Really...what more could you want?

Would you buy a t-shirt with this on the front?

We got the idea for this from a shirt I bought when we were in Boston last fall, so I'm probably violating copyright of the idea by creating this one.  It's all our own work though.  We compiled the list of places, groups, events and other Port Wing high points.  I got them all arranged using a graphics program, Leann did the drawings, I squeezed them into the design, and it looks like this. Maybe I should copyright this version!

Now comes the t-shirt decisions for possible sales this summer.  How many to order?  What sizes?  And most importantly, what color(s)?  I was once in charge of t-shirt/sweatshirt sales for a group in my past life and I had boxes of leftovers around long after anyone had any interest anymore!  In fact, we probably still have a couple around here...

And I guess an ever more important question is whether I have missed some key group or event.  Anyone see anything I should add?  I'm sure I can fit it in somewhere!

Winter Projects 2015

Maybe you've heard...no ice caves this year.  By this time last year we were beginning a six-week spree of B&B guests coming to see the ice caves.  Not this year.  Down at The Lake, some days it's ice as far as you can see and the next day, open water.   There are some bays that have enough ice for regular winter activities.  Today we were in Ashland which is on Chequamegon Bay.

The bay was dotted with fish houses for those people who go fishing through the holes they drill in the ice.  Now, imagine a line going across the bay from Ashland to Washburn, and then picture yourself skiing or snowshoeing that 10km route in Book Across the Bay happening this Saturday evening.  Pretty cool!

From the website:

Book Across the Bay is the upper Midwest's most unique winter event, open to skiers and snowshoers of all ages and ability levels. The 10-kilometer course, which is groomed for both classic-style and skate skiing, starts in Ashland and ends in Washburn, and follows a route not on land, but over the frozen surface of Lake Superior, the world's largest lake. The event is held at night, and the course is lit by the stars above and up to 1,000 candles in ice luminaries that line the entire route.

So, since we don't have B&B guests, we can spread out with all our winter projects.  Below is one of mine that I started a couple weeks ago, spread out all over the dining room.  Because of circumstances, I ended up with several plastic storage bins full of family pictures and documents from my mother's and father's families that span the years back to the 1850's.  Added to these are all of the pictures from my immediate family and my family since my girls were born.

Most of the time I love going through all of these things and see how people looked through the years.  I always learn something new.  At a point in time back when my parents were still living, I was able to sit with them to go through and label the pictures.  Unfortunately many of the pictures aren't labeled so then I try to play detective to figure them out.   

 Above are pictures of my mother as a little girl and as a young woman in the late '30's.  I'm scanning them and deciding what I should keep and what can become digital family records.  It becomes a lot of deciding!!

The pictures below are from my father's family and these are all from Sweden.  No labels.  Back in the early 1990's I sent photo copies of these to one of the older relatives in Sweden.  He identified some, but most he didn't recognize either.  The lesson in all of this??  Label your pictures while you still can!

And while I'm obsessing over pictures, Leann is cleaning up her quilting stash of flannel fabric by making LOTS of baby quilts.  These aren't her usual "conversation quilts" that we give away as gifts.  These are just soft, colorful baby quilts made using leftover flannel, and she donated them all to the Fig Leaf Thrift Store in Iron River, 15 miles south of here.  Now she has moved onto a different pattern, but I'll post them later.

But it's only early February, so there are more projects to come.  Stay tuned!

Parks and Recreation and Weeding?

To my surprise, we now have the start of a park up in the meadow/orchard behind our house.  You may remember, or maybe you've seen it, previously we had several trails leading through areas of grass and weeds as tall as I am.

But then Leann had an idea.  She talked to Carl, a neighbor up the road who has a tractor and brush-hog, and now we have the start of a park!

He said he could get it down shorter, but it's pretty tough since it hasn't been mowed--or tilled--in over 50 years.  This used to be a field where they grew crops until farming stopped and it went wild with apple trees and weeds.

I told him we'd call him back for another go at it next year, and he suggested doing it in July before all the weeds go to seed.  As it was, he said, he was really just spreading seeds yesterday...and not the good kind!

I was driving around in our 4-wheeler while he was working, but without our defined trails, I got pretty disoriented.  We still have our little numbered markers, but the trails are blended into the whole mowed area.  Of course, now we can drive wherever we want and don't need the trails!  I hope we don't get lost!

