Life is good! I begin with an update on my alcohol cessation to report I am now in the 11th week since I drank my last alcoholic beverage. I recently visited my doctor and had my blood work checked to discover my test results had so significantly improved from my last visit in April. You can’t get much more encouragement than this! My fasting blood glucose level had been up to 120 mg/dL (pre-diabetic and my highest reading ever) However, it is now normal at 95 mg/dL; my triglyceride level had been 165 mg/dL (borderline high) but has dropped to 100 mg/dL avoiding the doctor’s recommendation to start taking a statin drug. All other tests for cholesterol, liver, kidneys, pancreas had moved into the normal range. The most rewarding result is that my blood pressure has gone from readings of 165/96 at times to 125/72 with a pulse of 58 or 60! I’m like a kid again.
Two weeks ago I cut my Amlodipine medication from 10 mg a day to 5 mg and am now off of it completely with my pressure holding at a youthful level! Geez....could my 35 years of drinking have been the entire reason for the raised blood pressure? Time will tell. I continue to listen to podcasts by author Annie Grace and others who have struggled with alcohol in their lives and have overcome the desire to drink. This is pretty much my main support system aside from talking to family and a few others here and there.
I am busy doing other things and getting projects done at The House of Stone. I have been cleaning and discarding, selling or giving away notable quantities of yesterday’s treasures. Monday morning, I made a trip to the dump and was greeted by the usual “dump guy” who was....as often is the case...a bit disgruntled with more than the resident groundhog that lives under a dumpster.
This time he was sour because the new garbage packer was broken down and he added that a lady had seriously hurt her back while putting her garbage into the packer because of the high reach through the access door. I agreed that the new packer has a “design issue.” I mean I had noticed that from the moment I stood next to it at 5 ft-2 in. tall and had to look up at the access door. I attributed it to a male designer who probably was 6 ft-5 in. tall and forgets about us shorter models.
The dump guy grumbled on about politics within local county government then punched my paper dump card and instructed me to use the big blue demolition bin on the upper level past the scrap metal pile with the usual shoppers revolving around its margins where sharp edges and glass shards leer at your tires as they roll past. I’ve seen all kinds there, men and women who rarely look up as they hastily pull out valuables before another collector gets it first. I drove towards the demo bin, past the yard waste area, the old tire pile and other bins.
When I got out of my Jeep, I noticed a few items that someone had placed on the cement ledge next to the bin. Sometimes I too have placed things there that I think someone else may find useful instead of discarding. “Ooooohh I exclaimed” to nothing but an empty cab, the steering wheel and my work gloves.
On this day, I was captivated by a small, porcelain dish and creamer that seemed to be waiting there just for me. The tan-colored china with a maroon floral design possessed a simple, lovely charm. I turned the creamer around to discover it was designed with no handle which drew more attention to the decorative pattern and small spout. When I got home, I washed the dump dust off both pieces, grabbed a cup of coffee then headed out to the deck to study it. It was labeled Inca Ware and the hand-drawn logo prompted me to do a Google search to discover it was restaurant china,  made by the Shenango China Company of New Castle, Pennsylvania that opened in 1901. The company also manufactured serving dishes for the White House, including a commemorative plate for Dwight Eisenhower and dinnerware for Lyndon Johnson. The company had a long history of being bought, sold, burned down, flooded, rebuilt, renamed, expanded and in March 1979 was sold to Anchor Hocking who sold it to Canadian Pacific who then sold the company to Pfaltzgraff. The little set is only worth $16 on eBay but provided curiosity and surprise to my day and a place for my toothpicks out on the table.
In addition to finding treasures at the dump, I have been spending a fair bit of time at home because a friend of mine that I call “The Horse Whisperer”, and I are fixing my notoriously problematic upstairs bathroom. It was torn apart and left during my last marriage with only the toilet functional. So, we finally figured out the directions that my maze of water pipes travel between the two floors and where the clogged pipe was.  “H.W.” added a new nine-foot piece, boring a hole into the main cast iron line to bypass the troublesome section....including a 90-degree elbow. He capped off one end of the old section and has left the non-functional pipe in place for all of eternity to bother residents no more. This also overcomes the house settling issue that caused the water to have to run uphill on its way out. The room is now ready for tile, a new toilet, vanity, and some shiplap to panel one wall. I am absolutely delighted that I won’t have to take a shower in my chilly basement bathroom this winter or pay a fortune to a plumber and a contractor.
The “Horse Whisperer” is from Kugler Township, south of Tower, and lives near the end of civilization where cell service is represented with one bar and internet works best when standing by the kitchen window where bunnies and Tony the rooster dine on green grass and findings below. He has spent most of his life within a 12-mile radius and has been the only person I’ve met to ever draw distinction to the rural areas often simply termed as Embarrass. He regularly uses the names of the various townships in general conversation including Waasa, Pike, Sandy and Wuori. If he travels to them for any reason at all he will say, “Yuh, I had to take a run over to Wuori Township to see a guy about a part for a lawnmower.” Or, “My friend over in Pike Township is mowing lawns at the cemetery.” He knows where one township begins and the other ends and is knowledgeable about the folks whose families originally settled in these rural places. H.W is a jack-of-all-trades and knows how to tear apart engines, witch wells with willow branches, do construction, garden, farm and care for horses. Interestingly, he kept draft horses for years; Percheron, Belgian, and Shire on his eighty acres. The trees for the Embarrass Timber Hall were pulled from the logging site by his horses and he has helped others with all kinds of tasks. He has a calm spirit that animals trust, including two of my three skeptical cats that ended up in his lap on the day they met him months ago. The third cat knows no boundaries and is friends with everyone. Having a place to go to that provides a scenic drive through the trees and a change from spending time in bars has been so welcomed. We sit and tell stories under the string of twinkling colored Christmas lights that are on every night at dusk while we often watch old westerns and Gunsmoke reruns on TV.  
When I am away from my own work farm in Soudan, you can still find me at the Timberjay or doing administrative work for the Lake Vermilion Cultural Center (LVCC), a nonprofit located on Main Street in Tower. I have held this position for over a year now and am learning much. The LVCC is the former St. Mary’s Episcopal Church that has been under renovation and is now hosting cultural events such as the annual Midsummer celebration, music concerts, lectures, art shows and more. You can visit the website: vermilionculturalcenter.org to learn more or make a donation. I also continue to print t-shirts in my basement and hope to have a booth at a craft show or two this coming fall.