portrait" - Nan's May 2 - "84, Charing Cross Road" - mine. Lorraine's favourite, ten days after she died. June 6…

Thanksgiving was Ellen's four and Marlene. Hannah is fifteen and has given up meat, as of last month, on principle. She explained the principle, well, and ate three helpings of everything else. R. asked whether fish counted. She said the fish had not agreed t…

The console is 68 inches wide. The set is 57. Clearance 5 1/2 each side.

Ray is NOT to lift them down from the garage rafters by himself; each one is 48 lb. Gary's boy will come and do it for $20.

Lorraine bought two tickets every year, for the 12:30 seating, and gave her fish to Hal. I looked for her at half past twelve. R. riced ninety pounds of potatoes last night with Harlan Nygaard.

Arnie has put a steel gate across the end of their drive, with a keypad on a post, because of the break-ins. It closes itself. Bev gave me the code: 1949, then the pound key. It is the year Arnie was born. The gate opens by itself from the inside when a car c…

The maples by the landing were the reddest in a decade. The one loon chick was grown and gone by the first week of October.

Where each one goes: 1. The drive, from the corner of the cabin, looking toward the road. 2. The front door. 3. The boathouse, door and lockbox. 4. The lake side, from the porch roof, looking at the dock. Recorder: hall closet, top shelf, beside the breaker p…

In one sentence each: June is now treated like the other five; the cabin is dealt with; and somebody has been named for the dog. To do, from Rebecca: 1. Ask Tom Kittleson for copies of the beneficiary forms on both IRAs and read what they actually say. 2. Dec…

And the cabin is settled, on paper, in a way that all three of them can live with and that none of them was asked to vote on. R. read every page again. He found a comma.

A deputy named Kivi came round on Thursday. Her advice was cameras, a light on a timer, and to stop leaving the key where everyone on the road knows it is. R. is going to order four cameras. I do not like it. I have left that door unlocked for nineteen summer…

- Bev and Arnie Gustafson: 715-555-0107. Call Bev first for anything. - Earl Koskinen: 715-555-0114. Evenings, after 6. He does not read texts. - Our cabin: 715-555-0126. Our house in Madison: 608-555-0103. - Darrell Maki, for a car: 715-555-0111. - The clini…

Deputy Sara Kivi came yesterday and walked round with Ray: 1. Cameras. Even cheap ones. 2. A light on a timer inside, and one outside on a sensor. 3. Stop keeping the key where everyone on the road knows it is. (Under the third stone of the boathouse step, si…

Eleven new windows at the cabin as of Friday, every one but the kitchen's. The old ones were 1958, single glass with a storm, and rattled in a west wind. These do not rattle. R. went from room to room on Friday night opening and shutting each with two fingers…

Which: every window but the big one over the kitchen sink, which was new in 2018. Three in the main room, two in each bedroom, one in the bathroom, one in the hall. Double-pane, wood inside, green metal outside. They tilt inward to wash; two catches at the to…

I read "Tom Lake" on the porch swing in an afternoon, in cherry country, with a slice of pie. I would have telephoned Lorraine before I had finished the last page. I keep both starters going. R. has labeled the jars: S, and S Sr. Dr. Raghavan has taken me off…

Fish. Twenty of them, each a pieced block 12 x 16 inches, swimming in four rows, every other row the opposite way: northerns in greens, walleye in gold and olive, a row of bluegills, and one musky down the left side that is three blocks long. Water is seven d…

Per Dr. Raghavan: five years of alendronate is enough. I stop in August (she calls it a drug holiday). - Last tablet: Sunday, August 6. - Calcium and vitamin D go on exactly as before. - Scan again in two years, summer 2025.

- Walleye on the Fourth: 20 fillets, which was four short. - Loons: one chick. - The outdoor shower needs a proper floor. Ray will pour a small slab. - Marianne Trost's candle: delivered.

1. The cabin is not rented. Not to strangers, not through a website, not for a week, as long as either of us is alive. 2. The week of the Fourth of July is everyone's, as it has always been. 3. Besides that, each of the three families has ONE WEEK OF ITS OWN…

R. and I sat on the porch last night and again this morning and have decided three things. I telephoned each of them this afternoon, oldest first, and said the same words to each, so that there can be no comparing of versions. One. The cabin will not be rente…

It began with David, who had a spreadsheet. He has added up what this place costs us in a year (the taxes, the insurance, Earl, the propane) and proposed, reasonably, that we rent it out for four or five weeks in August and September through one of the websit…

- Black-backed woodpecker, May 27. - Boreal chickadee, June 3. Life list 285. Loons: one chick, hatched about the 1st, on the island nest.

