Best Year of Your Life

 2025, all in all, it was a good year. We have had better, and we definitely have had worse. Our travel map for the year looked like this.

We were in Kentucky when the ball dropped last year. This year we, well at least me and the dogs were at home. I was in bed by 9:00 I think. It got me to thinking, what was the best year of my life? So many years to choose from.... Most of them good years in one way or another with memorable highlights, but which one was the best? 1985 changed my life forever, as it was the year I met Barb and Jessica. 1986 is a strong contender as it was the year Barb and I got married. I guess if I had to choose a year, I would choose 1987. Barb and I were still in our honeymoon phase. Forrest was born that February and we had bought some acreage in Wisconsin and were clearing it in preparation for our very first house!  Everything was new and our lives were full of opportunities and possibilities.

The ironic thing about that year is that it was probably our roughest year financially and we were living in an apartment in New Richmond, Wisconsin. Some people think that money is the key to happiness, it helps for sure, it is not the end all for true happiness. If I were to prioritize money, it would come in third behind health and happiness. We all probably know someone who has plenty of money but is either not happy, not healthy or both. I would rather be happy then healthy, I think. I have never had long term unhappiness or been unhealthy long term, so I have no real basis for that opinion other than I have seen unhealthy people who are happy and it gives me hope. 

If all goes as planned, 2026 should prove to be another adventurous year, starting in a couple weeks with our trip to the deserts of Arizona. We will be home for a couple of weeks then I head to the farm for spring planting. Once that is done, it will be a couple weeks at home then we head north to Alaska! This will be our third Alaskan adventure in the past 10 years, and we are very excited! Then it will be back home for a week, maybe two, before heading to the farm for harvest. I have a feeling this year will go very, very quickly. God willing, it will all go as planned. But you know what they say, "Man plans, God laughs. We shall see how it all pans out. 

Enough rambling, I have another tale to tell. Long story short, Barb never made it to Puerto Rico. After spending a few days with the grandkids in Pennsylvania, Barb and Jess were packed and ready for their Puerto Rican adventure! With a 6am flight last Saturday, they were up at 3am, got ready and started their 90-minute drive to the Baltimore airport. As they were waiting to board, their flight was cancelled. They quickly rebooked on the next flight and 30 minutes later, that one was cancelled. Then came the word that all flights to that region were grounded due to the Venezuelan situation. 

So, they got back in their vehicle and started heading back home, but they never made it home. They stopped at a restaurant along the way and started looking at other destinations. They left the restaurant two hours later with tickets to Costa Rica! Talk about changing at a moment's notice! I am super proud of both of them for having the fortitude to keep moving forward and not accepting defeat and heading home. You don't understand what a big deal this is for them. You see these two are two peas in a pod, they over research and over plan everything they do, so for them to change destinations like this at a moment's notice is a very big deal.  They spent the night at a hotel near the airport and were on a flight the next morning!

She called me as they while in Atlanta for a layover saying that they had resumed flights to Puerto Rico, but half of the passengers were military, and she had heard reports that there is a backlog of people trying to get home from there. They are happy with their decision to pivot and go to Costa Rica. Surfing the news channels, I see celebrations on Fox and protests on CNN. The truth is somewhere in the middle, but it frustrates me that you cannot trust most of what you see on the news. Can we please just go back to honest news reporting?

A few hours later I received a text saying that they just landed in Costa Rica along with this picture. 

After picking up their rental car, they headed to their Airbnb, the roads were... interesting to put it in her words...

After unpacking, they unpacked and hit the bar for a mojito! Life is good, let the adventures begin!

Over the course of the next few days, I would get one or three pictures from her. So far, they have been snorkeling, beach sitting and gone on one waterfall tour. 

She calls or texts every day asking how the dogs are doing, no concern about me or my well-being, just the girls. Sometimes I will just get a text with those three letters: POL. What is POL you ask? Proof of Life, she needs a picture of her babies to show her they are all right. Here are a few that I sent her throughout the week. 

This is their current situation as I write this early in the morning, sitting under a blanket on the couch. 

And, I even had time to make a dog video this week! These clips show you Dakota when she is her happiest, eating and going outside, her two joys in life. We have trained the girls to run right into the dog enclosure when they go outside, this way, should there be an unseen turkey, deer, or bunny, at least Zoey is somewhat enclosed, and we can control her. As you can see, Dakota followed the rules, Zoey stopped to see if there were any critters before going into the enclosure. 

