progress

This is what three men can accomplish in eight hours, for less than the cost of us buying all the necessary equipment and doing it ourselves. That is to say, we had a local crew come out and do the base of the roof. Hiring out a job makes for good neighbors. By tomorrow, a good portion of the roof should be under cover of 1x6 inch tongue and groove boards.

As I was looking at the end results, I noticed a strange illusion. Previously, when I had looked at the floor layout under open sky, or even under roof rafters under open sky, the interior space seemed...small. But with less than half the roof covered up, the interior of the house suddenly seemed much bigger. I guess if you view something against an infinite sky, of course it will appear to be small, but if you define the space and give it ample height, as our house design does, it suddenly grows on you!

I am so anxious to have this all closed in. I will even do drywall myself, just to be in.

snow buntings

photo from Wikipedia

The snow buntings are back for the winter. A bird has to be really far Northern Hemisphere if it considers Minnesota to be its wintering grounds. I don't know if it is called Snow Bunting because it follows the snow, or because the adults, especially the males, in winter are the nearest thing to a pure white bird that can be found anywhere. They are like the horned lark in habit, hanging around roadsides and scattering in flight like snowflakes whenever a car passes. I am told another species, Lapland Longspur, occurs in flocks with snow buntings, but I have never observed a flock long enough to identify one.

The owls are hooting. One of the "luxuries" of living here is I get to go outdoors in the middle of the night at least once. I have heard barred owls calling to each other at all hours of the night in the last few days.

It was a sunny day, finally, and I got to spend some time outdoors at work, enjoying the sunlight. That must have energized me because after I got home from work I took Togo (the husky, the outdoor dog who deserves more blog photos than he gets) for a walk. I have not done that nearly enough lately, and he sure appreciated it. Come next week, I won't have that daylight after work.

All in all, not much to blog today, but then there is so much that goes unnoticed.

Deb's diet secrets--revealed

Remember on Friday I posted about how my jeans were suddenly fitting more loosely?

Simple explanation: They were a pair of The Hermit's jeans, which look very similar; I had mixed ours up sorting the laundry.

Which also explains why my jeans felt tighter Monday morning. At least now I know I didn't suddenly gain a few pounds over the weekend.

I think I'll just wear his pants from now on!

Oh well. I'm enjoying a laugh at my own expense. :)

The Larch, up close

Yesterday afternoon I remembered that I had promised someone closeups of tamarack needles. It was a good excuse to go exploring, but I only had to walk a few yards beyond my compost bin to find this tamarack that, unlike most of the others, had a very showy branch close to the ground.

I was only going to use one picture, but I think they both turned out well for being shot at 1/60 at F4. It was a bit cloudy at the time.

So I won't have to make a separate post, I'll say here that Calvin, Starflower and I saw both an immature and a mature bald eagle this morning on the way to work/school, both strategically positioned in trees near a road killed deer. Is this commute cool or what?

dog blog

Sally, left, is about nine months old. Hopi is three months. I rarely catch them together at this level of inactivity!

That used to be my blanket.

crystalline H2O

It barely got above freezing yesterday. Last night the temperature was in the teens.

I am so not ready for this!

Well, at least I have water in my pond, unlike some folks.

first wood stove fire

The kids and I are enjoying the first wood stove fire of the way-too-long heating season. The last fire will probably happen about the time the trees are budding out in late April or early May. But we don't want to think about that now. This evening the fire feels good; there's nothing like the radiant warmth of a real fire. Up until now we have been using the propane heater, but it just sends the heat straight up to the peak of the ceiling, not radiating it like the wood stove.

The Hermit is at duck hunting camp tonight, about sixty miles north of here. There have not been many ducks to be seen lately, but maybe something will show. It's more for the tradition, I'm not waiting for a duck to put in the roaster.

Oh, it's time for The Red Green Show. Gotta go. Maybe I'll even stay up for Monty Python at 11.

Foods you thought would never go together

It all started with a Lyle Lovett song...don't worry, explanation follows!

Last night we had one of The Hermit's specialties, fried fish (walleye, and no, it was not the "too-large" ones from the walleye ponds!). He essentially dips the cut up fillets in an egg wash and breads them with cracker crumbs, pan-frying them in oil. I made one of my specialties, oven fries, with potatoes from the garden, sliced and tossed in olive oil, and baked until just crisp. Much tastier and healthier than those bags of frozen French fries we until quite recently bought without question. We topped it off with two sliced tomatoes; we're still eating from the garden, although for every one we eat I throw probably two on the compost.

We were listening to the local independent public radio station, but after a while the music took a turn for the blues, not quite what a chilly Minnesota evening calls for. We weren't in the mood for any of the dozen or so CD's in the cook shed, so The Hermit pulled an old Lyle Lovett cassette tape from the several cassettes we had handy. It is one of my favorites of his; I'm not sure if it is his very first album, but it is definitely early Lyle. My favorite song from it is The Front Porch Song, which he cowrote with Robert Earl Keen Jr., another favorite musician. One line goes like this:

This old porch is just a steamin' greasy plate of enchiladas
With lots of cheese and onions, and guacamole salad...

Hmmm...guacamole...it's been a while...sounds good...

"That reminds me, I bought some avocadoes the other day," The Hermit said. "They were cheap at Chris' (grocery store). They should be somewhere in the refrigerator."

"I almost feel like making some guacamole. You think it would be good with fish?"

So I mashed and mixed avocado with picante sauce, and we tried it in place of tartar or cocktail sauce.

It was really good. So good, in fact, I think I'll make guacamole every time we have fried fish.

Who woulda thunk it? Do you have any unlikely combinations of foods you like?

just a few Friday night musings

I spent the day outdoors on a walleye pond--again. This one was more a shallow lake than a pond, a shallow lake more infested with Northern watermilfoil--the native milfoil--than any other I've seen. Even now in late fall, with cool water temperatures, it was still growing strong. Walleyes, however, were hardly anywhere to be seen: a few eight-inch yearlings, one fifteen inch fat and happy adult, and one puny, very dead fingerling. Lots of small bluegills, bullheads, and crappie. But that doesn't get a lake stocked with its quota of walleye fingerlings. I got my exercise pulling all ten trap nets out of the lake. It was a mediocre day to be outdoors; cloudy with temps in the upper thirties, and snow showers in the morning. But on the lake there was no wind, and riding in the front of the boat I was mesmerized by the mirrored reflections of almost bare trees and oaks still holding on to red leaves. I saw a bald eagle perched in a tree, just watching us motor on by.

When I arrived home late afternoon, I glanced out the window by the bird feeder just in time to notice a small hawk-like bird alight on a branch. I ran for my binoculars and my Sibley's field guide, knowing it had to be a Cooper's hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, or merlin from its size and markings. After observing its activity, with it occasionally swooping and going back to a perch with sharp wing beats, and reading about the usual habitats of the species, and deciding it was too small to be a Cooper's, I made the call of sharp-shinned hawk. It was beautiful to watch, but it made the chickadees anxious.

