Just different

BOO! Did I scare you? Here in Wisconsin Halloween in a big deal! A lot of people go all out to decorate their houses. I took some pictures and am just showing 1 of them.

Did you ever watch that movie called Hocus Pocus? That's what today reminded me of! After work I drove to a patron's house as she was unable to come to the library. I dropped off her books and took back a book. (You can do that in a small town!) While driving around, there were tons of kids walking around all dressed up. I

had the window rolled down. I could smell wood smoke (or burning leaves?) and hear the kids laughing. Remember that scene in the movie where the kids are just starting to go out? That was what it was like. It was nice to see all the costumes! Up in Alaska they get covered with snow suites and stuff. Being that it was warm today (High 60s) and still daylight, it brought out all the little goblins and ghost! And another thing! I thought that the local Chief of Police was pulling my leg but he wasn't. He sets the time that the kids can go trick or treating! I asked why and its based on what time school gets out, what time it gets dark and the downtown businesses all hand out candy so that also has something to do with it. At the library, we had candy ready but only 1 kid came in. The haunted house must have been a bigger draw then us! Maybe the kids thought that we would hand out books!

New Smell!

This is a picture of the corn field that I share a property line with. The other picture is where Farmer Brown came by and cut a swath of corn down. My dog started barking and then I heard this really loud noise. By the time I got dressed and grabbed the camera, Farmer Brown and his corn cutting machine was way down the field and turning a corner. It's been about 1/2 hour and I still have not heard the machine coming by. Its a real big corn field. The corn field and I share the south and west property lines. The smell of cut corn is rather nice. It's a fresh, green and sweet scent. Not bad at all. Sure beats that poop/rot smell! Also you will note that I gave you a little "eye candy" in that one picture! Come on! Don't you think that's the best looking dobie ever? Oh, and for you freezing cold folks up in Alaska? It's a balmy 68 at my house. It's windy, but a warm south wind! Nice! Oh, and I'm sorry if that sounded mean! I'm just trying to share with you!


P.S. If you want to see the "eye candy" better, you might need to
enlarge the picture!

I don't get it

Up in Alaska, I didn't see much in the lawn decoration department. There was one house in my folks neighborhood, that had a swan family in the yard. My sister had a neighbor that had pink flamingos in their yard! But that was funny! Some times the flamingos would be up in the trees, in a circle or in a straight line. It was fun to see what the flamingos were going to do next!

Here in Wisconsin, there are a lot, and I mean a lot of lawns that have the deer family thing going on. One time, on a drive, I saw one yard that had 2 deer families looking at each other. I don't really get the deer thing. I have to confess. I have a desire to sneak in at night and paint a target on them! Also I have to make another confession. I have a lawn decoration too, it's a cow! But it came with the place. I tried to give it away, but it's too heavy!

Pumpkins

Living in Alaska I never gave it a thought about

how we got pumpkins in the store. I just saw big bins full of them. Believe it or not, this is the 1st time I have seen a pumpkin patch! I giggled when I pulled over. It just looks odd to see so many orange blobs in one place. Across the street was a

little farmer stand selling pumpkins and other stuff. I bought a jar of homemade cherry jam. It taste yummy, has big chunks of cherries in it. Wisconsin is also the 1st time that I saw a cherry tree! My friend Kellie has one in her yard. Her cherry tree didn't do what a cherry tree is supposed to do. Also my 1st apple tree. Boy, I have had a lot of first here! Not all of them good. Wisconsin, 1st place that I hit an animal! Hit a deer the 1st week that I lived here!

Views

Don't get me wrong. I really like that house that I have. I also like this view I have from my kitchen window, makes doing the dishes by hand not so boring. I do have a dish washer but I would run out of dishes to use before I have the washer full enough to run it. So, its not that I'm unhappy with my new home, its just that the other day when I was taking pictures of fall colors I saw a lot of houses that had sweeping panoramic views and now I have view envy. I wish my house was on a hill or had a valley view as the fall colors are just beautiful. But as my sister Jenny would say

" If wishes were fishes we would all be swimming"

Overload

Its getting to be too much color! And I'm sure that the pictures are not telling the truth! I have never seen such color on trees. Poor girl from Alaska!

Best salsa ever!

Today before I went to work I went to my friend Kellie's house to help her make the best salsa ever! Now I have made bunches of jam's and pickles before and I have a pressure cooker and I have canned moose meat with my sister and I have also canned other stuff but I have never made anything with tomatoes, the whole peeling and chopping and blanching just seemed to be to much, not worth the bother Well, this salsa is worth the bother! My job was to peel and rough chop the tomatoes and I did that rather well if I do say so myself. Kellie made 17 pints and still had enough to make another batch, other then she didn't have enough hot peppers. It was so good that on Wed, on my off day, I'm going up to Clinkers and getting that big bunch of tomatoes to make salsa just like Kellie's. So when my Mom and Dad come down and also when my sister Patty and her husband come down, I will give them homemade salsa.

A little Haiku for you.

Peel,Chop,Slice,Dice,Mix.

Scotch bonnets add the right heat.

water bath, pong,ping.

Fall Harvest

This past Saturday, on the day that I took the pictures of the horses, I also when to a place called Klinger's ( I think that that's what its called )They are like a Bells Green House in Alaska. But this place also

grows a lot
of the stuff that they sell. Like the tomatoes,potatoes and a lot of the pumpkins and gourds. They also have a grocery store where they sell all kinds of fresh stuff that they get from local farmers. Its a fun place to check out. I bought some of my plants for my garden there. Being that I am from Alaska, I never have seen so many types of gourds and pumpkin type stuff! So many sizes and shapes to choose. Some of the gourds are the ones that you let dry out and turn them into birdhouses. They also had long long tables that they dried Indian corn on for fall decorating. I felt very Martha Stewart-ie while I was there. I was tempted to buy 1/2 bushel of tomatoes to make some salsa and sauce but didn't. It seemed like a lot of work!
The one basket that has the small gourds in it, they look like

dragons feet to me, almost like a claw grabbing onto an egg!

