Getting back on the horse!

Today I received a gentle reminder "through the ether" that I have neglected my blogging habit in the last month.  To say I was too busy to blog would not be the truth.  I'm retired, it's winter and it has been REALLY cold out...until today, so what's my excuse?  I have none, so let's move on.

It's only March and, thanks to weeks of cold weather, the ice caves are accessible again this year so we're back in the B&B business!

Section of ice caves visible from the wave observation camera

Last weekend the National Park Service opened them for the first time and I've heard anywhere from 11,000 to 14,000 people flocked to see them last weekend.  We didn't!  The lineup of visitors' cars parked along the side of the road was said to be four miles long.  Then a storm brewed up on Tuesday and they were closed to visitors Tuesday and Wednesday.  The winds were going to be quite fierce and they didn't know what that would do to the ice cover on the lake and the ice formations hanging on the rocks.  But, the storm ended and they opened them up to visitors again this morning at 7am.  So, we have guests all weekend.  Temps up in the 40's are predicted for next week--it might be a short season!

Below is a scene of snow blowing across Lake Superior on Tuesday.  Those winds caused lots of whiteout conditions and drifted roads over those couple of days.

And thanks to the winds, these interesting designs showed up along the road on my walk on Wednesday.

And another update from the last month, our church had another Mardi Gras event that doubled as a Pampered Chef fundraiser.  If you are familiar with Pampered Chef products, they are really nice--and, yes, expensive--pots and pans and kitchen gadgets that we are invited to buy from their catalog.  And unfortunately the woman who demonstrates all the products is REALLY good at her job!  So now we have some new kitchen gadgets in our house and thanks to all the people attending, the church did well in the fundraiser!

Leann has been doing some furniture finishing on these new bed stands in our Woodland Room.  We bought them as unfinished furniture and she put several coats of some kind of poly finish on them.   It's always hard to find furniture with a natural finish that isn't maple or oak or something too dark for everything else in the house.  So she did these two tables, another bed stand and an end table in the living room.

One of my last posts talked about my family picture organization project.  So after going through and scanning hundreds (thousands?) of pictures from all of my extended family and my own children, I am left with the EMPTY boxes on the left, and the very organized boxes and notebooks on the right.  Somehow I thought I'd be getting rid of a little more stuff...

And, we're still feeding deer and birds, usually not intentionally at the same time.  Below is "Mouse Ears" outside our window caught in the act of lapping up sunflower seeds from the bird feeders.  Yes, we see you!

I'm back on my blogging horse now.  By the way, I began this blogging thing a year ago on February 20th.  I'm up to 29 countries now.  I'd better hang on so I can reach some more!

Yes, Walt Disney, it really is a small world after all!

We have our first non-North American guests staying with us tonight.  They were from the Netherlands and were traveling in the United States and Canada for a couple weeks, then going on to visit friends for a while.  We were sitting around talking this evening when the phone rang.  It was our neighbor who was at the Port Bar and noticed a couple who were looking for a room for the night.  They had encountered several "no vacancies" along their way so were happy when we still had a room available.

Now for the "small world" part.  This second couple had lived in the Netherlands for a period of time several years ago and they even still spoke a little Dutch.  Crazy!  To meet up in little Port Wing, Wisconsin!

So, with our rooms filled, we are waiting for the over-predicted big storm tonight.  At least I'm hoping it's over-predicted.  Sounds like we are just supposed to get lots of rain and wind.  I've heard predictions for possible Lake Superior wave heights of 10 to 25 FEET! (Thanks, John Harrington!)  Why do the strains of Gordon Lightfoot run through my head on hearing about "gale warnings?)

Meanwhile, back on the farm, the Xcel energy truck came today to shut off power to the old house.  Because they came pretty quickly, the mover said they might come tomorrow to begin prepping the house for the move, depending on the storm, of course...

 I took some (possibly last) pictures of our sunflowers before the winds arrive tonight.  It was some kind of variety pack of seeds so they are all a little different.  Hope they are still there in the morning.

And Leann used all our red tomatoes (so far) and made a batch of the tomato relish that we serve with our egg dishes.  It's a fresh relish so it goes in the refrigerator rather than being processed.   People seem to like it.

Well, we have our flashlights and jugs of water ready for if/when the power goes out and we have no pump.  (Ah, life in the country!)  Stay tuned...

Labor Day already! Can you feel the gears shift?

If you come from Minnesota, Labor Day is the day before the first day of school.  There was always great anxiety in our house the evening of Labor Day with two little girls getting backpacks and new outfits ready for the next day.  And I probably added my own anxiety since I also was starting school/work that next day.  (Not a problem anymore!  Yay!)

I grew up in Wisconsin and Illinois where we started school late in August.  So any anxiety about starting school was past and it was a day to work around the house and yard.  I remember lots of car washing happening on Labor Day.  And, since my parents' anniversary was on September 7th, some years--when the dates coincided and they remembered--that became part of Labor Day remembrances.

