Short road trip

Today we went over to Drummond, a very small town 40 miles to the east of us. Drummond has an interesting history being a company town up until the 1930’s. We stopped at the little museum (very impressive btw) and saw lots of pictures and artifacts from the logging days of the past. Jim posed in this picture to show just how big the slice of wood really is. The tree it came from was one time the tallest white pine in the country...until lightning struck and knocked 40 feet off the top of it. 

After the museum we went to a nearby lake so Rudy could take a dip. Next was lunch at the bar some friends own...right in town.  I think their place makes a total of three business in Drummond. Not much left from the days of of logging camps and lumber mills. Also not many giant white pines left either. Thank goodness they didn’t cut all of them. 

This is a test..again

I’m trying out a new app that’s supposed to work with blogger. Let me know if you can see these pictures.

 

A rough-legged hawk, somewhat out of its summer range.

Mama duck and some of her young’uns

 Beyond the birdbath!

The Rest of the Story

After my last update about having the flu and not being able to get rid of the cough, I went to urgent care, sat in the waiting room with all the other sickies and 3 hours later found out I had pneumonia!

These two were REALLY sick!

I was given a prescription for Z-Pack antibiotics and some cough suppressants.  I was back at the clinic yesterday and the physicians assistant I saw said I was good to go!  I go back in a month for another chest x-ray just to be sure.

Not much else going on here mainly because I wasn't sure if I could go out walking like we usually do.  I can now, but the cold air still makes my lungs feel not quite right.  Take it slow he said, a little more each day until you're back to where you were before you got sick.

Back a few posts ago I mentioned getting an Instant Pot.  This appliance is magical!  (Thank you Jenny for the link you shared.)  I saw a post on Facebook where a gal made potato salad in it!  Yup cook the potatoes and eggs together for 4 minutes, cool them down, make your dressing and voila potato salad! 

Picture from Facebook

My bowl of homemade potato salad!

I really don't remember the last time I made it, but this was so darned easy that I know I'll be making it this summer.  Now I have to remember just exactly what I used to use to make the dressing.  It was good, but missing a few flavors.  I'll get there though!  No more tubs of Walmart Amish potato salad for us!

Checking In

It's been awhile since I posted anything here, so here's a review of what we've been up to.  We both had the horrible flu that's been going around.  I had it worse and longer than Jim.  It's been 7 years since we've been sick and this was awful!  Just when I thought I was feeling better I had a day that I seriously thought I was going to die!  Well, maybe that's a bit extreme, but my whole body hurt, I had a fever and all I could do was sit in my chair with my blankie and nap most of the day.  I got over most of those symptoms, but still have a nagging cough.

On Tuesday we celebrated Rudy's Big Day.  That's what we called his gotcha day.  He sure has turned into a nice dog.  So glad he's part of our family.  He takes us for a walk almost everyday.  This is one of our favorite places.  It's a connecting road off the main road with very little traffic.  It's just a nice place to walk especially when there's snow on the ground.

Last Friday I met up with 4 relatives of mine.  I think they'd be called first cousins, twice removed.  I remember all of them from when I was a little girl and we'd go to their towns to visit their families.  Except for one of the ladies, it's been close to 60 years since I've seen them.  We're Facebook friends, but that's not the same as meeting at a wonderful, quiet place on the University of Wisconsin Campus for lunch.  

It was a fun lunch and I was surprised by some of the details I remembered that were actually correct!  Like what the old farm looked like, that Uncle Walter always wore bib overalls and that there was always tons of food when we came to visit.

Not much else going on around here.  The cold weather is gone and the snow we got last week should be melted by the end of the weekend.  Yay!

Hope everyone stays well.  Like the experts say, wash you hands often, use hand sanitizer and try to avoid germs! The flu shot wasn't the correct mix this year.  

So Much for Walking Everyday

I spoke too soon!  Tuesday Jim had signs of a cold, Wednesday I had the same signs and now we're both miserable!  No walking yesterday or today.  Besides being so cold out there, it hurts too much to even think about going outside.  Any suggestions on how to explain that to a dog?  Rudy just doesn't get it!