I know Leann is already planning how she's going to mow up closer to the apple trees and REALLY get the "park" looking nice!

And speaking of looking nice, our little post office was moved to its new building on Washington Street sometime in the early 1980's.  At the time my father was newly retired here and offered his landscaping expertise and his labor to landscape the south side of the building by the parking lot.  

Fast forward to summer, 2014.  The USPS has cut the hours of our post office so it's only open noon to 4pm weekdays and a couple hours Saturday morning.  Our postmistress had to cram more work into fewer hours (surprise, surprise!) and the weeds were taking over.

So we went down there today and took a first stab at cleaning it up a little.  After just a half hour, a small section was cleared out, a giant weed/tree was whacked out of a good tree, and the back end of Cammie was full of brush!

Just a little less shaggy but we'll be back...with a broom next time!

Don't you just love black-eyed Susans?

Plein Air 2014 - All wrapped up!

It's been happening too much lately.  Evening comes and I'm so tired from the day's activities that I don't sit down to post.  But I wanted to get the Plein Air activities posted since it occupied a large part of our day.

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It happened to me last year, too.  I hang around these artistic people for a couple days and I almost consider picking up a brush to paint something...besides a house or a wall or something like that.  The closest I've come lately to using that well-hidden part of my brain was when I was playing the iPhone app, Draw Something, with some of my friends.  I'd like to take the easy way out and blame the art teacher I had back in grades 5-7.  How can you get a C in 5th grade art???  And then I never had any more art instruction in my life!  But these people inspire me, at least for these few days every year.

So, as I posted yesterday, the Quick Paint part of the weekend occurred this morning.  The artists choose their spot in a certain area down by the Lake, they get the official stamp on the back of their canvas, and the painting begins at 10am.  Time's up at 11:30, then time to prepare paintings for judging.

Here are some pictures from the Quick Paint this morning:

This artist is painting the artist in front of him.  I guess that's a different take on plein air painting.

This is Diane and she was one of our B&B guests.  She enjoys painting flowers and found these beautiful wild roses growing along the banks of sand.

This is another of our guests, Lee, painting his wife, Rose, out on the dock with the fishing boat behind.  And she's the lucky one.  She was able to read all during the time he was painting!  And below is from another angle.

This is our friend, Dee, painting down near the boat landing.  And look at that boat!  The boat owner was supposed to meet a friend there but the friend went to the wrong town/marina.  And lousy phone reception made this mix-up even more troublesome for them.  That whole area forward of the windshield is living space for those on board.  I'm sure it goes pretty speedy-fast, too!

Have you seen these Little Free Libraries?  Leann has been planning for at least a year to get one set up out by our road, but this person down by the lake beat her to it.  This one has quite a selection--everything from Madeline L'Engle to Ayn Rand!

This was another of our guests, Robert, and his painting won one of the honorable mentions of the day.

The judging took place starting at 2pm and at 3 the Town Hall opened for the public showing.

Below are some of the Quick Paint entries:

Here's the first prize winner.  I had a picture of him painting that in yesterday's post.

Below is second place, one of the few area barns remaining, and even a mixed media entry done by Denise, another of our friends.

I don't know if I will be picking up a paintbrush anytime soon, but being with these people is inspiring all the same!  But if you would like to come and participate, Port Wing Plein Air will take place next year, July 30-August 1st!

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And because we didn't have enough to do today, we also picked some of our produce and Leann took it to today's Saturday Market.  Two kinds of onions, beets, yellow squash, and several kinds of herbs...and some of my dishcloths, too!  Coming up now are green beans, peas, cucumbers and, eventually, tomatoes.  This next month should be lots of fun!

Port Wing - celebrating art "en plein air"

A few years ago, a couple people in Port Wing decided to invite a few artists to the first ever Port Wing Plein Air Painting Festival.  This event has grown from about 7-8 artists that first year to over 20 this year and it's happening this weekend!

Starting on Thursday the artists find choice spots around town or within a five mile radius, set up their easels, and begin painting "en plein air" or out in the open air.  They spend Thursday and Friday painting however many pictures they choose.  Then on Saturday morning beginning at 9:30 they participate in the "Quick Paint."  For that they must choose a spot down around the marina area by Lake Superior, the horn sounds at 9:30, and they have an hour and a half to paint their "Quick Paint" entry.

