A Long Night

When I got up this morning and started getting my breakfast ready,  

something was missing. 

I've become accustomed to the barrage of meowing from Barley in the morning as she demands her breakfast FIRST!   

This morning,  only Hops, who never meows unless it's a crisis,  

was patiently waiting for her food. 

I knew we had a problem. 

I called for Barley, checked a couple of cat beds & headed for the master closet.  

Sure enough,  there she was.

  I had done laundry late last night,  I'm guessing she slipped into the closet as I was hanging up the clothes. And she didn't slip out 

before I closed the door and went to bed. 

She was very happy to have her freedom back this morning.  She sprinted up and down the hallway the length of the house several times 

and then ate every morsel of food in her dish. 

Free at last!

And now, she is resting comfortably in front of the fire.  

I turned on the fireplace to take the chill off the room, 

 and it's also taking the chill off Barley. 

 She deserves a rest,  she had a long night in captivity. 

Volleyball has begun

Tuesday night I drove to Boyceville to watch Alyxis play Varsity Volleyball.

It was a round robin match with 4 teams:  Boyceville, Lake Holcombe & South Shore.

The Spring Valley Cardinals were winners in all 3 of their matches.

Here are a few photos of great niece Alyxis.

This last picture was the look she gave her Mom 

when her Mom made a heart with her hands and said "I love you".

Sweet.

Reminder to self, keep fresh batteries

Along with the fun sequence with the kitty & the deer, my trail cam also captured this little guy.

I'll be careful to keep good batteries in the trail cam, don't want to miss this night time activity.

See, we can all get along.

I had not checked the trail cam for awhile.

This morning I was procrastinating about putting on my walking shoes and getting out for some fresh air so decided I needed to check the trail cam first.

I am so glad I did.

Just this morning the trail-cam captured this little sequence of photos.

See, we can all get along.

A stray kitty strolls across the backyard.

A couple minutes later, a deer approaches.

The deer seems cautious at first.

But then, the deer gets close to the kitty for a proper sniff.

The kitty is still there, but further under the pine branches.

Something spooks the doe.

But she comes back to see her friend.

She poses for a nice photo, the kitty still under the pine.

And finally she must move on.

I sure hope they come back for another visit.

A Giant

Yellow Swallowtail butterflies are quite common in this area.  I see them off and on all summer.

About a week ago, I noticed a yellow and black swallowtail in the yard that was bigger and blacker.

I did my research on https://wisconsinbutterflies.org.

I learned that this is the largest butterfly in Wisconsin, sometimes measuring 5 inches of wingspan.

This is not a common butterfly in my area, but hard to miss once you recognize the marks.

 Both times I have seen this butterfly, it has been on the verbena.

Red verbena will be on my annuals list every year to be sure.

The Hibiscus that I planted a couple of weeks ago, seems to be doing well.

The second bloom is open now with a 3rd partially open.

The blooms don't last long, but they are spectacular when open.

 I hope this plant turns out to be hardy enough to make it through the winter.

I'm already planning how to give it some insulation to help it survive.

Friday Night Under the Lights

Great nephew Jack is playing football this season, his senior year of high school.  

Truthfully, high school football worries me with all the information available on concussions, I just hate to hear the sound of the helmets smashing.  But, Luck has moved into 8 man football, and this seems less about that kind of thing, and there is more scoring.  So, on Friday night, the weather seemed like it was going to clear up after a day of rain & wind, so I drove to Northwoods to see the game.  Northwoods is about an hour straight North of me, not a bad drive for me, almost 2 hours for the Luck folks though.  (The downside of living in areas with smaller schools is the drive time between opponents of the same size. )

I dressed warmly in long pants, boots and hooded sweatshirt, I even brought my down vest and some gloves.  It turned out I was quite comfy without the vest and gloves and it felt good to be back in a sweatshirt again.  

Although, I'll be happy to have more shorts and tank top weather before it all goes away.

Here come the Cardinals!
Jack is #8

I enjoyed watching the ritual of the warm up routines.

Team Captains, a rare chance to take a picture without helmet

Lined up for the National Anthem.

Lining up on defense.
Jack gets to play back up quarterback, punt returns and defense, linebacker maybe?
I'm not smart about those positions.

As team captain, he gets in on the discussion about penalty acceptance.

The family was all there to watch.
Ruby, Stella, friend Olivia, Jude and another friend of the kids.

Jude watching the game among the Cardinal fans.

Fully engaged even off the field.

The kids were comfy with great seats to see the game.

Young fans

The Cardinals got off to a great start.  I had read that Northwoods had a very good team.
I was pleasantly surprised when our kids scored first.

Little Jude was having a blast.
One time he ran down to the field during a time out,
but one of the sister managed to tackle him before he joined the team on the field.

 It was a good win for the Luck Cardinals.

I'm in now, I'll be at the Bruce game in Luck next week.

Fall Plantings

Yesterday I visited the big Farmer's Market at Country Lane Pantry.

This is a weekly Thursday afternoon trek for me when the weather is good.

Niece Camilla has a booth there selling second hand and embellished clothing, but I mostly go for the veggies.  Right now there are many to choose from.  I came home with a mess of fresh tomatoes, kale, spaghetti squash, cucumbers and the biggest carrots I have ever seen.  The farmer told me all the rain this year made for huge carrots.  I sliced one into chips when I got home and ate it with some hummus, it was delish!

There are all kind of vendors at this market, everything from homemade pottery to Tupperware, to bakery good to organic milk products and a whole bunch in between.  It's a fun way to get some steps and to see what folks are peddling.

On my way back to the car with my load of veggies, I stopped to look at some plants at one of the booths.  A local greenhouse brings out a bunch of stuff every week.  The sign said "let's make a deal, our last week at the market", so that suckered me in to looking.  She had some of the decorative grasses marked $12.99, but said they were $7 now, so I took home 2 of those.  They will be good additions to the ditch project.

Miscanthus sinensis "Purpurascens", or Maiden Grass.  

I plunked them in this ground this morning as it is supposed to rain today.  Next year this ditch project is going to look like something, I hope.

On Tuesday morning, the Hibiscus opened up one of its buds.

Oh baby baby, this is a beauty. There are a bunch more buds on the bush, I'm so excited about this addition to my yard.  I hope I can help it over the winter, I'm already making plans for putting it to bed properly.

We had a little problem at the cabin with the front door latch, so Glenn & I took a drive up there on Tuesday.  We also hauled the big wood box that Dad had made in about 2005 for Gus's Barren's cabin.  The new wood-box fit nicely by our stove and will hold a nice big supply of firewood.

Now it will be used and seen and protected forever.  I think Dad would be very pleased.

We fixed the door latches too (for now).

That cabin shifts around, half of it sits on jacks on the sand, so there is that.

Sometimes the front door bolts don't align with the holes in the strike plates and then the door won't lock and will barely stay closed.

So, we tried this fix of strike plates with larger holes for a little wiggle room.

It's good right now, we'll see what happens when the weather changes.

Glenn and I went to lunch after our hard work.

We met Rick Pomerleau & Mary Stenberg at the Y-Go-By Bar & Grill.

It was a good lunch of broasted chicken and a good visit with friend.

Rick and Glenn were big pals as kids as Rick was our neighbor (and cousin) out on County Trunk N.

It was a fun day, and beautiful weather for a drive Up North.