This collection of glorious BLACK & WHITE images i took on July 6. I had a fairly lazy Saturday. I took a mini-road trip over to Jefferson for some A&W and had Jay, Willy, Monica, and Graham over for watermelon. But that was about all I did all day.
This was Shorty & Doris’ farm.
Only 1 day of alternate glorious BLACK & WHITE images left to share, but it might take several days to share them all. We’ll see.
Last Wednesday my step-grandfather-in-law Shorty Peterson passed away. I include the “step” and “in-law” in front of his name not to indicate a distance, but to illustrate that sometimes titles, whether or correct or not do not indicate what it means to be “family”. Because Shorty and his wife Doris, helped define the word family for me as much as almost anybody I’ve ever known. Hint: It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with sharing DNA.
I’m sharing Shorty’s obituary here so that I know that there is a place I can find it.
Paul “Shorty” Peterson, 97, of Boone and formerly of Boxholm, Iowa, passed away on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, at Westhaven Community in Boone, Iowa.
A visitation for Shorty will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 17, 2024, at Carson-Stapp Funeral Home in Ogden with his memorial service to follow at 2:00 P.M. Rev. Bryan Latchaw will officiate. Burial will follow at Lawn Cemetery in rural Boxholm, Iowa. Graveside Military Rites will be conducted by the Boone Veterans Council. Shorty’s memorial service will be live streamed on the Carson-Stapp Funeral Home Facebook page. For online obituaries and condolences, please visit: www.carsonstappfuneralhome.com
Paul (Shorty) Peterson, son of Alfred and Sigrid (Rydman) Peterson was born on February 23, 1927, in Boxholm, Iowa. He received his education in Harcourt and Boxholm, graduating from Boxholm High School in 1945. Shorty served in the U.S. Army during WWII with the Occupation forces in Italy from June 4, 1945 until his honorable discharge on January 31, 1947.
On August 14, 1949, Shorty married Doris LaVonne Ewing in Dayton. The couple resided and farmed south of Boxholm for over 55 years until moving into Boxholm in 2004. Shorty was a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Boxholm. He served on the board of directors and was past president of the Westside Apartments and was past president for Boxholm Development. He was involved with the Boone County ASCS and Farmers COOP. He was also a member of the American Legion Post #63 of Boxholm. Shorty volunteered at the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad as a tour guide, announcer for Thomas the Train, and as Santa on the Santa Express. In 2017, Shorty moved to Westhaven Community in Boone.
In addition to his parents, Shorty was also preceded in death by his loving wife of 65 years, Doris; granddaughter, Olivia; and great grandson, Samuel. He is also preceded in death by his siblings, Clinton, Welden, Fern, and Thelma; parents-in-law, Buryl and Clara; and brothers-in-law, Gayle, Claude, and Harold.
Shorty is survived by his children, Janice and Tim. Also surviving are his grandchildren, Nate, Bethany, and Becca; five great grandchildren, grandson-in-law, Chris and sister-in-law, Marge.
Memorials may be left to the discretion of the family.
Thought I would share a few pictures of Shorty:
He was a truly great person and I will miss him!
Today is Nate’s birthday, so happy birthday Nate!
I hope your birthday is as wonderful as you want it to be!
I did have submissions from one person come in a tad bit late for PARK. Normally, I would tell that person to pound sand. You were late, there is a deadline. You missed it. However, since it was Funk and she was on top of a frigging mountain and therefore, not with a bunch of cell phone service (also it is a little cold up there), I will allow it. Here are the submissions from Susanna Funk.
Susanna Funk (Mt Baker National Recreation Area – Washington)
Susanna Funk (Mt Baker National Recreation Area – Washington)
These are the first submissions from the state of Washington this calendar year! WooHoo!
I recently took Rodan139 for a flight around Boxholm, Iowa. I didn’t plan ahead very well, so the battery was low and the flight was short. But I’ve found that many times the first time I take a drone to an area it seems to be more recon for a second flight later. But I still think there are some good pictures in the collection.
Boxholm always holds a special place in my heart. It is where Shorty and Doris lived after they left the farm and it it where Tim lives now. I’ve attended many a family gathering in Boxholm. Great memories in that town!
