Weekend in Chicago

I just spent five days in the "windy city" with my friends Jennifer and Marian.  We stayed with Pete's sister Mary, who is the hostess with the mostest!  What a fun time we had!  We spent an afternoon at the Shedd Aquarium, which has a wonderful new "oceanaruim" with whales and dolphins and lots of other creatures.  It was really cool!

Then we saw two shows that Mary recommended to us.  One was an Arthur Miller written in 1947 called "All my Sons".  It was very well acted with an excellent message.   And then we saw "The Million Dollar Quartet", which is the story of the December evening in 1954 (?) that Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins spent time together at the Sun Studio in Nashville just jamming and playing all their hits.  It was great music - and a rather touching story about all of them.  

 

We went to afternoon Tea at the Peninsula Hotel, which is right downtown next to the Water Tower Building.  It was lovely - tiny little sandwiches and scones and sweets - and as much tea as you wanted!  There were violin players in the balcony - just a lovely afternoon.  Even my friend Marian - who does not like tea! - said it was lovely and she would do it again.  

We also watched two movies - "Doubt" and "Revolutionary Road".  Both were very interesting and thought provoking.  It's always amazing how people can watch the same movies and come away with different messages!

And on Sunday afternoon we took a boat cruise down the Chicago River and out along the lakefront.   It was an "architectural tour" pointing out all the building/landmarks on the Chicago skyline.  It was a rather windy day, and when the boat got out into Lake Michigan, those waves whipped right over the side of the boat and we got soaked!  All in the fun!

I also learned why Chicago is called the "windy city"!  It isn't  because of the strong air currents!  It's because of the politicians from Chicago and their reputation as being very long-winded and loud!  

So it was a fun few days away!  And when we got back into Marshfield on Monday evening, it was so lovely to see our quiet streets where there are plenty of places to park and nobody charges you $$$$ so you can park and shop.  I'm glad I live here!!  

Our Garden

Well as happens this time of year in Northern Minnesota the threat of frost is upon us, so we have undertaken bringing the garden in.

Here are most of the ripe tomatoes, which will be turned into salsa next week.

As you can see we also have lots of green tomatoes. We will let some ripen, but I found a recipe for Green Tomato Relish that sounds tasty, so will try that.

We also have green beans. Not very many this year and most of them have gotten too big. I think I will just sort through them and see if there is a nice amount to have with supper. May try drying the large "bean seeds" and sprouting them.

We also grew some green peppers, shown here with the rest of the ripe and green tomatoes. Some of them got quite impressive and I will freeze those for stuffed green peppers later on. The rest will go into the salsa.

Today I will pick the Swiss chard and blanch and freeze that. The carrots will have to wait in the ground. Also the winter squash will wait until after frost.

Next week I am going to shred the huge zucchini, 2+ feet long, and make and freeze zucchini pancakes. Busy week ahead, but first fun at the shack.

Deanna

Fall Update

Hi Everyone,

We've had a busy month of September. The camp season was longer than usual, because we had a reunion at the end of the summer, but all went well.

On Labor Day weekend, we flew off for a week in Boise, ID, for our friend Matt's wedding. (He was the best man at our wedding.) We had a lot of fun, and got to see some friends from college, and enjoyed a lot of relaxing. We both brought stacks of books to read and spent lots of time reading in coffee shops and parks. We also went to the art museum and the Basque museum; ate lots of tasty food; went to a local distillery/restaurant that makes its own gin and vodka; and I even went to a cooking class and learned to make paella while Bryan was off at a bachelor party.

Since we've been home, I made paella (semi-successfully...it was tasty but not quite right in color or consistency). I also picked a bunch of raspberries at our farm this week, so we made raspberry jam. (Bryan will have to post the pictures of those two projects.) This morning, we were very ambitious and went to the hardware store to buy a hedge trimmer; we are finally going to trim the bushes in the beds around the house. It has been a few years, so it's probably time.

That's all that's new around here!

now lets see if this works? i've only been sitting here an hour trying to
do this.
we had a wonderfull rain today. over 2 inches. what a blessing.
i saw the grass straighten up and just gasped at the rain. and the
flowers just sighed at the feel of it.
its fall all right. you can feel it in the air. and the leaves are
turning and falling.
its time to go to the shack in the woods up north. next week-end
we must go up there. it's a must at this time of the year. hafta!!!
now cross you're fingers and lets get this to go.
it's me---- bette

Covers

I seem to have spent a lot of my adult life watching Mr. Rogers. I recall a show where he made covers for everything; trolley cover, fish tank cover, tree covers. I believe the show even contained an opera about covers.

I wove a set of covers for my nesting pyrex bowls. I already gave the large navy blue one away, so am weaving a new dark green one to match the other three shades of green in the set.

Weeding and Risers or Cleaning Up the Basement

I am so excited. Jeff just sawed AND installed risers for the top 4 basement stairs. Well, I think they are called risers-the back part of the step so the stairway is no longer open. I have such high hopes as before dirt, leaves, pebbles etc from our shoes would fall through the open back onto what was stored below.

I am so optimistic that I moved almost all of our Christmas ornaments into the cabinet under the stairs. (The homemade ornaments fit in a small box and I found room for them in the kitchen. I didn't like all that paper and yarn in the basement anyway. )

Fitting the decorations under the stairs involved a little ornament weeding. We got rid of a few things in really poor condition. It feels good to get it organized and I can't push too far. If we compare all Jeff's boxes of Christmas ornaments to my boxes of reed, yarn and fabric, Jeff's Christmas collection is really, really small!

Hey, Where Are All of You?

Sound of Silence on here. Please finish this sentence.

This week I________________________________.

Feel free to substitute "month", "year" or "decade" for "week".

Miss all of you!

Happy Birthday Joe!

Sorry Joe, We forgot again. I thought of your birthday a few days ago and then poof... Hope you had a fun day.