This year opened with little to notice.  It would not stay that way.

March brought the call every parent dreads, "Your son is in the emergency room.  He's ok, but he asked me to call you."  Well, he wasn't dead.  He had, however, broken his right femur, the hardest and biggest bone in the body.  Though very painful he helped the ski patrol cinch his leg into the sled and became known as that "...good local skier who broke his femur.  And didn't complain."  In a community of athletes, many of them world class, this was high praise.

It was more than a broken leg; the Air Force turned him down because of "...hardware unremoved."  In typical Joseph fashion he's not given up and his application goes back this month for another try.  He's recovered to 95% and skis now in spite of his orthopedists observation that breaking a leg with a titanium rod in it is a nasty event.

Not long after Joseph's broken leg Colorado beckoned again as Jen Olson, Jon's wife, went into labor.  Kate flew out and I drove.  Ruthie came into  our world .  She is now seven months old, drinking from a glass, holding her own bottle, and a placid, smiley baby.  A joy.

All the while Kate had begun to maneuver for a reduction in her hours and responsibility at work.  A change in administration at her clinic saw that work pay off and she settled on post-Thanksgiving as the right time to start her work in Urgent Care.  My docent class ran through until May, then we had the summer to ourselves.

On June 27th, after a long and unpleasant decline, Merton Johnson, Kate's father died.  We all flew to Phoenix and had a service for Merton, moved stuff around in the storage shed, and began the process of executing Merton's will.

At the end of July Kate took her annual trip to the Guatemalan Highlands.   One of the outcomes of Merton's estate is a small fund sufficient to cover at least one trip a year to Guatemala for many years to come.

The four sisters and I took a beautiful weekend in September to spread Merton's ashes in the same small feeder creek for Burntside Lake near Ely where we put Rebecca, their mother, ten years ago.  

Over this year Kate and I became grandparents; Joseph became Uncle Joe (and a proud Uncle at that), Jon and Jen added Mom and Dad.  

Tor's big heart gave out in September, closing a fifteen year chapter in our lives, years filled with the wonderful presence of Celt, Sortia, Morgana, Scot, Tira, Tully, Orion, and, last, Tor.  Odd as it may seem to those of you who have not known Irish Wolfhounds, this was, perhaps, the most significant event in the year.  Yes, Ruth's birth and Joseph's trauma and Merton's death were important and will effect us all for years to come, but we have lived with these dogs, loved these dogs and been loved by them.  Their absence is vast and deep.

The year continued with the docent class beginning again in the fall, Joseph's 25th birthday, and my trip to investigate our land in Texas.  The trip diary that explains the strange twists in this last story is in the blog section of this site.  

The Woolly Mammoth's almost have another  year in the books.  I finally finished the second edit of the Pilgrim papers and we have a task, Kate and me, to  put together a third edit (after her read).  My first book proposal is in the works, but more about that next year.  

We celebrated Thanksgiving at 10,000 feet on Peak 7 in Breckenridge.  What can I say, we were breathless.

Now Kate has begun her after hours urgent care work, the step before retirement, and she likes it.  The world of the fine arts has opened itself even wider to me this year and last.  My docent years have only begun.                   

If anything, this year has moved Kate and me firmly into the ranks of the older generation:  grandparents and orphans we are now.  It was a year of pain, death, birth, and joy.  A year, in other words, like most years.

This is a folk ritual of our time.  I  ignored it until now, but thought with this first year of www.ancientrails.com, I'd write here.  I'll e-mail a link to folks who might have interest, then they can read it if they want, or not.  This way our family, now growing, will have at least these as ligament stretching back in time.   So, see below. 

We limped into the New Year.  I hadn't yet tumbled to my ruptured achilles, torn in Bangkok while crossing the street.  Joseph had had one bad breakup and another hit over the holidays, so we had concerns about his health and happiness. 

Even so, Jon and Jen had hit the halfway mark with their first year of marriage.  Kate, though not deliriously happy with medicine as a corporate, managed institution, had job satisfaction of the small person type. All our dogs were healthy:  Tor, Orion, Hilo, Kona, and Emma. 

It was a year of loss for the Woolly Mammoths: Stefan Helgeson's mother died while snorkeling in the Pacific off of Costa Rica, later Jimmy Johnson's Dad took a header into the garden.  Both funerals had remarkable moments:  Stefan reading Mary Oliver, "Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and crazy life?"  Jimmy having his Dad's coffin painted fire engine read, then sprinkling holy water in the four directions at the graveside.