Today we awoke to a rushing creek flowing in the ravine behind our house following the gully-washer of a storm last night.  Our guests wondered if we had arranged the evening's show last night, especially that one mighty CR-AAA-CK right near the house that we're sure took down a tree somewhere.  (More on our guests below) The rain gauge only showed 1 1/2 inches of rain but the creek showed more!

This has been a dried up bed of clay since June!  Like I said...gully-washer!

And this is the road up to our trails.  I don't think we'll be making any 4-wheeler trips up to the meadow anytime soon without tearing up the road.

Tomorrow we're going to try to remember to go down to Twin Falls where all this water leads.

So, we went with the "labor" theme today and took care of some veggies.   We made another batch of "Best Ever Sliced Luncheon Pickles," taken from my mother's 1966 edition of the St. Croix County, Wisconsin, Extension Homemakers Cookbook.  Can you tell the age by the name of the recipe?  You just don't hear the word "luncheon" much anymore!  They are really good though!  Cucumbers, onions, red and green peppers, vinegar, sugar and salt.  Not processed, just kept in the fridge.

Also, we made a first attempt at dilly beans.  Until this past year I don't think I've ever heard of dilly beans, but everyone talks about them around here, so we gave them a try.  Then we froze the rest of the beans, although there are many more out on the vines.  Tomorrow we'll try freezing carrots.  We have many more in the ground and no good place to store them over winter.  And...we're going to try basil pesto with pine nuts--you grind it all up, freeze it in cubes in ice cube trays, and throw in a cube or two into spaghetti or something similar.  Love this time of year!

If you check my blogroll on the right, you will see a new blog listed there called My Minnesota, and the author/blogger is John Harrington who stayed with us as B&B guests last night.  He and his "Better Half" were on a getaway and explored our part of the Lake and Wisconsin while they were here.  Check out his blog today to see what he discovered!

Finally, we "discovered" this mom and kids out on our ride tonight.  It was past dusk and almost dark, so they look like I've applied an effect to the picture.  No effect, but didn't they pose nicely?

Happy first day of school to all our school friends!

Super Moon end to a Super Saturday

The days go too fast; the summer goes too fast, but we pack as much in as we can.  Today was Saturday Market day, so Leann loaded up the car with our limited produce--beans, beets, red onions, and basil, along with some of our choice "fleas" for the flea market table.  I stayed home to see off our B&B guests and then begin the room change-over for our next guests--clean up the kitchen, wash sheets & towels and hang them outside, clean room & bathroom so it's ready to go again.

And Saturday is Dump Day so I was off to bring our garbage and recyclables to the dump.  On the way I stopped at the Port Bar with a couple of Leann's baby quilts for the benefit dinner and raffle for one of our Port Wing residents this afternoon and evening.  Then I stopped at the Saturday Market and spent our market proceeds on some cucumbers, tomatoes, a turnip and some dill.  By next week we should have our own cucumbers and tomatoes!  I told my California daughter today that I was watching for cukes and tomatoes and she laughed, suggesting that we must live up in the Northwest Passage!  How soon she forgets!

Anyway, now to the pictures.  First are a couple from my monarch chrysalis watch, then some baby milkweed pods.

I saw this one last Saturday for the first time and it had a couple dark spots on it.  Now today it is all black.  I think it will be hatching out tomorrow.

This was the first one I saw back when it was all green with the gold band.  Yesterday it was all black and today all that remains is what's left of the white shell.  So...I missed the big hatching!

Here are the little milkweed pods growing out of what used to be the beautiful and fragrant flowers that the bees were so crazy about.  The leaves are chewed up by all the caterpillars.



And tonight we all get to see the Super Moon, or in astronomical terms, perigee-syzygy or perigee full/new moon.   This is our first view of it tonight over in the town of Herbster, seven miles east.

Then I turned around and saw our Super Lake and a beautiful sunset.  The Lake has been hazy lately and the sunsets have been extra nice thanks to the smoke from forest fires out west in Canada and our western states.

Then we came back to Port Wing and brought our visitors to Quarry Beach where we saw the Super Moon from there with a Super reflection.

We planned to enjoy the Super Moon from the deck tonight but the mosquitoes had other ideas.  And this time of year is supposed to be the peak time to see the Perseid meteor shower but the moon is so bright and you can't see the stars!  Astro Bob suggests going out just as the moon is setting...and that's just before dawn...gotta think about this...

Another night of guests before a couple days to breathe!

It seems we've been going like gangbusters lately with B&B guests, helping with parts of the Plein Air event, and LOTS of guests last night!