It is the first day of 2023. I’m not really a “resolutions” person. Pastor Adam was on vacation today so we had a substitute seromizer in church this morning. He gave an impassioned, longwinded sermon on resolve. It took more than a bit of my resolve to stay awake during the longest sermon these ears have heard in quite sometime.
But if I were to take the words on resolve to heart, I would say that I’m not without goals. Last year my main goal was to complete THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT. I did that.
My main goal in 2023 is to complete Phase 2 of THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT and put the book together. I should be freeing up sometime to work on that buy dropping a couple of photo projects that I did in 2022.
My second goal in 2023 is to begin work and complete my new photo project. Details are still foggy, but it is to create Boone postcard. Not a bunch of Boone postcards. Not even to print up a bunch of one Boone postcard. But to make one big image of one Boone postcard. While the end goal is one image, it will involve taking at least several hundred (probably thousand) images. It will make more sense when I get going on it.
My third goal in 2023 is to keep the positive momentum that was achieved in 2022 in participation rates for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. I’m not likely to go out and beat the drums looking for participants, but doesn’t mean you guys can’t. Right?
My fourth goal in 2023 is to consider and maybe take action on visiting and photographing every State Park in Iowa.
That seems more straight forward than it actually is because in addition to State Parks there are State Forests and State Preserves and State Recreation Areas. Boone County contains 3 Minor State Forests alone! We will see where this one goes, but we all know I could use the exercise.
I don’t have any goals related to the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. That type of stuff is a considerable amount of luck. So best not to have goals that are out of one’s hands. Maybe my goal should just be to give my best effort.
Hopefully 2023 is a good year for all of us!
Time to share the December images for the FatMumSlim Photo A Day Challenge. This is also the final collection of images as I will be dropping this pursuit in 2023. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but it still eats up a fair amount of time. Hopefully time freed up that I can use to pursue some of those 2023 goals.
Here are the December images:
December 2 – I Bought This!
December 3 – Starts with T
December 4 – I Held This
December 5 – Something Red
December 6 – Peace
December 7 – Tree
December 8 – Looking Up
December 9 – Small
December 10 – Out + About
December 11 – Free Choice
December 12 – Lights
December 13 – Something Green
December 14 – Decoration
December 15 – A Star
December 16 – Candy Cane
December 17 – A Hat
December 18 – I Made This!
December 19 – Joy Is…
December 20 – Begins with S
December 21 – On the Floor
December 22 – A Gift
December 23 – A Tradition
December 24 – Someone I Love
December 25 – My Day
December 26 – This is Delish
December 27 – Colourful
December 28 – A Book
December 29 – Us
December 30 – How I Relax
December 31 – Best Part of 2022
Top 9 Most Popular Images
I did enjoy this project and I’m not walking away from it because I didn’t enjoy it. I “met” numerous other people in this community that I will continue to follow, like @bea.photoaday, @sara.fms.photoaday, @outnbout, @gerkgirl, @pink_koffie, and @lostfate13.
But there were other things I didn’t like. Most people used the challenge to curate images, rather than take new images every day. The person that ran the challenge is Australian. That meant that a lot of the prompts were seasonal for Australia, meaning they weren’t seasonal for Iowa. Prompts repeated an awful lot. Not that they wouldn’t after 365 days, but I felt like they repeated more than necessary.
These minor complaints aside, I would consider doing it again in a future year. Just not this year. I’m sure many of you have minor complaints about how I run THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE as well.
I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas. This little picture is my way of saying Merry Christmas to all of you:
I would like to share a Christmas Devotional with you:
Merry Christmas
By Rev. Ronald Carlson Jr.
Dean of the Cabinet and District Superintendent of Riverview Park District
“Everyone who heard it was amazed at what the shepherds told them.”
