Chivers & Johansen Kids - Halloween

Angie's friend, Julie Buck, is a very accomplished photographer and does excellent work with children's photography. She took these pictures this year of the Chivers & Johansen kids. I think they are great fun. She's a very talented woman with a camera. http://jbstudios.info/

Owen Chivers - Age 2

Megan Chivers - Age 5 almost 6

Emily Chivers - Age 8

Kyle & Heather's Family (Gage, Ruby on Jack's lap, Stella)

Gage Johansen - Age 7 almost 8

Jack Johansen - Age 9

Stella - Age 4

Ruby - Age 1

And from the Spring Valley Johansens - Alyxis almost 8

Halloween is such a hoot!

Happy Halloween

Had this visitor this afternoon, seemed appropriate since it is Halloween.

This is not very exciting news to post, but I did a office make over on my extra bedroom and am quite pleased with the results.

Before

I picked up a used L shaped counter top at the Habitat for Humanity Restore for $8 and then used 3 file cabinets as a base for the desk.

My $8 desk

I think it made a huge difference in the room and now I can actually access my sewing machine. I'm still in the process of sorting through stuff, but made some serious progress by getting this rearranged.

After, still putting stuff away.

Hard Frost and Garden Cleaning

This morning we had a very pretty frost. When I woke up I could see the leaves on the tree out my bedroom window were sparkling like diamonds. This frost really took care of most of the rest of the leaves (except the oak leaves) that were still on the trees.

In fact, by the time I looked at the above photo and then went to take another, one of the leaves had dropped off the tree in those few seconds.

Sure was a pretty frost, but it's sad to see the leaves go.

This afternoon, I finally got the garden cleaned out. The frost sure makes the garden remains look scary. The only thing surviving is the celery.

I also cleaned up the 10 bags of Cowsmo Compost from Rosenow Farms as well as some Mattson farm soil. The garden got a top off and the flower beds are composted and ready for winter. It feels good to have that done, it's been an eyesore for some time. I left the celery in the garden, just for fun to see how hardy it is. I tasted it and it is quite bitter, so not worth harvesting to save anyway.

Pumpkin Patch on Saturday

Lora and Anders came and stayed overnight Friday night. Anders is almost 14 months old now.

Anders had a cold, but was still in good spirits, as usual. He liked being in my backyard messing with the leaves.

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Lora and Anders & I went to the pumpkin patch on Saturday with Gage, Stella and Lois. It was busy there and the kids all seemed to enjoy the day.

Gage is such a big boy and helped look after Anders.

This platform was supposed to look like it was on top of an elephant.

Petting zoo animals included these ducks,

some cute little goats, and a few other random critters.

Stella was looking stylish in her little hat.

Bluebirds in the Fall

Glenn and I made a trip to the potato farm on Friday. Big Buck Potatoes are really tasty spuds grown by a former radio customer of Glenn's. We got 6 big bags of russets. That bag will probably last me all winter.

It was a pretty nice day for a drive North. We stopped at the cranberry bogs on the way back. It looked like the bogs had been harvested within the past couple of days. Darn! I was hoping to see them flooded, will have to work on that for next year.

Back at my house, Glenn and I were looking out the back window and got surprised by a pair of bluebirds who were hanging around. I had not seen bluebirds here since early spring.

All about those cats

The cats enjoyed a sunny morning on Tuesday.

Barley really is a heat seeking kitty and she enjoyed a good bath and then roll around on the sun filled carpet

Hops thought she should join in and stretch out too. But mostly she just watched Barley roll around.

I'm always tickled by how attached they are as siblings...of course once the fight is on, the fight is really on too, so, not that different from human sibs.

When I started this blog I made a promise to myself that I would not write about the cats so often that my friends would think I moved up here and became 'the cat lady'. In the process, I think that Barley and Hops don't get much air time, so here is their 15 minutes of fame.

Pumpkin Patch Blues

I feel bad for the Pumpkin Patch people. With this cold weather / snow, they have had to cover the pumpkins every night. It's quite a job since the entire yard at the farm is covered with pallets of pumpkins. Would be quite a mess if they all turned to mush tho!

By the time I go out to get the mail @ 10am, all the tarps are back off the pumpkins. What a deal.

Switch Stuff

I am spending the day doing all the switch stuff, switch the sheets to flannel, switch to the winter purse, reprogram the thermostat for winter. Nothing very exciting, but I might as well stay home since it is snowing.

We are having a pretty snow, but it seems early. The trees are still so colorful,

I am hoping this doesn't last long and maybe we'll get a little more nice weather.

This cold weather seems to make the kitties be quite lazy.

Hops and Barley on Sunday afternoon

Oh, that's right, they are always lazy!

Barley striking a pose

The Good, The Ugly, nothing bad really

It has been fun to see the birds back at the feeders. It was a special treat to have 3 juvenile cardinals hanging around. One had the orange beak, but the other two did not, so perhaps they were a bit younger.

Juvenile cardinal

The view out my living room window.

This morning I took a walk about the yard with the camera. I think the leaves are at their peak on 17th Avenue, Rice Lake, WI. See what you think.

Backyard deck

Backyard

Yep, that is a snowblower parked by the house. Gus came over with a trailer today so it is headed to the shop to get tuned up.

Looking North from my front yard.

From 17th looking at new deck

This beauty is in the backyard

Looking at the new deck, front yard

How about those Twins and Rockies! I love October baseball.

Oh yeah, 'the ugly'...it froze hard on the morning of September 30th, that ended the gardening (except for the cleanup).

I thought I would tag on a picture of the Sand Castle taken last Friday. It's a beauty.

The Rest of the Story...or what a difference a day makes.

Tuesday morning in Blue Fin Bay...when the sun came up I was happy to find that the wind and rain had subsided. The location of the inn is right on the water and I just loved the view out the window of our suite. You can barely see our window up through this tree branch.

The Inn has 3 levels, some of which have a deck & fireplace, but all have an awesome view.

This shoreline was rocky, almost looked volcanic. The Lichen was very orange and pretty is it's own way.

The staff was scrambling on Tuesday morning to get generators hooked up and about the time I walked out into the parking lot, the water was restored. This made it much more civilized. That not being able to flush the toilet with 3 of us sharing it...not good. The Blue Fin Bay Inn folks were working hard and were friendly and concerned about us. In the end, they gave us a voucher for a free night. Too bad Janet and Terry live so far away, but I will be delighted to use that voucher in their name.

The sun was shining way out into the lake and caused a shiny streak on the horizon.

Next time I want to walk on the boardwalk and explore more of the Tofte, MN area. The resort has a fire on the beach most nights and the guests are given supplies for s'mores.

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Once we learned that the power would likely not be restored until afternoon, we decided to go find breakfast and head back South. We ended up back at the Satellite for a delicious breakfast. The owner/cook is famous for her fish cakes, and I agree that they are quite yummy.

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After breakfast, we headed to Gooseberry Falls State Park. This is a popular spot with a very nice visitor's center, gift shop and nice walking paths.

The leaves were beautiful and the sky was bright blue.

I had fun taking lots and lots of pictures of the scenery.

We saw the middle and lower falls on our walk.



Last, but not least, we stopped at Wisconsin Point in Superior. I was here in the spring when the ice was going out of the lake. I love this view.

When we left Wisconsin Point, we followed the lake around to Cornucopia and then finally headed south through Hayward back to Rice Lake in time to have Mexican food at Cafe Mexicana on main street.

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Even with the storm and lack of power, it was a very excellent trip Up North.