The Colors In My World

Late summer is beautiful in Minnesota. The colors are richer, the air seems calmer and days that start off at 55 degrees with the promise of 80 are just a gift. The sun makes the lake sparkle unlike any other time of year. These are a few pictures I took on a recent day just like that.
Days like that make winter almost worth it.

Scott's Project

We used to have a very ugly cedar split rail fence in front of our house. Many times, we would drive home from somewhere, or get up in the morning, and have to go put the rails back in because they had fallen out. Ugly, ugly, ugly. My dad stopped by one day and we decided to rip it out. So we did. That was two years ago. The fence separated our lawn from a parking area in front of our house. Since we removed the fence, the lawn has been growing further and further into the parking area. It's been bugging Scott, so he decided to do something about it. Last week, we hauled rocks in from the gravel pit, dug up the lawn and made a flower bed. Scott sprayed roundup on it and we let it sit for a few days to let the grass die.

This week, we finished it. We decided we really should till it up, so Scott removed all of the rocks (we don't ever do anything the easy way) and tilled away. After he put all of the rocks back, it was time to fill it in. It took one pickup load of dirt that Scott shoveled by hand (plus 35 bags of topsoil from Home Depot because the shoveling by hand got really old), a bunch of new plants and some that I transplanted and 15 bags of mulch.

We'll see how it holds up this winter, or if the snowplows annihilate it like they do our mailbox every year.

Sand For Sale

Maggie recently had a friend over and they decided to get creative. Colored sand and old jelly jars inspired big ideas.

They had so much fun and filled the few jars I had so quickly, I resorted to scrounging old spaghetti sauce jars out of the recycling bin and breaking out the goo gone to get the labels off. When they were done, they decided to share their masterpieces with the world.

I whipped up some peach tea (crystal light), they made a great sign and set up a table and business was off and running.

Now, mind you, we live on a dead end road in the country. Not a lot of traffic, vehicle or otherwise. But God is good. The first customer was our mailman. He bought a large jar and some tea and proceeded to tell all the neighbors about the sale. We have fabulous neighbors; all of whom have adopted our kids as their own.

Eight dollars later, they called it a day. I'm sure it will be a memory they will never forget. Reminds me of the time my sister and I sold rocks to the students at NWC in Orange City. I guess the entrepreneurial spirit runs in the family.

The Visitor

We had a visitor this morning. He was waiting and watching when we got up; just staring off, enjoying our view.

It is amazing to me how big the blue heron gets. To put it in perspective; it takes 8 men to get that boat lift out of the water. He stayed until after I dropped the kids off at school, then flew away, probably to enjoy someone else's view.

Photo Session

Our good friend, Dennis, takes the most amazing photos and has been our family photographer for the past several years. He was kind enough to come last week and chronicle one more year of our family.

I look at these photos and get a little teary, because my babies are not babies anymore. It was just yesterday that Jake used to go flying toward Maggie in her swing to slam her pacifier into her mouth. (She got moved to the pack and play where she was much safer!)

I know that time marches on and they will grow up and leave eventually, but I will always hold these years very dear. I hope my kids feel the same.

We're Like Squirrels!

We've been very industrious the last few months. We planted a garden and have been harvesting like mad. The kids have had a blast and Jake proclaimed, "We're like squirrels - saving up food for winter!" during one carrot-picking session. Mom was nice enough to share some of her green beans, since mine didn't turn out so great; and we have a great sweet corn stand in Willmar, so we decided not to plant any of our own. And so, it's been on to the canning and freezing process.

I canned 26 pints and 14 quarts of beans; froze 44 pints of corn; froze rhubarb, raspberries and zuchinni; roasted & froze red peppers; froze 15 quarts of spaghetti sauce (roasted in Grandma Schoon's big blue roasting pan) and then I started in on the soup.

I made vegetable beef soup with barley to freeze and used my ginormous (it's a word...) stockpot. The result from one pot of soup - 14 quarts!!

So now I am on to the apples. We have one tree. It produces about three million apples every year. I am planning to make pies, crisps, cobblers, sauce...any other ideas?

Back to School

1st and 2nd grade - can you believe it? Our first day back was Tuesday. A few comments: "First grade is way funner than kindergarten..." - Maggie


"My teacher doesn't believe in homework..." - Jake (To which his mother said, "Yay!!!")


Scott and I didn't really know what to do with all of our time, so we decided to tear up our yard and start a new landscaping project. Pictures will be forthcoming. Hopefully it won't snow before we get it done!

Home Again

Back from Family Camp in Iowa. Whew. We had a great time at Hidden Acres - it's the camp where Scott and I met. It has changed through the years; we had to swim in a big mud hole, now they have an indoor pool.

The mudhole is called Lechler Lake - Jake kept calling it a pond. I told him it was a lake and he said, "That's no lake." A true Minnesotan.

We played carpet ball, did the canoe races, minnow races and frog-jumping races; and won none of them. But we had a blast just taking part.

Jake and Scott spent a good part of Saturday "hunting." They went looking for bullfrogs and caught eight. On the way back to camp (they had to go to a better bullfrog hunting spot and use a lawn mower and red ribbon - a very lengthy, invloved story...) all of the bullfrogs got out in my van. They found seven. Scott told me he thought maybe they had counted wrong to begin with and that they had only caught seven in the first place. Maggie and I went to garage sales and found lots of treasures (junk) and then came back to camp and made a rope.

Saturday night, we went to the Dayton Rodeo (huge tradition) and when we got back in the van, guess what was sitting on the dashboard. I'm just glad Scott was driving and had gotten in first. I would have had a coronary. I don't like amphibians. I'm just hoping they didn't really catch nine...

Patches

Our family increased in size this summer, with the addition of Patches the cat. That's her official name; we also call her T.T. Mow (rhymes with "ow"), a name my brother used to give every cat on our farm. Happy Happy Fun Fun Purr is another nickname. Scott's sister had a cat named Fun Fun Purr; we added the Happy Happy just for fun. Poor thing.

She sleeps on a teddy bear, has two different colored eyes (one blue, one brown) and is, as cats go, a very nice cat. We got her to catch mice and chipmunks, but so far, they're still bigger than she is and she just mostly sleeps and plays.

We bought her a pink collar encrusted with diamonds for a dollar at Walmart, so now we're trying "Princess Patches" on for size. I think it suits her.

Born Again

It reminds me of the old song, "Bullfrogs and Butterflies." You know, they've both been born again. We had great times this summer hunting for monarch butterfly caterpillars and eggs. I found this one at Sibley State Park gnawing on a leaf. It ate nearly the entire leaf by the time we got home (pooped on me several times, too).

A day later it made its chrysillis and we got to watch it break free a week or so later. It is truly amazing.