Boxing Day Post

Here it is, Boxing Day, and I am wondering what friends and family are doing. Lorne is out shooting air rifle, and I have a few moments to myself. Matteo's Dad is in Jamaica for Christmas, and his Mom working over Christmas, so him and I are together lots.

We have a cool minus -28 today; Lorne and I chopped a new pile of firewood so we could enjoy our woodstove on these nights.

I am going through Mom's pictures today, to see what I can find for "old family" or "Kroeker Family" pictures to scan for a Kroeker Family Album, or book I am working towards completion of. Another Kroeker cousin has already done considerable work on it but it still needs much expansion to make it produce-able in book form.

Two weeks before Christmas Matteo and I made peppernut cookies. They were Mom's favourites for Christmas, and I always tried to persuade her to put in more anise than the recipe called for, so this was my opportunity to try it. Matteo loved playing with the dough; he played with it for two hours!

I’ve spent much of the last year in Morden, Manitoba; Lorne and I have bought what’s left of the “family farm” – 10 acres. This is a farm in the Pembina Hills 5 ½ miles south of Morden – and Morden is 75 kilometres south-west of Winnipeg. My Mother grew up there. Now we’ve arranged for the house to remain empty until I have to get back to mowing lawn (4-acres, and that takes 4 hours on our John Deere law tractor)!

The reason I’m back in Yellowknife is because Lorne and I got too lonesome for each other, but it’s good to be back in Yellowknife again. I’d forgotten how beautiful the ptarmigan’s are! It’s great to see my Grandson Matteo, and his Mom and Dad.

In the other picture Lorne is reading "The Night Before Christmas" to Matteo on Christmas evening. It is a ritual at our house, made even more meaningful by reading it to an excited child! We had fun looking at Christmas through the eyes of a child.

Lorne’s two sons Buster and James (JR) are in Edmonton, and David is up in Fort McMurray. Buster is working up north as a camp cook (two weeks in, two weeks out). JR is doing carpentry work and lately he’s been working on bridges. His partner Naomi is working in their investment business and sells Mary Kay.

David drives truck for companies that are contracted to mostly Suncor. Dave and Jenn have blessed us with a Grandson named Tristen - he’ll be one on January 1st (he was the New Years baby!). Here's a picture of Tristen.

Life is good.

Lorne’s favourite author is Ernest Hemingway, and that’s what he’s looking forward to for Christmas. He’s got a lot of his books already, so its getting harder to dig deeper and find the others. My favourite author is Nelly McClung, and I recently found out one of the few I’m missing from that set costs $575.00 – (amazon.ca, when you can find it) When Christmas Crossed the Peace. Ernest’s Winner Take Nothing lists on Amazon at $220.00 and his Men Without Women at $155.00. Guess one of the things we’ll be doing once we retire is browse bookstores to satisfy our book-worm bug!

And that looks like it could be sometime next fall.

We would love to hear from you sometime soon, to find out how you'se all are doing.

Best wishes for 2008!

Julie & Lorne McNeice

Late October Post

Hi There!

This is turning out to be a short post, because my other one accidentally erased itself somehow; and it was a good one.

Lorne and I are back in Yellowknife after making a fast trip back together. We just got too lonesome for each other and couldn't stand the idea of being separated another winter.

Our trip back was in haste; our home in Yellowknife had been vandalized and since the housesitter was reluctant to stay there we beat it back as fast as possible. This meant only a couple hours with his brother and parents, and no visit with Lorne's sister, but we were anxious to get back on the road. 900 kms daily is not fun travelling.

We barely beat the snow back; it was following on our tails and has stayed since, although the temperature is only a few degrees below zero, and we are mostly blessed with no wind, which is uncommon for Yellowknife area this time of year.

The picture that accompany's this post was taken the weekend after Thanksgiving; I had just shot my first wild turkey with my Father's J.C. Higging 12-guage shotgun. Nice feeling, that was. We invited my Peter's country cousins over for a belated Thanksgiving dinner. That turkey was so tender I cut it with my (plastic) fork!