One thing I have realized this week is how much work it is to run this house by myself. We lead a pretty simple life, but I am barely keeping up with everything that needs to be done; dishes, laundry, feed the dogs, walk the dogs, keeping the wood box full, taking out the trash, keeping the house clean. All things I take for granted and just happen. Don't tell Barb, but the bed has not been made nor have I vacuumed since she left. Did you know that she vacuums every day?!?!?  20 minutes a day, 7 days a week, over two hours a week she spends vacuuming.  That is not even counting the meals. As anyone who has eaten here knows, she is a great cook, often spending 2 hours preparing a meal. She prepares meals with love and with a passion for cooking. I prepare meals to survive to the next day. I have been overwhelmed just trying to live my days up to her standards, and this does not even count the personal work goals I set for the day. 

Last night, I was woken up with a start to the sound of Zoey making horking noises. You dog owners know the sound; I was not quick enough so I can add laundering the blankets to my list of chores. Maybe I should not have given her those table scraps last night? Should I launder those blankets right away or can it wait a couple of days? I just need to hang in there 4 more days. I pick her up at the Rapid City airport on Sunday. Saturday will be spent cleaning. Yes, that includes vacuuming and making the bed!

Christmas, New Years and a Birthday!

 It seems like forever ago that we had the windstorm that knocked out power and so many trees. While it may seem like a distant memory, the evidence still remains. I have about half of the trees cut up. I was doing a couple trees a day until a few days ago, then I got distracted and went onto other projects like doing some small jobs in the new garage. 

Christmas was low key with just Barb and I hanging out with the girls until the early afternoon. We still buy each other presents as it brings us joy to not only give, but to receive presents. What did I did I get for Christmas? Some were things we would have bought ourselves in the next couple months, but it is fun to unwrap them and see what Barb thought I needed. A couple pair of pants, some socks, sweatshirts, fishing lures and a couple of cellular trail cameras. Those things are the bomb! I used to balk at them thinking they were too expensive for the initial purchase as well as the monthly subscription cost. But having instant access to the pictures and not having to drive out and get the SD cards has its benefits. 

What did I get Barb? Some of you will laugh, some of you will shake your head, but Barb does not want for traditional things like clothing or jewelry. I got her a bunch of woodworking tools for her new shop, some socks, and wait for it... a new set of pots and pans! Before you start drafting your hate comments, hear me out. It is what she wanted, what she asked for. She has been drooling over this Gordon Ramsey Hex Clad cookware for months and who I am to deny her the pleasure of cooking me a great meal in new cookware?

That afternoon, Dan and Bonnie came over for a delicious prime rib dinner! We watched football and stuffed ourselves silly. 

A couple days later we ventured out of the house to our friend Greg's house. Greg is an incredible artist and surprised us with a beautiful painting for our house. We now have two Lester originals! Kevin and Cheryl live next door to Greg and were the 4th and 5th to our group. We had a great couple of hours sitting by the fire outside and enjoying each other's company. 

The next day was my birthday! Well, not really, we were two days early, but we were celebrating it that day as Barb was going to be gone on my actual birthday. More presents, more food, more quiet time with my bride. We stuffed ourselves with king crab legs to the point of uncomfortableness. So good!

Two days later was departure day for Barb. She was to fly out of Rapid City to Baltimore for a 5 day stay at our daughter Jessica's before those two jumped on another plane for a week-long stay in Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, Barb's flight out of Rapid was cancelled and she did not fly out until the following day. I could write an entire blog post on the hours we spent online and, on the phone, trying to rebook that flight. I will tell you one thing though; Delta has to be the most noncustomer friendly airlines we have ever dealt with. They are more interested in getting a few more dollars out of their customers than they are in accommodating their customer's needs.  But regardless, she finally got out to Jessica's and is having a good time. 

As we were driving to the airport, we talked about the last time we had flown. For me, we came up with January of 2017. For a guy who used to fly a couple times a month back in the day, it is interesting that I have not flown for almost 9 years. 

Another thought occurred to me as I dropped her off. That thought was how much airline travel has changed in our lifetime. Some of the young'ins out there would just find it unbelievable that we were able to fly without showing any form of ID whatsoever. In fact, back in the day, I used to fly using a variety of names. Let me explain, we had a travel department at work and they looked for the cheapest airfare to our store locations. The cheapest flights were often roundtrip tickets with a couple weeks between flights. They would book numerous roundtrip tickets each month under various names and if I needed to ticket to say, Chicago, they would open a drawer and hand me a ticket for the day I wanted to travel and another ticket for my return date. 