– Luke 2:18 (CEB)
In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. 2 This first enrollment occurred when Quirinius governed Syria. 3 Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. 4 Since Joseph belonged to David’s house and family line, he went up from the city of Nazareth in Galilee to David’s city, called Bethlehem, in Judea. 5 He went to be enrolled together with Mary, who was promised to him in marriage and who was pregnant. 6 While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby. 7 She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom. 8 Nearby shepherds were living in the fields, guarding their sheep at night. 9 The Lord’s angel stood before them, the Lord’s glory shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 The angel said, “Don’t be afraid! Look! I bring good news to you—wonderful, joyous news for all people. 11 Your savior is born today in David’s city. He is Christ the Lord. 12 This is a sign for you: you will find a newborn baby wrapped snugly and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly a great assembly of the heavenly forces was with the angel praising God. They said, 14 “Glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.” 15 When the angels returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go right now to Bethlehem and see what’s happened. Let’s confirm what the Lord has revealed to us.” 16 They went quickly and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they reported what they had been told about this child. 18 Everyone who heard it was amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 Mary committed these things to memory and considered them carefully. 20 The shepherds returned home, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. Everything happened just as they had been told. Luke 2:1-20 (CEB)
Luke says it all… perfectly.Let us pray.
O almighty God, by the birth of your holy child Jesus, you gave us a great light to dawn on our darkness. Grant that in his light we may see light. Bestow on us that most excellent Christmas gift of love to all people, so that the likeness of your Son may be formed in us, and that we may have the ever brightening hope of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen (The Book of Worship 1965, ALT.)
On certain holidays, I like to share some power rankings. I’m not going to go in depth on this as I originally intended. When I made some plans for this, I didn’t realize a new season of JACK RYAN and EMILY IN PARIS were both being released this weekend!
But without further adieu, here is my Christmas Movie Power Rankings.
CHRISTMAS MOVIE POWER RANKINGS
10. Meet John Doe (1941)
9. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
8. Gremlins (1984)
7. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
6. Die Hard (1988)
5. Elf (2003)
4. A Christmas Story (1983)
3. Scrooged (1988)
2. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
1. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
Please respect my decision. There will be no interviews at this time. Maybe next Christmas I will go in depth on this list.
Time to reveal the June image for the 2023 Photography 139 Calendar:
This image was my submission for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme SLICE OF LIFE. That theme is named in honor of my Dad’s postcard company. This image is my interpretation of his style of postcard designs. However, you can look at this and know it wasn’t that hard for me to put this together in Photoshop, but try to think of how hard a similar design would have been to make in a darkroom.
You might have noticed that usually the June image in the Photography 139 Calendar is Black & White. That is because I affiliate my Dad mostly with black & white photography because he had a black & white darkroom in our house at 415 Greene. The 38th anniversary of his death was on Friday. He was born in June and that is why this homage is the June picture for the 2023 Photography 139 Calendar.
There are no technical details for this image since it is a composite image.
Tomorrow I will unveil the July image for the 2023 Photography 139 Calendar.
Once again I am going to skip Formal Portrait Sunday. Instead I’m going to share some pictures from when I got together with some of Olivia’s family for Christmas at Westhaven a couple weeks ago. Not everybody could make it because of illness, but sometimes in life you have to be happy for who is there and not be sad about who isn’t there.
Here are a few pictures from the celebration:
Triplets man… So much energy!
This year for our family Thanksgiving I wanted to attempt to make root beer. I had Glenn Peterson’s recipe in hand and I also fruitlessly pursued another recipe, but I’m not really sure how different root beer recipes can get.
Glenn’s recipe was a little vague on a couple things, but it goes like this:
Recipe for homemade root beer (X 2 for 10 gal water cooler)
4 lbs. sugar
3 ½ gallon water
1 bottle Root beer extract
1 bottle Root beer flavor
4 lbs. dry ice.Add 4 lbs. sugar to 3 ½ gal water. Stir until sugar dissolved. Add 1 bottle root beer extract and 1 bottle root beer flavor. Stir until mixed. Add 4 lbs. of dry ice ½ to 1 hour before serving. Use gloves when working with dry ice. Dry ice will cause the container to look like a witches’ caldron. Do not stir nor put a lid on container. When “steam” from the dry ice disappears, root beer is ready to drink.
This recipe was shared with Glenn while in the Army. He started sharing it with Pack 150, Madrid at the Blue & Gold Banquets/ Crossovers and Arrow of Lights Ceremony from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.
Glenn’s widow Tamara shared the recipe with me a couple years ago.
The one thing I didn’t know is how much is 1 bottle of root beer extract and how much is one bottle of root beer flavor. I compared it to other root beer recipes and determined Glenn’s recipe calls for a 2 oz bottle of each. I changed his recipe slightly. I used 1 4 oz bottle of Shank’s root beer extract.