I'm back up here in Yellowknife for the winter; Lorne and I couldn't stand being apart another winter. I'll go back to Morden in time to start mowing and put in a garden. This time Lorne won't be far behind me, but more on that next time.

My email address is the same (julie@leadingchanges.ca) and our mailing address for the time being is: Lorne & Julie McNeice, 39 Horton Cr. Yellowknife, NT X1A 3B8. Our phone number up here is 867-920-2383. I won't be phoning long distance much (no cheap long distance rates here!) and would appreciate the occassional e-mail or phone call from you.

Yesterday Lorne noticed little tiny puffs of pink insulation against the white snow underneath our Jeep. Sure enough, when we checked under the hood, mice had tried to make a home on our engine (again!) while yet on the farm. Next time we'll have our "mousers" there!

Take Care,

Julie McNeice :-)

1st blog from Country Smile

Well, here's the first post from me, Country Smile:

After I came back from being in Yellowknife for the month of July I was pretty much in damage-control mode. Then I also had to get ready for Tanya and Grandson Matteo (2 1/2 years) and David & Jenn, and their 7-month old Tristen on August 19th for about a week.

The weeds had grown profusely when I got back. The 6 acres of pastureland in the back here were overrun with weeds too, and it cost me entirely too much to “mow” it. I have a really bad problem with wormwood here (a terrible weed), since I didn’t deal with it last year and couldn’t get anybody to spray it this spring.

Mice had somehow managed to get inside the house, and I had to set up a “trap-line” to deal with them. Got at least two in there daily for about a week, until I got them under control.

I had left the grass behind the house grow tall this year – I wanted a meadow land. Little did I realize that is a haven for mice, so I’ve had to mow and rake, mow and rake.

David helped immensely once he arrived; he worked hard for 3 days straight trimming the weeds all around the 10-acre fence line with my new Stihl 80R brush-cutter (no ordinary weed trimmer would handle it). There were other things he did but I don’t recall them off-hand. He also designed a brand-new “McNeice” signpost for the top of our lane; and then the three (David, Jenn and Tanya) made coloured fingerprints of the little ones on the front, along with the “McNeice” wording, and grownup fingerprints on the back. There are numerous reflectors on the post as well; you can’t miss us now! David even got an absolute stranger to lend him a hand auger to drill the hole (and made the hole 3-ft deep).

Matteo obviously enjoyed the new experiences he had; picking apples to eat whenever, meeting frogs and cows for the first time; and especially time with Uncle Dave – he absolutely loved his uncle Dave.

Tristen was a little young to know what was happening around him, but he did absolutely learn to stand against the furniture, and I’m convinced he knows “Nana’s voice” – as he smiles when he hears it on the phone now!

The house grew very quiet once they left, but I had much to do so time goes quickly.

I’ve picked wild plums this year and am experiencing what late summer and fall is like in these parts. Grapes grow very well here, my neighbour Roy Friesen (he's 93 and still farming!) had a bumper crop of green grapes, and my Aunt Alfrieda has purple grapes. Wild turkey hunting season is open now, too – but I’m waiting for Lorne to get here before I try it. He’s coming October 5 to 21st.

We had a Kroeker family lunch a couple sundays ago. Some of the family have been doing it for years. It was great to see so many distant family members of Klaas Kroeker; merchant, postmaster, and Great Grandfather on our maternal side. There has been a lot of genealogy work already completed by Lynne Ward and Conrad Stoesz on the Kroeker family. I'm looking forward to more connections.

I’ve been updating my website, preparing to bid online with a company called Elance, applying for jobs, I'm on the Executive of the Morden & District Chamber of Commerce. I'm hoping to be very active with Small Business Week, and writing articles. I am doing my absolute best to gain meaningful employment before Lorne comes and leaves. There is too much to write about that to include it here.

Thank-you for your continued prayers for career success for me; I have grown a lot in the last year, and feel the prayers for God-inspired career development in my growth path (writing is my heart’s desire). Those prayers fill me with hope and I'm feeling are on the brink of being answered. How or when I don’t know; I spend so much time looking for work I barely have time to write! Anyway, I am becoming more focused, and much less anxious, so thank-you.

That's probably enough for this blog; here's a pic for you from this summer.