One day last winter we got a call from a man from Thunder Bay, Ontario, who was planning a bike tour through our area.  He wanted to know how many people we could sleep here.  He needed rooms here in our little town for 15-20 bike riders.  Since there aren't many places for lodging here, that was going to be tricky.  It ended up that we had 7 staying here, 8 at the other B&B, and 3 in one of the cabins down near the Lake.

They were a fun group of people.  They all gathered here on our front porch when they got into town for some late afternoon refreshments.

They even brought their own entertainment!

Dinner was at the South Shore Bar here in town and they all came home very pleased with their dinner. Then we found out we were serving 10 people for breakfast!   While we're used to preparing for 2 or 4 guests, 10 was going to be a challenge.  But they all went away happy this morning, so it all worked out.  And now we have LOTS of sheets and towels to wash!

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I saw this little chrysalis Saturday morning hanging on the summer savory plant when I was collecting herbs to bring to the Saturday Market.  It wasn't hatched yet this morning but seemed to be a little more advanced.

And here are some sunset picts from down at the Lake tonight.  I love those evening colors.  These two are the two areas of the marina area where boats are docked.

This one shows the backwater or "slough" area on the other side of the bridge.  There was some low-hanging fog off in the distance.

And this is out by the pier and breakwater.  Those bumps on the breakwater are seagulls with the last of the sunset behind.

Tomorrow: Picts from the Bayfield County Fair!

A digital gift and a natural beauty

If you have "liked" our B&B Facebook page, you may have seen the picture below that I posted today. We received it in an email message from our recent guest, Wendy Murkve, who, along with her husband, Jeff, stayed with us this week while they were kayaking on the Lake.  I haven't asked her how she made it, but I think it's so cool.  And she did it on her iPad while they were driving home!  I saw her out taking pictures, but I never expected to see something like this.  Thanks, Wendy!

So, that was our digital beauty, and now here is a natural beauty.

We have been looking all over our small forest of milkweed plants for signs of a chrysalis from all our caterpillars.  Finally today...in the cucumber patch...attached to a little plastic trellis...a CHRYSALIS!  I just can't believe those little gold dots around the ridge.  It looks like jewelry!  The dewdrops are extra.

Still more caterpillars...of all sizes.

And tonight up in the meadow on one of our trails, we came to the scene below.  It's a patch of milkweed with pink flowers in front and a bigger patch of as-yet-unidentified weeds with white flowers in the back.  It was stunning in the sun but not quite as stunning on the screen.  Maybe we'll try again tomorrow night.

First laundry hung outside but what's with the clothespins?

The day began with a nice rainstorm and I assumed I wouldn't be hanging up any laundry outside after our guests left this morning.  But the rain stopped and there was no colorful radar showing in the area on the computer, so I put the first load in the wash, even though it was still pretty cloudy.

I hauled the laundry basket out with the clothespin bag (remember those?), and prepared to hang up the first (white) sheet.  I picked the first clothespin out of the bag and started to slide it over the corner of the sheet...and then I remembered where those clothespins have been for the last almost 25 years--either in an old dusty basement or out hanging in the old garage.  I g-e-n-t-l-y just touched it to the corner of the damp sheet and saw that it was going to leave a dirty mark on it.  Glad I checked!  So I brought the bag of clothespins inside and dumped them all in a laundry tub full of water and soap, and they soaked all day!  Luckily we had an unopened package of clothespins, probably meant for some craft project like the clothespin reindeer.  You all know about clothespin reindeer, don't you?  

So here are some of them drying after soaking all day.  The water was the color of coffee so, yuck!  Notice those with the reinforcing wire around them.  Those are really old!  And there aren't many of the kind with the spring that you pinch onto the line.  My mother's hands always were so arthritic so she could never use that kind.  Funny how those things come back while doing something mindless like this.  It was kind of a Zen activity!

So I got two loads washed and hung up. But, alas, just when I was feeling so good about NOT using the dryer today for two 40-minute drying times, a little mist in the air late this afternoon convinced me to bring in the still-damp clothes inside and, you guessed it, finish them off in the dryer.  As my mother would have said, "It wasn't a very good drying day!"

So many projects, and people, waiting for the REAL spring!

I made a big mistake earlier today.  I emailed a friend, commenting on the strong winds we've been having the last couple of days.  I should have stopped there but then I dared to say that at least it wasn't snowing.  Big mistake. Now it looks like this outside.

At the bottom middle is my former snow measuring stick.  It finally fell over last week and all the snow around it WAS gone.  Until today.

But we have spring things we want to do!  Just being outside without freezing or blowing away would be a bonus right now, but there's more.  Our new glider for the front porch was delivered last Friday, in pieces, of course.  I should have started in on it last Friday when the sun was still shining at least.  I didn't but because I'm pretty impatient about projects like this, I dug around in the boxes to find the instructions.  They looked pretty challenging, like Ikea challenging but with more words, so my organization obsession kicked in and now our stairs in the entryway look like this:

And the boxes outside look like this, a little damp from blowing snow, sleet and whatever else is coming down. (The Christmas tree stand is heading for the flea market. It was a loser!)