These tickets, more often than not, would have another coworker's name on it, but back in the mid-80's/early 90's, you were not required to show ID to fly, just present your ticket. I remember one time, I was sitting in the terminal waiting to board when over the PA the attendant announced, "Will Dan Ruetten please come to the podium". We have a Dan Ruetten who worked for us, and I immediately started looking around for him to see if he was on my same flight. Nope, no sign of Dan. The attendant called again, it was then that I realized that I was Dan! The ticket I had been given for this flight had Dan's name on it. I went to the desk, and they handed me my ticket saying I had left it in the restroom. 

Of course one would never get away with this nowadays. Here are a couple other oddities that younger travelers just would not understand. Back then you could smoke on flights. It was not until 1988 that they banned smoking on flight less than 2 hours. Also, back then anyone could go to the terminal, no security checkpoints, you just walked in and went pretty much wherever you wanted. 

Speaking of oddities. Have you ever received a package that looked like this?

Leave it to Farmer Bob, who also collects stamps, to send a package with some of his leftover stamps! I wonder what the post office thought when they sorted this package. Did they even count and add up the total postage? I'll tell you one thing, they did not invalidate the stamps, so I theoretically put something back into it and mail it back to Bob!

So, what did I do on my actual birthday? For the first time ever, I spent my birthday alone (Cue sad violin music). To be fair, I did get a pity invite to go out to supper from Dan and Bonnie. Another first is that I am spending almost two weeks alone in the house! I have talked about this before, but I still find it bizarre that while Barb cumulatively has spent an equivalent of almost a year by herself in our house. I have spent maybe one or two nights by myself in the house. Crazy to think about. 

New year's eve day found me working on a new project which will be revealed in a few weeks. That afternoon I hit the woods for one last sit in the deer stand. After getting out in the woods 75 of the last 85 days, this day is the last day of the season. Tomorrow marks the first day of a new year. As I sat there and reflected on the year, the highs, the lows, the laughter and the tears. It was not long ago the death of a friend or family member was a rarity. Now, it is happening all too frequently. I guess that is to be expected as we age, but it does not make it any easier. 

I look forward to 2026 like I do with each one of my hunts; full of optimism for what could be. What could be if we put in the effort. And we will be putting in the effort this year if all goes as planned, it will be one of our busiest in quite a while. 

I will leave you with another video and a picture. The video was taken earlier this week. The turkeys were having a reunion. I tried counting them, but it was impossible. I quit at 80 and there were still more coming! The picture? Would you believe I took it less than 5 minutes ago? I am sitting here writing the blog, look outside and this guy is bedded right outside the house!

As you can see, we are snowless again. The last week has been beautiful weather, seeing temps in the 50's, even near 60! I hope everyone had a good Christmas, a Happy New Year and hopes for a great 2026!

Thar She Blows!

 Those are the words of the week. Like much of the country, we had a significant wind event this week. Wednesday night into Thursday morning she started blowing. We were up most of the night, hoping, praying that everything would be intact when the sun rose in the morning. 

You may think I am exaggerating, but believe me, I am not. The house creaked and moaned as it withstood 90 mph winds. Having built everything on our property ourselves we feel like we did a good job, but would it withstand hurricane force winds?

The house is pretty well protected from winds from the west by trees, these winds were from the Northwest. My biggest concerns were the new garage which is out in the open and not protected from any direction. And the gazebo, it is also protected from the west, but it is totally open on one side, and the right wind (or wrong) will pick it up like a kite. 

The power went out about 2:00am as we sat in the dark and just listened. When the sun finally rose, I was afraid to go look at the new garage, afraid it would be a pile of broken lumber and twisted steel. I had braced the hell out of it just for this reason and when we peeked out there, we were thrilled to see it was indeed still there!

The next thing we noticed was a tree at the corner of our RV spot was leaning significantly to the east.

 Those of you that have visited us with an RV will recognize this tree as it is sometimes in the way of bigger rigs trying to pull into the RV spot. 

If that is all the damage we had I will count that as a win! That morning, with no TV to entertain me, I started texting neighbors and friends to see how they fared. Neighbor Jim lost his flagpole and a section of his cross-buck fence and neighbor Doug received some minor roof damage. 

