Greetings in the spirit of the season
Guess what...the hunter shot his beast the first night, altho he lost it along with the arrow.  He and Ryan (guide), looked til it got too dark and then gave up.  They came in for supper, did some time in the barn with the TV and started again the next morn about 8:00.  Breakfast would be when they either found the deer or gave up trying.  Good news...when they came in to eat they had fould two halves of the arrow and a little blood and the deer.  It was gorgeous, except for the fact that all meat had been devoured by coyottes...though not the head or antlers.
Which meant that he went back to the cities that day, and will hope to come again next year with buddies.  This did give me more time and less complexity for the men's breakfast and the Christmas Party.
Will catch up on those events next time.......bye til then...Jo Abigail  a fun sign off???ok

Good evening to you. I saw somewhere a few minutes ago that I wrote the last blog two months ago. That is outrageous. If no one is even waiting for a new update, I won't be unhappy... I would also have given up the faintest possibility of another entry. And it is my ignorance which keeps me blind when I try to get into this white box... or it could be my stubbornness.

Enough!

So...the hunters were here the allotted three months, after which the barn gave up the deer decor, after which once again took on my decor. So at the moment Shelley and I have gone on the attack shoving old and new pieces around to new settings to set up for some gatherings in the coming days.

First on Saturday, some pastors and church boards, ten men altogether, will have breakfast downstairs in the barn at 9:00AM, and then continue their meeting upstairs, so I can get the kitchen and their table back into it's original mode.

Oh, and it was decided that another hunter could come on Thursday with bow and arrows to hunt. That means that he will use the house except for TV which I don't have in the house. Hunters like the sound of the hunting channel while they nap between hunts. So he will go without TV while the meeting is taking place. Right?

And next you see, we have been doing the Christmas thing with greens and ribbons for the same Company group numbering nearly 50 persons, who did their Christmas Party here last year. That is why the stuff that comes with hunting, can't fit into and onto the chairs and tables that are ready for white cloths and candles, so to speak.

Should life be this challenging?? and why?? Yes, is the word I so gladly use when possibly I shouldn't. If you can't make sense of this babble, never mind, the hunter leaves on Monday, unless he gets his deer. If that happens, he just ups and goes home. He comes in his own car, you see.

And in three days, the barn takes on another life. There will even be a newly married, (on 12-12-12), couple who will be honored by being seated at the new table from Belgium via Colorado Springs where a dealer had found it in Europe. It was made in the early 1800's. It is a pegged and not nailed, trestle, carved, specimen table, deserving of hosting a special couple for it's first job in it's new home... even if it's just a barn.

Now did you follow that? Just call me if you have any questions. You can tell I'm tired, so this is all... until next time... bye from me.

do hope this will be ok
have reason to wonder

sun is shining
lovlier than lately

barn is full of
men and their

goodly yummies
afternoon naps

planning the 5:oo
search for THE

one to take?
home or leave

maybe next year?

sign off..owner JW

What's new in the BARN----THE PIANO is

Here goes...I did just skip a heartbeat when I started this effort and a deep dark block of blue popped out at me..instead of these nice now normal white backed words...so maybe I did right by going over all the instructs AGAIN ...to get going...going...now here it is...

Marla's program of... Grieg's Life in his Composings... was as well... an intro of an electric gadget... like nothing in my reg life ...as in ordinary...til now life...called a PIANO--mind you a Yamaha--style  a C--L--A--R--O--N--O--V--A...I do hope I've spelled it right?..since I'm not in the barn where the new...cool instrument is standing...

The accompanist was David of UND Music who was one happy ivory tickler at that pretty nice surprise...I'd assured Marla that this time in my barn for her songs....I would have a piano for her...so a couple days before the 29th..this beauty was delivered...by no less than the owner of Scot's Music in Grand Forks...who wanted to see this ...OUT OF THE BOX BARN..

All very fun for me and my plans which may also need a piano...

Marla's concert two years ago in the barn when she sang her PHD Thesis consisting of Norway's Art Songs....she hauled up from Fargo a borrowed Keyboard with "rickety legs"...

