It has been twelve months since we last met, and I hope this letter finds you in good health. I assure you that father, Anna, John, and I are feeling healthy in spite of our having endured a harrowing winter and extended spring. The snows are only just now starting to melt on the prairies. The nearest town to our homestead is called Nokomis, which is settled mostly by Danes, like you, and Swedes and Norwegians as well. All are hardworking folk and so the town has ample supplies and abundant opportunities for livelihood. Yet father has established a farm rumored as one of the largest and possibly most profitable for fifty miles. We will mainly grow wheat and rye, but have recently begun to harvest berries. Father's blacksmithing skills have funded our farm, and his labor has provided income with which we have planted our fields with grain and acquired the materials and supplies for our home.

             When we left you back East I was afraid, as you know, and the journey West was grueling. Last year's spring proved frightfully cold, and we nearly lost our horses along the way. Food was scarcer than we thought and our dried apples offered little sustenance against the cold, and some nights we spent sipping naught but warm water and ginger by the fire.

             Though it was the beginning of summer when we arrived, there was little time to think or plan our dwelling-place. Knowing only that we would need to erect a house before the chill of winter set in, father, without much help, built our home out of lumber mostly but unlike most homes in the area ours also uses log additions, as bolsters and supports and, I would add, for aesthetics as well. All of us-Anna included-helped in the construction and you should have seen it! The four of us hauling lumber and sod, looking askance at our slow progress: but as usual father knew what he was doing and the house was built complete by the end of the summer. You always knew father had a keen eye for such things and indeed he does, as do you.