Cameron's Story

Off To Greenland

by Cameron Markwell, age 8

"Run!" cried a very weak Viking.

"Put up the sails!" cried the leader. His people put up the sails. Eric got a surprise. The boat went faster than a motorboat! Unknown, they got off the trail. They wanted to go to Greenland, but now they were headed to North America. They sailed for days. Finally – BUMP - the boat shook, and then there wasn't a sound. Eric jumped off and looked around. Then he said,

"We will camp here. Then, tomorrow, we will look for the Greenys."

The next day Eric woke first, and he found the wood Indians. He thought they were the Greenys. Some of his men woke up. They collected lots of food. This was not smart of Eric; the food was bait!

With the Indians. The first Indian to wake up was Whale. He went to the beach with permission. He was old enough to go without a Brave. When he saw Eric, Wale wasn't smart. Instead of running, he hid behind a tree.

When Eric's men were eating and not watching, Whale took some food. Whale started for home, thinking about having a friend. Then he stopped, looked. Nobody was watching. He put the food back. He also left some gifts.

Eric never knew Whale was there until he found lots of gifts, but he found Whale. Whale did not even think about staying, Whale ran home. Eric ran, too. Unknown to Whale, as Whale ran he stopped and noticed he can't be Eric's friend if he ran away so he came back but unfortunately he was not there. Whale looked and looked. Then he hid behind a tree. So did Eric. Whale looked over. Eric noticed Whale was just a child. Eric and Whale became friends. Eric knew how to speak Spanish. Whale told Eric he was not in Greenland, and he was in North America.

"Well, then, I will sail to Greenland, but I will come and visit," Eric said in a brave voice. He packed up and went to Greenland.

As they went on to Greenland, the waves got higher and higher. Then Eric thought he saw a dragon shape coming out of the water.

"Go to North America!" Eric yelled. The boat turned around, but the water dragon appeared on the side of them. Its roar filled the air.

"Put up the sails!" yelled Eric. His men put up the sails, but the water dragon stayed next to them.

"Whoa!" yelled Eric as his men rowed, the water dragon pushed the front of them, and made them turn around. Eric thought they were headed to Greenland, but they were headed to Norway. They sailed for days. Finally, Eric said,

"This is not the way to Greenland. If we find another place, we can probably be known to all of Iceland."

The next day, Eric saw horses with men in shiny armor. The men were normal, so were the horses' heads. The back of the horses were like a serpent's tail. The strange creatures got closer and closer. So close that one got on. Eric drew his sword and held it out straight to the man's chest. The man did salute and said,

"We protect the surrounded!"

Eric made the man stop talking and said,

"Where is The Surrounded?"

Eric thought the man's eyebrow went up as he said,

"It is the water that's surrounded by Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, and North America."

"OK, now get off my ship."

After Eric said "OK", his voice changed from curiosity to bravery. The seaman got on his seahorse and yelled,

"I will help you sometime. Tell me, have you seen the sea dragon?"

The seaman changed like Eric's voice.

"Yes!" yelled Eric as the seaman disappeared.

Days passed. Eric noticed the clouds moved. That night, Eric watched the clouds. Eric had a bad feeling about this. The next day, everything was fine, but the weather. Eric remembered what had happened when the sails went up. We got out of the storm. Once again, Eric yelled

"Put up the sails!"

Eric was puzzled. It took a while to get out of the storm. Eric knew it was the water dragon who made him go fast. The next day, everything was fine. That day they became famous for discovering all those things, but mostly the water dragon. The people have looked for it and they always found it.

All My Children

Taken on September 5, 2007, Lauren Anne's birthday.

Stair Remodel

The "before". Perfectly good, right? Well, not for long.

First, we removed the carpet, and then the handrail and drywall.


Here is what it looked like with no drywall.

Then the removal of the framing (that was fun) and the treads and risers. Please note the little children playing all around the worksite.

I ruined the bottom step of the stringer when trying to get the tread off. After despairing for a while, I patched it with plywood.



Then, installation of the custom newel posts I'd build out of cherry




I'm particularly proud of the newel at the top of the stairs. I had attached the anchor post slightly off-square, but wanted the column to be perfectly square. So I attached some spacers to the four corners of the anchor post. That's the light wood you see in the picture. The spacers rotated the newel slightly so that it became perfectly square. Cool!



Next, we installed the trim board against the wall, a surprisingly difficult task.



More to come!

Norm Abram Has Good Hair

As you probably know, I'm rebuilding the staircase at our home. As a part of that project, Kerry and I were installing the handrail, which is a very expensive, sixteen-foot-long piece of solid cherry. I was to cut it to fit between the two newel posts I'd made previously.

We carefully measured the distance between the newels and marked directly on the handrail. I then made the fateful cut, exactly on the line. It came out beautifully. We eagerly clamped it in place to see how it looked. That's when Kerry mentioned that the top end looked a little low. I thought, "Huh, now that you mention it, it does look a little low." But what I said was,

"No, it's fine. It's right."

But she was right, it was low. I'd somehow measured incorrectly up the newel post, marking where the rail should hit far too low. Which means, of course, that when the rail is raised into position, it is far too short.

This is bad. The handrail was ruined; it was completely useless. It was very discouraging. I started to feel like I was out of my league, an amateur attempting a professional's job, and I said to Kerry,

"You get what you pay for, I guess."

Fast forward several days. I badly needed a haircut, something Kerry has always done for me. So I sit down, she grabs the clippers, and with one confident stroke, cuts the front of my hair so I look exactly like that guy from Dumb & Dumber.

So, like any good husband, I begin yelling. Although I'm difficult to take seriously with the ridiculous haircut, I guess, because she found the situation hilarious. When she finally mustered her wits about her enough to speak, she said,

"You get what you pay for."

papa started to redo our stairs. We started by hammering out the drywall, then we took off the carpet. It just so happened that all of the kids were upstairs at the same time that papa was taking of the carpet! What's worse it took him a long time to rip it all off plus we were all starving! Anyway, then we took off the studs which was a scary job at the top. Then came the treads and risers papa pried them all off and put new ones on. Then came the columns we screwed them all on , and put the baseboard thing on. After that came the railing we cut, sanded, and screwed it on and thats where we left off so whats after that, so I have no clue whats next.

Camerons Creations

Today Cameron made some things out of legos and shapes that look like this, I think there really neat and so does Cameron.

My seed selling business

My name is Addison . I started a seed business. First I planted a lot of grape, cherry, peach, pepper, and tomato, seeds. Then I put them in large buckets with fresh soil and water and made sure that they were getting lots of sun. I watered them every day and soon had to move them to Elliot Road, plant, water, and weed them. After a couple of years everything was ripe it was time to harvest the apples, peaches, and cherries from the trees, the tomatoes and peppers from some bushes, and the grapes from the vines. Then I brought them inside the house and arranged them in some big baskets with tags saying what they were. The next day, I got a stand ready and drove downtown to sell them for about 50 cents each. Because it was a sunny day and there was a river nearby there was a ton of people so business was booming! I kept business open for a couple of years so I got over a hundred dollars! I love the seed business.

And that’s how I plant, grow, and sell my seeds.