This time I determinedly served up a professional touch...of which I was rightly proud...

I am very pleased to tell you that we filled the barn "haymow" with 70 plus appreciative folks...

And the next Sunday the barn hosted the Zion Church Picnic ending with a singalong ...who played with gusto? Pastor John who can spin any tune you can want to sing....want to let you imagine the sound of a Grand...that's what this piano can do...

Spread the word...let's use this PIANO BARN...OK

Sat I'll do a tour and lunch for a dozen ladies in the barn with a wedding night couple in the house...

and now i'm goin ta bed..see ya sooner than usual...since hunters start the 31st..four guys from Michigan...

Marla Fugderud Singing Event

Hey, just in case someone is reading this. I do have an event...

MARLA FUGDERUD WILL AGAIN SING IN THE BARN

SAVE JULY 29TH 2:00

And pray for cooler weather than today...ok?

Hi, I'm back after not being able to get through to this blog due to entanglements that even befuddled my grand daughter tonight.  This was the first time since Jan that we had an evening to spend on the problem.  Anna is a Web Designer at MN Monthly, so miracles she did perform..and I actually had to come up with a new password in order to literally separate my blog from the email she set up for me after Christmas last year.  

Now, what has been going on here at Volden Farm.  I'll start with last weekend. We had the International Farmers Convention, complete with a traveling Queen, who came with her husband from Alberta.  Her job is to cheer the pilots on (maybe).  Actually, she and her husband grilled the burgers on the barn terrace for the Chuck Wagon "thing" with beans  etc,, for the 40 plus who spent from Fri AM til Sun AM eating and fellowshipping and refreshing all the years they've been doing this.  Many are retired from farming, but most are still flying,  One of them from Dickenson who is around 90, flew his plane here...and he helpfully dished up the ice cream for everybody at the late eve ice cream social.  The menu was different the next night - it was Sirloin Rib Roast, salad, taters etc...again followed by the late ice cream social.

The music each eve was local: singing - guitar - sax - fiddle - very fun and all using my newly installed PA system.  Hear that .... you blues groups who regularly (ha) follow my blog.

They visited the Prairie Bilt Sleds across the road and that was, in the mind of the organizer, the highlight of the two days.  And the other visit was the Ronald Reagan Missile Site, otherwise known as Oscar Zero.

Of the 40, 12 stayed here at the B&B.  It was a fun time, these people have been a supportive group since just after WWII, and they love to be together.

This would have been totally daunting if not for Shelley being here two full days and some time before and after.  She is my daughter in law who lives about 40 min away. 

That was not all info you needed, but my conscience was nudging me to make up for lost time, I suspect.  Oh, I was asked to talk about MY flying husband and so I did.  As I returned to kitchen duty, one old guy said to me...boy, you're sure long winded....altho it seems, he was hard of hearing,

All done...I'll be back.

RAMP IS DONE

I want to tell everybody that our BARN is now wrapped in wood...at last a person can get upstairs without using either set of the fancy steps...we only have to know which downstairs door to go into and the which downstairs door to go out of in order to make a left turn starting up the gorgeous ramp...which turns on a nice platform after slowly rising to the north...to continue slowly rising to the west...turning again on a second platform and rising slowly to the south...at which point we are on the platform even with the workshop level...and at this point simply turn left and we have arrived...to find the place where the action might be happening!! Sounds crazy...but it is the truth...I've done it... This project was only finished last Thursday...during a week of perfect warm spring days...interrupted by coming into my kitchen table for a hot farm dinner to fuel the afternoon.. Kevin (son)...Zach (not his son ...but a recent worker added just in time for this work)... and another helper named Ivan...dug post holes...pounded nails...carried mixed cement... tamped the earth and made me happy...IT IS DONE...and I now invite anyone to come to the VOLDEN FARM WORKSHOP BARN !!! We still need to watch this blog for dates...but in June we will be doing Pit firing... after forming clay into desired or maybe even undesired shapes...and music looks promising The barn will host a few already scheduled event dinners so hopefully B&B and the barn will mesh well...could be the calendar will be needfully hanging round my neck... all for now...more later...bye from the lady of the ramp

I'll try again

Good evening  ..This will be short since I am 

trying to get these words I've written at least

two other times since Jan 2, I think, and cannot

 get them into my former format underneath my

 intro headliner photo of "my clouds".

