Day Trippin’

Yesterday was a gorgeous day for a road trip over to western Wisconsin.  We always have one specific destination and yesterday it was a stop at Straka Meats for some of their specialties.  After that, we took the first road to the right and saw some great scenery and some unusual sites as well.  First was this nice new log house.  What caught my eye was the way they left the base of the trees on the supporting logs on the porch.  Neat huh?  This place had quite a menagerie of farm critters…donkey, chickens and a llama or two.  It was called the No Profit Farm.  LOL
A little ways further down the same road we saw this beautiful animal in a pen with a couple other elk.
  Okay, don’t know what’s going on here, but they must be raising their own “wild” animals.  Along the same road we saw a bunch of turkeys.  First there was 3 hens that crossed in front of us.  Seeing how it’s spring and being a former turkey hunter, I figured there had to be some toms around too.  Sure enough on the other side of the road there were 6 or 8 of them strutting around with their feathers all fanned out.  Of course they scurried off before I could get a picture of them.

We ended up in Richland Center, stopped at a couple antique stores and had lunch.  We decided it was too nice of a day to hurry back home.  As we left town, we took the a left turn and went back into the rolling farmland.  We saw signs along the road for a shrine and decided to go check it out.  Turns out we’d been there one other time, but yesterday was a much nicer day.  The little shrine sits on top of a hill, in the middle of farm country and is called Our Lady of the Fields Shrine.  It’s one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I’ve ever been to.   Surprisingly the chapel was unlocked so anyone could enter.  Everything inside was beautiful with no signs of vandalism.  Simply amazing.                            A couple views of the old cemetery.     

Call me weird, but I really enjoy walking around old cemeteries like this one.  They’re so peaceful, so many big, beautiful trees and so much history told on the old gravestones. 

It was another nice day and another great road trip.

First Cabin Trip of the Year

We arrived around 3:00 last Friday afternoon.  The driveway was clear and the snow wasn’t too deep.  There was a serious layer of ice on the path down to the outhouse, but that was the only problem we had.When we left last November, we knew we were going to buy a new shower shelter because the zipper on the front broke beyond repair.  We left it standing, just to see if it could survive a northern Wisconsin winter.  As you can see, it came through with flying colors.  Considering how much snow, wind, rain and ice there was, this is very impressive.
On Saturday morning we loaded up our water jugs and went to the little park to fill them up.  As we pulled in, I could see two white things out on the ice.  At first I thought it was snow and then I realized there were two swans sitting on the ice. 
As I was standing on the shore taking their pictures, a couple of ice fisherman started walking out to their favorite fishing hole (literally!). 
The swans didn’t like this at all!  They started walking around, flapping their wings and making all kinds of noise.
Eventually the fishermen got to their fishing holes and the swans quieted down.
  We filled up our jugs and headed back to the cabin with a trunk load of water.
Saturday was a beautiful day, somewhat warm with lots of sun.  We filled up the birdfeeders and put a little corn down for the squirrels and deer.  It was really nice to see these two appear during the day.
Things looked good out by the beaver lodge.  We saw 2 beavers out on the ice on Saturday night.  They’re going to have some major repairs to do on the dam when the ice melts.  The water is going through in a new spot.  Just hope the dam holds.  Fingers crossed for our sake and the beavers.

Sunday was an icky, cloudy, drizzly, hang around the cabin kind of day.  On Monday morning  I turned on the TV and this is what the weather guy was showing.  Are you kidding me?  Okay, so now they’re talking blizzard warnings starting on Tuesday morning.  No way!  The snow was bad enough, but the cold weather following it was the clincher.  We decided to come back home.But it was a nice weekend and as soon as the weather straightens out, we’ll be back.  We left the trail cam up so we’ll be able to see what comes by and how much snow fell and all that good stuff. 

Change of Scenery

I've gotten rid of the snowy background and now I'm back to using this template. The view out my window has changed some since the last time I posted here. Yesterday was sunny and it got up to 41 springy degrees. But this morning is really cold again and instead of seeing snow, I'm looking at a lot of shiny ice on top of the lawn. Why can't winter just go away?


We're both looking forward to getting back up north to the cabin again. We've thought about taking trips, but each time the weather goes crazy and it's either too cold or another storm is heading our way. One of these days it's going to happen and I can't wait.


I bought this little solar plant at the Dollar Store to help brighten my spirits.  It does a happy dance when it gets light.  All day long, the flower goes back and forth and the leaves go up and down.  Oddly, it's not annoying at all.

Snow

At least Jimmy the groundhog didn't see his shadow today. After seeing all the new snow out there, I'm not too optimistic about having an early spring this year.

See My Background?

What you see is what we’re getting.  Lucky us and many other folks around the Midwest that are in for a serious winter storm.  Nothing we can do to stop it so I’m keeping busy doing the indoor things I’ve been doing since early December.

I’m still on my pincushion kick, but I’ve decided I don’t have to make one-a-day.  I’ve been to all the craft stores around here looking for some dusty rose colored felt and do you think I can find any?  Hate it when a company discontinues making something like that.  I did find some really nice tan felt that will become my next favorite color.

The other day I got a craving for bran muffins.  I know that sounds strange, but I just wanted that taste.  This morning I made a batch from this recipe and I’ve gotta say, they’re really, really good!  It makes a huge batch, so I froze half of them for whenI have another bran muffin craving.  I’ve had other urges to bake, but restrained myself, because if I bake it, I also eat it and that’s not a good thing.

Jim’s been nursing a sore knee.  In fact it was so bad he went to see his doctor last week.  He had x-rays, an MRI and now he’s supposed to see an Ortho specialist on Wednesday.  With all the snow that’s coming, I’ve got a feeling that appointment will be rescheduled.  At least it’s not getting worse.  Today he doesn’t have hardly any pain, but it doesn’t take much for it to flare up again.

So with his bad knee, it’s put a damper on taking our little trips and getting out and about.  We did take another trip back to the Amish store.  There’s something about that place that I really like and apparently I’m not the only one.  We were there last Saturday and the place was packed with shoppers.  Only one buggy in the parking lot though.  The Amish must do their shopping during the week.

I love the way they stack the corn stalks out in the fields. 

Our computer was making lots of noise so I took it in last week.  I really think the PC guy goofed up when he figured my bill.  He replaced the noisy fan, the USB ports on the front, added new software so the DVD player worked and did a few other things.  There’s a minimum charge of $40 to look at it and my whole bill was only $55.  I didn’t want to question the man, so I just paid and took my quiet PC back home.


About the only wildlife we’ve seen around this neck of the woods are turkeys.  Wow, there’s really a lot of turkeys now.  This gang was walking on the road as we approached.  They just walked to the top of the hill and finally took a left and headed into the pines, but they were in no hurry.Not much else going on in my little world.  It’s just one day at a time, looking forward to seeing the Packers and Steelers in the Super Bowl and trying to ignore winter, which is getting harder and harder to do.

The 2nd Half

Sorry I've been away so long.  We were sick for 4 days and then I spent many days finishing the ABC scrapbook. After that, I was busy getting my pincushion inventory replenished after the Christmas rush.  So as promised, here's the rest of the ABC scrapbook for those of you that didn't see it on my Up The Creek blog.

These are the pictures inside the little packet in the bottom right corner on the X page