Dancing and Painting

Adam took a break from painting this beautiful afternoon to enjoy the sweet sounds of summer.

Don't worry, though. We're staying on task. Three more weekends of painting, and we'll finally be done with this project.

Summer Road Trip

Every year Nicole and I take a long vacation to some awesome place, usually to celebrate a marriage. Recently, we have visited Puerto Vallarta, the Black Hills, Boston, and San Francisco. This year, the marriage of Andrew Bussey to Lauren Dacey in Canandaigua, New York motivated us to visit all five of the Great Lakes.

We traveled a total of 2559 miles, including Canada's kilometers, and provided an unexpected $31.70 in tolls to the local economies. Here are some important things you missed by not hiding in our back seat.

View Nicole and Adam's Tour of the Great Lakes in a larger map

Indiana and Ohio are terrible states.

If you require people to pay when you enter your state, pay to get off your interstate, and then pay when you leave your state, you might be a terrible state.

Western New York is beautiful.

Think of the rolling hills of western Wisconsin, but make them bigger, reduce the beer consumption, and add more quaintness. New York was a nice sight to see after suffering through the previous three states on our trip.

Andrew Bussey married Lauren Dacey.

The wedding service's Catholic mass was highlighted by the memorable homily delivered by Andrew's hometown pastor. She had instructed the bride and groom to each write a letter explaining why they loved their partner, and then read the responses directly. Those letters were full of amazing things. It was an incredibly special moment, and it actually made me pause the dots-to-dots game I was playing with Ryan.

Cornell University in Ithaca, NY is a beautiful campus.

We visited two college campuses on our trip. Notre Dame in South Bend, IN - coincidentally, Lauren's alma mater - had a very large and beautiful campus, but since school was already out for the summer, it was deceptively quiet. Cornell, however, is amazing. The campus is situated on top of a tall hill overlooking Ithaca and Cayuga Lake and has a series of waterfalls snaking down the middle. Amelia Greiner, as a Cornell alum, was our excellent tour guide, and it was great to see her, especially following her recent engagement. Next year's vacation, perhaps?

The Maid of the Mist boat tour is totally worth it.

Remember the wedding episode of The Office where Jim and Pam are married on a boat at Niagara Falls? That was a Maid of the Mist boat, and it is really fun. All that water is crashing around you, you're soaked, and you can't see anything, but you also can't stop laughing. The free ponchos help.

Everyone needs to visit Niagara-On-The-Lake.

It is a quaint, very Stillwater-esque town in the heart of the best wine-making region in Canada, and it is awesome. It was here we learned about ice wine. Ice wine is this crazy dessert wine produced by leaving grapes on the vine until January. The growers wait until there are three nights in a row of below-freezing temperatures and then hand-pick the grapes in the middle of the night. Inside each grape is a drop of concentrated juice which makes a sweet and delicious wine. Obviously, this stuff is expensive, but we went to plenty of tastings and made the most of the experience. All the other Canadian wines were mostly complimentary to taste, and they were also quite good. If I could only choose one place to visit again, it would be this region.

Poutine is french fries, topped with cheese curds, and covered with gravy.

Apparently, everyone in Canada knows what poutine is, but no one in America does. Seriously, ask around. It was everywhere up there. After much head-scratching about the dish, we were able to find some high-end poutine thanks to a tip from our concierge. Thankfully, we didn't have to get it at KFC. I'm honestly surprised that we don't have this dish at home, especially with our close proximity to Wisconsin. At the very least, this should be a State Fair staple.

The CN Tower in Toronto is too expensive.

We paid $23 each to ride to the top of the Western Hemisphere's tallest tower and one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. We enjoyed ourselves and had fun sitting on the glass floors, but probably not $23 of fun.

Toronto is a great place to hang out, but not much of a tourist town.

We kind of ran out of things to do in Toronto. For being Canada's largest city, we expected things to be closer together and a little more touristy, but it is really more of a residential town. There were cool places to eat and neat neighborhoods, but those are hard to explore in two days when you are walking everywhere. I suppose it's like Minneapolis that way.

Killarney Provincial Park is far off the beaten path, but that's a good thing.

We took a bit of a risk on our trip by not reserving a campsite in Canada. It turned out to be no problem at all. There were probably 10 other people camping in the park from among 170 sites, and no one in our radio-free section at all. A black bear that crossed our path caused Nicole a little concern at night, but otherwise it was gorgeous. The black flies were supposedly low for the season, but we did get hit with some nasty mosquitoes. Fun Fact: Black flies are an indicator of unpolluted waters.

The Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie have been in operation since 1855.

Who knew?

Mackinac Island, MI is as great as everyone says it is.

It is an island in Lake Huron where no cars allowed, fudge is made in bulk, and is covered with adorable sights. We thought the island would have been expensive and cheesy, but it is actually a really cool place. I think most of the children of Michigan were there on a field trip the day we visited, but the island was big enough for us to find quiet places.

Nicole will take pictures of any flowers.

Half the pictures of our trip are flowers, and not necessarily rare or unique flowers. Sometimes they were flowers that we already had in our yard at home. I don't get it.

If you're interested, you can click here for pictures of our trip. All the pictures of our trip, just so you know what you're getting into.

(Uploading is still in process, so you early readers should come back later for the rest of the story!)

Our All-New Approach to Gardening!

The memories of last year's gardening disaster have almost been forgotten, but we're not taking any chances. This is our chance to start fresh with a new system, one that relies heavily on actual gardening principles according to established rules and geographic conditions.

I somehow managed to convince Adam to give up three beautiful spring weekends to help me build two raised garden beds, each constructed of 4'x6' untreated, naturally rot-resistant cedar boards.

Even though we carefully measured, we still needed to "make it work". TJ understood the solemnity of the situation.

We chose the sunny south side of our garage for our garden, which was good for two reasons: first, it followed those pesky gardening rules, and second, it gave me a chance to actually visit this unused corner of the yard. In fact, this area has become the hot new hang-out. Stop by for a drink sometime.

We needed to first remove the existing lawn, a job Adam took great pride in accomplishing.

After the beds were constructed and the lawn was removed, we were able to secure the beds into the ground (leveling optional). I forget why we added stakes to the corners, but I'm fairly certain it was for a good reason.

I eagerly and earnestly started a compost pile two years ago upon receipt of a free compost bin, but forgot to water and/or turn it during that entire time. It appears that my plan worked! We were able to recover mostly usable finished compost to add to the garden. The stubborn bits were returned to the compost bin in its new south side location. Adam has informed me that he will be taking over the job of Compost Manager in the future. My plan works again!

In addition to our existing topsoil and finished compost, we purchased several 40-pound bags of compost to add to the beds and worked it into the garden. This process will be repeated next spring, and I'll probably recycle this photo for next year's post.

I was excited to start planting, so the cool-season crops are already in: lettuce, spinach, chard, onions, carrots, broccoli, peas... The beds are small, so I'm sure I've overplanted and will need to thin everything out. Fortunately, the copy of Square-Foot Gardening that I requested through my local library will be in tomorrow. Unfortunately, I will not heed its advice until next year.

The plastic fencing was a last-minute addition to buy us some time against the rabbits. It may not work, but at least we can say we tried. And, really, that's what this whole experiment is about.

Happy May Day!

The whole town is coming into bloom, and the neighbors have beautiful trees. Enjoy!

Signs of an Early Spring

The weather has been absolutely beautiful this spring, and we're reaping the benefits of last year's yard work. Lately, we've taken to just walking around the yard and soaking it all in.

Screen Shots!

Do you know these people? Because Picasa wants to know.

The bottom row needs help.

Birds Birds Birds!

My winter has been consumed with bird-watching. Not bird-watching of the high-definition documentary or Life List tallies or global expedition variety, but just simple backyard feeder bird watching. When the days are short, one little chickadee can make it or break it.

Our most common birds include the Black-capped Chickadees, obviously, along with Northern Cardinals, White-breasted Nuthatches, House Sparrows, and House Finches. Nothing for the regular person to get too excited about - but they should!

Blue Jays, always monopolizing the feeder

Dark-eyed Juncos, our little ground feeders

Lots and lots of woodpeckers, often patiently waiting for his or her turn at the suet feeder

Downy Woodpecker at the tube feeder, perhaps my favorite winter bird

A Pileated Woodpecker occasionally shows up to feed at our dead maple. I don't know why he bothers with a suet feeder, since he appears far too big.

And where there are bird feeders, there are squirrels, always waiting for an opportunity.

Spot the sparrows!

Red-bellied Woodpecker and resident chickadee

Our friendly nuthatch and chickadee, taking cover from the snow.

I've managed to get the whole family involved with birding. Adam is quick with a pair of binoculars, Pickles chatters when a bird comes close to the window, and TJ helps to keep the squirrels at bay. It's a team effort!