One very good observation of the day, as if an eagle and a sharp-shinned hawk aren't enough, is that I seem to have finally lost some weight, or at least inches, in the last week or two. I put on a pair of jeans that had had a slightly tight waistband before, and they were just out of the wash which usually means extra-tight. The waistband actually had an inch or two of room to spare! This is great news, since I have managed to gain nearly forty pounds in the last three years, during which time I have been extra-conscious about diet. I rarely eat sugars, have no unavoidable food cravings, and my appetite is rather small. My only weakness is beer, but everyone's gotta have an Achilles heel. :) My secret? I have not changed my eating habits except perhaps consuming more bread since I got my bread machine. Homemade, whole grain bread is a real treat. But I have been doing some Internet research into possible causes. I suspect thyroid issues; actually the other night when I thought I might have a fever I was taking my temperature and could not get the digital thermometer up to 97. I thought something was wrong with the thermometer so I gave it to Calvin, who promptly registered 98.8! I have started taking a couple of carefully chosen supplements (not miracle diet pills!). It's probably too early to declare cause and effect, but at least something positive is happening!

A crew is coming on Monday to start working on the roof of the new house. Maybe, just maybe, we'll be in there by the new year. It can't happen soon enough!

So that's what's happening in my corner of the world. I found my copy of Chet Raymo's The Soul of the Night, which had been missing for a few days under some household clutter, so maybe I'll go catch up to the rest of the bloggers at Whorled Leaves. I'd really love to get out an instrument and play a tune, but that may have to wait until morning.

autumn's last hurrah

tamarack gold

Growing up in the suburbs, I didn't know for a long time that tamaracks existed. I remember my dad getting all excited about "discovering" a tamarack bog in a city park just a mile or so from downtown Minneapolis, on one of his weekly bike rides. I went to college in the southern part of the state, beyond the tamarack's range in this state, and went on to graduate school in South Dakota, where trees are a rarity. ;) When we bought our land here, I was finally botanically aware enough to know that we had some tamaracks around, and from my job I had learned that their wood makes good, long lasting poles.

Still, it has taken a few years of living here, being in touch with the land on an everyday basis, to really know tamaracks. I mean, they are interesting trees; they are the only conifer that completely sheds its needles annually. They do this with quite a brilliant display of gold in the fall, that typically occurs about a week after all the other, deciduous trees have completely lost their leaves. They also turn a unique shade of green in the spring, as the new needles emerge, right about the time other trees are just starting to leaf out. And, there is some variation in tamarack stands; I know of one down on the corner three miles away that is still a light green in color, and last year had shreds of gold at least until December.

Our new house is right in front of a stand of mature tamaracks that extends north to the creek. However, this stand does not show the brightness of gold like some of the younger stands do.

Shine on. Lighten these last days of autumn.

more fall melancholy

It's been weird weather here; the winds last week blew all the leaves off the trees so it looks very gray and November-like, and now although it's been warm (40-50 degrees) at night, it's been gray and misty and dreary during the daytime hours.

I spent today working walleye ponds; that is, going to the small natural ponds where we stock walleye fry in the spring, hoping they will grow into six inch or so walleyes to stock into larger lakes in the fall. It's pretty much a hit-or-miss operation; it is essential that the ponds "winterkill" the winter before, their oxygen levels dropping enough to kill off all fish life in the pond, so the young walleye will not have any competitors for food. And this year seems to have been a bad year for walleye production; the fingerlings I saw were very small, not the fat and happy six inchers or more that we like to see.

Our harvest today was pretty dismal, less than fifty pounds, so we decided to pull the nets from the ponds, it was not worth it to keep them in. Of course we ran up against some second-guessing from my boss, but he was not out there walking a boat over mud flats because the water levels were so low.

We stocked what we got into a beautiful lake, one of many that Minnesota has to offer. The public access is located just yards from a small dam and outlet, and that is not the ideal situation to stock fish because they will likely be swept over the dam. So we went to a resort on the lake, deserted for the fall it seemed, and stocked the fish there where they would have a better chance. It was so quiet, no one around, no boats out on the water and the water dead calm. I looked up and down the lake and saw the mist meeting the water and the bare branches of the trees. All dreadful and lovely at the same time.

The fish I stocked today were most likely drops in a bucket. But being out today, being forced to be out, was priceless. Tomorrow I'll be outside, dipping muskies from a drainable pond, not quite the same experience. That's one of the benefits of my job: lots of time outside, and no two days are the same.

root vegetables

I finally did it!!! I grew a vegetable as big as my head!!! Or nearly so.

It was a lovely afternoon, sunny with very little wind, high in the fifties, so I spent some time harvesting the last of the root vegetables and planting garlic. I don't know what I am going to do with this giant rutabaga, or if it will taste good at all, but I can always feed it to the chickens. Besides rutabagas, I had carrots, a few parsnips (which is better than I've ever done with them), and Kennebec and Katahdin potatoes, both fairly productive white fleshed, yellow skinned taters. Here's the harvest:

The soil in the garden beds was delightfully cool and moist and earthy smelling. I still have some lettuce, Swiss chard and cilantro that survived the fifteen degree low temp this morning, and my experimental "winter greens" bed with spinach, kale, and lettuce.

There's something so melancholy about putting the garden to rest for the winter, but at the same time planting for next year. This is my second year doing it here, so it's almost a ritual. I was moving about as if in prayer, the sun hanging low in the southern sky and casting long shadows with its still radiant warmth.

Now...anyone have any good rutabaga recipes? :)

By the way...the garden trowel, visible in the picture of the rutabaga, I made in my seventh grade obligatory metal shop class. Still useful, and I did end up getting an "A" in the class!

weary Friday night

I just spent an evening doing what I do not normally do, watching a DVD movie with the kids. Normally I don't have the patience to sit thru a whole movie, but with the weather, snow flurries and high winds and all that, and me having to do chores in that after working all day, because The Hermit has had a work obligation all this last week that has kept him away from here, and this morning I was going to drop S and C off at school and there was a bomb threat so I had to bring them to where the buses were waiting behind the school, then listen to the radio for updates...of course it turned out to be a hoax but you never know, and I think the school handled it well.

Anyway, it's been a stressful day, and I hate wind and cold, especially in mid October! and The Hermit called, he should be home tomorrow early afternoon. So I polled the kids, they thought Tombstone pepperoni pizza was okay for dinner, who was I to complain. After dinner I put on...The Big Lebowski. Consensus of two out of three kids, and I was in the mood. Cuss words be damned, the kids can read the whole story better than I can.

Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.

I'm just trying to break even tonight. It gets cold, and quiet, and sometimes I wake up praying it stays just cold and quiet.

I could not do this alone, for any length of time.

Pupdate- Sally, The Great Protector

It's hard to find foot space in this bed...

snow on the garden

well, it is kind of pretty...

Snow on Bright Lights Swiss chard. A unique combination.

my young spinach. Luckily it can take this kind of thing.

Just another fall morning

This is what can happen in October in Minnesota.

It won't stay long, (I hope). It's supposed to warm up again by the weekend.

I'm feeling a little under the weather today so I'm taking the day off from work. It's a good day to take a nap with a chicken soup in the slow cooker.

kids on the rocks

This is the kind of scene that can and should induce heart palpitations in parents.

That said, they had a good time, and no one was injured.

This is at Robinson Park in the town of Sandstone, MN, on the banks of the Kettle River. There is a wondrous pile of sandstone slabs, striking terror into the hearts of many a parent, but nevertheless available for climbing. My kids, well, if there's danger, they'll go for it.

This used to be a real quarry, for the sandstone that lines the banks of the river and that gives the town its name. After the mid-20th century, apparently it became much more cost-effective to build out of cement block, never mind that sandstone buildings last forever and have a timeless quality about them. But the quarrying couldn't have gone on forever either. And so it goes.

Anyway, this park is a wonderful, out of the way place to have lunch and take a walk.

crossing the Kettle River

I've been watching the ever changing colors along the river bluffs on my way to and from work every day. I thought I'd better take a picture or two before there's nothing left; leaves can disappear overnight with a good wind this time of year.

At the top of the hill to the right is Calvin and Starflower's school. To the left is Banning State Park.

the making of Three Hearted Ale

I spent my Sunday afternoon, with a few miscellaneous interruptions (life as usual), engaging in one of my favorite, most rewarding activities: brewing beer. To be brewed: a kit from Northern Brewer, an India Pale Ale style called Three Hearted Ale. This obviously is their attempt to replicate Bell's Brewery's famous Two Hearted Ale, named after a Hemingway short story, "The Big Two-hearted River", which I have not yet read.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an experienced, expert brewer. If you want to read a blog by someone who knows what he is doing, check out Floridacracker's friend, Thunder Dave.
The first step was to put a gallon and a half of our sparkling clear well water into a large stock pot. While heating the water on the stove, I steeped some crushed grains in a mesh bag, somewhat like making tea. The grains were several varieties of malted barley. If I were a serious brewer I would start completely from grains, but I have neither the time nor the facilities for all grain brewing...yet. But I like recipes that call for steeped grains, which add fresh flavor and body.
I removed the grains before the water came to a boil. Then it was time for the malt extract, a thick, syrupy liquid derived from malted barley. This particular recipe called for over nine pounds; the more malt extract, the higher the alcohol content in the end. Three Hearted Ale is no "lite" beer! After adding the malt extract, I returned the mixture, now properly called "wort", to a boil.
And now for my favorite part...the hops. These are not whole hops I am holding in my hand, nor is it some kind of rabbit chow. Hops are commonly sold as pellets, which can be freeze-dried and vacuum packed, with a much longer shelf life than fresh hops. This particular variety is called Centennial; there are many different varieties, with subtle flavor and aroma differences. Some are more suited for adding at the beginning of the boil (bittering hops), while some are best suited to add aroma at the end of the boil (aroma hops). I don't know all the details; they all smell heavenly to me. I hear they are good as a relaxing herb. I sleep pretty soundly after a couple of hoppy ales. There are two kinds of beer drinkers: those who don't care for excess in hops, and those who can't get enough of them. I fall into the latter category.

So you bring the whole thing to a boil after the first hop addition, watching to make sure it doesn't boil over with all the converting proteins and oils, then the wort boils for an hour. This, in addition to killing off any wild yeasts or bacteria that might be present, causes subtle chemical changes in the malt and hops. I nearly failed my college organic chemistry course, so I can't tell you exactly what happens. During this time, in the case of this particular recipe, I added even more hops at later times in the boil; the later you add hops, the more "aroma" and less "bittering" they provide. I don't know how they figured all this out.

After sixty minutes, the wort is done boiling, and the objective is to cool it below 90 degrees F as quickly as possible, to avoid contamination. There are many fancy devices on the market now to accomplish this; my facilities and methods are fairly primitive. My well water stays cool, so I just filled the wash tub and ran fresh water in there once or twice. A floating thermometer told me when it was cool enough.






Meanwhile, I added about 3 1/2 gallons of cold fresh water to a specialized plastic bucket with a hole in the lid and a spigot near the bottom. When the wort was cool enough, I poured it into the bucket (primary fermenter) and cold water. At this point, I took a small sample and poured it into the tube on the left. With an instrument called a hydrometer, shown mostly submerged in the sample, I measured what is called the original gravity of the wort. Basically speaking, this measures relatively how much raw stuff you have in the beer that will be converted to alcohol. The higher the original gravity, the higher the finished alcohol content. This one measured out at about 1.060, which means this is going to be a fairly potent brew. Two Hearted is about six percent, so I'm guessing this will be in that neighborhood.

To the left of the hydrometer is the yeast packet. The yeast culture comes in a specialized package; a dry packet of yeast can be used in beer, but these state-of-the-art packets are much more reliable. There are even specialized strains of yeast for different styles of beer. About three hours before brewing, you clap the packet between your hands, which breaks an inner seal and mixes the pure yeast culture with a yeast nutrient. The package swells as the yeast comes alive. The advantage over dry yeast is that the yeast is already actively metabolizing and reproducing when you add it to the beer.

Finally, after the yeast is added, it's time to seal up the fermenter. This is the air lock, which is designed to keep a layer of water between the air and the wort, preventing contamination by bacteria or wild yeast. As of today, carbon dioxide is bubbling through the airlock at a rate of easily 30 times per minute; the yeast is doing its job! I'm keeping the fermenter in my cook shed; hopefully it will maintain the ideal temperature above 50 degrees for an ale.

Why all this work, you may ask? I did the figuring in my head; the kit cost $35, which sounds high, but the price per six pack will probably end up at between 4 and 5 dollars, compared with 8-9 dollars for Two Hearted. And, there's always the satisfaction of learning the process by doing it myself.

This, incidentally, is my 500th post here at SCA. How appropriate, to celebrate the domestic art of brewing a beverage so near and dear to my heart!

A salute to fungi

With the recent rainfall over the last week or so, there has been a proliferation of fungi on the forest floor. I'm curious if these are supposed to look like this, or if some combination of freezing temperatures and intermittent rain caused this striking pattern. I don't know my fungi too well.