So we will continue to dream about our B&B guests, and/or us, sitting on the porch in our glider and our new little bistro set.  I refuse to get out the winter jackets again.  I have already washed and stashed them away for the summer, and they are NOT coming back out again.  

By the way, those are big water droplets on the table top, not some cool textured effect.  Very discouraging.

Coming soon - We accept credit cards!

Part of the process of setting up our business was acquiring a business credit card.  Along with that we raised the question of our business being able to accept credit cards from customers.  Our initial inquiries gave us answers we didn't really want. We found out we would have to pay a fee to rent the machine to slide people's cards in, pay a per transaction fee, pay a monthly fee to be able to accept credit cards, and pay a fee to keep the whole process secure.  And for our little business with only two guest rooms, it didn't seem worth all the fees.  Plus, we were told that we couldn't use the cute little card readers that connect to iPhones or iPads because our business was lodging.  (What's that got to do with anything?)

So now a year later, we, along with our customers, have all survived our need to accept only cash or checks.  But it was touch-and-go at times.  One customer forgot and mailed us a check after they got home, but I could tell from the check that it was some kind of counter check from their bank.  And I cringed a little every time I had to tell potential guests that we don't accept credit cards, especially if they were 35 or under - an age group that hardly ever uses checks anymore.  If they forgot, I knew we always had one ATM in town, but only if The Store was open.  So, I was always on the lookout for a solution.

And here it is:

Every time I opened up my QuickBooks computer program to do some B&B business, I was met with a screen taunting me about using credit cards for our business.  I finally called the 800-number and talked to a nice young man who explained about Intuit's pay-as-you-go plan and how it could work for us, even though we are lodging.  Turns out, the rule--or law--says that we can't accept a credit charge for more than 90 days in advance, so as long as we stay within that time frame, we can accept credit cards.  YAY!  The pay-as-you-go plan was super cheap and the charge data goes through wifi directly into our QuickBooks program.  Sweet!

Of course there was one last glitch - this only works when using QuickBooks 2014 and we are using 2013.  But a lucky St. Patrick's Day discount yesterday enabled us to buy it at a greatly reduced price, so we are almost good to go.  

I suppose that means anything we saved by moving to this service for people was eaten up by the purchase of the new software.

(Sigh - again...)

The B in B&B that is Breakfast

Our B&B - Larson Creek Farm Bed & Breakfast - has been open for almost a year now.  We had our first official guests in April last year.  For about the last 8-10 years we thought we might want to open a B&B when we moved here after retirement from teaching in the Minneapolis area.  We stayed in a few B&Bs to see how we liked them, we attended a weekend workshop sponsored by the Wisconsin Bed & Breakfast Association, we read lots of books and websites on the topic, and we built a house with room arrangements that could serve as comfortable rooms with the amenities guests would like.

But then there was the other B - Breakfast!

Neither one of us is a natural in the kitchen.  And we knew from the beginning that no one was ever going to attach the word "gourmet" to our meals, so on our website we refer to our meals as "hearty Northwoods!"  Not many people have left our breakfast table hungry, but it's just-plain-food that they had eaten - variations on pancakes, waffles, eggs in combinations with other foods, fresh fruits when possible, whole grain breads, and, of course, bacon from Jim's Meats in Iron River.

But first we had to try out our recipes to see if they are workable for morning preparation and tasty enough to serve guests.  And that's where our friends entered the picture.  We prepared two or three dishes and then invited them to try them out and give us a thumbs up or thumbs down.  We had some guests who stayed for multiple days and then we needed several menu possibilities so we didn't repeat anything.  And now were are starting to have repeat business from last year.  All summer last year I was going to start a spreadsheet so we could record what we served to which guests on which days.  Did I ever do that?  No, but it's started now so from here on out we're set!

And now when it's snowy and cold outside,  it's a good time of year to try new recipes again.  I think we're going to try a new one this weekend and I'm not sure if we'll have time to test it out first.  We'll see if they are ready for an adventure!

Today I just wanted to make something with unfed sourdough starter, not necessarily for a B&B menu.  Maintaining a healthy sourdough starter is kind of like having another child to care for.  The intricacies of that could be a blog post unto itself.  Anyway, the latest King Arthur flour catalog had a recipe for sourdough pretzels, so I tried it.  I remembered something about pretzels and Lent, with the shape of the pretzel resembling the crossed arms of a monk in prayer.  I had some trouble getting those pretzels curled into the right shape, but I'll try it again sometime soon, now that I sort of have the knack.  (There are YouTube videos of it!)

So here they are.  Not so pretty to look at but tasty coming out of the oven.   But then again, what bread isn't?