Johnathan and Logan assisted in the making of my first batch of what I am calling Sneaky Snake Root Beer. Here are some pictures:
Logan is wearing some of my Mom’s old dish gloves.
This is one of my favorite family pictures ever.
I decided on the name for my root beer on Saturday while cruising around Monroe County with Teresa. I was originally going to name it after Naima sorta and call it something like Gold Dog Root Beer, so I could put her mug on the bottles. However, I decided to name it after an old family memory. Maybe I was feeling nostalgic because Thanksgiving this year was obviously bittersweet at it was the first major holiday we’ve had without Mom. But I decided to base the name off the Tom T. Hall song “Sneaky Snake”.
When I was a kid and we would go down to my Dad’s darkroom, the music was mostly provided by his 8 track collection. My favorite of his 8 tracks was blue. It was Tom T. Hall’s Greatest Hits Volume II. I can’t swear that it was Volume II, but it was pretty close. My favorite song on this 8 track was “Sneaky Snake”. I still love that song, even though next to nobody outside of my family seems to appreciate its greatness.
The lyrics are:
Boys and girls take warning
If you go near the lake
Keep your eyes wide open
And look for sneaky snake
Now, maybe you won’t see him
And maybe you won’t hear
But he’ll sneak up behind you
And drink all your root beerAnd then sneaky snake goes dancing
Wiggling and a-hissing
Sneaky snake goes dancing
A-giggling and a-kissing
I don’t like old sneaky snake
He laughs too much you see
When he goes wiggling through the grass
It tickles his underneathWell sneaky snake drinks root beer
And he just makes me sick
When he is not dancing
He looks just like stick
Now he doesn’t have any arms or legs
You cannot see his ears
And while we are not looking
He’s stealing all of our beerAnd then sneak snake goes dancing
Wiggling and a-hissing
Sneaky snake goes dancing
A-giggling and a-kissing
I don’t like old sneaky snake
He laughs too much you see
When he goes wiggling through the grass
It tickles his underneath
So this is what the label on the bottle should look like, or would look like if I could get it to print correctly:
I’m definitely not a graphic designer, but I do like the picture part. The picture of the snake is from about 10 years ago, when I found a snake in Shorty and Doris’ flower bed. I photoshopped it up a bit though.
I might not explain everything about this under normal circumstances, but my nearly professional labeler Elizabeth is concerned that people might think it is name after the “I’m a Snake” guy of YouTube fame. It definitely is not. So don’t even try thinking that!
I have a few bottles of Batch 001 left. I’ve earmarked a few for December Movie Night. And the rest, well they might go to Elizabeth’s progeny. They apparently are big fans of Sneaky Snake Root Beer!
I’m going to continue to experiment with the recipe. Try different brands of extract. Try Glenn’s original recipe. I want to try mixing in some vanilla at some point too. I definitely need to figure out a way to capture more carbonation. I’m not sure how to do that yet, but I have some theories. Batch 001 will be followed by Batch 002 and 003 and so on and so forth more hopefully.
When we left off, I had just won 1st Place in Black and White and 3rd Place in Color at the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest, but had been completely rejected by the Iowa State Fair for the 4th year in a row.
Whatever I was selling, the judges were not buying. I was despondent, but not discouraged because I knew I had entered some great photos, but they were not what the judges were looking for that year.
2011 comes around. I decided to retire from the Boone County Fair Photo Contest and to start a new way of picking pictures for the Pufferbilly Days. I also had what was probably the peak of my photo contest career at the Iowa State Fair. I got all 4 pictures exhibited. This is extremely hard to do. Thousands of people enter the contest every year. Only 5 of us got all 4 pictures exhibited. You can do the math. It is a big deal.
These are the pictures that were exhibited:
2nd Place Class 25
Honorable Mention Class 13
For the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest it was the second year of letting other people select my entrants. Dawn, Derrick, Jen, Scott, Russell, and Rebecca chose my entries. Dawn’s choice got 2nd Place in Black and White:
I was pretty excited for 2012. I thought I had cracked the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon Code, but there is no code. Some years the judge like you. Some years they don’t. In 2012, they like one of my pictures:
That year, I decided to retire from the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest.
