A foggy day in Bayfield County

After an errand-filled trip to Ashland today, we played tourist on our way home, driving through Washburn and on up to Bayfield on the peninsula.  Besides seeing what we could see, we had one intentional stop in Bayfield--going to the Apostle Island Booksellers book store.  They had a 20% off coupon in the summer issue of Grapevine, the newspaper for the Chequamegon Food Co-op in Ashland.  Leann bought the newest Nevada Barr mystery, Destroyer Angel.  Her books usually take place in a U.S. national park since Anna Pigeon, main character, is a U.S. Park ranger.  This time, though, she is on vacation in the Minnesota Iron Range!

We knew there would be a detour on the road back to Cornucopia going around some construction sites, so we went up the hill to all the apple orchards on our way to our favorite backroad tour back through the woods.

The warm front to the south of our area, which was causing some dangerous weather near the town of Siren, was meeting up with the still-chilly temps coming off Lake Superior, creating some really cool fog around the edges.  Lots of lupines everywhere!

The sign below is located at a key intersection up on the top of the hill.  We especially like the bottom sign, "Still lost? Consider letting someone else drive."  Imagine hundreds of cars of people in and around Apple Festival weekend in Bayfield (first weekend in October), all driving this maze of roads going to all the apple orchards.  I'm sure there are a LOT of lost people up on those roads!

Go left and you go back to Bayfield; go right and where you end up depends on how many turns you take.  And that was our problem the first time we chose the right turn.  Our blacktop road became gravel which became a dirt road, but about 20 miles later we found ourselves right outside of Cornucopia!  Since that first trip, it's become a favorite drive of ours - Star Route Drive.

 When we got back home, we realized this was the first delivery day for our Chequamegon CSA.  We drove to the pickup point and retrieved our box for this week which included: Swiss chard, rhubarb, Bibb lettuce, chives, and a jar of mixed berry jam.  They always include a newsletter with recipes so we already tried the recipe for chive vinaigrette.

Swiss chard and CSAs have become a joke for us.  Younger Daughter was just telling me that she belonged to a CSA when she lived in South Bend and got tired of all the Swiss chard every week.  We'll see if this becomes an every week thing!

By the way, lots of things around here have taken the Chequamegon name, probably because of the huge Chequamegon-Nicollet National Forest here in this area.  It's pronounced as "she-wa-me-gon."  Q is silent.  Took me YEARS to learn how to spell it!

Movers and shakers and smoked fish!

Since we operate a business here in town, we participate in the Port Wing Area Business Association.  The purpose of the group, of course, is to promote businesses in town and to promote the town.  It's only been operating for a few years, like maybe five, so the group is still working out how best to do what we need to do as a group.

Today there was a tour of the three area towns--Port Wing, Herbster and Cornucopia--organized by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. and the Bayfield County Econ. Dev. Corp.  The tour was meant to familiarize the new state WECD rep with our area, and how they can help us as small towns that could use some economic development!

The lunch was followed by a lunch discussion with those interested at the Village Inn in Cornucopia.  Our county supervisor for our area, "Bucky," provided the appetizers in the form of smoked ciscoes, fresh from the smokehouse!

He even demonstrated how to eat them--take off the head and tail, peel off the skin, and the meat pretty easily falls away from the bones.  Delicious!  Then for lunch a Lake Superior whitefish sandwich was one of the choices.  Again, delicious!

And the discussion was pretty good, too, although it shows the frustrating levels of bureaucracy that exist in this state, and that the things we want to do will all take some work...and working together.  Maybe that last part will be the hardest!

On our way home today we decided to take "the back way" which is on Touve (too-vee...it's Finnish) Road.  It's the first time we've gone on this road since last fall because it can be tricky to navigate sometimes, depending on weather conditions.  Today the road was great and we saw some cool things, like...

...lupines in bloom.  They grow all over up here near the Lake, also lots of them in Duluth.  Leann always collects the seeds in late summer and has planted them around our house, down in our ravine, and along our road.  She also read the book Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney to her students back when she was working, a book about a woman from Maine who wanted to find a way to make the world a more beautiful place.

Then on down the road, sitting on a fence post in an open field, we saw a bobolink!  Leann said she has seen a bobolink here one other time but that was several years ago.  Don't know if this one was just passing through or staying for a while.

And, an update on the picture shelter, the roof is on and it's almost ready for a picnic!

One more picture of beautiful pinkish apple blossoms.  The petals are beginning to fall, rain is predicted for tonight, so they'll be gone soon.

 One more thing, a couple people at the meeting today said that there is still a large iceberg floating over beyond Bayfield somewhere.  Also, there is still more ice over near Michigan.  It's June! It's nuts!