But I do know yeast, and all the wonderful things it can produce. This is my first loaf of bread from my new bread machine. I decided to go with a prepackaged mix to test things out, but this is no ordinary, white bread. It's a Swedish limpa rye, flavored with anise, fennel, and caraway, with a bit of orange. The machine did its job beautifully, although I think I may have added a touch too much water. The bread was fabulous, with all the complexity and body of a good beer. My entire dinner consisted of bread (dipped in melted butter), wine, and a salad made with red cabbage from the garden, along with walnuts and poppyseed dressing.
I spent the evening browsing through a bread machine recipe book, and now I have all kinds of visions of heavy grain breads, whole wheat buns, focaccia, sourdough...the possibilities are limitless. I think I'll head out right now and get a cracked wheat dough started!

they're baaack! Bird update

Dark-eyed (slate-colored) juncos, that is. I saw a flurry of bird activity in the back yard just now, and there they were, the little gray wanderers from up north. They are mostly migrating through here, although a few stick around for the winter, but for a month or two and again in early spring they will be the most common bird around.

With them quite predictably, come the White-throated sparrows. They have a longer journey, heading down to Iowa and Missouri and further south, but I appreciate the song they bring to an otherwise silent woods.

I also saw a flock of migrant warblers, and one came right up to the back patio door so I could get a good look; probably a Nashville (on its way to the Opry, no doubt!)

Bald eagle sightings have been frequent; I suspect along with the residents, there are quite a few migrants coming through. Yesterday as I was driving the kids to school, I came over a slight hill to see an adult eagle just taking flight from the roadkill it was dining on. I had to slam on the brakes to avoid it; eagles, with their great wingspans, take a few seconds to get airborne. I ended up driving about ten feet underneath, its wingspan extending beyond the sides of the car.

I'm sure a lot more birds are coming through, and I should be taking a lot more time to notice them.

the upcoming weekend

The Hermit is going duck hunting, probably gone by the time I arrive home on Friday. He's going with a dear old friend from his "old life"; funny how we ended up not so far away from there now. I don't begrudge him a good opening day of duck hunting; everybody's gotta get out once in a while and find what it means to live.

I have in front of me a beer kit, and all the necessary equipment, a fairly new slow cooker, and a state-of-the-art new bread machine. All that is to say, if you need to find me, I'll be in the cook shed. And I'll probably be taking some pictures along the way! Fresh bread, wort in the fermenter, and a simmering stew...now this is living!!!

Of course, it would be a fabulous weekend for a hike at the state park along the Kettle River close by...so many choices, so little time.

autumn skies

the view over Sand Creek Valley

Fall stuff

It seems life is going by too fast. It is fish rearing-pond harvest time at work, my tomatoes have been put to bed, the kids are well settled in to the school routine. Another autumn, but I am taking time to enjoy the brilliant colors of this year.

The Minnesota Twins clinched their playoff berth yesterday with a win over the Kansas City Royals (sorry Pablo!). I'm so happy for them; here they were in mid-June, with the worst record in the majors, several key players injured throughout the season, yet they managed to turn it around and introduce a number of promising young farm-club players who helped them to get where they are. All this in a season dedicated to #34, Kirby Puckett, perhaps the greatest Twin ever.

Okay, now comes the confession: I haven't watched a single game all season. The excuse: we are not within antenna range of a station that carries Twins games. That in itself may be a good reason to get satellite TV.

Good news: I am about to restart my home brewing operation! I haven't brewed beer for, gosh what is it, five years or so, but today The Hermit was in St. Paul for a couple of meetings associated with his new job, and he found the time to go to my favorite homebrew shop in my favorite neighborhood of St. Paul, perhaps my favorite city anywhere. Oh wait, there's Duluth. Anyway, he bought a brew kit and the equipment that we have lost or destroyed through the years of moving around aimlessly, so this weekend my kitchen will once again be filled with the sweet smell of wort, and I will be treated to the intermittent noise of gas released through an airlock on a fermenter. Heaven. And I'll be sure to blog updates on the progress of the brew!

the jars are all sealed

Before

This was my assignment for the day. A few gallons of ripe and green tomatoes, various other ingredients, pots, jars, and a canner. This, by the way, is the 8 x 12 shed that serves as my kitchen. For nearly four years. That soon will change.

I made two kinds of salsa today. On the left is my salsa roja. Recipe: Take a bunch of ripe tomatoes, scald, skin, core and chop 'em, cook them up while adding onions, hot peppers, grill-roasted sweet green peppers, cilantro, cumin, salt, and garlic to taste. Tasting is essential; I have to live with this stuff every time I open a jar. On the right is green tomato relish, which I consider to be more of a salsa, but I got the recipe from Farmgirl Fare, and she calls it relish. The voices in my head told me to add a pinch of cinnamon to the final product, and I think it may turn out well.

The final product: eleven jars of salsa, seven red, four green. Not enough to keep a family of salsa lovers for the entire year, but at least I got something for my tomato growing efforts. I was disappointed that the plentiful harvest of golf-ball sized Glacier tomatoes turned out to be totally worthless for salsa, along with anything else. Thin fleshed, with a huge cavity filled with pulp and seeds, they have a thin unbalanced acid taste. I was hoping this short season tomato would be a good provider, but I ended up composting most of them.

Although it was a lot of work, I enjoyed the art of creating canned goods. And with salsa, it really is an art; no formula recipe can account for the variable taste of tomatoes or hotness of peppers. I don't think I can reproduce any batch of salsa I've ever created.

My long time of chopping and preparing was accompanied by two new CD's that arrived yesterday: Chris Thile's How To Grow A Woman From The Ground, which is...interesting, needs more listening time to grow on me but I'm sure it will, and the Swedish group Vasen's Trio. Vasen is pure Nordic roots music, which means traditional songs and original compositions played on traditional instruments (Nordic fiddle, nyckelharpa and guitar/bozoki). Haunting. Deep. Dark. The Hermit heard some of it this morning, and he described it as "seafaring music". It is rhythmically and modally more adventurous than even Celtic music. And I'm really grooving on it. Hardly the association one would have with making salsa, but then I'm hardly predictable. :)

well, no salsa...till tomorrow

I postponed my salsa orgy. I had every good intention to do everything today (Saturday), but life got in the way. Before I made salsa, I had to go to town and get some peppers and a few more things. I found all the jalapenos and more at the farmer's market, which I have been pleasantly surprised with in its first year.

As long as I had to go to town, there was laundry to be done. One of the unpleasant facts of domestic life here is laundry; I would love to do it all in my wringer washer and hang it out to dry, but that just hasn't worked out this summer. So I went to the laundromat and paid my dues in quarters. There are two kinds of people who go to the laundromat in this town, it seems; the totally hopeless, lobotomized, and clueless, and the ex-hippie homesteaders. Today the balance was tipped in favor of the latter, thankfully. There's a thriving community of people around here I've found who thoughtfully stray from the mainstream. Today I talked with a woman who used to work at the library in town; she recognized me, I didn't recognize her at first, but she knew me and my family and said she really enjoyed our visits to the library, and she really liked our family! I was almost speechless. That's why I'm loving living here. And everyone else in the laundromat today was polite and pleasant. One guy even brought a dirty sock to me that had fallen from one of my baskets.