Then shortly after that, I decided to retire from Photo Contests altogether.
But in 2017, the itch came back. I decided to put on a Washington Wizards Jersey and come out of retirement. Hard. I decided to enter all 3 contests again. I got all Blue Ribbons at the Boone County Fair:
I got one picture selected for display at the Iowa State Fair:
I had the following people select my entries for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest: Jim Robbins (yeah that is a long story), Micky, Michelle, Amber, Laura, and Dawn. However, none of the pictures earned a ribbon.
In 2018, my Boone County Fair entries were determined by popular vote:
Purple
Blue
Blue
Blue
I had two pictures selected for display at the Iowa State Fair:
My Pufferbilly Days entries were also selected by popular vote that year:
1st Place Photojournalism
3rd Place Hidden Treasures of Boone County
2019 would also be a successful year. I moved to having individuals select my Boone County Fair entrants. Shannon, Michelle, and Logan selected my entries.
Blue
Red
Blue
Purple
I had one picture selected for exhibition at the Iowa State Fair and it earned a ribbon:
My Pufferbilly Day entries were once again selected by popular vote:
1st Place Photoshop
In 2020 the pandemic hit and all photo contests were cancelled. Which was sad and I think it was avoidable because in a digital age, I think they could have found a way. For example the Iowa State Fair still held its Fine Arts competition.
Which brings us to 2021. I’m currently working on my next embarrassing failure at the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. However, I am not going to enter the Boone County Fair this year. There is a reason for this decision. A very good reason. However, I’m not going to share the reason until it becomes official or it falls through. Things seem to fall through quite often these days. No decision has been made on Pufferbilly Days yet, but Pufferbilly Days has been moved to early August this year. I’m not crazy about the decision, but I’ll give it a chance.
If you want to peruse all 153 Photo Contest entrants in this long weird journey, click on the link below:
You can see them all from the out of focus to the award winners. The good, the bad, and the moldy jam equivalent.
I need to start this post by wishing the happiest of birthdays to my bro Nate. Happy birthday Nate!
Truth is, I just hope Nate gets a good nap on his birthday!
+++++++
The pictures in the folder 2009-11-23 are from a trip I made with the family to Kansas City to watch Alexis compete in a cheerleading competition.
If you niece and nephew are going to compete in a sport, they can do worse than cheerleading. The routines last maybe a couple minutes. The you can leave. It isn’t a several hour commitment. Which is key, because I love my nieces and nephews dearly. But I care nothing about other people’s nieces and nephews. I don’t want to spend hours watching them compete, just to get to watch my niece and/or nephew compete. I want to watch my niece compete. Then I want to go get some tasty barbecue.
What I’m getting at is this, never, under any circumstances, agree to go to a gymnastics meet. There are multiple events and 10,000 kids. The worst part, they all use the same music for the floor exercise. Trust me, you don’t want to hear the same 30 second clip of some horrible song 10,000 times in one day. It will make you psychotic. Just saying…
One caveat though… cheerleading moms 100% live up to the stereotype.
By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve Jill and her foot.
The pictures in the folders 2009-08-15, 2009-08-20, and include pictures from an anniversary dinner for Shorty and Doris and pictures from that time I actually tilled up part of my backyard and planted a garden.
The picture of Jill that is edited in a couple different ways is her with a car that she described as her mid-life crisis. But that can’t be the case. She was only like 30 when she bought that car.
This is the first time that these pictures have been published. Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will definitely involve the Iowa State Fair and Teresa and Ernie. But not in a way that is connected.
Once gain, hitting up that sweet, sweet 2018 backlog. Back in September I went to see and ride Thomas the Tank with Bethany, Nora, and Bethany’s friend Harvey and her kids.
I frequently go down to the Boone Scenic Valley Railroad when Thomas is in town, but this was my first experience riding Thomas.
Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day:
I’m not a parent, but I think that bringing kids over to see Thomas is a pretty good deal. While riding Thomas might be something of a rip-off, there is plenty of other things to do there for free. Riding Thomas also gets you a free ride on the trolley, so that makes it a little bit less of a rip-off.
Anyways, Nora loved it!
