Camp Wanda

My great nephew Gage is here for tonight (and maybe tomorrow). He wanted to come and spend the night with me and go to the skate park too. We've been having a good time. The skate park here in Rice Lake is a nice facility and Gage is pretty good at this stuff. I had fun taking action shots and watching the kids. Pretty cold and a little rainy, but that didn't really bother Gage. We did a little shopping and had lunch at McD's too.

We started out with a little shopping trip to KMart for sweat pants, and in the process Gage scored a Jennings jersey. He was just fooling around with the hat tho, we didn't get that.

Gage is good at riding on these ramps, I didn't try it.
It looks fun though.

Gage thought it was cool that I caught this picture with his back tire off the ground,

it's called an 'endo'. Trust me, I did NOT know that terminology until today.

Revving up for the climb.

And up he goes.
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I'm fooling around with some special effects on my camera, this one turned out pretty fun.

and I like this one even better.

A visit to a cabin, a co-op and a castle

Heather, Wanda, Ev, Dad

I went over the Gus & Lois's cabin yesterday afternoon to have a visit with cousin Heather James from Tacoma. She's a Pastor and was on a short vacation after attending the Danish Meetings in Tyler, MN. Gus and Lois came out for supper and we had a nice visit. This morning, after coffee and much visiting, we took a drive to Alpha, WI to the Co-Op to buy cheese and butter. I noticed this placque on the wall explaining the name of the town.

I thought it was pretty interesting that a town was named after a cream separator. My Coors friends will recognize the DeLAVAL name as a brand name of centrifuge that we used for many different applications in the brewery.

Tonight, on the way back to Rice Lake, I had dinner at Kyle & Heather's. Stella wanted me to play with her dolls inside her castle. It's a pretty cool castle tent right in the living room. It was just about big enough for the two of us and the dolls!

Stella can be a pretty serious little girl, but she's also tons of fun.

First

Today Anders had his first birthday party at a nice park in Durand, WI.

Kris, Lora, Anders

A balloon was on the loose and Anders was hot on the trail.

First Cousins: Jack, Megan, Ruby, Emily, Anders, Gage; Owen, Stella

He loved the candle on his cake.

And eventually he got into the cake too.


At the end of the day, a bottle hit the spot. Always good to keep the balloons close.

Sir Isaac Newton's Deal

I guess Newton figured out the whole gravity thing by having an apple hit him on the head. I'm not sure I appreciated the idea of gravity today as I picked up a full wheel barrow of wormy apples off the ground under 1 of 2 of my apple trees. I'm told you have to pick up the old apples or you will never have apples without the worms. So, hopefully some forest critters will come and chow down on the pile of apples I dumped at the edge of the woods. Next year, I'll spray early.

I decided the squash and cukes had outgrown their pots so moved them to the new tiered garden plot. Not sure they will respond well to the move, but I'm thinking they might like their new digs. I added some mums to keep them company.

It is almost time to end the great potato experiment! Lois dumped hers earlier this week and had enough new red potatoes to make for supper and they were delicious! I'm going to dump mine this week as the tops are about died off, so hopefully I'll have a good crop of potatoes. We learned a little about how to do this and both plan to do it again next year with some improvements.

This and That Weekend

St. Croix National Scenic Riverway - Spangler's Landing Area
I finally stopped along the river today to take a few photos. It was pretty day, but no canoes or boats in sight.

