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Prescription for Adventure

~ by Naomi Gaede Penner

Prescription for Adventure

Category Archives: Inspiring Adventures

Adventures of a Barn Quilt Tour

17 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Inspiring Adventures

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Naomi by one of her favorite barn quilts.

Naomi by one of her favorite barn quilts.

Barn Quilts. I’d never heard of them. I knew I about fabric quilts and had an assortment from two grandmothers, one mother, and many Mennonite Relief Sales. Grandma Leppke preferred appliqued, embroidered, and hand-painted quilt blocks. Grandma Gaede chose pieced blocks. I would love to know the story behind the friendship quilt with a middle block that says, “God Is Love 1937.” The women who stitched embroidered their names: Minnie Cornelsen, Mrs. Ben B. Funk Mrs. Barthel Reiswig, Mrs. Henry Seibel. I wondered why Minnie used her first name and not her husband’s. Even if she were a widow, most likely she’d still carry his.

In June 2014, four of us Colorado women packed up an ice chest, homemade cinnamon rolls, print-outs from http://barnquiltinfo.com/map-CO.html and headed to northeast Colorado. Morgan County has a reputation for hail and tornadoes. We watched the skies. We were excited. It was like a treasure hunt.

IMG_1213

Oops – are we lost? Cattle Feed lot —-and buffalo.

No problem finding the first one.

Okay…found our first one.

Our barn quilt adventure took us down dirt roads. We got lost. We didn’t know barn quilts could be found on silos. We reveled in nostalgic old barns against broad blue skies. We accidentally ended up at a buffalo feedlot. We saw cornfields shredded by recent hail. We stumbled upon cute ranchettes and bet that the next-generation saw dollars in grandpa’s farm, so sub-divided. We experienced local dining where we were the obvious non-locals. And, we ended up at a deteriorated house with paint-peeled outbuildings, old cars on cinder blocks, and something shroud-like on the clothesline. Curtains fluttered in open windows. Was anyone home? No quilts anywhere, even though the tour map indicted so. We figured it was part of the Bates Motel Chain. We locked out doors, rolled up the windows, and got outta there!

This was a surprise!

This was a surprise!

 

....as was this!

….as was this!

This is more like it.

This is more like it.

What we learned:

  • The Barn Quilt tour offered an up-close view of a part of Colorado we knew little about.
  • Weather reports of tornadoes at Ft. Morgan and Wiggins have more meaning now.
  • We all want a Quilt Block hanging on our house or garage!

Suggestions;

  • Take a map. Your GPS might not work in off-grid areas where Barn Quilts may be found.
  • Don’t expect absolute directions and destinations. Wandering around happens.
  • Don’t be afraid to get dirty.
  • Take along binoculars for barns that may not be accessible on very private property.
  • At least one person in the group needs to be familiar with quilt block patterns. I was not. I was familiar with driving on dirt roads, identifying what was growing in the fields, and I had a sense of direction.

 

Resources:

– Website we Ft. Morgan, CO: http://barnquiltinfo.com/map-CO.htm.

– Every Barn Tells a Story by Ann Zemke and Diane Entrikin

We left Ft. Morgan and drove home to black skies and rain. That evening1 to 2-inch diameter hail pounded Morgan County. The farms were no longer a vague space on the map. We visualized smashed cornfields and remembered the farm folks we’d talked to.

Check out barn quilt tours in your state. Gather friends or like-minded quilt enthusiasts and take a field trip. Anticipate adventures.

(This was printed in “The Country Register” (Kansas), Aug./Sept. 2014)

 

 

 

 

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Little House on the Prairie —or the Big Woods— or Tundra

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Gaede-80 Homestead, Inspiring Adventures

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For decades, I wanted to visit the place where Pa and Ma Ingalls, of Little House on the Prairie, had homesteaded in South Dakota. In July, 2013, I did just that.

A dream come true!

A dream come true!

Homesteaders are a hardy lot — with a hardy sense of adventure; or perhaps it is more about hope – hope for a better life, better occupation, better cash flow, better piece of ground, or better opportunity.  “Your father seeks out adventure,” my mother confided. “I do not.” Regardless of her bent, she was an adventure — and a homesteader.