One of my favorite episodes of the TV show Northern Exposure was when Maggie decided to buy her own washer and dryer. The results were unexpected; she found she missed the communal experience of doing laundry, of making conversation while waiting for the end of the spin cycle. Much as I hate going to the laundromat, I think there are a lot of connections to be made there.

But I did get to see some wonderful music tonight, as mentioned in my previous post. It was as I expected, maybe even a little better than the last show I'd seen with them. I talked briefly with Mike and David before the show, saying I had seen them last November and I learned a lot from their workshop. This wasn't schmoozing; I really meant it, and they both seemed to appreciate it. And The Whistlepigs sounded great, as usual.

The upcoming salsa mandolin orgy weekend

I have many more ripe tomatoes than I ever thought possible. I'm beginning to think that the early killing frost of two weeks ago might not have meant anything in the long run. I have buckets full of ripe and almost ripe tomatoes in my cookshed, more slicers than we can possibly slice for every meal of the day. We are in the midst of tomato heaven, and life is good.

I have decided that the highest use for these tomatoes is to make salsa. I could can them straight, or freeze them, but when it comes right down to it, we use a lot of salsa here. God forgive me and help my Scandinavian-Minnesotan ancestors up there to understand, but...salsa is good. And, I can even make salsa out of the green ones! Now that's thrifty, which goes along with Scandihoovian values, dontcha know? Uff-da! But watch out for dose hot peppers dere...

My plan is to hit the Sandstone Farmers Market early on Saturday, and hope that someone has a lot of jalapenos. Then to the grocery store for cilantro, which I'm afraid no one else will have, and anything else the market did not have. Of course, I will take a break Saturday night to go see Mike Compton and David Long, performing a benefit concert at Camp Heartland, a mere fifteen miles or so away. Fred and The Whistlepigs will be opening up for them, so it promises to be an exceptional night of music. I have seen them before, but Compton has influenced my mandolin style and practice more than anyone lately, and they put on a hell of a fun show last time, so...this time we'll even bring the kids.

more colors of the season

photos courtesy of The Hermit.

goldenness

This time of year, you just have to take a drive down the road and document the light and color. Because tomorrow, it will look different.

Headline of the day: "Parts of Minnesota get below-freezing temperatures"

Uhh...yeah...two weeks ago! I'm seriously thinking about going public with our apparent derivation from normal temperatures on our land here. Given the obsession Minnesotans have with meteorological facts, exposing a challenger to Embarrass would create quite a stir. For the non Minnesotans, Embarrass has the reputation of always recording the lowest temperatures in the state, or often, in the nation. I have some good dirt on them though.

I think we're up to it. I'll just show them what's left of my garden.

Asters

It is September. Asters, in all their forms and hues, from frilly white lace to lavender blue bursts, are announcing the changing of the season, like the grand finale of a fireworks display. If asters bloomed in midsummer, they would just be among so many other wildflowers, and not as noticeable. But in September they stand out, outlasting even the goldenrod which fades with frost, as the forest floor changes from green to gold to brown.

Mom as guitar teacher

I'm a guitar teacher now, much as I think guitar is probably my weakest instrument...no wait, there's piano...and my student is none other than Calvin the Inquisitive. I wanted to get him going on some musical trajectory, and since he had picked up a guitar and seemed to have an aptitude for rhythm I decided to take things into my own hands. There are precious few musical instructors within a fifty or so mile radius here; it seemed the obvious choice that, if Calvin were interested in something that I remotely knew how to play, I could probably save some money and do a halfway decent job teaching him myself, and learn something in the process.

I have found recently (within the last two days) that I am probably my own best instructor. I have been practicing mandolin, and I know what I want to accomplish, and my teacher-self has an amazing intuition for knowing just what I need to do to get there. Not that my teacher-self has the ability to play at the level I strive for, but my teacher-self is a hard ass. PLAY IT AGAIN! THAT WAS WEAK! LISTEN TO YOURSELF! Luckily, I managed to restrain that aspect of my teacher-self at Calvin's lesson.

It went very well; I had even written out a list of objectives beforehand and managed to touch on all of them within a half hour. (If you know me at all, you should be raising eyebrows; that just ain't me, to be so organized!). I actually had an inspiration for the lesson from last night; the kids had watched the movie The Blues Brothers for the umpteenth time (which I don't mind at all, it's one of my all time favorites!) and Calvin had somehow picked up on the Peter Gunn theme. He was so intrigued with it that he got out our soundtrack CD afterwards and played it over and over. It has an extremely repetitive bass line, one I remembered from my days in high school pep band, and I realized that the line could be played very easily on the low E string of the guitar. What better tune for a first lesson; one the kid knows and enjoys, simple rhythm, and one that can be played on one string.

Calvin seemed attentive, willing to listen to my teacher-self, and at the end of the lesson he even said he enjoyed it. I'll have to motivate myself to keep this gig up!

it's that time of year

pupdate: Hopi, 9 weeks

She's not usually like this. She would normally be a blur of orange and white in a picture. Brittanys are active dogs, and they chew way more than labs.

whew! I feel like a party hostess after the last guest has left, except that all of the dirty dishes and not-quite-empty wine glasses sitting around are my own. Hosting a blog carnival is a lot like throwing a party. It takes some planning and preparation, a bit of creativity, and some nose-to-the-grindstone work in the final hours before the event. There's always room for anxiety: what if no one shows up? what if they notice I forgot to dust off the top shelf? what if, in tasting the appetizers I get some spinach in between my front teeth and everyone sees me like that? what if I am just a socially inept geek? why am I suddenly not capitalizing the first letters of these sentences?

But then the guests arrive, you realize that they are the life of the party, what makes it all happen, and despite all the things you think you could have done better, everyone ends up having a good time.

I'm ready to slow down and try to take it easy for a while, though. On top of the major blogging commitment, I've had a busy schedule at work, doing some physically rigorous tasks, and at home it seems like I'm just struggling to stay two steps behind. I know I need to get things organized and decluttered, but I don't want to blow a sunny September weekend doing it!

The days are sunny with dazzling blue skies, the kind of blue I think only happens in September. The nights are crisp and cool and quiet, except for the occasional wild music of coyotes. I need to be like those coyotes, running free and making some wild music of my own. I need to sit outside with a guitar or mandolin in hand, and sing. I need to dance around a bonfire with my family.

That does it, I'm taking off work early today!