In February Joseph began his last semester of his last year of college.  He had a difficult load with Electromagnetics, Fourier Transformations, and a couple of others I don't remember, plus his senior thesis in Physics.  He completed his Astrophysics senior work in 2004. 

This was both the month I turned 58 in my vain attempt to catch up to Kate, and when I had surgery (my first ever) to repair my torn achilles.   Kate became a nurse again, traveling back in time through her medical career.  I started my 58th year with a lovely green cast and crutches which I learned (slowly and painfully) how to use.  Without Kate during this time the world would have seemed bleak.

We attended the Chinese New Year's party that Ming Jen, a Collection in Focus Guide, always arranges.  I managed the crutches, sort of, through a crowded Chinese restaurant in Dinkytown.  It felt good to get out and walk (well, hobble).

Over March and April I got back on my feet, literally.  In May another gardening year began and it was one in which I felt on top of it more than most years.  Many moved plants did well, lost few, and enjoyed, as always, the iris and the lilies.  As our garden has grown, so has the shade; I've become more interested in hosta, ferns, bloodroot, and other shade lovers.  Kate and I work the garden together, a real labor of love.  

In the summer I made a trip with Kate to Indiana for the Keaton cousin reunion (16 of us first cousins) and then onto Paducah, Kentucky for the National Quilt Museum.  Paducah gets a lot of quilting tourists and I got this unusual photograph telling about another facet of this Ohio river town.

After Paducah I took some woodworking tools out to Jon and Jen, and managed to arrive in Denver as it hit a record 107 degrees.  Then, up to Cody, Wyoming to the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum.  Hard to beat for pure Americana, especially related to the pioneer/war against the natives and thier environment goes.  Hardly back from that when:  

Sunday                                  8.14.05                     6:10 PM

It's been some couple of weeks.  Joseph gets a job in Colorado. Then, this AM, while Kate and I sat around the table on our patio, a call came in from Jon in Denver.  Jen's pregnant!  Whoa.  What a bit of news

Both pieces of news, now some 4 1/2 months old, still ricochet through our lives.  Just got off the phone with Joseph, "Dad, I know what I for Christmas.  New skis."  This after he bought a new pair in October for his birthday.  He's come into his own as an adult in Breckenridge.  Meanwhile, Jen's pregnancy proceeds.  We got pics:

Tor had a bout with pneumonia; we feared cancer.  But, Tor lives and Orion, whom we didn't suspect, developed a cancer of some kind.  Because he could no longer walk, we had to euthanize him, a moment of terrible sorrow and continued grief.  These big guys... (it still makes me cry.)

I took Joseph out to Breckenridge and had the unreal experience of sitting amidst his boxes, in his new apartment, 9,800 feet above sea level, as Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans.  So devastating and so impossible from the mountain top.  

Joseph's gone.  Since 1981, when Raeone and I picked him up at the airport on  December 15th, he's lived within 30 minutes, now he's faraway, even further than the 1,500 miles to Breckenridge.  He's left for the land of adulthood, a place few parents travel with their children, except for occasional visits.  I miss him.

In September Kate had bariatric surgery and is now on a downward trend weightwise.  A healthier, happier place to be.  We exercise together 3 days a week, aerobics and resistance.  And have done for almost two years.

At some point in the year (June, I think)  I got accepted into the Docent program at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and now go each Wednesday for class and on Monday am for continuing education.  It's a real pleasure to get into something as deep and rich as art history.  I also preached several times during the year:  Lacrosse, Wisconsin; Bemidji, Groveland.    

This website has been up almost a year now, too.  It allows me to put down breadcrumbs, so I can find my way back through my life, something I've done in notebooks for years, but the computer's a good place, too, has more options.  Thanks, Bill Schmidt.

Our small family gathered at Lutsen for Thanksgiving:  Jon, Jen, and Joseph flew in from Colorado and Annie came up from Waconia.  The flavor of this Thanksgiving foreshadowed those to come...a little one with wee feet and high pitched voice.

The dogs:  Tor, Emma, Kona, and Hilo keep us company and warm us during our naps.  The garden now has snow.  It sleeps.

You, my friends and family, who may read this:  I love you and I'm proud to know you, each and everyone. 

Blessed be.