Successful Gardening

We had a successful vegetable garden this year, after not having one for several years. It wasn't as good as Brett's 1st Place garden that was about fifty times as big, but we got a lot to eat. We planted peas, beans, onions, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and potatoes. We also put chicken wire around every side of the garden to keep the rabbits out. I plugged all holes. In the past, the rabbits eat the peas, beans and carrots before they matured.

After we enriched the soil with bag after bag of manure, compost and peat moss we started planting. Our soil seems to turn into sand in a couple of months. But this year with the1400 pounds of stuff I tilled in, the soil actually stayed nice.










This is only about a third of the potatoes we got. We filled almost three 5 gallon buckets with potatoes, some of them were as large as grapefruits.



This is a portion of the carrots we harvested. We planted only one packet of seeds and after you scatter them and thin them out, you end up with only one fifth of them. We got the equivalent of at least ten large bags of carrots at Cub. I sliced and cooked them all up (use sugar instead of salt in the water to sweeten them) and have enough for at least 25 meals for the two of us. We got about ten meals each from the peas and beans.


We has such good success that we may expand it next year and rotate crops. Judy does not want to do tomatoes next year because we just didn't do anything with the ones we harvested. But we could make tomato sauce. I will have to get Brett's recipe.

Departure time

The time we had with Kyle and Tiffany and their family was way too short. Seemed like they just got here and then had to leave again. They were here for about nine days and it was not long enough. Thanks Kyle and Tiffany for bringing the kids to visit with us. You are missed.

Gooseberry Falls

The next day we drove up to Gooseberry Falls and spent a few hours there. The weather forecast called for thunderstorms in the afternoon and it was threatening most of the time we were there. We thought it was a good idea to start back to the cars because of the way the weather looked. As we got to the gift shop , it started to drizzle. I parked farther down that Jeff did. Jeff and his passengers made it to their car in time but me and my passengers didn't and it started to pour. We had Ellie and Didi and needed to get them in car seats and then put cameras and strollers in the trunk. Well, we could have gone swimming in Lake Superior and not got any wetter. Here are Larsen's by the upper falls.And here are Smentek's by the upper flls.
There goes Ron, Kirstin and Kyle, crossing the river on rocks, for a better photo op. Kyle decided to "climb" the cliff to get back.
Time for a rest.
Kirstin with Didi.
Here are a few photos of the Falls.

Trip to Duluth and beyond

The Monday following our picnic, Kirstin, Jeff, Logan , Liam, Kyle, Tiffany, Ellie, Erik, Judy and I took off for Duluth for a day of adventure. We stayed at a water park for evening fun. I was feeling much better after getting sepsis of the blood five days ago. Here are the Smentek's walking across one of the sculptures on Canal Park Drive.And here are the Larsen's. Are we really excited? Looks can be deceiving.
To out surprise, the largest ship on the Great Lakes, The Paul R Tregurtha, was going under the aerial life bridge. It was so large that it looked like it would not fit. I have seen movies of ships going under a lift bridge while the bridge was going down and tore the top half off the ship. The operator no longer works there.
Then it was stone throwing time on lake Superior. If we kept it up for much longer, we would have filled it in.
Logan and Liam are standing by an old tug boat.
Didi loves to swing.
Then came the time at the water park. I won't post many pictures but the Smentek's drifted down the lazy water park river.
Here comes Kyle and Ellie down one of the water slides. There was a giant bucket that filled up with water (probably 100 gallons) and then spilled out over part of the platform. It was about to dump while Ellie and I were in the middle of it. I grabbed her and stood directly under a platform below the bucket, thinking we would be safe. But I did not know there was a back splash and we got doused with about 30 gallons of water. We were surprised.
Jeff decided to wait for the big bucket to dump and see what happens.