Little House in the Big Alaska Wilderness

Little House in the Big Alaska Wilderness

Dad and Mom were farm kids who had known land — both good and bad, both their own and sharecropped, In Alaska they homesteaded with the hope – and pride – of calling  a piece of land their own. They spent three cold and thigh-deep snowy winters clearing 8 to 10 acres — by hand—for a house, cabin, barn, hangar, outbuildings, garden, and a half-mile long airstrip. I spent five minutes straddling a log and attempting to strip the bark before running off to play and handing off the blade to Mom. My grandmother bleached the newly peeled cabin logs. My grandfather dug a septic tank. Mom tilled the garden, hauled water for irrigation, and fought off moose. I nibbled on tender carrots and savored juicy strawberries. Dad tried to grow oats. He and Mom fought  the natural elements— the below zero temperatures, the tinder-dry black spruce and fear of forest fires, the short growing season, and the springtime road-turned-bog. We all battled mosquitoes as aggravating as grasshoppers and crows on the Midwest prairie land.

Grandpa Solomon Leppke digging the septic for the cabin

Grandpa Solomon Leppke digging the septic for the cabin

Mark Gaede and David Isaak on the "proved up" acreage -- "Gaede Private airstrip."

Mark Gaede and David Isaak on the “proved up” acreage — “Gaede Private airstrip.”

Through my little-girl eyes, Laura Ingalls’ life was idyllic – even in blizzards, droughts, and pestilence. My sister and I played the parts. I was Pa and she was Ma.

Laura’s stories jumped to life when Mom let us order a cover for our red American Flyer wagon. Inside this covered wagon, we piled dolls, stuffed animals, and our black Pekingese. We jolted to the wild frontier of our backyard of rocks, roots, and dirt clods. Now we had work to do, but we were up to it. We gathered cranberries to feed our collection of children.

Ma and Pa restrooms in De Smet - 2I read Laura’s stories as a child.

I was a hardy homesteader — as a child.

In De Smet, South Dakota. I toured Laura Ingalls’ house, schools, town, homesteads, and cemetery. I was an adult, and I recognized the reality behind her endearing stories.

One of the Ingalls' houses in De Smet

One of the Ingalls’ houses in De Smet

No matter where or when a homesteader homesteads, they are greeted by similar hard work, isolation, weather issues, goodbyes to family and friends, and stretched money.

No matter the reality, in 2013, I was just as enthralled by the “Little Town on the Prairie” outdoor pageant, as I’d been as a gradeschooler reading, Little House in the Big Woods.

Little Town on the Prairie Pageant

Little Town on the Prairie Pageant

One of my manuscript critiquers for From Kansas Wheat Fields to Alaska Tundra: a Mennonite Family Finds Home grew up on Nebraska farmland. He devoured the chapters about homesteading in Alaska; he admitted that as a kid, he’d read all the Laura Ingalls’ books, too.

After the book was in print, a reviewer told me, “Your Kansas – Alaska” book is just like a “Little House” storybook. I smiled. That was the highest compliment I could wish for.

KS Wheat Fields-AK Tundra Book CoverTo learn more about the Ingalls’ family history in De Smet go to:

http://www.desmetpageant.org/

Over the years, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant has become a local tradition. Each summer more than a hundred volunteers combine their talents to present a family-friendly drama based on the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. People from all over the world gather together on the beautiful South Dakota Prairie and step back into history to a time when the West was just opening up to a wave of pioneering men and women. It is our goal to preserve–through drama–the family values and pioneering spirit of the Ingalls family.

 

 

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When it Comes to Adventure, Age Doesn’t Matter

12 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Inspiring Adventures

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Aunt Marianna --- minutes before a rain storm.

Aunt Marianna — minutes before a rain storm.

My favorite aunt just turned 89. Her red curly hair has turned gray; in my mind, it frames her face like a halo. As far as I’ve known, beneath that halo, there’s always been a smile.