Fall Time

Its fall time here, and the leaves are turning. I took this picture on the way to my most wonderful job! You know, the one at the library! I planed on taking more on the way home but then it got cloudy and sometimes you just need bright sunshine to make the picture " pop " so I only have one to share right now. Its exciting to see the different colors! Up in Alaska it seems that all we get is yellow and a flash of red and that flash is far and few in between. I see that some houses are starting to decorate their house for Halloween. They do that big time down here. I wont as I live out in the country and you cant see my place from the road. So why waste time and money to do that? I know, bah hum bug, but that's for later! As I also don't decorate for Christmas! That's to much work for one person to enjoy it.

hodgepodge

This was day 2 of the new job, and today was just as much fun as yesterday! It was more busy, I put about 50 books/videos/CD and DVD's back on the shelf and I pulled 20 items off the shelf to go out to other libraries. It's a nice feeling to send out books. Knowing that someone on the other end is going to have a mini Christmas when they get their book, OK maybe not like Christmas, but still a thrill to get a new book that you have been waiting on, I know I like it when I get my books. I can tell that there are going to be some odd people at the library! I will have to try and avoid eye contact with them! And maybe blog about them later! I will change the name and place to protect the weird!

I think hunting season is going to start soon, or maybe my neighbor just got a new gun, for the past 2 hours about every 10 min he shoots his gun about 10 times or so, then there's a 15 minute lull and them he shoots again, I don't mind, but I don't want my dog to go over and check it out. Abby had no fear of gun noises and when shes hunting her gofers she goes place to place and can end up far away, I would hate for her to get shot by accident ( I'm sure is would be an accident right?!)

I was glad to work today, but it would have been a great day to wash and hang up clothes on the line! I cant believe that I now think about the weather when I wash clothes! How crazy is that? but when you line dry, you don't want it to have a 3rd rinse! My Dad had made me paranoid about soap left in clothes when you wash, so I always do the 2nd rinse on the wash cycle.

But I will have plenty of time to wash them tomorrow or on Friday, its going to be in the high 70's tomorrow and then on Friday its going to get up to 86? or so! Eat your heart out, you poor wet and cold and shivering Alaskans!

The pic has nothing to do with the post today, just that its a nice pic of rural life. I keep on forgetting to keep my camera with me at all times. Its fall time so a lot of the fields are turning colors and so are the trees.

Out and about.

Today I needed to drive a lady I meet through church, down to a city/town called Lacrosse as she had a DR Apt and will be coming back tomorrow ( somebody else will pick her up ) but anyways, its about a 2 hour drive south from my place. On the way down we climbed up some rolling hills and stopped at this scenic overlook. There is just something soothing to the soul when I see scenes like this.

Then we drove on and got back in the low lands ( Ha ha, it's really all low lands in Wisconsin!)And we saw a big sign about " pick your own apples " so we followed that sign and came to this place that had a corn maze for kids to go get lost in, a large pile of hay for the kids to play in and then a little county store that sold apples, their own honey, their own maple syrup, their own jam and their homemade fresh pressed apple cider. We didn't really have time to do our own picking so I bought a big bag ( the smallest one there!) of this year's crop of Honey Crisp! Man oh man are they good!

Then we drove on down to Lacrosse and I slowed down and kicked her out. OK OK ! I didn't really do that. I went inside with her and made sure that all was still a go and then left. I laid down some rubber when I peeled out! No I didn't do that either! What I did do was drive over the bridge into MN and drove Hwy 61 north and that takes you along side the Mississippi river, I pulled over and took this pic, Its amazing when you think that this river goes and goes all the way down south into the ocean.

OK, now this pic to the right is not the best pic ever but I wanted you all to see what the temp was! Eat your little cold, wet and rainy hearts out! Also note that around the light post there are pumpkins and fall decorations. They had that on all the lamp post and the town square had a bunch of hay bales and pumpkins all stacked around. Fall is a big thing here in Wisconsin. I didn't get a pic of that as there was a big old truck in the way. Also this town had diagonal parking on main street! How cool is that? This town was called Wabasha, this is where I crossed back over into Wisconsin and came back up to my place. It was about a 5 hours of driving all told, but I did some extra driving to go sight seeing. And maybe I got lost , not saying that I did, just maybe.

Grrrr

I had to take a little drive today to get de-cranked! I no longer have tolerance with customer service people that don't speak the queens English ( That's a nod to Cecil!) I have an Alaska Airline credit card with miles and I needed to get all the info on that switched to a new address, phone and e-mail. I could not do it online so I called the number that they had on the web page, after listening to my options it said "press 1 for English and then is Spanish it said press 2 for Spanish. I pressed 1, I got a lady that did not speak English, I have 2 years of high school Spanish, we might have done better if we tried that! So after about 10 minutes of pure hell we figured out what needed to be done, and she said " all O.K. now" So I get off the phone and signed in...didn't work....called the number again, pressed 1 for English, hung up, different person, but they didn't speak English! Called my friend Kellie, she talked me down, I called again, pressed 1 for English, stayed on the phone with the NON English speaking person for about 10 minutes, " all O.K. now"
and I tried again to sign in and it worked! But why let me press 1 for English and not have Betty Sue from Kansas on the phone?!
I want a Betty Sue when I need help on the phone. So I gathered up the dog and went for a drive. I do believe that fall is hitting Wisconsin, I'm starting to see a few of these colors, I am looking forward to fall and seeing more then yellow! And it worked, I calmed down.