It's 2018

No new year's resolutions for me. Like every year, I want to continue walking everyday and perpetually try to lose weight. We’ve been walking even in this cold and I’ve finally come up with the best combination of layers to stay warm. It isn’t pretty, but it works.

Rudy doesn’t mind the cold at all.  He’s quite a dog. Actually nothing bothers him!  He just wants to be with us and see what kind of treasures he can find along the way.

This deer rib cage was the second one he found recently. Don’t know why people have to dump them along this dead end road, but Rudy sure likes finding them. He also found a leg that really excited him. 

It’s going to be another cold week and we’ll continue to go for our walks. Looking on the bright side, we don’t have much snow and there’s been plenty of sunshine! 

Almost Christmas

Today was our best chance for having a white Christmas and it didn’t happen. No problem...I’ve always thought a white Christmas was highly overrated.  We’ve been able to go out to various wildlife areas to walk and let Rudy run. So nice to not have to wear boots and all the other winter gear.  Just look how brown things are around here.

After our walk we stopped by the saddest historical marker I’ve ever seen. It was so weird because I always thought there was a cemetery on the hill behind this marker, but I was wrong...kinda. No markers but lots of graves.  

Hope everyone is ready for Christmas.  This year we decided we’d each buy our own gifts.  I know, not really in the spirit of Christmas but it’s a way to get exactly what we want.  Jim bought himself some kind of power saw and I got an Instant Pot, which is the most mysterious kitchen gadget I’ve ever owned.

I’ve always been interested in pressure cooking but never had the nerve to actually get a pressure cooker.  I’ve seen it described as a life changing apparatus and I can believe it is.  At first it’s very intimidating with all the different settings and not knowing exactly what is happening inside of it.  But after following some recipes exactly as written and learning all about it, it’s a winner!  Most foods cook much faster but it’s the flavor of everything that really sold me.  I really wish I had this back when I was working. You can make so many great meals in a fraction of the time. 

Merry Christmas to you my friends.  Hope to hell 2018 is better than this year...although it won’t take much to be an improvement. 

Posting from chrome

This might just work!
Saw this at Walmart this morning...since when can you bring little dogs in the store?

Testing, 1, 2, 3

I've seen some of you Space friends have come back to blogging because of your dislike for Facebook (Hi Jenny!).  I've been considering coming back too, but it seems like the only way I can add to this is via the desktop, not from my iPad.  If I can figure out how to do it from my iPad, I'll add to this again.  Probably not as often as back in the good ol' days, but I'll try to share an occasional story about Rudy or some of my other adventures. 

No need to comment.  I'm just checking to see if I still remember how this works and all that good stuff.

Easier than ever to add pictures, looks like Google even lets me add from my phone's camera roll.  Neato!

ElfYourself video also from my phone.

No promises, but I'm working on this and hoping to figure out how to add from my iPad.  

July 21, 2014

I have no idea where all these hummingbirds came from, but yesterday they found our feeders and drank them dry.  Jim refilled today and if they all hang around, we'll need to take a trip to the store for more sugar.

At the very beginning, you can see one sitting on the top of the feeder waiting its turn.  Love those little birds.

July 18, 2014

I said the next blog would be about wildflowers, but that's been put on the back burner.  I have a few more wildlife pictures to share.  

We finally saw a doe with two fawns.  We've been thinking that after such a harsh winter, most were lucky to have one baby.  This family was just down the road from us.

Whenever possible we stop moving or move very slowly when we see wildlife along the edge of the road.  It really worked out well this time.  We stopped and they all started coming towards us!  Thank you deer family.

July 12, 2014

Here are some critter pictures from the past week or so.  If you look closely at the first one you can see just what I saw as we were driving along.  See that dark spot up on the left side of the road?  At first I thought it could be a raccoon or a porcupine.   Jim slowed down, I started taking pictures.

