Aunt Olla called for me to come in an deliver some burn medication to the Hilton. Seems she orders her milk-toast with extra hot milk. The nursing home staff reluctantly prepares it as she wishes, but then their worst fears came true: Olla spilled a little of the hot milk on her arm.

The burn was minor, but not in the eyes of the staff. In fact, everybody soon knew about the milk burn and Olla had to try to calm down the furor. One nurse, a reader of this weblog, speculated that Olla was smoking in bed. It was a joke, and Olla loved it.

After taking this strangely simple 12-question quiz, I was correctly identified as having a North Central, or Minnesota accent. See where you land.

An old friend of Grandpa's, another first-generation nurseryman, Wy Sheppard has passed away at age 92. Wy was a colorful character, like all those old nurserymen. The wry look on his picture captures perfectly what little I knew of Wy's personality.

UPDATE: Weblog reader Mary writes:

Micheal Kinsley makes some salient points about the internet and egomania.

Lone trees seem more lonely in the winter, and particularly on a wet, dreary day.



This willow stands about one-half mile north of the nursery.



Three miles away are these nice spruce trees, trees in such good condition that it is certain that somebody has taken care of them for the past twenty years.

If the weather forecast means anything, this will be the last day of warm weather for a while. We're supposed to get snow and cold tonight. Today, however, it is drizzling.



So, I drove around the countryside looking for pictures. The colors get a little more vivid in a drizzle as everything is wet. Even so, things are dreary.

We have reached the Civil War in history class. That has inspired me to pick up Carl Sandburg's biography of Abraham Lincoln, if for no other reason than to find some good stories.

What is always striking about Lincoln is his refusal to hold grudges of any sort. Although Lincoln was a wily lawyer and a political schemer of the highest order, his saint-like ability to grant instant forgiveness for any slight, even the most egregious, is what built his well-deserved reputation.

Feeling a little post-Thanksgiving lethargy, I decided to get out and putz around on the Cat loader for a while.

That's never as simple as it sounds, not with me at the controls.

I headed out onto the swamp, which is empty of water. The frozen peat ground seemed like the ideal terrain for the all-terrain Cat. I collected some firewood, and rolled across the swamp like a tank in battle, headed for the woodpile.

This year I was responsible for the turkey. I don't recall ever having fixed a turkey before, so I went online and found a "fool-proof" recipe from my long-time nemesis, Martha Stewart. It called for putting a cheesecloth dampened with butter and wine over the breast of the turkey to keep it moist.

Health. We tend not to notice it until it goes away.

Productive work. It is a prerequisite for sanity. It is an increasingly rare luxury.

Leisure. Time to read books. Time to make music. Time to watch the Twins.

People. Family, friends. We're all getting older. Sounds sad, but it is not. If we lasted forever, that knowledge would cause us to be unforgiving and petty. Knowing that we are all frail, and increasingly so day by day, enables us to tolerate, appreciate and love what is good in all.