Gus, Lois, Wanda, Wally (Dad)
Gus took us all for a Rhino ride on Monday to see some work the foresters are doing near his cabin.
A bulldozer is being used to raze the land and according to some county employees who were mowing in the area, this is to prepare for the planting of trees from an aircraft. I sent an email to the county forester this evening asking for more information on this program and am wondering if they will plant this fall or in the spring. It would pretty interesting to be there when the trees are planted.
Information from the Polk County Forester:
The site that you speak of was planted and replanted starting in about 2003. The survival of our plantings have been poor for several years now due to droughty conditions and deer brouse. To get trees growing on this site we are now resorting to scarifing the site (exposing mineral soil) to create a favorable seed bed for jack pine seed. Jack pine seed is unlikely to germinate if it is not in contact with mineral soil. I know it looks extreme but we are committed to regenerating pine on these sites. This spring as the snow is melting we will be aerial seeding jack pine seed on the site, if we get good moisture next summer the seeds will germinate. If you have more questions feel free to ask. Please greet Wally and Ev for me. Sincerely Paul Pedersen

Dozed area. We think the seeds will be dropped from an aircraft into these flat furrows.

Okay, we had some good entertainment during happy hour on Sunday night. I happened on a blog via my blackberry, that was written by 2 Danish young people who had vacationed from coast to coast in the USA last summer. It was all written in Danish and Dad was able to translate most of it for Ev and I. We had lots of laughs over my version of the Danish and also how these Danish kids had written about the 'wild west' and all the Americana that they saw on their trip. Dad hasn't used his Danish for many years, but he gave it a good workout reading this blog.

Sandhill Crane

I stopped at Glenn's Lake Cottage on the way home to drop off a couple of items and spied these two Cranes in a field on County Rd KK. Wish I could have gotten closer. They were in no hurry to leave, but were a little too far away for a great pix.

I just don't get it

I just don't get the whole computer virus, worm, Trojan deal. What's the point? Maybe the people who write these programs and launch them into the Internet world are just plain evil?
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The other day I got an email that looked like it was from a friend on Facebook. It said that my friend had posted a video for me to see. (For you non Facebook users, if one of your Facebook friends writes a message on your Facebook page, an email is sent to you to let you know.) So, I clicked on the link in this email to see what my friend had posted, and a virus instantly installed itself on my computer. My antivirus software told me it was a virus, but was unable to clean it off my computer.
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Last night I spent about an hour on the computer with the tech support from my new antivirus company, and with the help of several special programs that he had, the virus was wiped off my computer.
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So, be warned, if you get an email that has a link for a video...delete the email immediately. Save yourself lots of trouble.
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But I still don't get it.

Sweet Surprise

This afternoon I took a drive to Glenn's Cottage on Big Moon Lake. I had picked up some 'noodles' for the kids to play with in the lake and also wanted to drop off a boat cushion and other odds and ends for the paddle boat. It was very pretty night, but kind of breezy so instead of a paddle boat ride, I just ate my supper on the dock there, some leftovers were in the refrigerator and Glenn wanted me to take them as no one is scheduled to be at the lake for awhile. It worked out well for me, as I had not eaten supper.
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On the way home I drove a different route, through the country, past big turkey farms, tree farms and dairy operations. It was nice to see some new scenery.
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When I got home, I was confused by what I saw on the sidewalk.
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At first glance, I thought "O great, now what animal is digging holes and throwing the rocks up on the sidewalk?"
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But then, I thought I saw that the rocks were in a pattern. It took a minute or more of studying to see what I was meant to see.

I saw the arrow first, and then eventually saw that there were 2 names spelled out.

I was trying to see were the arrow was pointing when I saw another arrow on the landing, pointing at the door.

From the landing, it is clear what it says...Sam & Dan

Hanging on the door was a baggie with 2 fresh chocolate chip cookies in it, still warm from the oven!

Samantha and Daniel are neighbor kids who had stopped over for a visit one other afternoon. I must have just missed them today, but I'm glad I did, I got a real charge out of their 'note' of rocks and twigs.

400 miles for lunch

On Thursday, I drove to Madison to meet Coors friends, Mike & Debbi Murphy, for lunch. It was a beautiful day for a drive and the first time I had been to Madison since Brewing School which was 1986. We ate lunch on the lake at Paisan's, yummy Italian food, and a very nice place, inside and outside on the veranda. (Thanks to Luck classmate, Debi, for this restaurant tip.)