Family Picnic in the backyard

On the last day of August, it was decided to have all our kids and their kids over to enjoy a delicious dinner in the backyard. As you can see, Brett is enjoying it.The smallest ones had their own table and did really well . Liam seems to be saying, "It's a Bird! It's a plane! It's ...."
The view from the other side. Gigi is not quite sure of the guy taking the photo.
Didi was taking the giraffe for a little ride up the hill but there must have been too much weight on the back because over they went.
Gigi, seeing the predicament that Didi was in, ran to rescue the giraffe and ignored Didi. Not to worry, though. Didi said, "Go ahead, take my giraffe!", just like Dirty Harry would have said.
Liam liked taking the scooter down the hill where he stopped to talk with "little brother"
Gigi shows us that there are other things that you can do with the scooter, like resting your feet on the steering wheel. Maybe all that food she ate settled in her feet.
BFFs, Ellie and Lorelei, are happy to share a tricycle ride together.
I think that I want to try out this giraffe. Everyone else has had a turn so now it's my turn.
Logan really got the scooter going fast on the driveway.
Lorelei going solo on the trike.
Joseph needed to shoe us his stuff on his own scooter. He could really go. Yea Joe.
Since Didi's legs are a bit short to really get going, cousin Logan decided to give him a hand.
We had the picnic while Kyle and Tiffany were here so that all could catch up on all the news everyone had. We are so grateful for Kyle and Tiffany and all the adventures they have had and that they included us on one of them.
Then all of a sudden the tubes came out
Andrew is playing pick-a-boo with us.
Even Jeff tried out the scooter.
Andrew has had a growing spurt as you can see from the photo below. He must be at least eight feet long and stuck in the tube.
Here we are with all nine of our grand kids. Aren't they cute?
The backyard family picture with everyone. Andrew and Brandon added the finishing touches.

MN State Fair

Well, once again, I need to add several posts. Time has been flying by and the older we get the faster it goes. Kyle, Tiffany, Ellie and Erik came to town for a visit on August 26 for several days. About 3.5 hours before I needed to pick them up at the airport, I got sick, but I picked them up anyway. After three doctor's appointments, the first appointment was a scheduled physical the next morning. It was determined that I had contracted sepsis of the blood, a blood infection that is fatal in 60% of the cases. But as you can see, I recovered. I was out of commission and not able to do anything with our visitors for about five days. Therefore, I missed going to the state fair for the first time in several years. Thanks to Judy and the Canon camera, I got to see what I missed out on. The State Fair goers are packed up and ready to go.
Looks like Ellie and Lorelei are BFFs forever.











I think that Gigi and Joseph are enjoying a fast carousel ride. There are several pictures on the carousel so that must have been the favorite ride.



Gigi likes Barnie and Barnie likes he.











More horsey rides for the gang.











Then we have Ellie on the buzzy Bee ride. Is she excited? Well I don't if I would, being that close to a very large stinger.













We found a couple of desperate characters at the fair. Do they look familiar?







Look at her go! Lorelei popped a wheelie. Hang on Joe.











Ellie, we get milk from those guys. Isn't she nice?











Erik, can you say hamburger? He says Mmmmmooooooooo!
One last horse ride for Didi, and he is liking it. I want more.

Why are there gaps in this blog?

Well, there have again been some gaps in time for my blog again. There are many things that I need to add but haven't taken the time to. So this one will not contain any pictures and will be short.

My last post on the electric bike really kind of a slam on Minnesota for charging fee after fee to register an electric bicycle and taking all the fun out of trying to save money. I have been tracking miles and the cost of saved gasoline. I use "Mapmyride.com" to log the miles. The shortest way to work is about 8.15 miles one way, and with my 40 mile range on a fully charged battery I am able to maintain full speed all the way home. This is a Chinese bike and I saw plenty of them while over there. The new Chevy Volt claims to also have a 40 mile range before the gasoline motor kicks in. I have made about 19 trips to and from work already and have included stops at stores on the way home. I have logged about 310 miles so far. I will ride it if the temperature is 42 degrees or warmer and not forecast to rain. I park it right next to all the Harley's (I haven't been beat up yet by those guys yet). But the total amount of gasoline saved (miles ridden, times the current cost of gas in the tank divided by the average MPG) so far is only $42.50. As gas gets cheaper, the payback time on the bike gets longer.

It is kind of fun riding it and people at work are interested in getting something like that. There are faster electric scooters that have a top speed of 40MPH (takes a motorcycle plate) or an electric motorcycle that goes over 60MPH but the cost of those and payback make it not practical to get, when you consider the number of Minnesota days in a year you can ride it. I can get up to a blazing speed of 19MPH on a flat road but only loose 2-3 MPH going up hills but gain almost 10MPH going down hills. I am not one to actually go the speed limit (usually 5 over) so riding this bike really slows me down. Oh well. I will probably make up for it on the days I am in a car. Almost all drivers I on the road with me have been very courteous and some are afraid to pass me. Stay tuned.