Fall River Trip

It began as a misty cloudy day but as James predicted, it cleared up and ended as a gorgeous day for Jim, JoAnn and guests to make a trip south of town to follow the Mississippi River all the way to Nelson, Wisconsin and over the bridge to Wabasha to return home on the Minnesota side.

Above are pictured the two charming passengers who shared our river trip to watch for Eagles, beautiful scenery and visit a special pumpkin farm. We only saw a few Eagles but we were rewarded instead by finding Pelicans (of all things) feeding near the shore of Lake Pepin.
If you look closely you will see hundreds of Pelicans huddled together to find food to ready themselves for their Fall migration each year. We and our friends, Patsy and Rosie, were awed by this sight and watched this phenomenal group move like a trained chorus of dancers from "A Chorus Line". We viewed them from a park in the city of I think it was Bay City, Wisconsin.

Next we stopped at a farm near Nelson, Wisconsin where pumpkins and squash and gourds are sold at a bargain price with its profits going to a charitable organization. We filled our trunk with goodies to bring home. Above you will see that Jim became buddies with the owner of the farm who was very helpful .. especially to the good looking ladies we had with us. Below is the well fed trunk of our car. Hidden there amongst the bounty are some gifties the ladies picked up in Stockholm, Wisconsin, a wonderful town with an abundance of gift shops, eateries and friendly people. A bonus was bumping into friends from home on the same journey.

The Last Rose of Summer??

After our meal, I wandered around the yard and took this picture of this little beauty. The "Last Rose Of Summer" wasn't quite"... faded and gone.." as the song says. Instead, she is a beauty and will be for a few days to come. There are a few buds too but they might bloom and they might not, but I wanted to catch this one before this Summer's blooms end. These roses gave us much pleasure and many more as well because we like to share these blooms with friends, family and neighbors during the summer and present them in dollar store vases with a ribbon on it to show our friendship and love.

Sunday Dinner

Today after Attending Mass at St. Joan's where we heard the St. Joan's choir with Robert Robinson doing a tear producing "We Raise You Up" better than Josh could do, we came home and cooked up this masterpiece of scalloped potatoes and ham. Yum. I took pictures of the whole process but couldn't get them in order?? Still learning this program. But.. you get the idea. A salad and a portion of this dish was a treat to be relished. Oh, for dessert cookies topped the menu. Lovely for a warm Sunday in October. It was just what we needed.

Horse Fiasco!

Hi All! Well, this week has been an interesting and stressful one. Stephen surprised me Monday night and came home for his days off (he has been in field training for the forest service for the past 3 months). He was not allowed to relax on his days off, however, because we had a pretty major horse fiasco. Stephen went for a bike ride at about noon and took a slight detour to see the horses since he hadnt seen them since he'd been home yet. The horses run free on about 90 acres and when Stephen got there, he found Sugar- but Ce Ce was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Sugar led Stephen to Ce Ce and she had somehow gotten herself stuck in an electric line ditch that had been dug for the house that is being built on the property. The ditch was about 3ft wide and about 4ft deep.... and she was stuck.

Stephen frantically tried to get ahold of me, but I was out in the field-out of cell phone coverage, and at least 1.5 hour drive from Meeker. He finally did get ahold of me through a radio, and cell phone boosters, but I didnt have the slightest clue what to tell him! How often does a horse get stuck in a ditch?

Stephen knocked on the neighbor's door and luckily they had a backhoe. They dropped everything to come help us get CeCe out of the ditch. CeCe was so exhausted from trying to get herself out (she had possibly been stuck for up to 24hrs) that the shovel of the backhoe was inches from her face and she didnt move an inch or react at all.

They eventually got her out, and she was shaken up, scraped up, cut up, and swollen in many places... but no major injuries-thank god! I took her to the vet the next day and now have to run a cold hose on her back end hip muscles everyday for about 5-10min a piece, keep her entire left front leg bandaged with a special linamint to help the swelling, give her antibiotics for her cuts and her left front leg has a type of mild infection under the skin caused by the trauma and all the cuts/scrapes on it.

She seems to be healing fine so far. Just thought I'd share this incredible story with all of you. Knock on wood.... this is the biggest horse situation i have ever had to deal with in all my horse career!

Thinking of you all! Love you!

October Pike Lake

Last weekend we took a day trip to the Hayward WI area to see the colors. I think we were a little early for some and late for others but nevertheless it was a beautiful day with beautiful views. We traveled to an old church to have our picnic lunch with this view thru the trees. Then we went to a Franciscan School and Church where we had a little visit with the caretaker/teacher/tough old gal nun. We happened upon the Stone Lake Cranberry Festival which delayed our trip a bit because of the bumber to bumber traffic. Hundreds and hundreds of cars...must have been quite the event. Jim and JoAnn got quite a few things organized/cleaned/thrownout/washed/vacuumed/swept/and more. So we will all be able to enjoy the fruits of that next summer.
Most of these pics were just for the heck of it. I will put a few more on a new post as I took all the memory for these.
We had a great time...laughing and hanging out. Thanks for the memories~