After lunch in Margo with Aunt Reta and Grandma, we picked Emil up here at the farm and headed to "the old folks home," where he visits regularly as a goodwill ambassador for his school. The occasion today was the 92nd birthday of the lady on the right. Next to her sits Grandma at a middling 89, and on the far left is a third lady from Margo, though she is only a pup at 88.

Grandma and Reta caught a ride home with my "new" friend, Joanne (and I say this because although I've known her all my life, Mom's illness and death has forged new and deeper relationships with some of her closest friends and certain relatives; maybe we never lose in this life without gaining something of value to us), and Emil and I got into our van soon after. We had just driven out of the parking lot when I was thrilled to see a bull moose trotting across the snowcovered lawn of the extended care home immediately to our right.

I stopped the van, turned it around, and followed the huge creature as closely as possible as he stepped hurriedly past the hospital, down a residential street, and finally out to a field north of town. It was my luck to have used the last of the camera's battery strength to take the picture of the more beautiful creatures you see above, or I might have gotten a snapshot of this beast. As it was, Emil and I were fairly close to him for about five minutes and I am still feeling the fascination. For Emil and I it was a rare glimpse of such an awe-inspiring wild animal. As Emil says, "That was COOL!"

Back here at home, I had purchased a bag of bacon-strip-like treats for the dog and sat on the step to gave one to her for the first time. She took it carefully in her teeth, walked to a spot about 15 feet away from me, set it down and sniffed it before coming back to touch my knee lightly with her nose as if to say thank you. She then went back to it, laid down on her belly, took the treat carefully in her front paws and nibbled daintily upon it.