Thanksgiving

These are some pics of Thanksgiving 2011. This year we had 14 people in the house and that is a lot for us as we are use to being here by ourselves.










It was good food, good company and good coversation during the holiday weekend.












It is always a busy time but it is a great feeling when everyone acknowledges all of our efforts and the efforts by everyone at Thanksgiving time.

Thanksgiving Activities

Here are a few of the activities that took place during the week of Thanksgiving.




The crossbow was a big hit with everyone as well as the BB gun.






Emmeline and Nana had their priorities straight during the week.

















Dead Eye Evan with the crossbow. He was always right on target and safety was the number one priority.

He was also deadly with the BB gun. Poor Buckey, he will never be he same after this year.

Catch Up Please

Okay, so fast forward to Jonesie's bday. It was wonderful being surrounded by people I love so much.






























And let me tell you, I raked in the gifts that evening.

Poor Buckey

Poor Bucky.
Two years ago Bucky was attacked by either birds or a coyote and he lost his neck, well there was a big hole in his neck.

He has survived winter storm and me shooting at him all fall.




Now as you can see he has been attacked again. He is just like the Scarecrow in Wizard of Oz. A piece here and another piece there, it is just him all over.
We have come with possibilities: a coyote, a bear, a mad neighbor but most likely it was another buck in the area. It is getting close to breeding season and they get quite territorial.
I found all the pieces and put him back together again.

Fall Baking

It is fall in Wisconsin and this year's apple crop is berry berry good. It is like the wild flowers and the garden, it was a good year.

These apples are from the woods and we added 1 Granny Smith to each crisp just for firmness.





I don't know what the names of the apples are as I just go thru the woods and try each variety and take home what is firm and tastes good.

We made three of them and froze them for future use - maybe at thanksgiving.

Madison Farmer's Market

We visited the Madison Farmer's Market over the weekend and it was GREAT!
We were there by 7:30 to beat the crowd and dogs and it worked. Everything was displayed very nice.

I, myself, ate my way around the capitol.

If you open up the photo to the right you will see sidewalk graffiti that states McCarthy=Walker. These writings were at all of the corners. Many "recall walker" signs were noticed on cars also.



This is the gang taking a break from the trip around the square. We all had different treats as we worked our way around. How Tom passed up the pies at one stand, none of us have figured out yet.
Lots of flowers and veg tables were bought during our visit and the fresh veg tables were wonderful for lunch later on.

At The Farm

These are just some more pictures of the yard in Wisc.
This first one is of the wild daisy"s that grow in our yard. I think if we let the yard go it would be solid daisy's all summer.





This one is again a picture of the bain berry that we have growing for us.












This is an experiment by Nana in the asparagus garden. She has harvested about 10 pounds of asparagus this year so now she is trying to grow white asparagus.
The plant keeps on growing but without sunlight the plant does not produce chlorophyll and thus turns out to be white asparagus. We wanted to see if it tastes any different.

The 4th of July

On the last blog I described how nice it was out on the freshly stained deck. That was early in the morning.

I never moved from that spot all day. Even though I didn't have any, (heaven forbid), Leinies I did just fine doing nothing but read my book. The book was "Buried Prey".and I finished it.



Nan joined me in the afternoon to read, drink beer, and enjoy cheese, crackers and olives stuffed with jalapeno peppers.

The Rescue Garden

It is 9:00 in the morning on the 4th of July and I am out on our newly stained deck. It is 72 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and we are expecting it to get to 85 today. Once I open the first Leinie's it will be a perfect day in Wisconsin.
As I am sitting here blogging, I am being serenaded by a large bull frog in the pond and by all of the birds that surround us out in the woods.



But I digress, the reason that I am blogging this time is to update what the Rescue Garden is doing at this time.

The top pic is of a Hosta that I always wanted from Nana's garden. It grows to about 3 feet tall and about 3-4 feet wide. But this one was not rescued by me but started by itself 2 years ago. This is the first year for flowers.





The next pic is of the ground cover that we planted about 9-9 years ago and it has really spread out. It is called Lamium.


Last but not least is the Bain Berry plant. This was rescued from the woods and planted close to the garage. There are red and white Bain Berry plants. So this is the best year yet for the plant that I moved 2 years ago.

Hosta La Vista Garden

This is the rescue garden by Jonesie's garage. It is a place where the plants go once Nana wants to get rid of them. I have added two hostas from a garden center.






This year I also added 5 Jack in the Pulpit's. These were found in a clear cut behind the garage and I was told they don't like the sun so I moved them. In with all the other things I have transplanted red and white Bainberries. These are doing very well this year.





The ground cover was started from about 7 small containers and it really has grown. You can abuse it all you want and it still comes back.

Full Woodshed

The woodshed is full for next year. We will be burning poplar, red oak,sugar maple and hickory.
It is time to start on the wood for 2013.

Jonesie's Baby Picture

Nana and I were going thru some old photos and came across this one of Jonesie when he was very young.

North Shore Holiday

Nana and I spent the holiday weekend on the north shore of Lake Suprior. The weather was fantastic for us to do some hiking. This is a photo of the Beaver River. It was a really nice walk for this view.






This a picture of Fall River or sometimes known as Rosebush River. The amount of spring water was very nice as all of the rivers put on a fantastic show.

It's Turtle Time

Well it is time for the baby turtles to come out of the ground after a long winter and head for the pond.


So we were trying to find different ways to show how small they are when they come out of the ground.

The best one was the teaspoon.


Next was Jonesie's idea, what else but to compare the turtle to the pop top off of a Leinies.









Nana wanted to use her hand as a way to show the size of the little one.

Anyway, last week we found 3 of them trying to get to the pond and they did with a little help.

My Morning Walk

Here are some pictures that I took on a recent walk at the farm.

Mr. and Mrs. Tanager

Here are the pair of Scarlett Tanager's.

Beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jelly Bar

Well, everyone has heard of a Juice Bar, Tiki Bar, Martini Bar, etc.

At the farm Nana made the "Jelly Bar". This may be our calling for a new business.

This bar is for the birds.

Here you can see a Scarlett Tanager trying for some of the Grape Jelly that Nana puts out. Nana used to think this was her favorite bird but after seeing that the bird does not have enough brains to land on the feeder in order to get some food this bird has gone down on her list.

The jelly was first put out for the Baltimore Oriole. The Oriole started coming to the feeder 3 times a day and Nana was filling it up twice a day. Finally she put the kybosh on filling it twice a day.
We have two different Oriole's in the neighborhood.








The feeder is a dual feeder and as you can see the Ruby Throat-ed Hummingbird also likes the sugar water.

Wild Flowers

The Trillium's have just exploded this year. We have never seen so many wild flowers as we have this year.







Here is a blanket in our woods.

My Pals

My Portland Pals

Springtime Flowers

Flowers on the farm. Here are yellow and white ones.

Spring Beauties

Here you can see some more red, and yellow ones.