Taking the long way to the garlic farm

Today we got the call that we could pick up our garlic.  This is from our neighbors who have been raising garlic here for probably twenty years or more.  We thought they had ended their garlic business two years ago, but it turns out the weather ended their garlic business for those two years--especially 2013 when we got 53 inches of snow in April.  Not good for garlic!  But this year they had a bumper crop and it was time to pick up our order.

Since they live just around the corner and up the road, we decided to take the back way...the REALLY back way...back through our woods.  This is a trail we haven't attempted since sometime early this spring because it's been so wet.  But today would be the day.

This is what it looks like at the start:

Even when it's really grown up--like it is now--you can usually tell where the trail is, or at least Leann can.  Today there was one point where she asked ME where the trail was.  She should have known better!

When several weeks/months have passed without going through on these trails, we often run into places with branches and logs crossing the trail.  Some are small and just require a clippers like the ones below.

And some are bigger and need to be dealt with in a major way or we need to back up and turn around.  Luckily we had the right equipment with us.

 This giant mushroom was right in the middle of the trail.  I placed the saw next to it for some perspective.

The rest of the trail was pretty uneventful, but she put the pedal to the metal so we could get through the swampy parts without getting stuck.  And then on to the garlic farm.

But first, here are some of their onions!  We got to go upstairs in their barn where they have already dried all the garlic--and onions--and have them all organized by kinds.

She had all her garlic orders arranged in boxes like this, all categorized by numbers according to the varieties she's planted this year.

And here's her list of kinds of garlic for this year--22 kinds!  And she still has more left after all her orders, so if you'd like some garlic, I'll let her know!  And the sad part is that she says this is absolutely her last year of doing garlic.

She wants to have more time to do/plant more of what she wants to do.  Their gardens--flower, succulent and vegetable--are all beautiful.  We love going there to see what's growing.  She has two climbing bean plants that must be 10 feet high!  Below are some of her dried beans--this one is the yin yang bean.

 And here are some more beautiful beans.  Don't you love the colors?  So we went home with our garlic and two eggplants--a variety that grows up in this climate...unlike the ones we planted that DON'T grow in this climate.  As with all things garden, live and learn from others!

Sometime around 7:30 we went for a ride down to the lake.  It seemed almost too dark at our house to catch the sunset, but we made it in time.  This is the marina area looking west.

And this is the slough or backwaters looking east toward tonight's showy full moon!

Wow!  Just, wow!

Harvesting onions & celebrating pottery

I celebrated this "first day of school" by signing up online to receive Social Security benefits following my birthday in November when the big 62 comes to pass!  First, cool that you can do it online.  I thought I'd have to make an appointment.  But, some day down the road I'm sure I'll regret not waiting until 65, or 66, or later, but, hey, YOLO!

And then we went out and pulled the BIG onions!  But we screwed up!  We cut off the tops.  Then when I drove downtown to pick up our CSA box, Mike had all his 7 boxes of onions lying there drying...with their tops still on and drying...  So I asked him, "Are we supposed to leave the tops on?"  And, of course, the answer was yes, leave them on until they dry completely.  Oh well, some day we'll get it!

 We ended up with about 60 white, yellow, and red onions about this size (minus the tops).  Our friend who gave us the little onion plants for these last May said today that they have harvested 400 onions like this!

Then it was time for today's kiln-opening at our friends, Gregory & Terese, who do the beautiful pottery (and sell books!).  At least we thought 1:30 was the starting time, but seeing no one, we headed down for a quick trip to check out Twin Falls.  (It started at 3pm, but first the falls.)

No pictures can show the real beauty of this spot because you just can't get high enough or wide enough for a good shot.  But above is the south side of the gorge that has been worn away through the years.   And below are the two falls--one at the top left and the other on the bottom middle.  

 The best way to view this is to walk up the creek from the parking lot and see it from the bottom...but not today!  That is a favorite painting spot for the Plein Air artists when they come to Port Wing.

And here are a couple of the fungi types we saw along the path.

And now, time for the Kiln-Opening!  The firing took place a couple days ago and the celebration and showing happened today.  The kiln is in a building to the right of the picture.  Here's my post from a similar event back in June.

 Here are some of their pieces from the kiln today.   They have added a couple new glazes and techniques so there is always a new tempting piece to add to our collection.

 Today we purchased a new mug and a smaller plate for serving breakfast items.  They always have yummy snacks to go with the celebration.

(I think it's time for some tea in my new cup!)

And below is today's produce from the CSA box.  Quite a selection this time!  We already had the beans and cucumber for dinner, but I feel the need for some vegetable soup so I can use that celery on the left.  And tomorrow...basil pesto for sure!

Saturday Market & a visit from the "neigh"bors!