The Passionate Birder: I and the Bird #32

In the fortnight since I and The Bird last appeared, the conservation community has lost one of its most enthusiastic, outspoken proponents: Steve Irwin, aka The Crocodile Hunter. Although his personality and onscreen presence was at times brash and even annoying to some, he had a true passion for the wildlife he loved, and he introduced a generation of TV-watchers to the danger and beauty surrounding his native Australia. He was one of a kind, and he will be missed. At least he died doing what he loved.

We birders are a passionate kind as well. It takes real passion to travel thousands of miles to see one new species, as much as it takes passion to sit still and notice the wonders of one's own backyard. It takes passion to stand out and be a voice for the conservation of birds, or to be a steward of one's own backyard. The posts submitted for this edition of I and the Bird reflect the true passion of their writers.

Birders are always passionate for adventure. Duncan, of Ben Cruachan Blog, recounts his birding adventures on the Surf Coast of Australia. Trevor had the opportunity to visit Adelaide, South Australia, and made the most of it. Nick, of BirdDC, went on a Chesapeake road trip over Labor Day weekend, and found out that sometimes persistence pays off, and sometimes it doesn't. It was a good trip, anyway.

Birders are passionate for seeing new things. David at Search and Serendipity finally found the frogmouth he was looking for at Papua New Guinea. Rick had a great day birding recently, including seeing a family of black capped gnatcatchers. Bora has been seeing a rash of pretty birds recently, and his latest may be something unusual for his area. Marc at The Hornet's Nest has a wish list for new and unusual things he would like to see at his patch, and Patrick at The Hawk Owl's Nest has a success story of sorts, where the right bird showed up in the right place at the right time, after a long wait.

Birders are also passionate for biology and conservation. Jeff Wells of the Boreal Bird Initiative muses on Eskimo curlews while traveling. Conservation First is a good idea. Rob got involved with the Idaho Bird Conservatory's volunteer bird banding project and got to see some amazing birds up close. Mike of 10,000 birds introduces us to the world of complexity that exists among mallards. I never knew! John, of A DC Birding Blog, educates us about a beautiful raptor species (aren't they all beautiful!), the Broad-winged Hawk. John Trapp has an interesting post about some proposed changes to the common bird names we know and love. Eek! Change! As if change in Latin names wasn't enough...And finally, on this note, Floridacracker, whose blog I read religiously every day, shows how a few dead trees can do a lot of good for birds on his land in the last undeveloped tract of Pure Florida.

And, birders have a passion for life; for noticing the changes of the seasons, for appreciating the beauty of the world around them, and observing everyday beauty in the realm of home. And seeing how birds fit into all that. Sometimes that life depends upon predation, as Carel of Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding narrates thoughtfully in Killing To Live Or Living To Kill. Alex of Have Passport, Will Travel has certainly noticed that migration time is upon us. The migration thing is not lost on many; pascal has noticed it as well. Susannah gives a delightful account of a family of chickadees in her yard; I am always a sucker for a good chickadee story! Soobie at Snail Spirals muses on her ten most beautiful birds...I change my mind every time I try to make up that list! Pam at Tortoise Trail paused to appreciate not one but three red-tailed hawks, and got some beautiful photos. Which reminds me...my kids yelled to me this weekend: "Mom! There's an eagle with a red tail!" My kids should know how lucky they are, to think seeing a bald eagle is an ordinary thing, but seeing a red-tailed hawk is unusual! And, last but definitely not least...I really do want you to read this one...mojoman integrates bird song and deep musings on life in his excellently-written essay, Waiting for the Light.

Well, that concludes it for another round of I and the Bird. I really have enjoyed hosting this edition, and seeing all the great perspectives on birding from around the world. The next edition will be hosted at Don't Mess With Taxes; submissions due 9-26.

Cheers. And remember, be passionate.

trout in small places, close to home

Do you see the stream in this picture?


Here's a better view. That pool has to be all of four feet wide and a foot deep.

This is a small tributary to Sand Creek. Yes, the Sand Creek. A mile or so from my home, as the crow flies. Today I was fortunate enough to get paid to come to this creek and see if there were any brook trout in there. There were. :)

I am totally amazed. After yesterday, where we found two adult trout in a stream devastated by beaver, I was beginning to wonder about the tenacity of brook trout. They demand cool water, and gravel substrate on which to spawn. Water temperatures above 68 degrees are lethal. As are drought years, which we are definitely in. Parts of this little ditch-creek were so low we were walking on wet gravel. But still, the brook trout were there. Hallelujah!

Of course, this is very good news for Sand Creek, about a half mile downstream. The brook trout live and flourish and reproduce against all odds. I am in awe.

of trout and tree-gnawing rodents*

*because...

imagine the search engine hits I would get if I dared to say the word "beaver" in the title! What a crazy world we live in.

I had another classic adventure day at work. I was a little leery after the last day I went on stream detail, ending up wading through a mucky beaver-infested willow jungle of a supposed trout stream. The last straw was falling face-first into the muck as I was crawling on all fours trying to avoid sinking up to my knees in the goo at the bottom. I did what any sensible person would do as I realized I was completely soaked. I laughed my arse off.

This day promised to be better. John and I were going to check a small tributary of the St. Croix River, which five years ago was found to have a healthy population of wild brook trout and was then designated a trout stream. The waters in the area where we were going, far south of where the office is, farther south from where I live, are vastly different. The St. Croix Valley is a geographical wonder in an area of relatively flat land. High bluffs tower over the river bottom, sometimes exposing layers of sedimentary rock over older layers of volcanic basalt. The beauty of this "canyon" is breathtaking.

Because of this geology, the steep bluffs, groundwater from above seeps into the St. Croix through cracks in the bedrock, and occasionally these seepages become large enough to sustain flow year round and create a stream channel. The cold temperature of the groundwater is optimal for brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), which somehow some time long ago found their way into these little streams. The main flowage of the St. Croix River is too warm for them in the summer.

Armed with a jon boat with 15 horse motor, backpack gasoline-powered shocker, and waders, we set out. The stream was about two miles downstream from where we launched the boat, and we motored past towering bluffs and cliffs, and floodplain forest. Asters, some yellow sunflower-family flowers, and even cardinal flower bloomed along the banks. Vultures and sandhill cranes soared overhead; the sandhills looked to be part of a migrating flock. Great blue herons stalked the banks, while belted kingfishers chattered from branch to branch.

We turned off into a side channel about a mile downstream. The river channel here is braided, meaning there are numerous side channels that are definitely worthy of exploration, although most canoeists choose the main channel.

Our destination, according to the GPS, appeared as a sand bar delta with a small flow entering at the downstream side. We ate an early lunch, knowing that it might be difficult walking and we might need the energy. It was an incredibly remote, quiet place. The day was overcast, and we noted the chill in the air. I wore a heavy sweatshirt, and still felt chilled.