Then the little guy moved and we could see there was another little black thing in the blueberry patch...you guessed it.  Two little bear cubs.  Mom was probably close by, but by the time we got up to that spot, they were long gone.  Here's the next picture that's been cropped.  It's hard to get good pictures of bears because they usually run as soon as they see you coming.  I'm sure you all know if you click on the picture, you'll get a bigger and better image.

Okay so moving right along, we're still seeing fawns with their moms and lots of other deer hanging out near the road.  

The little deer that calls our place home is still hanging around too.  We never know where we'll see him resting or just hanging out.  It's amazing how close Jim gets to him before he runs off. 

Several of our neighbors have (had) chickens and they don't like seeing foxes at all!  Apparently they patrol the road looking for chickens, frogs or whatever else crosses its path.  The first picture is one I took from the cabin.  The second one was from the road and it looks like she's thirsty and on her way to the bar!  LOL

 I'm pretty sure these are two different foxes.  I think the first one is a gray fox and the second is a red fox.

This is kinda sad to see.  Two adult geese with only one little one.  I bet that will be one spoiled rotten goose!  

Ha ha.

This bird is a woodcock or aka a timberdoodle.  We occasionally see them, but usually it's when we're walking down a trail and they flush right before you step on it, scaring the crap out of me.  This one was by the edge of the road and it sounded like she had some little ones hidden in the grass while she was out picking up stone.

This morning when we were out for a walk, I saw this garter snake and it wouldn't stop moving.  I tried 3 times and could not get a picture with the whole thing in it!

  

And last but not least, this turtle was tooling down the road, its back still wet from the little creek that was near by.  

That's all for now.  

Next blog will be all about the beautiful wildflowers in bloom around here.

July 10, 2014

So far this summer has been a great year to garden.  It started off slow with such a cold, wet spring.  But with fingers crossed we decided to plant things and hope for sun, rain and heat.  Much to our surprise, almost everything is doing really well.  All except for our radishes.  Something came by and ate all the tops off the first planting and we assumed it was the deer.  So Jim replanted, put a fence over them and sure enough, something came by and ate those off too.  We really don't know what did it and no one that we've talked to has ever had problems with anything eating their radishes.  So, scratch radishes from our fresh produce this year.

Jim expanded our garden so now we plant in two different areas.  One gets full sun light from sunrise to sunset.  That really helps!  We've had cucumbers and zucchini for over a week.  No comparison to the taste of what you buy in the store.  Mmmm mmm good!

The broccoli is coming along as are the tomatoes.

He planted 4 different varieties of slicing tomatoes plus a couple different cherry tomatoes. We also have eggplant, fennel, cauliflower, two kinds of cabbage, kohlrabi and about 6 different herbs.   

This is the garden with everything planted in our version of raised beds.  Let me tell you, in this cooler part of the state, black tractor tires heat the soil up quickly.  They really, really work for our use.

This is just a pretty flower picture from a road trip we took to Ashland.

That's all for now.  Next time I'll be sharing critter pictures.  

July 7, 2014

Pictures from Plymouth, Boston, Albany and Cooperstown

I'll try not to bore you with too many pictures, but no guarantee.

At Plymouth, Mass

Plymouth Rock, Mayflower II and the National Monument to the Forefathers, which was a very impressive statue.

I loved what I saw in Boston.  So much history there, wish we had more time to explore the city.

Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution

The Granary Burying Ground on the Freedom Trail.  Graves of Ben Franklin and Paul Revere.

 Any trip to Boston has to include a stop at Cheers...where everyone knows your name.

Of course this is just the building used in the opening of each show.

Our final stop in Boston was at Quincy Market.  Lots of food vendors and shopping kiosks.

Next stop was Rockefeller Plaza in Albany, NY the state capital.  

These two monuments have been added since I was here in 2012.  The kingfisher seemed so out of place, but he sat there like he was ready to snag a frog out of a pond.