Neighbor Jim's

Kevin and Cheryl had a huge tree drop and brush their house as well as numerous trees down on their fenceline. The worst hit of our friends were Dan and Bonnie who lost numerous trees including one that had its sights on their garage.

Kevin and Cheryl's

Dan and Bonnie's

Later that morning we took a walk around the property to see what other damage there was.  Dozens of trees broken or pushed over with rootballs exposed and one deer blind blown away and destroyed.  Looks like we will have enough firewood to last us for years!

Nothing we can do about that now. I offered to go to both Kevin & Cheryl's and Dan & Bonnie's, but there were so many trees down we could not get to Kevin's house. Dan & Bonnie wanted to wait for the adjuster before he started cleaning up, so we just worked around home. This video is of Dan and Bonnie's house as he drove into work that morning. Ended up the entire town of Custer was without power, so he went back home. 

When the winds died down we took the girls for a walk. Zoey found a turkey wing, I sure hope it is not hop-a-long, but I have not seen her for over a week when we got our first snowfall. She probably just found a better place to find food, at least that is what I am saying to myself!

Not knowing the extent of the damage in the area, we thought that the power would be on in the next few hours, but that was not the case. That night, Dan/Bonnie, Kevin/Cheryl and Barb/I, all without power, met in Hot Springs at the Bowling Alley for supper and a couple rounds of bowling. Why not? We had nothing else to do!

Oh my gosh, just what we needed on such a stressful day! The first round we played normally (as normally as we play), but the second round got a little silly. Someone declared the next frame had to be played with your other hand, then someone declared the next one had to be backwards between your legs, then a dance move as you do your approach. You get the idea... I am sure the other bowlers were looking at the 60/70-year-olds in the next lane thinking we were nuts. But we were having fun!

When we got home about 9pm, still no power and we just went to bed. The next morning, still no power, we jumped in the Jeep and headed to the Rapid City Hospital to visit Alana. She had been in there 8 days at this point. She is doing soooo much better! We had a great visit with her, Ryan, my sister and our nephew Marshall.  We got home about 3:30, just before we pulled onto our road, we noticed the power line serving our road was still on the ground! 😭 

Okay, this is getting old. I started working on a cord that I could hook up to our generators and power up the house. My biggest concerns were the fridge, freezer and hot tub. With below freezing temps, I knew the residual heat would keep the hot tub pipes from freezing for a while. but not for much longer at these temps!

We only have Honda 2000 generators, and I was able to power up the fridge, freezer, internet as well as some lights and the TV, but not the hot tub and water pump. Cross fingers that the residual heat keeps everything from freezing. We went to bed that night hoping that we would wake up to lights. Nope. Now, as I write this, we have been without power for over 48 hours. My goal for the day was to get some heat on that hot tub. We went to Hot Spring and bought a small DeWalt propane torpedo heater and created a tent with a tarp, it seems to be working well. 

By 4pm Saturday afternoon we had given up on any hope of the power being restored that day. Both Dan and Bonnie as well as Kevin and Cheryl are both up and running, but not us! Then, at 10pm that night as we were tucked in for bed, after almost 72 hours, the lights turned on! Hallelujah!

Sunday was the best day of the week; We had power, we got to see Alana who came home the day before, the Vikings won, and we got to use the hot tub for the first time in 4 days!  We traveled up to Spearfish to see Alana of course, but also my sister and her two other kids; Tess and Marshall. I cannot of course forget Ryan, Loki and Sophie. 

Alana, (in the foreground) was happy to be home and sleeping in her own bed. Tess is behind Alana and of course Barb is on the right. 

We watched the Vikings beat the Giants, a pretty boring game but at least they won! I got to see my sister Becky one last time before she leaves. I only get to see her every couple of years, so it was great to spend time with her. Marshall, who lives in Paris, I see even less. 

 

Zoey, as usual, was obsessed with Ollie the cat. 

So, after a week that really sucked, this one is off to a great start! But wait, there is more! We received a text from Dylan at the farm, no words, just a picture. A picture that brought joy to my heart. We could not be happier for Sydnie and Dylan!

 Just a few more days until Christmas, I need to get to wrapping presents. Hope everyone out there has a great Christmas and a wonderful week!

