Why I Don’t Deadhead

Yesterday morning everything was frosted in our yard. We got our first snow on Saturday. The morning was overcast and foggy, no sun peeking through.

I started my morning with sitting in my recliner reading some books before work watching the birds come and go from the feeder when I noticed even the birds were frosted. Now that is cold.

Later when I left for work I noticed that the Butterfly Weed plant was also frosted along with the remaining dead heads of my Echinacea plant. Each year I have great intentions of deadheading my plants in my garden but never quite get around to it. Perhaps the chance at another view of the same plant in a different way is what keeps me from deadheading. Nope, just lack of time or interest in doing it at the time I should.

The Echinacea has a different look to it with the snow in the background. It makes the Echinacea in the background look as though they are shadows of the ones in the foreground

I love that there are still a few petals from the flower clinging to the bottom of one of the Echinacea. When I first showed my husband the picture he thought is was a picture of bacteria or something like it.

This morning as I look out over the lake I noticed that it is almost covered in ice. I don’t think we will be walking on ice on Thanksgiving Day this year like we have in past years but it won’t be long.

 

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Daily Blessings

 

While we often spend our days

Worrying

About 

The past and the future,

We often miss 

The beauty

Each day has to offer

Just outside our tattered windows.

 

So This is Springtime….

This morning I woke up with the John Lennon song So This is Christmas words running through my head and with good reason. We woke up to 8 inches of new snow here in Central Minnesota. Schools are closed and roads are in the process of being plowed. Never mind the fact that the calendar states that spring started this past Sunday.

We spent nearly an hour trying to help my son make it out of our yard with his car this morning so he could head into work. My daughter’s college classes were canceled except one and she emailed the professor and got permission for her to take her math test on Friday during a break between other classes. I am most thankful that she doesn’t have to drive 40 miles with her son on these roads today.

The boys basketball team will be departing for the beginning of the state tournament festivities today with a banquet this evening before the big game tomorrow. In Minnesota we all know that sometime during basketball tournaments that we will get a big snow either during the girl’s or boy’s state tournament. So true to past experiences we are blessed with snow for the tournaments.

Hope your day finds you warm and dry. It looks like a wonderful day for some homemade Chicken Dumpling Soup or a big crock pot of Chili.

 

My Chariot Quit But My Birthday Rocked

Yesterday was my birthday, my husband and I took the day off from work.  We didn’t have any plans in particular but I told him I just wasn’t going to work on my birthday. 

We haven’t had a day off of work since September 30, 2010, working six days a week.  The only days off have been Christmas and New Years.  I was on strike. 

We  stayed at home in our pajamas until around 11 am and decided to hop on our snowmobiles and hit the trails near our home.  My husband led our trip down the trails and to the nearest gas station because both sleds were almost on empty. 

 We got almost to our destination, a gas station, when my snowmobile went slower and then stopped.  I figured that I must have run out of gas so I sent my husband to get some gas and I waited on the trail for him to return. 

He returned with a gas can and poured it in and pulled the rope.  Nothing, no compression.  The problem appears to be bigger than no gas.  He got a chain from a local logging company and pulled my snowmobile off the trail.  I hopped on the back of his sled and we continued on our way. 

We went to our local favorite bar/restaurant for lunch and were provided each with a birthday beer.  My husband’s birthday was last Saturday.  After lunch we got back on the sled and on to my parent’s home just down the road. 

I wanted to get a picture of the ice houses on the lake from my parents home for my photography blog.

After I took this photo I walked into Mom and Dad’s kitchen and I saw this wooden box on the kitchen counter. I said “What’s the box for Dad?” 

He said “I use it for raising bread dough.”  There is a local bakery that sells frozen bread dough that Mom and Dad like.  It’s the only bread that they eat other than bread that Dad makes from scratch. 

Dad said they usually try to speed up the rising process by heating up their oven and putting the frozen bread dough to rise and the later bake it in the oven.  Dad didn’t like how long they had to have the oven on, but still wanted to speed up the process.  

Dad is a retired Electrical Design Engineer so he made his own box for his bread dough. The box is complete with a heat source and thermostat to keep it at the temperature he desired.  This is what the inside of his bread box looks like.

 He sets two bread pans in the box on the screen, sets the temperature and closes the lid until the bread is risen.  He then transfers the loaves to the oven for baking. 

In a previous post, I mentioned a hammered dulcimer that my Dad made.  Yesterday I took this picture of his dulcimer. 

After visiting Mom and Dad we got back on the snowmobile and headed home.  When we got home we headed into our shop to get the flatbed truck to pick up my snowmobile.  We dropped off the snowmobile at our home, took the truck back to the shop and came home.  Exhausted from all the fresh air and exercise, I was in bed with my latest book and asleep by 9:30pm.

One of my favorite parts of snowmobiling is all the things that I can see on the snowmobile trails that you can’t see from the car when driving in the same area. I had high expectations of taking a lot of pictures with my new camera but riding snowmobile didn’t allow for many pictures. I will have to take my camera on a walk on the trails to see if I can capture a few of the beautiful sights I saw yesterday.

 

Winter Wonderland

This evening after I finally finished making the Swedish Meatballs for Christmas Eve I was browsing through some old photos.  This photo was taken early last spring when the creeks started thawing and we had a fresh snow. 

It looks like a winter wonderland to me.  I can imagine floating in a canoe down the  quiet creek through the woods and listening to the  birds singing in the distance.

This evening there is a gentle snow falling outside blanketing the countryside.  Something about this picture reminds me of the movie The Chronicles of Narnia.  It’s been many years since I’ve seen the movie and it would be interesting to go back and watch it again.

