Sunday In South Dakota

It seems odd but the last four days have flown by at a slow pace. LOL – that is the only way that I can think of to describe it. On Thursday I basically travelled all thirteen hours, arriving here at the ranch at about 11:00 PM. I talked briefly with my step dad and then fell asleep. We woke early the next morning (6:00 AM), drove into Winner, had breakfast at Joie’s and then went up to Winner Regional Hospital to visit my mother who was it with what ultimately turned out to be a form of colitis. We spent the day at the hospital, circling out once to get some lunch and once to run some errands. We left in the evening and drove back to the ranch. My mother called from the hospital and let us know that the doctor had swung by and told her that they were going to release her on Saturday.

So, Saturday was a shorter repeat of Friday. Bill (my step father) and I rolled out at 6:00 AM and headed into Winner and breakfast at Joie’s. From there we spent the morning at the hospital and Mom was discharged about noon. We ran a few more errands, stopped for lunch, and headed back to the ranch. (If you are a Google fan, Google Earth Carter South Dakota, the come about three miles west and eight miles south and there is the ranch).

I cooked dinner for my folks (steak, potatoes au gratin, baked beans) and we spent the rest of Saturday visiting and catching up. There were visits from relatives and family friends that pretty much occupied the evening, intermingled with telephone calls. I did figure out how to connect by dial-up, LOL, something I had not done with this particular laptop. It seems to work fairly well, but I feel guilty tying up the only phone line.

Today (Sunday) was far more laid back. We all slept in (the toll of the last several days). Breakfast was catch as catch can. The weather was nicer today. The sun was out and shining most of the day and the sky was blue. The temperature was up in the low forties but there was a biting wind from the west.

We spent the morning visiting. Bill’s niece Mary has been transcribing an old journal that belonged to great Aunt Hattie. Aunt Hattie had forty years of diaries that Mary is working on transcribing. Bill has some of the early transcription work and we spent the morning reading and talking about it. I will transcribe part of it here a little later in the week, because it is interesting stuff, at least to me.
In the early afternoon I put on my jacket and headed out to take a walk around the ranch. My mom’s dog Aussie decided to come with me. I just rambled around and took some pictures and enjoyed the day. It was partially overcast and with that wind my fingers and cheeks took a bit of a bite, but nothing significant. I will upload some of the pictures once I get back to California – with the dial up, uploading a picture of any size is going to tie the phone up. It was a typical blustery early winter South Dakota day.

The amusing point of the walk happened when we were in the wind break to the rest of the ranch. The trees still have some big snow drifts from the storm a few weeks ago, so I was walking up and down over the drifts and Aussie was ranging back and forth, poking into the cover, looking for things. He had ranged about fifty feet ahead of me when I topped a small drift and started a cotton tail rabbit from his shelter beneath a small bush. He leapt up and went bounding off over the drifts, heading straight for the dog. Aussie never saw the rabbit coming until it blazed past him. Normally, Aussie is reckless when it comes to chasing rabbits, but this one surprised him and as the rabbit bolted past, rather then give chase, Aussie jumped about four feet into the air with a yelp. He landed and the look on his face was “what the heck was that”! By the time he figured out it was a rabbit, it had already slipped into the cedars and was gone. Aussie when over and ranged in and out of the cedars trying to sniff it out, but it was probably safe in it’s burrow.
My sister came out and we spent the afternoon visiting, and then it was nap time. I laid down to take a nap but tossed and turned for a while. By the time I was ready to drop off into sleep it was what I call the “dangerous nap” time – that is the time when a nap runs the risk of turning into sleep, and if you fall asleep you will wake up in the middle of the night. So, I powered myself out.

We shared the tasks of getting dinner cooking, I spent some time on the telephone with one of my brothers (we basically passed the phone around). I popped online briefly and sent a few emails. I feel guilty composing emails online since I am tying up the only telephone, so I thought I would write things (like this journal entry) offline and send them quickly when I come online later in the night.
So far the visit has been very nice and the days have passed quickly, even though the pace has been very slow. (It seems contrary, but that is my impression.)