Aunt Marianna has brought a smile to my face plenty of times. Take for instance one Thanksgiving when I visited her house. I brought an uncomfortable marrow-deep chill with me and couldn’t get warm.  Aunt Marianna poured hot water into a basin and set it on the floor before me. “Here,” she said. “Soak your feet. It seems that when feet are warm, the whole body feels warmer.” It worked. I smiled. I smiled too when she made her typical breakfast of fried rice, a tradition carried on from being a missionary in Japan.

She’s an adventurer. She and her husband back-packed around Europe when they were in their 60s; over fence stiles and into pastures of curd-chewing cows and wooly sheep.  Years later, those stories enticed me to do a walking trip through the Cotswalds in England.

She’s an inspiration.  From early on, she and my uncle opened their home and lives to international students – and in my adult years I was motivated to do the same.

When I taught a graduate class on aging, I asked who had a role model for growing older. Not a hand went up. Every student, most in their 20s, looked puzzled.. “Older” might have been age 40. Their assignment? Choose a grandparent-age person who they admired, and write about that person.

Now in her late 80s, she regularly reads stories to five classes in a nearby school. Reading isn’t “just reading,” it comes with visuals, items to touch, and conversations. Easy? Aunt Marianna has an inherited hearing loss.

Now in her late 80s, she walks a mile around the college track. Easy? Not with health issues that come with “almost 90.”

Now, in her late 80s, Marianna and her daughter, Sharon, regularly visit female inmates in the county jail who are awaiting trial, and the state prison. In the county jail, they sing along with a CD and have a Bible study.

Easy? No. Some days, at the county jail, mother and daughter are turned away due to a lockdown in the jail.

The prison is worse. “Easy” is not a word found anywhere. The guards don’t assume Marianna is a benign little old lady – dressed neatly in a red brocade kimono  top. Who knows? She could be carrying contraband, a crowbar, drugs, a chainsaw, explosives, chocolates. She has to empty her pockets, pull up her pants legs and show the bottoms of her shoeless feet; then, because she cannot go through the metal detector due to her pacemaker, she is “wanded.” She also has to point out her two hearing aids and show a written statement from her doctor for wearing them.

Some days are more worse than others. The prison does not allow visitors to wear hats, hooded jackets, or carry an umbrella. During the Christmas holidays, just before her 89th birthday, Marianna got drenched in a cold downpour while waiting to go in. Out of sensible concern for herself and her mother, Sharon urged, “Let’s go home, Mom. We can come back another day.”  My role model with a dripping halo could have done just that: shed wet clothes for a cozy robe, put her feet up, and sipped a cup of steaming tea; instead, she replied, “We’re already here. I want to see one more woman.” These are not nice women and nice visits. Several women they regularly visit are in for murder. All the same, the stringently searched angels of grace and mercy buy the inmate lunch, read the Bible, pray, and encourage her.

Now in her late 80s, my aunt’s home and kitchen table welcome college students, long-time international friends, and ex-inmates. Much like the father of the Prodigal Son, when she heard an ex-inmate was coming to visit, she set out a festive table with lit candles and brewed hot tea, and greeted her with a warm embrace. The ex-inmate could have repulsed many people. Easy? Not for a judgmental person. But, even though Marianna has a strong moral compass, she isn’t judgmental. When confronted with someone’s hideous and unspeakable crime, she asks, “What would Jesus do?” She manifests the hands and face of Jesus through open arms and the gift of unconditional love and grace.

All the same, she acknowledges that what she does wouldn’t work for everyone.

“My elderly next door neighbor would be horrified if she found out I was entertaining ex-inmates in my home,” she says with a soft chuckle.

Aunt Marianna isn’t climbing Mt. Everest, wrestling alligators, cleaning up a town after a hurricane, saving the whales, or learning to hang-glide, but she’s an adventurer. Her adventures are a prescription of her own. They match her God-given personality, passions, setting, and resources. And, her adventurers are encouraged by a family of cheerleading children, grand-children, great-grandchildren, and a host of other people who call her “mom” and “grandma.”

Age Doesn’t Matter When it Comes to Adventure

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