Today was the third Saturday Market of this summer.  We had guests here so Leann waited until after we served breakfast to go down there with our "treasures."  Everyone--vendors and customers--was pretty enthusiastic today because the sun was shining and they didn't have to wear their winter clothes to stay warm!  In fact, there was this weird mix of a warm blast of moist, humid air from the south one minute, and a cold Lake "breeze" from the north the next.  But overall, much warmer that the last two Saturdays!

The selection of produce is getting larger every week.  Rhubarb and lettuce has expanded to varieties of radishes, beets, kohlrabi, and onions.  What will next week bring?

A plethora of hens & chicks, next to the artwork and fresh eggs.

Little "hobbits" made from items from nature and lots of hand-made rugs

 Some of our "treasures" - most will be added to the Historical Society's Flea Market nest weekend.

 Right next to the pavilion a 4-H group was doing a freewill donation carwash.

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This afternoon I checked the SD card from our wildlife camera, currently pointed at our front garden,  and this is what I found:

The "neigh"bors stopped by for a look at the garden.  They must have just been passing through, because they left no sign they were there--not even a deposit we could have used to amend the soil!

6:27am...I guess I need to get up earlier to greet our guests!

Fields & ditches are full of colors!

Our field in front of our house is full of colors!

These flowers probably have other names, but for me the white ones are daisies, the yellow are buttercups, and the red ones are hawkweed.  

When I exclaimed about all these buttercups today, I was reminded that probably all of these flowers are weeds of some kind.  But I like them.  The daisies remind me of a June weekend back when I was much younger--junior high maybe--and my cousin, Charlotte, and I were combing the ditches and fields here in the area, picking daisies for my Uncle Oscar & Aunt Alice's big anniversary party in the church basement--their 50th or 60th, can't remember which.  We had lots of daisies for lots of table bouquets!

In late May this field is usually full of another noxious weed, but, yes, I love seeing all the dandelions, too...at least when they are in their yellow phase.  And now we get to have horses in the background!  Below is the new little colt that was born back in April.  So cute!

We finally got some rain tonight after about a week with nothing.  Summer is still avoiding us!

Those darn crows!

Big storm last night, some rain, lots of wind, but nothing seemed damaged until...I checked on our raised garden beds.  Carnage in the green beans!

Something pulls the seedlings out, nipped them in half on the stems, and left it looking like this.  And we're blaming the crows!  Usually when I plant seeds, I used 2 or more for each plant...it allows for my possibly poor planting techniques, and then I thin them after they come up.  But did I do that this time?  No, one seed per plant so no extras for after the crows attacked.  I replanted the ones that were still whole and threw in some more seeds for another try.   

And then Leann made this frame--we draped the netting over the top, netting that we use to cover the grapevines in the fall until we pick the grapes.  If anything, the crows will fly in and get twisted up in the netting.  Oh well...

 This afternoon for Father's Day, Leann found a good spot for the metal sculpture she bought as a memorial for her Dad who passed away last November.  She was created by Sara Balbin and we bought her from Hoth-Lee Art Gallery here in town.  And she's reading and has dragonflies flying around her.  Perfect!

And, strangely enough, we had a power outage late this afternoon that lasted for five hours!  It wasn't really stormy in our area when the power went out, but we heard a tree went down on a power line west of town.  That doesn't sound like a 5-hour incident though; Xcel usually gets it back on pretty fast.  We went down to our friends at the Gallery where eventually we had quite a gathering of friends waiting for the power to return.

After the storm...

Icebergs, soggy trails and foggy evenings

When I made my trip down to the harbor today, I was surprised to see this iceberg island covered with seagulls!  I couldn't zoom as close as I wanted, but I think you can tell it's a pretty big chunk of ice!  Then my thoughts went to whether the birds were some variety of Arctic tern that took a wrong "turn" and ended up on our ice island.  (JK) Pretty cool, I thought.

Ice along the beach - it's going to be hard to wade this summer...

And earlier today, I saw this website (below) of pictures of other icebergs taken this past weekend.  These were taken over in the Bayfield area and are really quite beautiful. If you'd like to see more, just click on the link in the caption area.

http://thecookerymaven.com/2014/05/an-iceberg-expedition-on-may-17th/

In my quest to get my 10,000 steps every day, I went for a walk up into the fields behind our house.  I should have worn boots!  All the rain showers we've had lately create lots of little streams and puddles, making walking a challenge.  I don't know when we'll be able to drive Cammie, our Ranger utility vehicle, up there.  (Cammie - because it's camo-decorated.)  Here are some pictures:

The dead-looking trees are apple trees with blossoms and buds still hidden.  Hoping for a great apple year this year!

