Driving the back roads and dead ends

The sun was shining again today!  Well, most of the day anyway.  So we went for a ride to see the pretty trees.  We didn't go far, in fact we weren't more than 20 miles from home but we found several new-to-us sites.

Most sightings were pretty to see but the first one was just fun.  Goats--lots of goats and one horse...and one dog that was doing its job and making us feel unwelcome.

We wondered if this was one of the sources of all the goat cheese that is available in stores and restaurants around here.  Looks like an interesting farm.

Our next new road was Romans Point Road, East and West.  This road, loaded with beautiful homes, follows along the Lake Superior shore on the west side looking out on Bark Bay and around on the east side facing Siskiwit Bay.

At the bottom of the east side was a dead end road called Lost Creek Road and it led to this beautiful access point for kayaks, paddleboards or canoes, or maybe even wading people on a warmer day.  

Looking up Lost Creek.

 Looking across to Cornucopia across Siskiwit Bay

Now we're in Cornucopia where we had lunch at the Village Inn and where we found another beautiful, sandy beach.  We never knew this was here or that it was so accessible down west of the marina.  We usually go to the beach on the east side so this one was fun to discover.

And at the marina we saw this definite sign of fall, or winter soon-to-come, with all the big boats out of the water, high and dry.

Our final stop was a quick turn-and-park right off Highway 13.  We've seen this turn-out hundreds of times and finally stopped.  A short walk down a path and here is yet another sandy beach...with LOTS of drift wood--really big drift wood!

The signage for this stop seemed to be directed to anglers but you'd have to be dedicated to fishing to make use of it.  It was NOT accessible!  You'd need to crawl down a muddy bank and through some mucky water to get to the nice sand bar and beach.  Someone had tried to improve it with a couple sets of rickety steps and then a plank to get across the muck.  But...we didn't do that and just enjoyed the view.

Tomorrow:  More kinds of pickles!

Compost, cherry blossoms, forget-me-nots...and bones

After our day away yesterday, we felt like we had to hit the grounding running this morning.  Our first task this morning, however, was doing tech support to help Leann's sister get some pictures on her Caring Bridge site.  It's tricky to try to help someone over the phone without being able to see their screen...frustration on both ends of the phone call.  But we got it done!  Starting a Caring Bridge site has been so great for Kristi as she deals with her cancer, and chemo, and all of the stresses that go with that.  It's been a great way to keep her friends and relatives up on what's going on with her.  If you know Kristi or would like to wish her well on her site, please email me and I'll get you the info you need.

So back to the yard work and gardening.  Leann used some composite boards she got from her other sister and made this second compost bin.

Now we can start moving compost from the old one to the new, revealing the "black gold" in the bottom of the old one.  We hope...

Next, we made a trip through the orchard where we saw the trees had tiny beginnings of leaves, with blossoms soon to break through.  And then we saw this...

...the first cherry blossoms.  If you looked at all the buds that will soon open up, you'd think that tree would eventually be LOADED with cherries.  Somehow it never works that way, though.  It would be great if we could keep the temps up above freezing from here on out.  If the blossoms freeze, then no fruit, which was what happened to all our apples and cherries two years ago.  

A couple weeks ago I mentioned in a post that the forget-me-nots would be coming up in our ravine soon.  Well, soon is now and there are blue forget-me-nots all over.  

Unfortunately, they are so little that they don't show up in pictures very well.  I love all the shades of green!

Forget-me-nots and dandelions - that's spring to me!  After the dandelions turn into the stems with seed fluff, I'm not as interested in them!

Hidden in all this long grass and forget-me-nots are some of the rocks that form the outline of the labyrinth we made last fall.  I was going to try mowing the labyrinth for the first time--it's going to be tricky, I'm afraid--but I was reminded that we can't mow the forget-me-nots!  

And finally, the bones.  I looked down and saw this -- part of the jawbone of a deer.  You just have to wonder how things like that show up without the rest of the bones.  And not far from this is the feather evidence of a couple of turkeys.  Hard winter!

All day - just going from one thing to the next

Today is Saturday, so it's Dump Day, of course.  A quick trip to the marina and we found that the circle drive was so full of people and cars with boats, that it was almost too crowded to get through.  So the holiday weekend has begun and the fishermen are out on the lake!  It's one of those days when it's 70˚ up at our house and 46˚ down at The Lake, 2 miles away.  You can just feel the cold air from the lake colliding with the warm air coming up from the south.

