I think the hummingbirds have left...

I took the hummingbird feeder down. The darned bees had taken it over and the tiny birds were nowhere to be found. Must have started their migration. So glad I took this picture - aren't they just remarkable little creatures?

The garden is pretty much depleted. I looked for tomatoes today - nothing there but a few that had fallen to the ground. I'm canning salsa this week with the tomatoes that I do have. Love that salsa in the middle of winter. We've still got carrots and potatoes, though! Yum!! When we dig those up we'll have bounty for a few months.

It was chilly, today - didn't even make it to 60 degrees F. We've turned the furnace on and we're into the sweatshirt and jacket phase. I don't really mind which is fortunate since there's not much I can do about it, anyway. Jack took the boat out of the water and hauled it down to storage. We'll probably take the in the dock in the next week or so.

The rituals of autumn...

Things to do when I have time...

My address book

Inside my address book...

If I ever have time, I should say...now, this is not to say that I couldn't have enough time. I like to think that I am a multi-tasker but the real truth is that I get distracted easily; therefore, I always have several irons in the fire at the same time.

Like this address book of mine. Wouldn't it be just as easy to enter the newly acquired address of someone right in the address book? No...it's easier just to stick the piece of paper inside, close the cover and make a mental note to update "one of these days".

Well, one of these days I will do just that. But for now I need to finish a couple of other little projects...

Mary's Bean Plant and Brussel Sprouts

It's raining. I like a rainy day. I like being in the house on a rainy day. I made peanut butter cookies which, since it was cool, was a nice cozy rainy day sort of thing to do.

I could see the rain coming across the lake...well, it was the possibility of rain, actually. And, since I had neglected the poor garden the past couple of weeks I figured I'd better get out there and pluck some tomatoes before they all rotted. Plus I wanted to check the brussel sprouts.

Also, when 5-year old adorable sweetie pie Mary was here, she and Grandpa planted more lettuce and spinach and Mary, herself, planted another green bean plant. So I had to see what was happening there.

This is Mary's bean plant. It's just one plant and it has lots of leaves but no blossoms, yet. I'm still holding out hope that it'll produce a bean or two. She'd be just thrilled.

From back to front, this is celery, spinach and baby lettuces. We're having a salad tonight with our pasta...got some gorgeous cherry tomatoes, celery, peppers, chives and miscellaneous herbs to toss in, as well. Yummy.

So here are the brussel sprouts. They're coming along nicely. In fact, I picked a dozen or so to cook. There are four plants with sprouts in various stages of growth so I want to see if I should let them alone a little longer or not.

My vegetable basket was so heavy I honestly had difficulty carrying it up to the house! I left it all on the porch, though, because I needed to get back to work. I'll clean the produce and whip up a batch of salsa (maybe) later today.

Soon as I publish this post, I'm off to Squidooland. I'm feeling productive...better grab it while I can!

The Giant Squid Home Stretch

Well, folks, I've got eight days to go to qualify for Giant Squid. I need five more Squidoo lenses to make a total of 50 and then I've got to update a bunch of current pages. I. Can. Do. This.

Deciding on a subject can be tricky. It has to be something I know about or am interested in. It has to be something I think other people will want to read about or that other people will be searching for on the internet. And believe me, they aren't necessarily the same thing!

The cookbooks? Well, those are a bunch of diet plan cookbooks that I have acquired over the past few years. You know, you read about a diet and it sounds do-able. So you try it. You buy the cookbook and make a few of the recipes. More often than not that'll throw you totally off the plan. Either they're just tasteless or too complicated or involve buying a bunch of ingredients that you might not even use, again.

So I've tried a lot of these recipes and I decided to write a page with favorites of mine from all of the various diet plans. Some of them are REALLY good. Well, of course they are or I wouldn't be writing about them, would I.

Here's a start on that little project. It's My Favorite Diet Plan Recipes . There are many more that I've tried that are keepers so I'll be adding more recipes to it from time to time. What makes them keepers? Well, if I like them, of course, but more importantly if Jack likes them!

I'm giving myself until Sunday to finish the last five and that'll give me until the 30th to jazz up my old pages. Maybe I'll write an extra or two just to be sure.

Wish me luck.

To Akra and Back

This is the Pembina County Courthouse in Cavalier

A pretty Icelandic church at the Icelandic State Park

Another Icelandic church near Akra

Well, the trip to Akra was a bust. It's not there, anymore. I was so disappointed. I really wanted to see the Akra Store and there's not a thing there that even indicates that there ever was an Akra Store. The spot where the store sat was overgrown with trees and bushes.

The house next door wasn't there, either. It was the Morrisons' house and it had a big screened in porch on the front. It sat back on the lot a bit. They also had a barn just down the road a bit. Not there. Not the house or the barn. Akra has been relegated to a faded but fond memory. Life goes on.