Leann put this mailbox up on our trails for people to leave notes on their walks.  But right now the trails are all pretty soggy like the picture.  Maybe if/when the frost finally goes out.

 After my meeting tonight, I still needed 3000 more steps, so I took off up our road...into the fog...kind of a Stephen King adventure.  The picture below is looking toward our house, so I just needed to head for the light...

And I got all my steps for today!

Start with something easy - painting signs!

Since we own a business here in town, we became involved with the local business association.  The purpose of a business association is to promote the businesses that are operating here now and do things to encourage new businesses.  And a big part of promoting businesses is to capture the attention of tourists and others passing through town to destinations such as Bayfield to the east or Duluth to the west.

One way we have planned to do that is to look at our town, especially along Highway 13, as if we were strangers "just passing through."  We decided that those things we see every day, but don't really pay attention to anymore, are like those cluttered corners or piles of things in our homes that we become accustomed to and don't see anymore.

So Leann and I started looking at signs around town and decided that some needed some freshening up.  That thought on our part coincided with a clean-up effort the town was planning and soon we had the first three directional signs in our garage for some painting touch-ups.

Done and ready to hang up again.

If you go through just about any resort town, you'll see signs like this - several boards fashioned into arrows, connected top to bottom with big hooks & eyes, and pointing in whichever needed direction.  This group of arrow signs originally consisted of six signs pointing toward "downtown" and the lake.

We got the first three signs right away because they were lying on the ground under the sign, so were easy to get to.  They were also easy to repaint because they weren't very worn yet.  So we got those done first.  Now we have two more and they are a little more of a challenge.  We're waiting for the sixth and final one but I guess it was put there to stay! Someone will figure out how to get it down.

These are older and have a black border around them.  And the sign for the school has the lettered routered out which we're hoping makes it easy to "paint by numbers" by filling in the ridges.

And now that we've started this, someone has suggested a SEVENTH sign to put up there - pointing the way to the beach, of course!  And we're also taking this opportunity to replace all the connecting hardware on all of the signs so it will be easier to work with them in the future.

Oh, yeah, the big Port Wing Clean-Up Day is on Saturday, May 31st.  Painting and cleaning up town parks is on the list of things to do.  Come and join us!

Memories of winter, begone!

All it took was one beautiful, nearly perfect May day, and it was almost as if our endless winter never happened.

Patch of lingering snow

Like after five months of snow, including two months of consecutive days of temps below zero, Mother Nature said, "Just kidding, time to start gardening."  So we did!

We started by adding two more raised beds behind the house, with two more to be added soon. We put layers of cardboard on the bottom to kill any weeds underneath.  As soon as spring road restrictions are lifted, we'll have a load of dirt delivered to fill them up.  (Road restrictions are posted on area roads in the spring preventing larger trucks from damaging roads before the roadbeds have thawed completely.  That didn't happen until the first of June last year, so we'll see what happens this year.)

I heard through the Port Wing grapevine, that now was a good time to plant onions, that it's good to get them started early.  I had just purchased onion sets for white and yellow onions earlier this week, so Leann prepped one of the raised beds from last year and I got them planted.  I had a little more room and we wanted some red onions, too.  I called our neighbor up the road who once specialized in raising garlic, but I knew that she had a shipment of onions to plant.  As it turned out, she had just finished planting all her onions and had some red ones left over.  She was just about to look around for somewhere to plant them when I called.  Good timing!

These are little onion plants compared with the onion sets, or little bulbs, that I have always used before.  She showed us some of the HUGE onions she still has left over from last year, so we'll see how they grow for us this year.  And next year we asked to be added to her group order for the rest of our onions, too.  

Two beds of onions and maybe it's winter PTSD, but I'm having a hard time believing that we can be planting anything in gardens yet!

And while we were picking up our onion plants, we noticed her box of potatoes she had ready to plant.  When I asked when she usually planted them, she said it should have been much earlier, but all the ice in the harbor told her it wouldn't do much good to plant at the usual time.  But any day now would be good. 

So, after we got all the onions planted, Leann dug up the potato bed so now it's all ready.  I think we'll make a trip to Iron River tomorrow to get some potatoes to plant.

That was a new bed last year and we didn't get it started until sometime into June.  You've heard this before, but we had to wait for the road restrictions to be lifted so we could get our delivery of dirt.  Then we tried something new.  We laid out the potato pieces with eyes on top of the dirt, then put layers and layers of straw on top.  The potatoes grew right up through the straw and made digging the potatoes really easy in the fall.

Last year's potato bed

Easy-peasy!  

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P.S. All of this fresh air today must have contributed to my extreme nap tonight.  I woke up for the evening news and nearly forgot that I was a blogger!  Whew!  Got it done in time!