We put in a few more hours this morning painting the Town Hall pavilion, adding more Town Hall Green to the posts and trim.  We left about noon, but we hear that the painting continued until about 6pm tonight.  That old wood just sucks up the paint, and they had to go buy two more gallons of white paint.  It should be done soon!

Then home to wait for our guests - Leann's Mom, two sisters and nephew.  But first I made a new batch of our granola, seen below.  Oatmeal, slivered almonds, coconut, dried cherries, cranberries, apricots, and honey to bring it all together.  Tastes great with yogurt and all ready for summer guests!

Homemade granola out of the oven and cooling

Leann's family came in her sister's pickup pulling a trailer loaded with a new (to us) riding mower and a new (for real) snowblower for next winter.  No more little city-sized snowblower! Next year we'll be able to make paths all over the farm!  But let's not think about snow anymore for a while.

Then, to our surprise, while using the new mower in our orchard, Leann's sister came back carrying something in her hand.  Morel mushrooms! (we think...)  We have NEVER seen morels ANYWHERE here in Port Wing.  Then they went back to look for more, and found another one.  They weren't very fresh, so we're going to dry them a little and crumble them under the tree where they were found.  Maybe the spores will make more for next year...now that we know they can be found here!

We finished off the night with a campfire and s'mores out in our newly-mown back yard, a gathering that lasted until long after dark.  While we watched the fire, we heard all kinds of "night sounds" - cows bellering on the neighbor's farm, frogs "peeping" in the woods, some kind of wild animal with a high, shrill distressed bark, and even some sirens - kind of a rare sound up here, but maybe not so rare on a big holiday weekend like this.

It was a full day.  We'll see what we can find for fun tomorrow!

A chicken from another mother

An old farm like this one is a ready source for a variety of old pieces of metal, large and small.  We find them in many ways--mowing over them hidden in the grass (not a good idea), tripping over them in our explorations of the fields and ravines, or just finding stashes of them here and there where buildings used to be.  And Older Daughter found several pieces on her visit here a couple summers ago when she tried out her childhood Radio Shack metal detector.  It was powered by a 9-volt battery and the whole outfit still worked after sitting in a closet for close to 20 years. (Never thought I'd say this, but "Go Radio Shack!")  All of these "finds" result in piles of collected pieces of old metal destined for...somewhere, sometime.

A couple years ago, our friend, Judy, who visited us earlier this week, mentioned that she had a friend who welded old pieces of metal into artwork.  Great!  A source for our metal!  And so every time Judy went back home the last few times, we loaded her car with more metal pieces for her friend, Sherrie.  And that's all I knew about it.

And now the rest of the story!  

I found out this week that Leann had asked if, as a gift to me, Sherrie could create a chicken out of her metal stash to satisfy my chicken longing.  She never had just the right parts for chickens, so instead she made this fancy bird-like creature and sent it up with Judy for delivery.

Meet our new addition!

Notice the beautiful rose up by her temple and the flowing feathers on her head.

 That fan-shaped piece behind the spoon tail feathers is ultimately the only piece of metal that came from us here.  And we have no idea what that was in it's first life.  Also a bicycle chain and the body is a really cool container of some kind that could hold a candle.  All in all, quite a treasure of treasures!

Don't you love those goo-goo-googely eyes!  And eyelashes?

And now she needs a name!  Ideas??

Thanks so much, Sherrie!

It's 1953. What's on TV (or radio) tonight?

A few days ago I posted some pictures and ads from a 1958 issues of Ladies Home Journal.  In that same collection of "old stuff," there was a single 4-page section from the May 8, 1953 St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press.  It was from an inner section so there wasn't any hard news but what caught my eye were the TV and radio (yes, radio) schedules, and what movies were showing in the theaters.

I was about 6 months old in May of 1953, but there were no TVs or radios in our house.  My parents and I lived with my maternal grandmother in a little town in west central Wisconsin.  Evidently there were rules in that household and one rule was that no radios or TVs or anything that makes noise was allowed by my grandmother.  (She must have made an exception for me.)  My cousins who are older than I am don't remember her as a very cuddly grandmother.  I kind of do but she died when I was quite young, so who knows what you remember as a child.  