R. can hear the loons. He was on the dock at dusk the first evening when the pair began to call back and forth across the bay, and he turned his head toward each in turn. I am reading "A Grief Observed," which Connie pressed on me. It is sixty pages long and…

Two shingles of bark off the big birch by the steps; Ray is watching it.

Afterward R. went out and mowed.

We own two plots at Sunset Ridge Memorial Park, Madison: Section 14, Lot 212, spaces 3 and 4. Bought in 1999 and paid in full ($2,200 for the pair, then). The deed is in the safe deposit box. The opening and closing and the stone are NOT paid for. Ray: cremat…

I spoke for nine minutes. I had timed it at home, with R. holding the stopwatch from his tackle box. She told me to keep it under ten. What I said, in outline, so that I have it. That she was a librarian, which is not the same as a person who likes books. Tha…

- Funeral: Saturday the 29th, 11:00, Bethany Methodist. Lunch after, in their hall. - I speak after the second hymn. Under ten minutes; at home it runs 8 minutes 50. A second copy in Ray's pocket. - No flowers. Memorials go to the library at Stony Brook Eleme…

The funeral is Saturday at eleven, at Bethany Methodist. I have written four pages and cut three.

She handed me a jar across the table. It was empty and clean. I said so. She said, "Well, you have to feed her," in the voice for a patron who has not read the sign. Then the fire alarm went, the 1994 one, and everybody began to file out, and she stayed behin…

I had been awake since four. I do not attach anything to that; I am often awake at four. R. came down and found me at the kitchen table and did not say anything. He put his hand on the back of my neck and left it there. Then he fed the starter, hers, because…

That was all. I sat until the light went. I am writing it down tonight, exactly, because I think it is the last thing she will say to me, and it was a joke.

I read the chapter anyway. It was the one where they go out on the river before dawn to look for the lost child, and find him. I had forgotten that it was in there. I got through it. Hal walked me to the car and held on to the door after I was in it and said,…

The Saturday routine, for both: FEEDING (Saturday morning, before anything else) - Take the jar from the refrigerator. Pour off all but about 2 tablespoons. (The poured-off part goes into pancakes or the compost, not down the drain.) - Add 1/2 cup flour (half…

When she was awake today she had business. She has given me three things, and had Hal bring them in so that she could see me take them. Her own copy of the book I am reading her, with her pencil in the margins from thirty springs. One drawer of the old card c…

Today was the river and the picnic. She had her eyes shut, and I thought she was asleep and let my voice drop, and she said, "You've left out what's in the basket." Hal sits in the kitchen while I read and does not come in.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2 to 4. I read to her. What she has asked: that I speak at the funeral, under ten minutes; that the book club be told now; that nobody bring lilies.

I went this afternoon. She was sitting up in the bed in a cardigan with her reading glasses on, doing the crossword in pen, and she looked at me over the glasses and said, "Don't make that face. I've weeded the collection, that's all." I am going on Tuesdays…

Model 570 QE, with the embroidery module. Serial number B57-4481206 (on the plate underneath, toward the back). Bought June 24, 2017, from them. Next: March 2025.

1. Into the charger every night, lights facing up. Three hours gives a full day. 2. Off for the shower, for swimming, and for the table saw (ear muffs over bare ears, not over the aids). 3. Wipe them with the dry cloth each night. No water, no alcohol. 4. The…

In the parking lot he stopped with his hand on the truck door and said, "What is that?" It was the turn signal of the car beside us. At home it was the refrigerator, the furnace, the dog's toenails, and his own footsteps on the stairs, which he says are loude…

Twin, 64 x 86. Trip Around the World, 2 1/2-inch squares, 2,236 of them. Hand quilted. Label: "For June, in her own bed. From Grandma Peg, 2023. No. 48." To Portland by post, insured, this week.

What persuaded him was Kelsey Vanderhoef showing him a chart with a curve on it. He asked what the aids weigh, how long the charge lasts and whether they can get wet, and then he said, "All right." The fitting is the 16th.

Moderate to severe loss in the high pitches, both ears, worse on the left. Hearing aids, both ears. He said yes. The pair she recommends, with the charger and three years of visits, is $4,890.00. Medicare pays nothing and neither does the supplement. Fitting:…

Apple's own three-year cover bought afterward, from Apple and not the store, so it is not on the receipt; it runs to February 2026.

- 24 visits, November 14 to February 9. - Bend: 124 degrees. The other knee does 131. - Straighten: all the way. Zero. - Walking: no cane since Christmas. Stairs foot over foot since January 10.