I remembered the road past the store wound down around the river where my friend Patty and I used to play Nancy Drew! We were sleuths and very good ones, too. That's funny considering that my some of my favorite books are crime novels. However, I can't read them late at night - ha! Some sleuth I'd make.

I spotted Auntie Hanneson's house. She wasn't my aunt but that's what everyone called her. She was very, very old and when we asked her (as kids do) she would tell us that she was as old as the hills. We believed her. She would walk along the road and pluck the sheeps' wool from the fences and then go home, card it and spin in into yarn...she'd knit hats and mittens and I don't know what all. Auntie Hanneson's house isn't nearly as picturesque as it was...it's been updated but not in a good way. Or maybe that's just my memory at work.

We left Akra. For good.

We drove West of there to the Icelandic State Park. We just zipped through so I could shoot these photos of the old Church plus the church across the road from the park. You can really see the influence of the Icelandic culture in the architecture. Stark but beautiful, I think.

Then we traveled five miles East to Cavalier. Not much has changed. A few neat old buildings have been replaced with more modern buildings. I don't consider that much of an improvement, truth be told.

The Pembina County Courthouse is still there in all it's glory, though. We drove down to the City Park which is still pretty. There were (and still are) very nice homes near the park. I recognized many houses even though lots of them have been updated.

The school, on the other hand, would not be a point of community pride. Boy, whoever designed the improvements to that school would win no awards for aesthetics! All the big beautiful old school house windows (not energy efficient I'm certain) are gone. Am I crazy or do I remember trees around the school. No, I do remember trees. They lined the front of the school. There was grass. Now there's a parking lot. All concrete. Not even any shrubbery.

Well, enough of that. I'm sounding ungrateful and I'm not. We really did have a great trip. It was fun traveling back in time and it made me ever more thankful for my life as it is, now, and for my family and friends.

Thank goodness for Lake Mary.

Góðan daginn

Cavalier Movie Theater*

Yep! Góðan daginn, everyone! That's how you greet people in Iceland. It's the greeting this morning on my Flickr page...each day you are greeted in a different language. Kinda fun.

This morning's greeting is especially relevant because of our weekend plans. My brother-in-law from Washington is in North Dakota not far from where I grew up. He was up in Canada on a fishing trip - up in Flin Flon, Manitoba and he's heading back home tomorrow. Meantime, we're meeting him for dinner. It's his brother's birthday and he's treating - yay! It's a little more than a three hour drive from here, I think.

So how does this relate to my Icelandic greeting? Well, on Saturday morning Jack and I are going to drive up to Cavalier...that's the small town where I was raised. And we're going to also visit Akra which is so small (or at least it was) that in my mind I can count the houses there...I think six. Maybe seven. Akra was/is an Icelandic community. Pretty sure that we were the only people there who weren't Icelandic! Haven't been back there for at least 30 years.

It's where my parents owned a very small country store and we lived in the apartment right behind the store. It had the Post Office, a creamery and a gas pump! I even went to a one room school for a year. The stories I could tell...

So this is going to be a fun trip, I think. I'm taking my camera and I hope to get some good pictures. Old home week. I wonder how you say that in Icelandic?

Stay tuned.

*Photo courtesy of Flickr photographer afiler through Creative Commons.

Anise Hyssop

Anise Hyssop in our lakescape

One of the blogs that I follow is Healthy Green Kitchen. Today's post was about preserving herbs. I know all about preserving herbs by either drying them or freezing them in water (ice cubes) and even by steeping them in vinegar or oil.

But there are several methods that I've never thought of including preserving them in sugar or salt or honey, for goodness sake! So I'm reading this blog and I notice that she preserves anise hyssop. In honey. It makes sense. It has a licorice smell which would make a yummy honey.

We have TONS of anise hyssop in our lakescape! When we first planted that lake garden the anise hyssop grew so fast that I thought it was a weed and pulled it out. The leaves are sort of weed-like and the plant grows quite tall. It isn't ugly - it's just sort of weedy looking until it flowers.

So I Googled anise hyssop and this is what I learned. Both the leaves and the flowers are edible. Here's what you can do with anise hyssop:

• Makes a beautiful cut flower (That I knew)
• Potpourri
• Tea
• Flavor sugar or muffins (1/2 cup chopped fresh flowers) or cookies
• Flavored honey (You could flavor agave nectar, too, I'll bet...I love agave nectar)
• Use the flowers as a garnish for iced tea

I've read that a few Native American tribes used anise hyssop in cooking and in medicines. For example, the Cheyenne would make a tepid tea to relieve coughing from chest colds. The Dakota and Omaha tribes used it in cooking and the Iroquois prepared a poultice for burns and a wash to relieve the itching of poison ivy.

