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October 21, 2007

snow!

There is nothing better than waking up and seeing THIS out the window for the first time in the season. I am so excited I can hardly stand it. The wind was howling last night when we went to bed, blowing all that nice 70 degree weather out of the way to make room for the snowstorm. It is still snowing (but no wind), which is all the better. Michael has to restrain me from going out a buying a Christmas tree right now. The house finches are so cute today, I swear they are looking at me with puppy dog eyes and asking to come inside. The blue jays, on the other hand, seem to thoroughly enjoy it.

I've not been feeling well which is why I've been away from blogland for a while, but I am mostly better now. Michael kept asking when I was going to update the blog and many times I offered to show him how to do it...but he didn't bite.

October 21, 2007 by Lynn in colorado | permalink | comments (6)

October 6, 2007

squash, apples and cheese

This morning I went along for the annual fall pilgrimage to Gays Mills to the squash stand and the apple orchard. Last year Mom, Leslie and Cina discovered a roadside farm stand that sells winter squash of every variety (and pie pumpkins, pictured above) for only 50 cents each! Obviously, everyone wanted to return to this cucurbita bargain bonanza. The squash are straight from the field and still covered in dirt. Limited by space in the car, we only bought 30.

Then we went to one of many apple orchards up in the bluffs above the Mississippi River. We found everyone's favorite apple, a relatively new variety called Honeycrisp, for only $28/bushel, whereas other orchards sold them for as much as $74/bushel! So we had to get a bushel of Honeycrisps to add to the apples we bought the day before. (The $28/bushel apples were seconds, but who cares!) Apparently I missed out on this apple craze all these years including the introduction of the famous Honeycrisps, not living anywhere where apple orchards are prolific. But everyone else walked into the store knowing exactly which was their favorite apple (Gala, Jonathan, Jonagold, Honeycrisp, and so on).

Then we went to the cheese store, where Ryan plugged his nose the entire time. I was delighted that they had a Norwegian brown cheese called Gjetost. I bought it once before thinking I owed it to my Scandinavian heritage to try it out, and it turns out Michael thought it was the best cheese ever. I haven't seen it in a store ever since, until today.

So I am returning to Colorado with a bushel of apples, a dozen squash, a sack of cheese, and at my brother Ben's insistence a few bottles of "the best BBQ sauce on earth," Cookie's Country Style (made in Iowa). From my parent's freezer, add several packages of frozen corn (this summer's harvest), a loaf or two four of my Mom's zucchini bread, and some homemade strawberry rhubarb jam. I guess you could call it a haul. Michael might not have liked my being gone for so long but I at least I can make it up to him with food, and after all, is there any other way?

October 6, 2007 by Lynn in wisconsin | permalink | comments (6)

October 5, 2007

mississippi river

Mom, Leslie, Ryan and I are visiting my Aunt Cina at her place on the Mississippi River in southern Wisconsin near Prairie du Chien. Cina has a trailer she parks here all summer and spends many if not most weekends here spring through fall. Yesterday and today Ryan fished off the dock and caught perch, crappie and bluegills. He also drove the boat, played in the leaves, ate s'mores, went to the pumpkin patch and...took a 2.5 hour nap today.

Cina and her friends have been coming to the river "for 50 years" but she only had a trailer here for the last 10 or so.

October 5, 2007 by Lynn in wisconsin | permalink | comments (2)

October 4, 2007

it's a bird, it's a plane

October 4, 2007 by Lynn in iowa | permalink | comments (0)

September 30, 2007

barn

September 30, 2007 by Lynn in iowa | permalink | comments (0)

September 28, 2007

ally and remus

September 28, 2007 by Lynn in iowa | permalink | comments (2)

September 27, 2007

harvest in iowa

I am spending a couple weeks at home in Iowa, arriving just in time for harvest season. I was thinking this might be the first time I've been home this time of year since, well, high school. The farm is in action - all the farms around here are in action. I might even ride in the combine this week, which would be the first time I've done that since I was, errr, 10? This is my brother Ben combining corn - he has forbade me from putting his picture on the blog in the past so this is as close as Ben will ever come to making an appearance here!

September 27, 2007 by Lynn in iowa | permalink | comments (0)

September 24, 2007

eleven mile state park

We had a pretty lazy weekend but on Sunday we went for one of those aimless Sunday drives and ended up at Eleven Mile State Park, a place we've never been to before. It was a cold and rainy day and even though the Aspens were much more yellow than last weekend, they weren't as pretty without the sun. Eleven Mile is a wild windswept place nearly devoid of people this time of year but I suspect is teeming with fishermen in the summer. They had a nice state park campground (with hookups) but the landscape of the campground looked much like the picture above, including the absence of trees. I doubt we will ever bring the trailer here, but if we had a boat.....

September 24, 2007 by Lynn in colorado | permalink | comments (0)