She said, over the coffee: "I'd like you to do the talking at the funeral. Hal can't, and Annette shouldn't have to. Keep it under ten minutes. I've heard you at retirement parties." I said I would. Then she asked what I was reading, and we talked for an hour…

CHRISTMAS - The ornaments: four tubs with red lids, numbered 1 to 4 on the ends, on the high shelf along the back wall of the GARAGE, to the left of the rafters where the winter tires go. Tub 1 is the tree lights and the star. Tubs 2 and 3 are ornaments. Tub…

Lorraine's scan was last Thursday, and it has come back. Not in one place; she said "scattered," and that there is another drug to try, a harder one, and that she has agreed to try it and has not agreed to anything after that. She told me on the telephone whi…

50-gallon gas, the same size as before. $1,890.00 installed, including hauling the old one away. Tank and parts guaranteed six years, to January 2029; Tuckwell's labor for the first year only. - A pan under the new one, with a drain line to the floor drain. -…

No Gulf Shores this year; the knee is not ready for sand, and he has therapy into February. Dottie has let the condo to someone else for our three weeks. I have a quilt for June on the frame and eleven books on the stairs.

Jan. - "Mercy Watson to the Rescue" Feb. - "Owl Moon" March - "Miss Rumphius" April - "The Hundred Dresses" May - "My Father's Dragon" June - "Ramona the Pest" July - "Charlotte's Web" (a new copy; mine from the library does not leave this house) Aug. - "The…

Lorraine and Hal came for coffee on the 23rd. She is thin in the face again. I asked, and she said the number they watch is "up a little" and that they will look in January.

Sizes: - Hannah (14): women's small, shoe 8 1/2. - Owen (11 1/2): 14-16. Skates 6. - Lucas (9): 10. - Maeve (6 3/4): 7. - Theo (nearly 5): 5. - June (17 months): 2T. Her bed quilt is on the frame and will be late. Nothing with tree nuts on any table from the…

A lap quilt, 54 x 68. Grandmother's Flower Garden hexagons, the 1 1/4-inch ones, pieced by hand over papers since March. Twenty-three flowers, each with a yellow centre, set in a green path. Label: "For Lorraine, from Peg. Friends since 1986. No. 47."

Jan. 4 - "The Sentence" - Ellie's Feb. 1 - "Oh William!" - Connie's March 1 - "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek" - Marlene's April 5 - "Small Things Like These" - Ruth's May 3 - "French Braid" - mine June 7 - "Sea of Tranquility" - Dee's August 2 - "Lesson…

He walks with a cane indoors now and goes to therapy twice a week with a young woman named Megan. He may not drive until January. I have learned where he keeps the ice scraper (under the seat of the truck, not in the RAV4, where one might need it). I am readi…

Ellen did the whole dinner. I was allowed to bring lefse and to sit. Owen is eleven and has grown into his feet. He took his grandfather's walker for a lap of the driveway and reported that it pulls to the left. R. said, "So do I, at the moment."

I am driving, lifting, fetching, and sleeping in Kate's room so as not to jostle the leg. I have less patience than he had with the wrist. The pain is worse than he was told, or worse than he heard. He takes the strong pill at night only, less often than the…

- Oxycodone 5 mg: one every six hours if needed. Twenty tablets were given and there will be no more. He took one at 6 a.m. and one at bedtime and Tylenol between. - Ice machine: on for 20 minutes of every hour he was awake. - Exercises from the sheet, three…

Ben Haldorson drove down from Northfield and sat with R. in the room before they took him, and the two of them talked about walleye for twenty minutes: where, how deep, on what. I knew where to park this time. He is on the fourth floor again, in a different w…

THE HOUSE - He sleeps in our own bed; the stairs are allowed. One step at a time, good leg up first, new leg down first. I sleep in Kate's old room for the first weeks. - Rugs: every loose one is rolled up and in the basement. The runner in the upstairs hall…

- Fish finder in the hall closet, trolling motor on its hooks in the boathouse. - The dock's new wheels: chocked with the wooden blocks, not left on bare ground. - The loon quilt is in its tub. The log cabin one came home.

Sept. 6-7. O'Hare to Amsterdam to Bergen, and then the small plane to Sogndal the same afternoon, 35 minutes. Astrid Fardal and her husband Knut met us with a sign that said HAUGEN. Sept. 7-10, Sogndal, four nights with Astrid and Knut in the house above the…

We have not been alone together for two weeks since we shared a bedroom in La Crosse. On the third night she told me to stop refolding her map. We have talked about Mom most evenings. Judy remembers a softer woman than I do. She was the youngest, and Mom was…

I wore the sølje. I pinned it on at breakfast and walked up the hill in it, the last part on foot, and stood in the yard where she would have stood. Astrid's mother, who is ninety-one, looked at it and said the name of the silversmith in Bergen, and said that…

Mom looked up and said, in Norwegian, that I should sit down, I made the room untidy standing there. I woke and could not bring back one word of it, only that I had understood.