Finally we put on our waders and got started. I removed my sweatshirt, thinking that with it on I would work up a sweat and end up completely chilled on the ride back. The stream at the mouth was so narrow that John and I could not walk side by side; sometimes I walked up on the bank. He had the backpack electrofisher on his back, and I carried a backpack with a bucket, clipboard, and scales. The GPS unit was clipped to my wader suspenders.

About fifty yards or less upstream, we encountered the first beaver dam. Upstream was a pool that was deep enough to harbor a few aquatic plants. We breached the dam a little, causing a rush of water flowing downstream, and climbed into the waist deep water. Beyond the head of the pool, we lost the stream channel in the tall grass. There was water flowing among the grasses, it just did not flow in any one discernible channel. After fighting upstream for a while, not knowing where we were headed, we decided that I should walk ahead and see if this stream resolved itself into a channel anywhere nearby. I fought tall grasses, small willows, and shallow water over muck until I did find a place where I could see clear water flowing over sand. I made my way back to John, and realized with all the work of moving through tall grass I was sweating in my neoprene waders.

We found the channel and started electrofishing. Within about a one hundred yard reach of clear water we shocked two brook trout, 9 1/2 inches each. If you've never seen brook trout, and I have had precious little experience with them, they are perhaps the most beautiful fish in the world. Grayish green back with bright red and blue and yellow spots, and some iridescent pink on the sides. I was thinking this place was looking heavenly; crystal clear water running over sand, with beds of green watercress and forget-me-not blooming late, their blue contrasting with the yellow of beggartick and the orange of jewelweed.

Then we ran into more beaver dams; the going got more rough, the bottom muckier, obstacles of beaver logs every ten yards or so. Finally we lost the stream channel again. We measured the trout (kept alive in a five gallon bucket), and took scale samples. One male and one female. Perhaps the only breeding pair left in this stream. Then I looked upstream and saw nothing but marsh and muck. Somewhere there was cold flowing water, but without a discernible, hard-bottomed channel it was not worth sampling any further. We turned back.

The downstream walk was trying. Although I knew we were on the down side, heading home, and in no danger of getting lost, I found it was harder and harder to lift my wader-clad legs over beaver logs, that and getting mired in muck way too often. I was drenched in sweat, envisioning myself getting stuck, unable to pull myself out of the muck, spending eternity here within reach of the river. Then, as I stepped into the elusive stream channel once more, I rammed my right shin straight into the end of a beaver-knawed stump. The pain made me see stars.

But I was getting closer to the river and our boat, and I plunged onward until finally I was there. We rested for a minute, drank water from our bottles, then pushed the boat out and motored back upstream. I was getting chilled from my sweat-drenched shirt, but I wanted it to dry out a bit. I was grateful for the warmth of my sweatshirt when I finally pulled it on at the boat landing.

I have heard for a long time what beavers can do to trout streams in this area. I have seen it once or twice. But today I saw it first hand. Five years ago, according to the stream survey done then, there was a stream channel and they sampled ninety adult brook trout and numerous young-of-year. We got two adults. But, where there is a male and female, there is hope.

Gardening in Minnesota's unknown coldest spot

My gardening plans took an abrupt turn this morning, as I realized that not even 6 mil plastic or old tarps can fend off 25 degree frost.

Beans, done. Summer squash, done. Winter squash, done. Cucumbers, done (although there may be a vine or two that survived.) Peppers and eggplant, of course. Basil, a fragrant memory. Tomatillo, maybe I can harvest the fruits but they are so small I don't know if it's worth it. Tomatoes...I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible here.

I really thought I would feel more devastated than I did. I may have uttered an expletive or two when I first viewed the damage, but surprisingly I was thinking, Okay. So the final crop will be less than expected, but what has been the harvest this year?

The harvest has well exceeded the crop. Although I won't have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, and I won't even get to taste some of the varieties I planted, I still come away from this gardening season with more than what I put into it. I have the knowledge, from observing soil conditions, plant health and insects, but it's more than what I learned. I realized that the largest harvest comes from the doing, the planning, the moments spent out there looking across the swamp, the morning I saw the harriers in their courtship flight, the honest muscle aches from a hard day's work, the standing back and seeing the beauty of it all. The crop is just a small part of the harvest.

I have had my fill of summer squash. Of cucumbers. I have enjoyed a few tomatoes, and the smell of fresh basil. I have a bucket full of onions, and enough garlic to last for a while. Tomorrow I will plant more lettuce and kale and spinach; even in autumn there is still room for growth. Carrots still wave their feathery heads, and the Swiss chard is indestructible. I have rutabagas, and parsnips, and potatoes to dig. And there are enough ripe, and almost ripe tomatoes, and maybe a few pints of green tomato salsa to make.

As a matter of fact, I could not help but notice the overwhelming beauty of the world today. The kids spied a red-tailed hawk riding the wind currents, and said "Mom! An eagle with a red tail!" Asters bloomed everywhere. I took a walk in the woods with Calvin and discovered parts of our own land I'd long forgotten. The sky was a clear, piercing blue, the woods smelling of frost and decaying ferns and pine needles. I found a new blueberry patch, on our land, to check next year, and blackberry growing everywhere. It was all wonderful, the best place I could ever hope for. The small setbacks; they are just that. In the larger scheme of things, this is it. Living in the moment.

frost

If someone out there comes up with a tomato that can survive an early hard frost, even under cover, I will be the first to try it.

Off to the farmer's market to console myself.

long shadows of September

if you look real close you can see my new house.

high today 60. Low tonight around freezing. I covered up everything I wanted to in the garden. High tomorrow: 58. Autumn is here. I am wearing wool socks.

startin' to feel the tomato love

Get it? ummm...heart shaped tomato...love...

This is a Pruden's Purple, an heirloom pink beefsteak tomato I've had fairly good results with this year. Its taste has been described as similar to Brandywine, and if my Brandywines ever ripen I'll try the two head to head and see. It does have a good flavor, and being an early variety is a plus.

Actually this photo was taken three weeks ago, and I don't think I've had a Pruden's Purple since. It's been dry, and the cooler nights have slowed down the ripening process. I haven't even canned any tomatoes yet, and we're a week into September! I am getting a few Sub Arctic Plenty, my best producer by far this year, but I haven't decided if the flavor is worth it. They sure don't hold a candle to Stupice, which is equally early. I have a few Stupice plants, but I think they must need more water because they aren't doing as well as Sub Arctic Plenty.