The Chippewa used it as a protective charm. They say to plant it by your back door or in a back border. It's in our lakescape which is about as far back as you can go without actually being in the lake!

I'm thinking about preserving herbs, this year. Maybe make some flavored oils or vinegars. And I really ought to make some anise honey. It will come in handy when we both have sore throats this winter...since we're not going to be gone all winter the odds are that we'll get SOMEthing.

Yeah, I think I'll do that. It takes about a month to brew.

More later.

Children's Birthdays - An Observation

We had a very full weekend. Drove to the Cities to babysit the twins on Saturday night and then stayed for their 3rd birthday party on Sunday.

We also took in the James J. Hill Days (he developed the Great Northern Railway) celebration in Wayzata...arts and crafts by the lake and an excellent car show - there were some pretty classy vehicles there including a Dusenberg. They were built in Indiana between 1920 and 1937. We wandered through the exhibits and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful day.

Then we went to "The Birthday Party"! A great time was had by all...the mom and the dad, the 3 year old twins, the grandparents (three sets - a sign of the times), aunties, uncles, cousins. There was a Dairy Queen cake featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. Apparently there was an animated discussion between the mommy and the twins about whether it should be a Dora the Explorer cake or a Thomas cake. It was settled in a compromise...a Thomas cake and Dora napkins. An amicable solution. The cake was delicious.

Lots of presents were opened amid a flurry of tissue and wrapping paper. The twins were just in awe. They wanted to play with each gift immediately, but were nice enough to wait until all were opened (wink).

Which got me to thinking...they would have been perfectly happy with one present! If there hadn't been a mound of gifts the little sweeties wouldn't have even minded.

Hmmm.....

Eggplant, Peppers, & Tomatoes

I started this post right after the holiday and then forgot about it! Too much on my mind, I guess.

In any case, we had a great time at our neighborhood Labor Day picnic. The couple who hosted the event have lived on our street for three or four years but we've all neglected to connect on a more neighborly level. Waving from the car as we go by each others' houses and chatting briefly now and then.

This was a nice opportunity to get to know each other better and it was fun. They provided the hamburgers, dessert and beverages and everyone else brought a dish to share.

We brought an oriental salad, the basis of which is cabbage or cole slaw mix. Had a cabbage in the garden so I went down to get it and picked the cabbage, some carrots, celery, and these tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, too. That red pepper next to the eggplant is a pimento pepper. Haven't planted those until this year.

Jack and 5-year old Mary planted another crop of lettuce and spinach and I see that it's coming up nicely. It's the first year that we've planted a second crop of anything. It won't be the last, I'm thinking.

Summer just flew by, didn't it? I have to admit that I like the change of seasons even though I know what's coming. I'm just hoping for a mild winter - we're going to stay home most of this winter!

The Garden

Still sorting through photographs. These are some that I took out in the vegetable garden a few weeks ago.

Dill - which I love. It's pretty even if you don't cook with it! Haven't made pickles for years but dill is good in lots of things. I really ought to make pickles, again. Jack would love that.

This is a small head of broccoli that is absolutely perfect. We plant broccoli every year. I don't know anyone who doesn't like broccoli.

The potatoes are ready to dig, I think. I took this picture when the plants were just starting to blossom. There's nothing like home grown potatoes. They cook faster and they just melt in your mouth. Yum!

These are sugar snap peas. Granddaughter Courtney's favorite vegetable. Boy, these were just sweet and crispy and delicious! They're an early season vegetable, though, so we haven't had any for a couple of months.

We've had carrots and eggplant and celery. The celery didn't do well, this year - don't know why. And we've had pimento peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers, cauliflower, yellow squash, zucchini, radishes, lettuce, spinach, and escarole.

There are several sets of brussel sprouts out there and I'm keeping my eye on them. They're still a little small but in a few more days, they'll be ready. I'll try to remember to take a picture.

On another note, I've got a new Squidoo lens...it was a Rocket Moms project for a fall recipe so I chose Tortellini and Vegetable Soup. It's delicous. And healthy. And fast! You can see the recipe HERE. You might even want to try it!

Our Cranberry Bush

I was sorting through a bunch of photos and discovered that I've taken pictures of that big old cranberry bush outside our kitchen window in just about every season. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Here are the ones I like the best.

In Spring

A closeup of the cranberry bush in spring with the birdhouse.

Now the flowers have turned into berries...July or so. They're gold colored and then turn orange and then turn red. I took this picture on August 2nd.

This was September 8th when the berries are bright red. Really pretty.

In late fall the leaves start to change color. The berries are just brilliant. I took this picture last November 1st.