In my bag: - Passport (the new one), the Mastercard, the card with its PIN for the ticket machines, 1,500 kroner from the credit union. - Pills for 16 days in their own bottles: levothyroxine, atorvastatin, amlodipine, the alendronate for two Sundays, calcium…

The knee will be replaced on November 8, by Dr. Rasmusson. R. asked him what the part is made of and was given a brochure. Lorraine and Hal were with us at the cabin for the first week of the month. On the pontoon she said she had spent thirty years telling c…

- The X-ray: bone on bone on the inside half of the joint. He showed us. Even I could see there is no gap left. - The two cortisone shots this year (March and late June) each lasted about five weeks. A third would do no better. - His words: "You can have this…

The running was only the flapper, a $9 part. The rocking: the wax ring had failed and the flange under it, which is the 1958 cast iron, was cracked on one side. He put on a repair flange and a new ring. $285.00, two hours.

WHO SLEPT WHERE - Lake bedroom: Ray and I. - North bedroom: Kate, Samir, and June (11 months) in the travel crib. - Back bedroom, the two twins: Ellen and Mark. - Sofa bed in the main room: David and Julia. - The porch, four cots: Hannah (13), Owen (11), Luca…

R. fried the walleye sitting on a stool. His knee is bad now. I watched him work out how to get from the grill to the table without the three steps. No loon chick. It rained nine days in June, the lake came up over the nest, and they did not try again.

- Tom Halverson stepped down after six years. Ginger Stauber is president. Jack Niemi stays secretary. Ray stays treasurer. - Per Ray, the treasurer's report: balance $6,203.11. Dues raised from $75 to $85 from next year, 31 to 4. 49 households paid. - Loons…

The grandchildren arrive in two weeks.

Wound care, from the sheet: - The big pressure bandage stays on, dry, until tomorrow morning. - Then once a day: wash gently with soap and water, pat dry, a thin layer of plain petroleum jelly, a small bandage. Not the antibiotic ointment. - Head up on two pi…

Four Michelin LTX A/T2, same size, with an alignment. $1,286.72. Tread warranty 60,000 miles or six years. Good to 103,380 on the odometer or June 2028. Only if the rotations are on paper. Every 7,500. Keep every slip. Pressure 35 cold. 40 in the rear when to…

Rod at Pike Bay had the part: a new axle kit with both brackets and both wheels. $236.00. The frame warranty does not cover wheels. I asked. Boats are in.

It is a basal cell carcinoma. The nodular kind. It does not travel. It does keep growing where it is, so it comes off. Mohs surgery, in his office, Tuesday, June 14, 8:00. Allow the whole morning; bring a book and a lunch. Should Ray be looked at? "I would li…

- 2022 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid XLE, all-wheel drive. Lunar Rock. - Plate ARD-4172. New plates; the old ones stayed with the CR-V. - 9 miles on it at the lot. - Paid $27,446.35 after the CR-V's $9,500 trade allowance. - Tires 225/65R17. 35 psi all round. - Oil is 0…

Eleven years and two months, 118,412 miles. It took us to Naperville the morning Owen was born, and to Arbor Bluff in nine minutes with R. holding the handle. I cleaned it out myself on Friday and found a dog biscuit under the seat. The saleswoman, Sofia, tal…

BEFORE WE COME 1. Call Earl two weeks ahead with the date. He turns the water on the Wednesday or Thursday before and walks through. 2. Call Rod at Pike Bay about the boats. They come back Memorial Day weekend, not at opening. 3. Call Kivela if the propane ga…

Fish finder (Humminbird, 9-inch screen): - Mounts on the console. Transducer on the transom, starboard side, level with the hull bottom. - Comes OFF the boat for winter. Hall closet. Trolling motor (Minn Kota, 80 lb thrust, 60-inch shaft): - On the bow. 24 vo…

The RAV4. They have one coming in a colour called Lunar Rock, due about May 10. Sofia Marin will hold it on a $500 deposit. Trade: $9,500 for the CR-V. No loan.

Ray's runs to the end of 2026.

My new passport came, good until 2032. Judy and I go to Norway in September, the two of us. R. says he has seen Norway and will stay with the dog. Gary changed the oil in the CR-V yesterday and gave it a going-over, for whoever has it next. Nearly 117,000 mil…

1. Rear struts: due. 2. Valve cover gasket: weeping, not leaking. A $200 job some day. 3. Brakes: front 5 mm, rear 4 mm. A year. 4. Tires: the Michelins from 2017, half worn. Gary thinks $9,000 to $10,000 in trade.