This is a picture out my living room window after freshly fallen snow.

It will definitely be a White Christmas this year!

 

T Minus 58 hours..

 

This morning I am feeling a little bit like this bird being pursued by the neighborhood cat as Christmas Eve  approaches.  I just realized how many hours I have until our first gathering on Christmas Eve and just how much I need to get done before then. 

This year is no different from any other as far as leaving things go until the last-minute but I had high hopes somehow this year would be different.  I guess the key to things being different is to actually have a plan to do things differently.  That didn’t happen.

My family keeps looking under the tree to see if there are any presents for them.  I haven’t wrapped one present yet.  It will be another late night.  This last snow storm has put me behind schedule because of the work involved clearing the snow at the shop. 

I’ve got a mental list going in my head for what I have left to do that I should really put down on paper to see if there is anything I’m missing on my list.  It’s hard to check off an item on a virtual list or add them for that matter.

Tonight I will be spending the evening in the kitchen trying to get food ready for Friday evening.  I always make the Swedish Meatballs and flatbread for our traditional Swedish Christmas Eve dinner.  I like making both items just not the mess.  I like to make them ahead of time and freeze them so it is not so stressful at the last-minute.   There is nothing more depressing than coming home on Christmas Eve with a disaster in the kitchen to clean up before going to bed.

The original plan for the shop holiday hours was to close all day on Friday and open on Monday.  The guys decided this week that we will be  open until noon on Friday and closed all day Monday.  I think they forgot to ask my opinion of the change.  I would have said we should be closed all day Friday and all day Monday.  I was so looking forward to having an entire day to get ready at home on Friday.  It’s always hard to work in the morning and get things ready for the evening.

This morning as I look out my living room window it is dark and dreary, something we have had way too much of lately.  A little sunshine would surely help me get motivated to get some things done.  Maybe tomorrow…

 

My Campaign for the Return of the Outhouse and Saturday Night Baths

It’s Friday night and I’m exhausted.  Not from an exciting date night but from cleaning the three bathrooms in our home.  When we were building our home in 1993  we were remodeling a portion of the old cabin and adding on new space.  When we moved the existing stairway in the cabin we were left with more space upstairs that could be used for a storage closet. 

We started thinking ahead to the future when our four children would all be teenagers.  We opted for a second bathroom upstairs instead of a storage closet and one bathroom on the first floor.  What was I thinking?  I hate cleaning bathrooms.

I’m ready to lock the bathroom doors and declare them closed for business.  I want to build an outhouse in the backyard. 

Just think no more hairspray to clean off of just about every surface in the bathroom. No more toothpaste on the counters,  multiple bottles of care products from one end of the counter to the other and mirrors to clean. 

The best part of all would be no toilets or shower stalls to scrub.  If we returned to the use of outhouses, the time spent in the bathroom would be cut in half especially in the cold Minnesota winters. 

To complement my new outhouse I would install one of those old-fashioned claw foot tubs for Saturday Night baths.  It would cut in half or more the number of towels that would need to be washed and there would be only one of them to clean instead of three shower and tub combinations. 

One of the disadvantages of our bath/shower stalls is that the bathtub is not deep enough.  There is always one part or more of the body that is out of the water .  I’d like to soak up to my neck in the tub.  I think that our electric bill and propane use would go down significantly if we changed to Saturday night only baths and the quality of baths would improve.

 

Dogwood In Winter

One on my favorite things along the roadside where I live are the Dogwoods.  They can be found along  just about any country road in the area of central Minnesota where I live.  I love the vibrant red color of the stems in the winter.  In the spring you can often find cowslips growing along side the dogwoods. 

When I took this picture yesterday I stepped off the shoulder of the road and down into the ditch that was filled with snow.  Unfortunately I got a boot full of water along with the picture.  I didn’t know there was standing water in the ditch under the snow.

Outside the back door of our shop is this scene.  Yesterday when I stepped outside to take out the trash I could hear the windmill turning in the wind.  It took me a few minutes to identify the sound.  I love that some days I might see a calf looking over the fence to watch what I am doing outside.

 

Roadside and Old Time Views

The sun was shining this morning after days of gray clouds, snow and cold which automatically makes it a great day for me.  Once in a while I get to take a short road trip from our shop to the upholstery shop about 20 miles cross-country.  It was a beautiful day for a drive.  I couldn’t help but play a little roadside photo hooky.  Okay, I confess I stopped to take some pictures while I was on the clock .   I really didn’t get a morning break because I was driving instead so a few minutes to take some pictures should be okay and good for the soul.

Along my way I ran into a couple of curious observers as I was taking pictures.

As I passed one hillside I had to stop to take another look at what I saw.  It was something I had never seen before. 

I looked like someone had scribbled all over the hillside.  I suspect that mice have tunneled around in the grass under the snow but I’m not sure.  I will have to do some research on this.  I love the artwork that nature sometimes provides.

When I’m taking pictures I like to get some water in the picture which is hard to do in Minnesota in the winter but I managed to find some open water to photograph along my route. 

 

 

 

 

I love trips to Auggie’s Upholstery Shop because there are always history surprises in his shop.  Auggie restores old car interiors so you never know what you will see inside.  Today it was a 1940 Packard. 

 

My attitude is so much better after some sunshine today.  This is what I woke up to yesterday. 

The snow was so wet and heavy that it broke branches off our White Pine.  Everything  was so much better yesterday after a cup of homemade Turkey Wild Rice Soup and a good book.  A great day to stay inside with 30-40 mph winds most of the day.

Time to head for bed, I feel a cold coming on….