After lunch, I walked around at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Monoma Terrace, http://www.mononaterrace.com/


What a spot, if you look one direction you see a spectacular view of Wisconsin's Capitol building,

and if you turn around you can see the beautiful Lake Monoma.


Many of the government buildings in Madison are historical monuments and the architecture is beautiful. I loved this brass work on these lamps located outside the Health and Human Services building. Cool art deco.

So, what about Otis Redding, did you know he died in a plane crash in Lake Monoma? A vase of fresh flowers was sitting by this memorial plaque.

It was about a 400 mile round trip drive. I saw lots of Wisconsin that I had never seen and enjoyed the day. The drive from Rice Lake to Madison is not bad at all, all nice freeways with pretty scenery. I took a less direct route on the way home and saw a few smaller towns.

America's Best Idea

I went to Eau Claire this afternoon so I could attend a Wisconsin Public Television screening of Ken Burns' new documentary, The National Parks: America's Best Idea. I was invited because I had donated a little money to Wisconsin Public Television earlier this year. It was a nice event, only about 40 or 50 folks. The two speakers shared many facts about the National Park Service. One man was a PHD (U of W alum) in land management and the other was the Superintendent of the Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway (U.S. National Park Service). Excellent speakers with very interesting information. The event was a partnership with University of Wisconsin Alumni, Wisconsin Public TV and The US National Park Service. The film shows on PBS on September 27th, 2009. (We only saw a 15 minute segment / introduction to the film.)

http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/

After the program, I decided to try a restaurant that I had been wanting to check out. The Shanghai Bistro and Sushi Bar. It was delicious...and expensive. They had Blue Moon on tap (I had 2 big ones, yummy)...and the sushi I had tasted wonderful. This will probably always be my most expensive meal in Eau Claire, WI. $60 included the tip...Wow! But it was great.

A Vacation Day

On Monday, I joined Mark and Krista & girls at Big Moon Lake for a vacation day. Of course, it was their vacation, not mine.

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I'm enjoying this summer so much. I was looking back in my journal to what I was doing last summer, and mostly I was packing and getting the house ready to sell. That's not to say I didn't enjoy lazy mornings last summer too, but most days I spent at least some part of the day packing or worrying about the packing. I'm liking this summer much better!

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So, yesterday I got to the lake in the afternoon. We all fished from the dock for quite awhile. There are lots of little perch and sunfish that hang around the dock area, everyone was catching something, but all too small to keep. We fed the little beggars a bunch of night crawlers.

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While Mark and Krista took Jordyn & Payton out for a tube ride behind the speed boat, Breanna and I went out fishing in the paddle boat. It works great. We caught several little fish and Breanna pulled in a decent sized bass. After checking in with Glenn from my cell phone, we released it back into the lake as it was probably smaller than regulations allow. Next time I'll take a picture of the fish on the hook instead of in my fishing bucket.

After supper we took a pontoon boat ride. It was a nice still night, looked like a picture postcard out there. Jordyn & Payton got a little sassy with me about taking so many scenery pix, so I turned on the rapid fire on my camera and pointed it at them.

Sunday at the Lake

Kaija and Mike and girls have been staying a few nights at Glenn & Kathy's lake cottage, today they moved out and Krista and Mark and the girls moved in. I was invited to come for the afternoon. I enjoyed a nice pontoon boat ride with Dana and Erin followed by a nice long paddle boat ride with great niece Breanna. It was a beautiful day and lots of yummy food. I'm getting a bit of a reputation that I always show up at meal time...well, everyone is famous for something I guess.
Thought I would post a few pictures of the family folks.

Tough guy Dana.

Krista and Mark had a paddle boat ride.

Payton was such a champ and caught the little kids as they jumped off the dock. Jackson was fearless.

Charli could not get enough of this jumping off the dock, and she had a major meltdown when she had to quit because it was time to go home and nearly dark.

Breanna

Jordyn and Alyxis.

Jordyn

Charli

Krista

Mark