- Ray's right knee: he is to see Dr. Rasmusson. - One new bird: a roseate spoonbill at the refuge on the 9th. Life list 279. - Booked 2023: February 4 to 25. Deposit with Wade.

I walk with R. in the mornings now, as far as the pier. He is slower than he was two years ago; the right knee has begun to give him a hitch that he says is nothing. Lorraine telephones on Sundays between treatments. Four down, two to go. She wanted every bir…

Ray: - Thursday, Jan. 6: coffee hour at church. - Saturday, Jan. 8: cough, aches. Positive on the home test at 10 a.m. - Dr. Raghavan's nurse the same day: the antiviral (Paxlovid), five days, twice a day. His atorvastatin is STOPPED for those five days and s…

He has the cough and the aches and is on the antiviral, five days, by Dr. Raghavan's order, because of the heart and the sugar; one of his other pills is stopped while he takes it. I have a throat like a rasp and a fever that arrives at four in the afternoon…

From Kate and Samir, a Kindle. It weighs nothing, and I will take it on airplanes. I still prefer paper. The two best things I read this year. "Cloud Cuckoo Land" has a librarian in it who is eighty-six and puts on a play with five children, and he got us rig…

- Hannah (13): women's small, shoe 8. A gift card to the bookshop near her. - Owen (10 1/2): 14. A mouthpiece for the trombone. - Lucas (8): 8. Polarized fishing glasses. - Maeve (5 3/4): 6. December's book, and a reading lamp. - Theo (nearly 4): 4T. - June (…

Jan. 5 - "The Midnight Library" Feb. 2 - "A Long Petal of the Sea" March 2 - "Piranesi" (four of us had no idea what happened and the other five would not say) April 6 - "The Four Winds" May 4 - "Klara and the Sun" June 1 - "Braiding Sweetgrass" - Dee's garde…

RAY - Hat: 7 1/2. (Large in a cap. The tweed one from Scotland says 60.) - Shirt: 16 1/2 neck, 34 sleeve. Large in anything knitted, tall if they have it. - Trousers: 36 waist, 32 inseam. He was a 38 before the diabetes and still buys 38 if not watched. - Bel…

1. The den, on the shelf by the turntable. This is the one the Fourpoint Fiber line plugs into. 2. The upstairs hall, on the bookcase. 3. The basement, on the shelf over the laundry tub. A white light is good. A red light means that box has lost the others. P…

I am on a pill for blood pressure as of this month. R. made room on the shelf. He said, "It's the grandchildren." David is spending tomorrow putting wireless boxes all over the house so that the signal reaches the den.

Eight flannel shirts, all plaid, cut into 6 1/2-inch squares. Ten squares across and twelve down, 60 x 72. Tied, not quilted, with red yarn at every corner. Ray is driving it to Wausau on Tuesday.

Done: taken apart, cleaned and oiled; a new crystal, mainspring and gaskets. $640.00. The dial was left exactly as it is, on the watchmaker's advice and Ingrid's. No longer to be trusted in water. Wind it if it has sat more than a day and a half. Service agai…

Amlodipine 5 mg, one every morning. Keep taking readings, three mornings a week, and bring the list in April.

The lutefisk dinner came back, as a line of cars: 340 dinners in boxes, handed through windows in the church lot by the confirmation class in masks. We rolled all the same, six griddles, with the kitchen windows open and our coats on.

He did six: the two Lindgaards, "Three Pears," the Lofoten painting, the cranes, and the cabin's ice-out picture from my photographs. $450.00 for the six. Not done: the home farm (no market, he said), the Bascom Hill pencil drawing, the three smaller cabin pi…

- Cushions home. Wicker and rockers pushed to the house wall and covered with the old sheets. - The screens stay in, per Nate. The truck: the trailer lights would not work on Friday. A mouse had chewed the wiring behind the bumper. Gary mended it on Saturday;…

- Thursdays. I come at 2 and stay until Hal is home. - Books that are "not about anything." I have a stack: Barbara Pym, the Mapp and Lucia books, Wodehouse. - The book club is told only what Lorraine wants told.

Lorraine telephoned at four. She said it in her reference-desk voice: it is ovarian cancer, it is not early, and they will operate on November 2 and give her chemotherapy after. I asked what I could do. She said, "Come Thursday, and bring a book that isn't ab…

Marlene knows it, for the hose.

