Quick Fill/Pool -- River Russian

This was a stay-inside kind of week. There were several days of very heavy rain and some winds. Apparently last night was the worst, though I have to admit I must have slept through all the turmoil. When I took Dino out this morning I noticed that the slat in the corner of the fence -- that allows the neighbor's dogs to come into our yard -- was again down . . . then I noticed that whole sections of the fence that we share with that neighbor were down . . . then I noticed most of their back fence was completely blown down . . .

Today after the rains stopped and the sun came out it was beautiful. Blue skies with the occasional puffy white cloud. It was hard to imagine that only a few hours earlier it had been so rainy. In the bottom left pic you can see one of the sections of the fence that came down. On the far right shows the elm tree that now is completely void of leaves -- inside Dino is sniffing a newly moved indoor plant . . .

But the pool looks great AND it is full, it came close to flood overflowing, I am not sure what I am supposed to do to keep it from doing that . . . we have spoken to the neighbors and they are graciously propping up some of the fence until we can negotiate to have a new one installed -- we already are working with our other neighbors to have that side fence replaced -- it is always something.

Our storm related problems are so minimal compared to the folks left with almost nothing from "Sandy" on the East Coast.

We took the break in the rain action to go look at the Russian River which is just a few blocks away and for awhile was threatening to climb past the flood levels -- but hasn't as yet. The river is really brown from the earth and debris in it and is moving really rapidly.

It may be hard to tell from the pictures but the current is moving a lot of "stuff" under the two bridges. It would be a foolish venture to take one of those "Kayak &/or Canoe Trips" as is done in the summer months. The bottom right pic is of the "beach" which is sprouting a heavy green growth. There were a lot of folks out surveying the conditions -- we walked across the bridge and got to feel the "shaking" as the cars drove by.


A Dog Break

Fortunately we did not have a puppy training session this week -- so I have some various photos that I gleaned from the web and one of Dino (in his Christmas attire). There are so many "cute" and "adorable"
puppy (and one kitty) photos to choose from.

This collage has a variety -- a GDB pup in a harness, four dogs celebrating a birthday -- with hats -- a large lap dog, Dino on a rainy day outing and a small top-hatted kitty taking it all in. The four pups at the bottom are from Disney's new movie "Paws 2" . . . beautiful . . .

A Slow Genealogy Week

Actually it wasn't that slow -- I had a lot going on with respect to family history work including two webinars. 

The first of which was on "The Four Major Resources" commonly used in researching family history. And the second one was on "Digital Imaging Elements" obviously about a subject that I am interested in -- digital photography and how to best deal with the huge amounts of pictures accumulating because of the digital camera. 

Both were sponsored by Legacy Family Tree, and were really well worth the time spent -- AND they were free in the "live" version. I learned a lot in both sessions.

But the big news that I can report -- came today -- about two or three weeks ago -- Gail sent in a sample of her DNA to be analyzed to Ancestry DNA:

Gail will be seeing this for the first time too as she reads this as the report popped into my email as I was writing this post. She'll see the genetic ethnicity chart and the map showing the distribution of some of her ancestors.

The most fun will come as she explores the "matches" to her DNA from other Ancestry members and hopefully an expansion of her known family tree . . .

As a matter of fact as I was writing this I received a notice from Ancestry DNA that they have more matches that just came in for my DNA -- so I have to check those out to see if I can determine how they might be related:

As you can see there are 58 more leads for me to check out -- you just never know who you'll find . . .


Who is Olaf Johnson (and what is he doing in my/our tree?)

Well, the short answer is -- he is a cousin about whom I am trying to learn more about. When I was growing up I remember my Mother when she was in a whimsical mood, singing the song that had a phrase that went like -- "my name is Yahn Yahnson I come from Visconsin and I work for the CB&Q, I sit on the steeple and
spit on the people, cause that's all I have to do . . ."

Well it turns out that Olaf's Father's name was John -- but because of the Scandinavian naming convention I had his last name as "Larson" -- thus Olaf the son of John became Olaf Johnson, just as John was probably the son of Lars . . . it is so confusing.

Above -- click on it to enlarge -- is Olaf and his parents, Carrie & John (either Larson or Johnson). Olaf is my first cousin two times (generations) removed. He lived from 1892 to 1962 and I am working on learning more about him and his family.


So that is a bit of our week -- we had turkey leftover dinners and lunches up through and including Thursday of this week. They were so good -- turkey paninis, great! Tonight we are having a pork tenderloin along with  twice baked potatoes and vegetables. Last night we enjoyed our traditional "burger Saturday night".

Enjoy your week, see you in a few!