Tonight I can't even get on email, so this is a 

bummer..big time..  Another sad thing about this 

new format is that my favorite blue is no longer

available.this blue is crappy..sorta sicklike

compared to the blue I've used for 4 years.

At least tonight I did figure out how to get 

the letters colored..even if I don't like the color.

Now you know that it has not been my choice

to be silent in this blog, it is that the new what

ever did it to me.

Good night, JoAnne - the non computer one

January Events

Well...I need to say something about the month we're in which is January...and just how I am with the past week or so...actually...the 20th and 21st... in and at Volden Farm...both the barn and the house...EVENT...14 board members to decide those kind of board things and around yet the tables set up semi-near the loaded hot wood stove in the barn upstairs...two had slept in the barn bunks and 7 in the house...and 6 at another residence about 10 miles away...at 7:am a kind board member started the wood stove and another plugged in 40 cups of coffee and put out the wake-up spread of Norse heart waffles and whipped cream and lingenberries...so that I could start coffee and fire up the wood in the Pit...(the lingo is the Conversation Pit in case you have not been to this house)...here in the house. There was supper around the house tables around 7: then out to barn for discussion..then sleep...and about 10:45...brunch...around the tables again (lingo...two 55 inch tables designed on wheels so they could become only one table)...in the house. All the while temps hovered above zero...8 degrees and patiently rising reasonably. Making our January turn OK...I'm not even going to proof this batch of words...cause it would make me sad...I like to be known for very clever writing and this will cause my rating s to plummet which is just not me Goodbye...hopefully February will have cheerier whar ever...JoAnne

Happy New Year

Well....hello...... this night of 2012!

I have just worked to write this..for at least an hour.

I guess the reason has quite a lot to do with Google.

My granddaughter tried to help me with some of the MAC difficulties with which I suffer so mightily and the changes that created for me are nigh unto insurmountable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't find how to get my blue ink or my favorite font for one thing...but the most stupid response when I put in my address...is that when I do that... they say I can't use it because it is already being used...of course it is and has been for nearly 5 years.  

The other question I can't get the answer to is the constant use of 3 letters..and I'm terrified to use them on this page ...maybe the computer will blow up in my face...but here goes...URL...I'm still here... hi.. I do not know nor have I ever needed to know what they mean...

You see, I've been enlisted in gmail...and it looks like Google is quite insistant that they control my Blog...

My brain has been wiped out as far as my barn is concerned...I better go look out the window to see if it is still there...so that is that...now is the time for all good men to go ,\...blah..blah...goodbye...I am thoroughly exhausted and wonder if I'll ever again be able to return to blogging again...I did find this nearly invisible block of words that let me do this much...and I sincerely fear I will never see it from this moment onward...

Have a good year in case you don't hear from me...JoAnne and all 12 cats and 10 chickens and 3 fish.... as well as a possible mouse even though I've.killed 5 now in the basement...2 are still in their sticky traps so when I stop this mickey mouse diatribe I will go with a plastic grocery bag and pick them up from the floor to burn them ....yippee...

Oh..I could mention that Christmas was filled with all the better things than I've reported...best beings 3 great grandchildren named...3yr Kaj Delys Naujokas...8mo Ona Volden Naujokas...14mo Reese Abigail Roeder...I trimmed the tree with only 2 of my collections..those being angels and snowmen...and it was placed to we could walk around it and sing Away in the Manger...Norwegian style...

..finally,..you can smile...and so will I with love in my heart that doesn't believe my Jesus had anything to do with computers...he came to earth for the best reason having to do with the peace that will come to me when I close this down and go get those mice..goodbye