THEO AND NUTS. He was tested in the winter. Tree nuts: walnut and pecan are the bad ones, and Kate keeps all tree nuts out of the house to be safe. Peanuts are fine; he eats peanut butter daily. What that means for me: - No walnuts or pecans in anything I bak…

Per Ray: - Full tear-off, one layer. - Ice-and-water shield at the eaves, the valleys and round the chimney. - New flashing at the chimney, new pipe boots, a ridge vent. - New gutters and downspouts on the front only. The back ones are from 2009. - Two sheets…

Yesterday was forty-four years, the first one we have spent apart. I telephoned at seven, as I had said I would, and he answered before the first ring had finished. He had flowers on the table, from Fenner's, still in the paper. He has lost four pounds.

June is five weeks old, dark, unhurried, and sleeps with her fists up by her ears. Theo is three and a half. He has been very good about her and very bad about everything else, and I am the one with time to sit on the floor. We have built the same bridge out…

1. Meals: there are 14 suppers in the chest freezer, labelled with the day. The other seven nights are the Nordic Table (once), Marlene's (she has asked for Thursdays), and your own devices. 2. Pills: the box is filled for three weeks. Refills are not due unt…

Her quilt: finished as of this morning. No. 45. Forty-one by fifty-one. A plain cream centre, and juniper sprigs appliquéd all the way round the border, eighteen of them. It goes to Portland in my suitcase on August 1.

We came home from the family week on Friday (ten of us this year; Kate could hardly have come), and at half past six this morning I was upstairs at the Bernina, sewing the binding on this child's quilt, which I had sworn would be finished before she was. The…

The porch sleeps four on cots. Loons: the one chick, half grown. Julia looked at Ray's right knee and told him to see someone.

We have eaten supper out there both nights since, and stayed until we could not see each other. The whole lake, and not one mosquito. Samir drew it so that the roof line carries on from the cabin's, and the posts are set so that from my chair none of them sta…

- 14 x 20 feet. Cedar floor. Green steel roof to match. - FLOOR FINISH: Cabot Australian Timber Oil, the colour called Natural. One coat now; again next June, and every second year after. Nate left the half can in the boathouse. - Posts, rails and the screen…

My blood pressure list for the month: the average is 140 over 85.

Alice Nettesheim from the quilt guild died on the 6th. Her fabric has come to the guild in eleven boxes. I helped sort it on Monday and found, folded in among the blues, a note to herself in pencil: "too good to cut." The opener was the 1st, and Jim Hrdlicka…

Sawtooth Stars, 16 inches, twelve of them, in red, black and white, with sashing between. Twin, 68 x 88. Quilted by Kathleen Laufenberg on the long-arm, $119.68 before thread. Label: "For Owen Raymond, ten years old, from Grandma Peg, 2021. No. 44."

The dock: two of the decking panels on the third section had cracked across. The frame is untouched. $118.00 each from Pike Bay, and Ray dropped them in himself. No mice. Nate's crew comes Monday to start the porch footings.

No pill on two readings in an office. I am to take it at home, morning and evening, for a month, and send her the list.

What she eats: - Purina Pro Plan, the Large Breed ADULT kind, chicken and rice. The purple bag, 34 lb. - 1 1/2 cups in the morning (7:00) and 1 1/2 cups at night (5:00), measured with the blue scoop that lives in the bin. - Two biscuits a day at most. A carro…

Hannah is twelve and taller than I am. Owen will be ten next month, and hugged his grandfather very carefully, around the middle, as if R. had been in storage. Church in person, too, every other pew, masks, no singing. Pastor Kristin said the Easter greeting…

2010-2019 paper, basement cabinet, bottom drawer 2020 on - Denise's portal has them. I only keep her summary letter here

Donald Ostrander, born July 22, 1950, died March 3, 2021, at home in Wausau. Funeral Monday, March 8; burial in Wausau beside Carl and Evelyn. To do: - Memorial: to the hospice that came to the house. Lisa has the name. - Carol keeps the family Bible; ask her…

Lisa arranged all of it, as she has arranged everything since October. Forty people were allowed in the church, in every other pew, masked, and the rest listened from their cars in the lot, with the radio tuned to a number printed in the bulletin. I did not k…

Don said, "He's got one," though R.'s line had not moved. I unscrewed the thermos to pour and it was full of small engine parts, clean, in oil. Nobody thought that was strange.

Mine is a week from today. The funeral is Monday.

R. took the call standing up in the kitchen in his pajamas. He said, "All right. All right, Carol." Then he fed the dog, tested his sugar, wrote the number on the calendar, and sat down at the table with his hands flat on it. I have made coffee.

- Ray: first shot Thursday, February 4. Second, March 4. - Me: first shot yesterday, February 11, 2:40. Second, March 11. Both at the middle school on the west side. Moderna. Cards in the bedroom safe.

They sit you in a folding chair for fifteen minutes afterward, in rows, all facing the same way. Nobody talked. The woman next to me was crying quietly behind her mask, and I was too.