Insanity

 It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This, in a nutshell, describes my deer hunting season. Day, after day, after day, I set my alarm for 5:45 and go to bed. But I do not really need the alarm, my body is like a finetuned watch. Sadly, it is not tuned like a Rolex, it is like a 1970's Mickey Mouse Timex that has been dropped in the water. Instead of my alarm going off at 5:45, my internal alarm clock goes off at 3:45! I kid you not, 5 out of 7 days a week I wake up within 5 minutes of 3:45, the other two days, if I am lucky, it will be after 5am, but never does my phone alarm actually go off. 

I then sit on the couch, have my caffeine and watch the news as my body wakes up. A half hour or so before sunrise, I walk to my blind sit down and watch the sunrise. Day, after day, after day, after day. Oh, I am not complaining, it is a great way to spend the morning. Okay, maybe I am complaining a little bit as we did have two days where the highs were in the teens. 

Did I see deer? I see deer every day. Did I see bucks? I see bucks every day. Did I shoot a deer? No. With two weeks left in the season, I have come to the conclusion that I probably will not get a deer this season. 

Then came Thursday and our world stopped with a phone call. Our niece Alana, who I have talked about many times had a medical emergency. We dropped everything to rush to Rapid and be with her and Ryan. Alana's sister Tess drove up from Denver, her mom and dad flew in from Minneapolis, and her brother flew in from Paris. 

She is not out of the woods yet, but we are seeing positive signs. It has been almost a week, and it will likely be another week before she can go home, but we are hopeful.  We went to their house and picked up their dogs who will be spending a few days with us. 

And just like that, we went from a 2-dog household to a 4-dog household! Let the chaos begin! Feeding times are the worst, Loki is three years old(ish), but a lab, and they take several years to settle down. Most of the time he is fine and just lays around, but other times the pup in him comes out and the chaos begins. 

Loki thinks he is a lap dog which is often sweet, sometimes annoying. How many pups do you see in this picture?

Barb is reading her iPad, but the dogs want some attention, and Loki gives her a big kiss!

So, just for you Harry, here is a video of the dogs playing. Those little ones have jaws of steel!

Dakota just hangs out, not wanting anything to do with either of the other dogs. She has been having a hard time getting around, as her hips are super weak. We give her injections which seems to help. Her mind is happy, you can see it in her eyes, ears and actions when we go for walks, but the struggle is real for her. 

Life is weird, the world can totally stop for one person, or family, as the rest of the world goes on like it is just a normal day. I know all of you have experienced it, some of us more times than we like to recall. Each time, I just find it surreal; as you watch others going about laughing, working, living life as though nothing has happened at all while you walk around in a stupor barely able to function. But even for us, life goes on and we feel guilty for it. I still work on the garage, Barb still works on the camper, we still watch football. We go up there every other or every few days to visit, but in a nutshell, life really sucks sometimes. 

Speaking of the garage, I am still working on the OSB in the workshop. I borrowed Kevin's sheetrock lift to do the ceiling. Talk about a back saver! I got the last piece up on the ceiling and should have the last of the wall pieces up in the next day or two. 

I have also been wiring the new fuel tank Bob and DeAnne brought down. I had it filled with 250 gallons of gas the other day, so I hope I get it going soon! (Update...I finished this project yesterday and it is all good to go!)

Barb has been trimming the edge of the flooring, tedious work. She struggled on what to do with the rounded corners and after many trial and errors she came up with this solution: a 45° piece sandwiched between two 22° pieces. 

The weather has been a roller roaster, from snow and single digits to mid 50's in just a few days. All of our snow is gone now, but just two days ago it looked like this. So beautiful. 

A couple of you asked for a picture of the Christmas tree after it was all decorated, so here it is. 

It does not look like this anymore, however. Saturday night, Barb and I were having a quiet evening on the couch watching a Hallmark movie, when all of a sudden there was a 15' tree laying on top of us. No warning, no one shouting "timber!". Just a tree on our heads. Barb was trapped under the tree. I was able to get out from under it and lift it off Barb. Water everywhere, broken bulbs everywhere, dogs everywhere barking and confused. I tried standing it up, but with the water, the stand just slid across the floor. Barb came over to help and stepped onto a broken bulb. We finally got it standing back up and started the cleanup. 

What happened? We don't know for sure, but Loki was back there when it happened, and we think he got tangled up in the lights. The dogs went back home two days later. With everyone staying at Ryan and Alana's house there is plenty of people there to take care of them now. 

That was our week, not a good one, but I write this blog as a journal of our life, so I write it as it is so years from now our kids, grandkids or even us, ourselves and look back and read about it and reflect.