This is a picture that I took in the winter. Actually I think it was late November and we had snow. No leaves. The berries stay all winter and the birds love them. This is a cute little chickadee who was just having a little rest on a branch!

So that's it...kind of interesting?

Minnesota State Fair 2009

The crowd.

Jack and I spent a day at the Minnesota State Fair this week. It's called "The Great Minnesota Get Together" and it's one of the biggest state fairs in the nation.

We haven't gone for years and I guess we decided we'd better figure out why. Now, I know people who are religious about the State Fair. Wouldn't miss it for the world. Visit every exhibit and building and eat pronto pups and stuff-on-a-stick until they're sick.

That's just not us. I like the exhibits and enjoy people watching. The weather this year was perfect. Not hot and humid and we pretty much just strolled around. I took a gazillion photos but most of them lost in the translation.

Believe it or not, these eggs were carved from honeycomb!

The monorail. I wish we'd have taken it but we didn't.

This is one of those times when "you had to see it to believe it". A sculpture of all the junk retrieved from rivers in Minnesota this past year. Seriously. Look at the size of the people standing next to it! Sad.

We were only there a minute but I grabbed some info from the sponsor (Adopt-A-River) and here's a link to the Adopt-A-River website.

We were lucky enough to see our sweet little twin grandkids and took them on the carousel. That was a highlight, of course. Jack bought some of the very famous Sweet Martha chocolate chip cookies and we shared with them. They really are delicious. Seems I read that Sweet Martha pulled in a couple of million bucks last year. I'm happy for her.

We watched part of a newscast. That was interesting. Came close to the midway but didn't catch any rides. I had a wild rice burger that was underdone and Jack had a gen-u-ine Chicago dog. I wanted a funnel cake but we couldn't for the life of us find one. If there's a funnel cake kiosk there it's definitely not in a good location. And whoever is running it must be losing their shirts!

That was it...no cheese curds, nothing on a stick, no races or entertainment. We're pretty boring fairgoers. But we had a good time.

Really Delicious Bean Burritos

This is a really delicious recipe for burritos from Martha's Everyday Food magazine from ... dare I admit it? ...November of 2005!

I prepared all the components to take to the Cities when I went to help daughter Jen jazz up her "new" old house. (Stripped wallpaper and painted for five days.) Anyway, Jen put them together the first day for our dinner. It was SO good! Here's the recipe:

3/4 cup rice (brown or white - I used brown) Cook rice according to directions.

In large saucepan, heat 2 Tablespoons olive oil over medium heat.

Add:

2 medium onions, chopped

4 garlic cloves, chipped

1 jalapeno chile, chopped (ribs and seed removed for less heat - which I did)

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

coarse salt and ground pepper

Cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, 10 to 12 minutes. (It really does take that long.)

Add:

3 Tablespoons tomato paste, and cook, stirring for 1 minute.

Add:

3 cans (15 oz. each) pinto beans, drained and rinsed, and 1-1/2 cups water; bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 10 to 12 minutes.

Add:

1 box (ten oz.) frozen corn kernels; cook to heat through, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in 6 scallions, thinly sliced. (I don't like corn so I used drained & rinsed black beans. A good choice.)

Heat 8 flour tortillas (10-inch burrito size) according to package instructions. I just heated each tortilla in a dry skillet over medium heat. Turned them once or twice until hot;

To assemble the burritos, mound 1/4 cup rice, 3/4 cup bean mixture and 1/4 cup of cheese on one side of tortilla.

Fold and hold in the sides. Starting from filled end, holding sides in as you work, tightly roll into a bundle.

Place on a baking sheet, seam side down, and prepare remaining burritos. Put them in the freezer until frozen (duh) and then remove them, wrap them individually and place back int he freezer.

Reheating from frozen: There are three ways to reheat these according to the recipe.

Microwave & Oven: Remove frozen burritos from plastic wrap. Place on a microwave-safe plate: Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Transfer to baking sheet: bake at 450 degrees until crispy, about 10 minutes. (This is Martha's favorite "quick" method.)

Microwave only: Remove from...yadda, yadda, yadda. Place on microwave-safe plate, covered with a microwave-safe bowl, and defrost at high power for 3 to 4 minutes; uncover, and microwave on high, 3 to 4 minutes longer.

Oven only: Remove from...blah, blah, blah. Rewrap individually in aluminum foil. Place on a baking sheet; bake at 450 degrees, 40 minutes; remove foil, and bake to crisp, a5 to 10 minutes.

NOTE: To reheat defrosted burritos, remove any wrapping and bake for 10 minutes.

Serve with sour cream and salsa or chopped tomatoes, lettuce, onions, whatever...

The flavor was excellent and one burrito was a generous serving. I hope you try these. Bet you'll make them again!