A letter came this week from Danny Vue, who left Tamarack Hill in 2004 and who read every one of the Redwall books in fourth grade, in order, and argued with me about the mice. He is a children's librarian in Milwaukee. I have read the letter six times and pu…

1. Fuel valve ON (under the tank, lever in line with the hose). 2. Choke FULL. Throttle to the rabbit. 3. Key in. Prime: three pushes of the bulb. Not five. 4. Plug in the cord and press the starter button, or pull the rope. 5. Choke off once it runs smoothly…

Jerry Amundson died on the 14th. He ushered with R. for twenty years. There will be a service when there can be one. That is two this year, with Bill Thronson, for whom R. has not been able to stand up in a suit. We walked the dog along the shore path at Lake…

To Naperville: - Hannah (12): women's small. A proper journal, bound, and a good pen. - Owen (9 1/2): 12. A puck bag, and "The Hobbit." To Denver: - Lucas (7): 8. Fly-tying kit, beginner's, chosen by Ray. - Maeve (4 3/4): 5. Three picture books and a library…

Jan. 7 - "Olive, Again" - Nan's Feb. 4 - "The Giver of Stars" - Connie's March 3 - "The Dearly Beloved" - Marlene's April - nothing. May 5 - "Writers & Lovers" - by video June 2 - "The Glass Hotel" - by video August 4 - "The Vanishing Half" - by video Sept. 1…

Theo is nearly three and wanted to know why Grandpa was in the computer. Kate said Grandpa was at his house. Theo said, "Then why is he small?" After the last one R. closed the lid and we sat.

Left on porches, in packages of six: Marlene - Connie - Lorraine and Hal - Harlan and Betty Nygaard - Pastor Kristin - Dee - Ruth - Helen - Inez Rude - LaVonne Thorson - the Fosdals

We drove them round this afternoon in packages of six and left them on porches: Marlene, Connie, Lorraine, the Nygaards, Pastor Kristin. I rang and went back to the car. Harlan Nygaard came out onto his step in his slippers and held the package up over his he…

Churn Dash, lap size, 56 x 70: twenty 12-inch blocks, four by five, with narrow sashing. Soft reds, rose and cream, and one block in Stan's colours, placed lower right. Label: "For Judy, from Peg. Eau Claire, 2020. No. 43." I will drive it to Eau Claire on Fr…

- Tamsulosin 0.4 mg, one capsule at bedtime. - Stand up slowly for the first week or two; it can make him dizzy. - If he ever has cataract surgery, the eye doctor must be told he takes this. - Back in a year.

- Days here: 168. - Loaves from Sigrid: 31. - Walleye kept: 43 (Ray's count; mine is lower). - Masks sewn here: 96, on top of the 214 at home. - Quilts finished: one, and most of another. - Books read: 37. - Loon chicks: two hatched, two raised, both gone sou…

Bev and Arnie on their dock and we on ours, forty yards apart, with a thermos each, most evenings from June on. Fish fry in boxes from the Thirsty Loon, eaten on the tailgate. Both loon chicks raised and gone. I read "Hamnet" twice. A boy dies of plague in 15…

He walked the road to the landing and back at seven, as he has every morning since we came up, and then caught a walleye off the rock bar that he says was twenty-six inches and Arnie says was twenty-four.

Twin size, 66 x 86, for the back bedroom. Five appliquéd loons swimming left to right across a pieced lake of blue and gray strips, with one chick riding on the middle bird's back. Label: "Skein Lake, the summer of 2020. No. 42."

Judy: - Telephone every day at 4. - A card on the 9th of each month for a year. - She is to come up here for a week in September if she will.

We drove to Eau Claire yesterday for the burial and back the same night. Thirty people at the graveside, standing apart in masks; the pastor's voice went off with the wind and I caught about half. Nobody could hold Judy. Her children stood on either side of h…

Sunday, July 19, about 1:30, with nine of us here: the kitchen tap ran slower and stopped. Ray found the pressure tank empty and the pump silent, with power at the switch. So the pump itself, at the bottom of the well. Stig Borgen of Borgen Well & Pump came o…

On Sunday, with the dishes half done, the water stopped. The well pump, eighty feet down. R. had the cover off the pressure tank in ten minutes and said a word. Stig Borgen came out with his son, pulled the whole string of pipe up into the yard, and had a new…

Ray is treasurer. Per Ray, what he was handed: - One chequebook, one shoebox, one ledger in pencil going back to 1998. - Balance $4,812.67. - Dues are $75 a household. 44 paid for this year so far. - What the money goes for: the loon nesting raft, the water t…