Anyway, my parents and I moved to our own house across town when I was almost 5, and that's when my memories of radio shows and TV began!

First of all, I noticed that there are more radio schedules than those for the two TV stations.  Here's what was on TV that day:

That Wheel of Fortune you see?  Must have been a different one.  Other fun things I noticed - two soap operas and Guiding Light lasted all the way until 2009, Dave Garroway on what maybe became the Today Show, and Ding Dong School with Miss Francis!  Howdy Doody, John Cameron Swayze, and Ozzie & Harriet.  I see some wrestling (or rasslin') on channel 5.  I think I remember sitting with my dad watching wrestling.  Maybe it was a Friday night thing!

Below are all the lineups for the 6 main radio stations with some others along the side.  

Ozzie and Harriet were also on radio!  And I wonder who was on Barn Dance that night?  WDGY was the rock and roll station I remember but it doesn't look very rock-y back then.  What do you see?

And below are some of the movie listings.  I hope you can zoom in enough to see them if you are interested.  The only one I really recognize is High Noon with Gary Cooper.  I guess old movies isn't my thing so much.

And finally, there was an article about Christine Jorgenson who was back in the United States after having sex reassignment surgery in Copenhagen, Denmark the previous year.  The article was rather exploitative so I'm not going to post it here, but it was interesting to see it in light of what we've learned about gender dysphoria in the almost 60 years since then. 

1958 - It really is a long time ago!

We have two friends here who do some work for a company that comes into peoples' homes to help them organize their remaining belongings in preparation for an estate sale.  Usually people are downsizing to a smaller living space or perhaps it is the family clearing out a house for their deceased parents.  They always get a front-row seat on some interesting items for sale.

Most recently they worked in two different places that had LOTS of books to sell.  After the sale was over, they agreed to take all of those books back here.  We would go through them one last time, bring anything good to the public library, and sell the rest at our Historical Museum Flea Market sale this summer.  Yes, there are now 60 boxes of books in our garage, but not for long...I'm sure...

What caught my eye today was an old issue of Ladies Home Journal from August 1958!

I love seeing things like this to get a small glimpse into how we lived back then.  I was 5, almost 6, how about you?  This would have been a couple years before those early 1960's years from the TV show, Mad Men.

Right away in the first couple of pages was this ad for "Avon's popular fragrances...now in spray cologne."  Persian Mist, Cotillion, To a Wild Rose, and Here's my Heart.  I think I remember the last two on my mother's dresser.  

And this ad?  It's hardly changed a bit since 1958!  Just the baby has changed.

Even Norman Rockwell got into the ad game back then.  

I don't think we ever had French's Barber Pole Franks at our house.  Those "barber poles" are made with biscuit mix (Bisquick), back before we had Pillsbury crescent rolls to do about the same thing.

Yes, look what gas IS doing now!  A gas refrigerator and it makes ice??  First of all, I didn't know you could have a gas refrigerator and I never had one that makes ice until just two years ago!  

Some 1958 styles...

And you, yes you, could make ALL FIVE of these stylish outfits from one Vogue pattern!  

A slice of cheese and pimento ham loaf...on white bread - so 1958!

This might be why I'm not a big fan of marshmallows to this day!

One of the feature articles was about the very young Rev. Billy Graham, written by his mother-in-law!

In case you can't read the recipe, the ingredients include: lime gelatin (gelatin, not Jello!), tuna fish, cottage cheese, celery, onion, radishes and mayonnaise.  Now where did I put my jello molds!

This one really surprised me!  Who ever thought there would be the father in an ad for diapers? But on a closer read, it's because the father is the one who built the baby's world and he would ONLY choose the best diapers for him/her.

And here's actress and dancer, Cyd Charisse, selling us Lustre Cream shampoo.  I always wanted to make my hair look just like those ads!

And, finally, this was a little 2x2 inch ad in the far back ad pages of the magazine.  Maybe if we had all been using more olive oil in the last 56 years, we would all be a lot healthier!

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And I'd call this two inches of progress!  And maybe it's even more progress that it's pouring down rain now.