After the Quick Paint, the artists have some time to frame the pictures they want to enter in the afternoon exhibit at the Town Hall.  The judging begins at 2pm.  Finally at 3 the doors of the Town Hall open and the public is invited to come in and see the results of all their artistic endeavors in the last couple of days.  Prizes are awarded for the items chosen first-second-third by the judge, and the public can select their favorite for the "Peoples' Choice" award.  It's a great event!

Here are some pictures we took today of artists here and there around town:

Tomorrow: Pictures from the exhibit!

Catching up from the holiday weekend

I can't believe I haven't posted since June 30th!  One friend/faithful reader emailed to see if we were okay, and I had no good excuses--some days with nothing to post and other days too tired to post!  So now I'm catching up.

This weekend was the annual Flea Market at the Town Hall, sponsored by the Historical Society with all proceeds going to the Heritage Hall Museum here in town.

Part of the draw are all the vendors who pay for a booth to sell their wares, either outside under the pavilion or inside the Town Hall.

Another part are all the "fleas"--donated items from people in town--that are put out for sale on all the tables inside the hall.  At noon on the second day of the Flea Market--today--everything goes on sale for half price.

And a BIG part of what brings people in is the lunch that is served during the sale days--brats, sloppy Joes, coney dogs, potato salad, macaroni salad, all kinds of bars and pie with ice cream--mostly rhubarb or raspberry pies.  Good stuff from good cooks!

Then when it's all done (this afternoon), anything left over gets boxed up for the next "fleas" destination.  And then we start collecting for next year!

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Catching up: Tuesday was CSA Day and here's what came in this week's box:

Fresh Bayfield strawberries, rhubarb, two kinds of Bibb lettuce, Swiss chard, garlic scapes and a jar of apple cider from a Bayfield orchard.  I never knew what a garlic scape was until a couple years ago.  They are the long stringy, sometimes curly, things by the cider jar.  The CSA people included a recipe for hummus made with the scapes, garbanzo beans, olive oil and cilantro--which was also in the box.  I made it and it was pretty good and VERY garlic-y!  Had the strawberries for breakfast.

One last catch-up item was this little guy visiting one morning:

I think he's a cecropia moth but he isn't the most colorful one I've ever seen, especially against that wood planter!

Oh, and I also found a wood tick firmly attached to the back of my knee.  Now I'm on "tick watch" for the dreaded "target" shape that is said to show up around the original bite. Yuck!

An afternoon at the Port Wing Heritage Hall

Today I did my first shift for this summer, staffing our museum from 1-4pm when it's open to the public.  This museum came to be back in 2001 following the big Port Wing Centennial celebration.  They had collected so many items for the Centennial displays and then decided they should build a museum to permanently house those treasures.  So, lots of volunteer hours and $40,000 in donations later, they had a museum...and lending library!

Behind the museum you can also visit the old Port Wing jail and also what they call the "Booth Building" which housed a commercial fishing operation at one time.  Both of those buildings were moved to this location.  Also inside the Booth Building is a miniature replica of the town as it looked in the early 1900's.  Pretty fun!

We are very fortunate to have a talented and hard-working curator, Soney Rockenbach, who has spent the last 13 years organizing and recording all of the donated items, and setting up thoughtfully arranged displays by topic and category.

It's nice when people can feel confident in those running the museum to trust them with their family treasures.  There are LOTS of items from the Larson family farm taking up space here!

The sign on this chair says, "Parlor chair from the home of Fred & Regina Larson."  And,
"Fred Larson was the first homesteader to move his family to Port Wing."  

This is the carding bench and carding brushes from our farm.

Lots of old toys, some from our old house.

Nice displays with informative captions and signs.

Lots of family histories in these notebooks!  Each family has contributed their stories and memories of family members to the contents of these notebooks.  What a treasure for a little town!

And below is the Lending Library corner.  This is run on the honor system and has been cared for all these years by my friend, Sandy.  Today, since I was going to be there for a few hours, she mentioned that I could help her weed out the old stuff so it can go to the flea market fundraiser for the museum next weekend.  So I was back "reading shelves"--putting the shelves in alphabetical order, and weeding per her criteria--anything older than 10 years old or any duplicates.  When everything is donated, and there isn't an abundance of shelf space, it could get to be kind of a conglomeration over time.  So clearing up the old stuff in time for the flea market leaves room for new donations in the future.  And I felt like I was "back on the job" again!  Thanks, Sandy!