- Blood drawn the week before at Sawbill Clinic in Woodruff, on Dr. Raghavan's order, which her office faxed. Fasting. Go at 7:30. - The visit is through the Arbor Bluff portal on the laptop. Log in ten minutes early. - Have ready: the list of medicines, the…

He has bought himself a laptop, for these calls and for the lake association's books. He is to be treasurer as of the meeting on the 27th, which will be held in the town hall parking lot in lawn chairs.

yellow-rumped, palm, pine, black-and-white, Nashville, northern parula, yellow, chestnut-sided, magnolia, Cape May, black-throated green, blackburnian, bay-breasted, Wilson's, Canada, American redstart, ovenbird, common yellowthroat, and one golden-winged on…

We have been at the cabin a week and mean to stay until the leaves are down. Everything came up in two vehicles: the sourdough, the Bernina, R.'s pills for ninety days, the dog, forty pounds of flour. Jim Hrdlicka did not come for the opener, the first one he…

The truck (Ray, the dog): the Bernina in its case, wedged with quilts; the cutting mat; two tubs of fabric; Ray's hand tools and the small lathe; Birdie's crate; the chest freezer's contents in three coolers. The CR-V (me): Sigrid; 40 lb of flour and 10 of su…

The pattern: - Two rectangles of tight quilting cotton, 9 x 6 inches, right sides together. - Three pleats, half an inch deep, all facing down. - A channel across the top for a nose wire (the garden twist-ties work; pipe cleaners rust). - Ties, not elastic. F…

I planted the peas.

Bill Thronson died on Tuesday, R.'s first boss. There will be no funeral, because there can be none; the family will "gather when it is possible." R. read the notice twice and went and stood in the garage. He would have been asked to carry. Ellen calls every…

1. Parts A and B: the card came in February. It is in the bedroom safe and I carry a photocopy. 2. Supplement: Aldergate, Plan G. Plan F, which Ray has, is closed to anyone who became eligible this year or after. I pay the Part B deductible myself once a year…

1. Neither of us goes inside a store. Not Fenner's, not the hardware. 2. Groceries: Ellen orders them from Naperville and Fenner's delivers to the garage on Fridays. I send her the list Wednesday night. 3. What comes in a box sits in the garage a day. What mu…

Ellen telephoned last night with orders. We are not to go into a store. She will have groceries sent. Her father has a stent and diabetes and is sixty-six, and she said the numbers for men like him, plainly, and I wrote them down. R. listened on the extension…

Home readings twice a day for two weeks, then send her the list through the portal.

- Dottie's dog fee is $150 for the stay. Birdie is 61 lb, well under her limit of 80. - One new bird: a clapper rail at the wildlife refuge, on the 11th. Life list 274. Booked 2021: February 6 to 27. Deposit with Wade.

R. walks to the pier and back before breakfast and takes his pressure when he comes in. It was up a little yesterday. There is something on the news every night about a ship in Japan. Jeanette's daughter is a nurse and has told her to buy flour. A marsh at th…

Queen, 90 x 102. Nine blues, from navy to chambray, on white. Label: "Peg and Ray, Hawkstone Drive, 2020. No. 41."

Reading, since I can do nothing else, "The Salt Path." I believed about three-quarters of it and liked all of it. Birdie was spayed a week ago and is in a plastic cone, with which she has cleared the coffee table twice. R. has two patients. Tea at ten, dog ou…

- The cone stays on for ten days, day and night. - No running, jumping or stairs for ten days. - Pain tablets with breakfast and supper for four days. - Stitches out Friday the 24th. 57 lb, at nine months. Two meals a day now, 1 1/2 cups each.

I read "Olive, Again" in two sittings on Christmas afternoon while everyone else slept. Olive is old now, and has had a heart attack of her own, and is exactly as rude as ever. Also this fall, in waiting rooms: "The Dutch House." A brother and sister who cann…

- 36 sessions. Missed none. - Started at 12 minutes on the treadmill at 2.0 mph. Finished at 30 minutes at 3.4 mph, 2 per cent grade. - Resting pulse 74 in October, 62 now. - Weight 214 to 207. From here: 30 minutes every day at 8. Pulse not over 120.

He will not say that he enjoyed it. He has said that the Tuesday group was "a good crew," that he will miss a man named Virgil, who had a triple bypass and tells the same joke every session, and that he intends to keep walking at eight in the morning "since I…

- Hannah (11): 14, shoe 6. - Owen (8 1/2): 10. Skates 3. - Lucas (6): 7. - Maeve (3 3/4): 4T. Wants a doctor's kit "with a real shot." - Theo (nearly 2): 2T. Lykke: julekake x2, limpa x2. No kringle ordered.