I was going to take some garden photos last night to illustrate this long-overdue gardening post, but everything looked so dull and listless, waiting for the rain. We did get a sprinkling this morning, but it wasn't even enough to settle the dust on the road. My garden-watering hose is currently stretched out to the horses and chickens out front, because our lawn tractor we used to haul water has died. So watering the garden means moving two hundred feet of hose first. That, and the ever-shortening evening hours have kept me from watering this week. I'm trying to get a late crop of lettuce and kale going, but the seeds won't germinate when it's so dry.

I pulled up all of my onions last Sunday and got a fairly good crop that might last us until around Christmas. I seem to have trouble growing large onions, however. I planted them from sets. Maybe I should try seeds? How about walking or bunching onions? Any onion experts out there?

The zucchini and yellow crookneck squash are conspiring to take over the entire east side of the garden, as is a pumpkin or winter squash vine. I am blessed with summer squash this year and the other day we had the most delicious fried yellow and green zucchini. We've also been grilling zucchini, onions, garlic, and store-bought green peppers and mushrooms.

I am finally starting to get snap beans and pole beans! They were started fairly late, then about half of one bed of purple-podded bush beans got wiped out by some fungus. Then came the drought...but now they are flourishing. By the way, I did not order purple-podded bush beans, I ordered Roma beans. I can't remember right now who I ordered from, or if it was their error or mine. Oh well. Speaking of errors, remind me to never again buy Amish Paste tomatoes, one of my favorite heirlooms, from the otherwise-excellent local garden center. For the second time in three years, what I thought was Amish Paste has turned out to be something else, and not even a very tasty something else.

Mentally strolling along in my garden, we come to the cucumbers. An abundance of delicious Divas, my favorite, albeit hybrid, slicing cucumber, and lots of pickling cukes that like to hide until they get to be large, yellowish, seedy monsters. Note to self: unless you plan on selling cucumbers at the Farmer's Market (along with everyone else), one, or at the most two Diva cucumber plants are MORE than enough for our family.

Now for the garden surprise of the year. My former garlic patch now hosts two very large Yellow Pear tomato plants which are starting to produce ripe bite-size tomatoes. These sprouted themselves from last year's Yellow Pear plants. I would not dare direct-seed all of my tomato crop in late May, but this is the first time I've seen a successful volunteer tomato in my garden.

Although they took forever to germinate, and germination was somewhat spotty, I will have some parsnips this year for the first time! In the same bed is a good number of medium size rutabagas and one colossal rutabaga. Next door are the carrots, which also had uneven, spotty germination and are not quite ready, but I will get a decent sized crop.

I'm getting on a roll here, and there are several more things I want to talk about, but I think it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'll have to cover things up tonight; scattered frost is likely, which means I can count on frost here.

Second child syndrome

These are my second children, Starflower and Hopi. Starflower is my second born child, as headstrong but sweet as they come. Hopi is the puppy we just picked up Saturday, a three hour drive away from our home. She's a Brittany, a bird dog, which is in line with The Hermit's new job. Go hunting= contacts=money. That's all I will say about our system of wildlife management here in Minnesota, since my job is in fish and wildlife management and I intend on keeping it.

Anyway, she is cute, ain't she? The dog I mean, although the girl...You keep yer hands off her! Anyway Hopi is eight weeks old, hyper as anything, a much more trying puppy than Sally so far. I have yet to bond with her as much as I did Sally, but I resign it to the "second child syndrome"; the second just requires more work than the first, no matter how cute they are. Sally is doing her best to be a guiding figure in this young pup's life; she is starting to have the mothering instincts.

On the way to get Hopi we drove through some country I hadn't seen in a while, including the town where I spent four years going to college. That town was devastated by a tornado in 1998, and the college campus sustained a lot of damage. I immediately recognized the lack of large trees, but I was relieved to see many of the beautiful old houses in town still standing. I wanted to stop at campus and look around; there are a few new buildings and a few old ones that are no longer there. However, it was Freshman Drop-off Day, so it was too crowded to approach the campus closely. We ended up having a picnic at a park downhill from campus, but storm clouds were approaching. I could feel a drop in atmospheric pressure, and I was nervous; this town is Tornado Alley. When I was a senior, spending my last few days on campus, I remember seeing rotating funnel clouds directly overhead, and it wasn't just from what I was drinking!

Anyway, Hopi is our new Brittany puppy and I know I will love her...when she settles down a bit!

p.s. I've already noticed how much Starflower looks like a mirror image of my profile picture, minus the blue eyes.

Coming soon to Sand Creek Almanac

A "heads up" to all you fans of feathered friends: The 32nd edition of I and the Bird will appear on this blog one week from Thursday! Most readers of this blog probably know about IATB already, but for those who don't, here's what it's about:

I and the Bird is a carnival celebrating the interaction of human and avian, an ongoing exploration of the endless fascination with birdlife all around the world. It is also a biweekly showcase of the best bird writing on the web published on alternating Thursdays.

This is my first attempt at hosting a blog carnival and I'm excited! I have received several very good submissions already, but there's room for many more! So if you have any bird-related blogging you would like to share, by all means send me a link and a short description to flutemandolin AT gmail DOT com. Deadline is one week from today, Tuesday September 12.

Would blog more, but hormonally impaired

That is, I'm ready to kick your ass if you provoke me! Grr!

Damn female stuff. Knocks a day or two out of you each month, but this month seems especially severe. I almost had it out with a city bitch in the local general store, after she came in demanding who had the blue van blocking the gas pump. I not-so-quietly informed her that my husband was out there, not finishing pumping gas, and that he was the type that would move it one second after the gas nozzle was put back. The owner of the store, sort of a friend, backed me up with "he's still pumping gas, ma'am!" I was shaking mad. The world does not start and stop at your convenience, ma'am.

That, and my youngest offspring was provoking me to the fullest. I really feel bad after one of the episodes where I feel the complete and total need to strangle him. I love him, dammit, but I won't put up with the worst he has to offer.

It got worse, after mandatory visits to Kohls and the dreaded Wal Mart to by school clothes and supplies. I was disappointed by Kohls, and their presumption that every preteen female figure is the same shape, skinny and tall. My daughter, while not fat, fits into size 10 regular although they are generally long. And their junior department...I'm not going to let her shop there....

Worse yet after Wal Mart, where they had run out of plain pencils and 24 pack Crayolas. This was a Super Wal Mart, mind you. I informed my children we would not be buying substitutes, that I would go to the local Ben Franklin and get what they needed. Hallelujah, I hate Wally Hell.

Fortunately, we made my usual run across the Bong Bridge (nice name) to a liquor store in Superior, Wisconsin known for their low prices. That kept me from going over the edge.

Arrgghh, I'm still not normal, and my kids are going back to school tomorrow, and dammit, where has the summer gone, why don't I seem to have the time to do what I really want to, and does my youngest really think I'm nothing but a pushover, or a hardass, why would he act that way just for me?

Ahhh, it too will pass. Maybe.