Sunday, August 6 – It is evening when we roll into the little town of Iroquois, SD. We are glad to have a spot to park our camper, with full hook-ups. Being not too far from school, where we will be working, is a bonus! Once we are settled and everything’s hooked up, I rummage around in the fridge and try to figure out what we’ll have for meals these next few days. After a little brainstorming, I decide to mix up some sourdough English muffin dough, which will sit on the counter till morning. And now it’s time to get some sleep, so we can start off this busy week on the right foot!

Monday, August 7 – Jesse starts out the day with a little catch up work for Quilter’s Trunk. Meanwhile, I occupy myself with some meal prep. Cooking in the camper is a new challenge, one I am learning to enjoy as long as I remember to keep things simple and plan a little extra time for prep + cleanup. Our camper has about 2 inches of counter space on either side of the range… Not exactly roomy. I often set up the folding table or TV tray as a prep surface/ counter when I’m cooking.

So, back to the day: we arrive at school mid-morning, and are met with rows of sewing machines waiting to be serviced. Looks like we have our work cut out for us this week!

When lunch time comes around, a bunch of people start showing up… There’s a good sized crew of men working over at the new school today and for the next few days, and meals are served here at the old school.

Throughout the day, a lot of people stop by to say hi and see what we’ve got going on! It seems Osceola/Iroquois is a friendly community… Mid-afternoon, Jesse + I decide it’s time for a little break, so we head over to Aeris coffee to check it out. Looks like a fun little hangout spot!

Somehow, one of the people who stopped by at school in the afternoon heard that Jesse was interested in shoemaking, so he got us in contact with a couple who makes their own shoes. After we are done our work for the day, we head over to Luke + Briana’s. They make leather barefoot shoes, and we were quite intrigued with their set-up! It looks like a fun challenge! Maybe someday…

August 8th – Ready to tackle another day of work! Jesse is training me to work on some of the simpler machines, which is fun (and challenging) for me! Definitely less monotonous than cleaning covers all day!

Lunch time rolls around, and we join the crew of men who are eating in the gym. Delicious food, and also kinda fun to not have to cook 3 meals today!

Mid-afternoon, I head back to the camper to prep some supper and bring it to school, since we’ll be working late tonight. While I’m there, I decide to quickly mix up some sourdough apple cinnamon muffins so we’ll have something on hand for breakfast tomorrow.

It is after 10 p.m. when we turn the lights off at school and head back to Iroquois. A long day, but we got a lot done!

August 9th – Today we’re off to an early start, since we know we’ll be quitting earlier, due to supper plans.

We enjoy lunch with the crew again, otherwise the day seems pretty normal.

Jesse’s been wanting to go poke his head in at Simple Cart Systems, and 3 o’clock seems like a good time to take a little break, so we head over there to poke around a bit. Another item on bucket list – own a coffee cart someday?

Supper finds us at Murray + Shanon’s, making new acquaintances 🙂

August 10th – First things first. Breakfast sandwiches and coffee. Then we’re off for a morning of work. After a few machines are completed, we take our leave for the day and head to DeSmet. I need to do some laundry, so our first stop is the laundromat there. Once that’s going, we run a couple more errands (groceries, a part for the pickup, etc) and then grab some ice cream and wait for the laundry to be done.

We have a few hours left before supper plans, so we decide to go check out the Ingalls Homestead. It’s just a few minutes out of DeSmet. As a little girl, I was an avid reader of Laura Ingalls Wilder books (I think I’d read the whole series 3 times by the time I was 9). Part of my love for the books came from knowing that it was the true story of a little “olden days” girl, and it was fun to learn bits and pieces of their story that aren’t in the books.

Supper time – a lively evening spent at Brian’s. The games of Diamant and Bohnanza were humorous, to say the least!

August 11th – A quick breakfast, then I pack our meals for the day. We head over to school, and Jesse works on Quilter’s Trunk bookwork most of the morning. I plug away at a few machines. I’m actually able to service a machine mostly on my own by now, if it doesn’t have too big an issue. So that’s nice.

Mid afternoon, we take Siegfried for a little walk, which happens to take us right by Aeris… A delicious iced latte later, we’re headed back to continue our work.

And we spend another late evening at school… The clock shows 11 p.m. when we decide to finish up the machines we’re working on and call it a day.

We ended up with almost 50 machines to service here in Iroquois. Jesse figures he can do 5 machines a day by himself, and with both of us working we usually average 20 machines/3 days. We’re trying to get all the machines done by Saturday evening, but I’m not sure if we will quite reach that goal. We’ll see…

August 12th – Another day, another coffee. And we have 12 machines left. Will we get done by the end of the day? Doubtful…

We eat our sandwiches outside at lunch, since it’s very pleasant day, and we haven’t had any too much fresh air this week! Our supper consists of curry fried rice. I’m all about simple one pot meals these days…

Gerald stops by to fix the coolant line connector in the evening. Sure is nice to have that fixed. Wonder what will go wrong with the pickup next…?

August 13th – We start out the day with breakfast and listening to Amber + Ted’s wedding in Liberty, then we head to Prairie Haven for church after Sunday School. We are invited to have lunch with Phil + Marilyn, and enjoy our afternoon there.

Evening finds us at church again. And then off to get ice cream afterward.

The sad news of the day was hearing that my Grandma Reimer had a stroke. Especially sad because we are headed to Manitoba next, and I’d been looking forward to going to visit her at the manor. Playing some Phase 10 with her, and having her meet Jesse for the first time… I guess we’ll go see her in the hospital now.

Monday, August 14th – We did not, in fact, finish all the machines on Saturday. We have 3 left yet, then we’re off! We finish shortly before noon, pack up the tools and clean up at school.

After some leftovers for lunch, we repack the camper, hitch up, and head north. We have a 6-7 hr drive to Rosenort.

The border crossing finds us a little nervous, as the border official is not exactly friendly. But, finding no fault, he does eventually let us through. We arrive in Rosenort around midnight.