Explorers Exchange

Our county has a 4-H project where kids from another state come to visit us one year and we got there the next year to learn about what their area of the United States is like. The 4-Hers stay with a host family and we cram about as many things into a week as humanly possible.  This year our county hosted a group from Wisconsin.

We started the week with a potluck, softball, volley ball and swimming.  

The next day we visited a sculpture park.  This elephant is made out of over 900 lawn mower blades.  The artist is the man in the light blue shirt.

His sculptures are all over town.  We were able to go back to his shop and see how he makes his sculptures.

Another interesting thing about the artist is that his daughter is an astronaut.  I am nervous when the kids go off in the car, I can't imagine watching them blast off into space.

Our exchange 4-Her.

This was my favorite one.

We brown bagged it in a park.

We climbed up to the top of a peak that was the highest elevation in the area.  It was a cool day, the girls were huddling for warmth.

Visited the rune stone museum and Big Ole.

Next day was stop at the stick houses that are at a local arboretum.

Canoeing and swimming.

A tour of an Abbey.  There was much more to the church than meets the eye.

Had some down time playing cards and

enjoying a bonfire.

A historic theater that my dad went to when he was a kid to watch 10 cent movies.  Now it hosts plays, dance recitals and musical groups.  This day we also went to a huge flower garden, thrift shopping and a concert in the park.

A tour of a pioneer park.

Coyote hat, that would keep Spark warm in the winter doing chores. 

Haunted Hill.  This is a place where you park on the hill, put your car in neutral and your car goes backwards up the hill.  You keep going faster and faster, we had Spark going along side the car and he was running at a pretty good clip before we put the brakes on and let him back in the car. 

The worlds largest twine ball.  This use to just sit in someones front yard but now it is encased in glass and has a museum devoted to twine ball souvenirs.

Some volleyball before lunch.

A candy shop.  This is a taffy caramel wrapper from the 1940's.  The guy said that if they had to keep wrapping all the candy by hand that they would have closed up their shop years ago because it is a time consuming job when they sell a couple thousand pounds a month.

We also visited a dairy farm where they milk with a milker and one where they use robots to milk.  To bring milk from beginning to the end we also toured a milk processing plant.  The plant we went to makes all the cheese that goes on top of Doritos among other things.

The last night the kids watched a movie outside.

And before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye.

Taylors Falls and Somewhere In Wisconsin

Helmets Required went to Taylors Falls last year with the purpose to ride the boat on the river.  However, our dreams were dashed when we realized that the government shut down included the water that boats float on.  So back we went to ride the Taylors Falls Queen.

Didn't take a picture of the boat, only the scenes we enjoyed.

Next we were off to find this waterfall that was somewhere in Wisconsin that I can not remember the name of.

Spark standing behind the waterfalls.

Picnic tables?  The mosquitoes were so bad we danced the whole time we were there.

From the bottom of the waterfall to the top of the entry.  

This is just half way back up the stairs, but thankfully there were stairs and not an 85 degree dirt path.

Waffle Iron Hash Browns

Not sure where I saw this but it is pure brilliant.  Put Crispy Crowns, Tater Tots or hash brown patties on the waffle iron, close the cover and a few minutes later you have perfectly done potatoes.  We did find that thawing them first works best and covering the entire surface of the waffle iron so they mesh into one patty.   

Happy Dog

Giddy Up!

Celebrating National Hotdog Day

Life of Chicken

Moved to the chicken tractor. 

Meat birds destined for the dinner table.

Pizza at the Park

4-H Camp

We dropped Dancer off on Sunday for her week as a camp counselor. 

We took Spark to catch the camp bus on Wednesday.  Hanging out waiting for the bus.

The kids humor me with all the pictures I take.

And he's off.  I am never quite sure what to do when the are gone, thankfully this year Dad had the days they were both gone off from work.

Happy to see the bus return on Friday!  Dancer was home but a couple hours and she was out with friends- I would have done the same thing at her age. 

Two Birthday Celebrations

We celebrated Grandma Pat's birthday at a Mexican restaurant. 

Nikki, who shares the same birthday with Grandma, celebrated her 7th birthday with a can of wet dog food. 

Fourth of July

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's for a burger supper.  I like the way Dancer's shirt makes a rainbow behind her from their camper.

A pileated woodpecker has a nest way up in a tree.  People said you can see them feeding their babies, but we only saw one stick its head out to look around. 

They also have a par 3 golf course so the kids went out and hit a few balls.  Spark keeping his eye on the ball.

Dancer working on her putting, she didn't have a putter with so she is using the back of a iron.

Dad Rockin' A New Look

First Day

as a day camp counselor.  

It Was So Wet in June...

How wet was it?

The wettest it has ever been since 1847!

Wet enough for this little crayfish to be able to crawl out of the creek, through the swamp and up to our patio - a long way from his home.

And when the rain came, it came.  We had one storm where our electricity went out.  After the electric company came and cut down a big portion of our tree down, the lights came back on.

A couple of the branches were charred, no good!  

Five truck loads of branches and lots of logs later we had most of it cleaned up.  The sun set before we were able to finish that night.  

Despite still having water coming in the basement from intense ground saturation and the driveway muddy, the garden, which is about 20 feet behind the house, is dry and we are watering it.  

Our Berry Best

Our second berry of the year and there is one more ripening in the garden!  Yep, our total crop will be three berries and we are ecstatic about it.  Why? Because we seem to be berry challenged.  We have tried blueberries, strawberries and raspberries.  We have mail ordered them from very reputable sellers, bought them at the local garden store and gotten free ones from patches where "they grow like weeds."  Seems the only place we can get berries is the produce section of the grocery store.    

Graduation Parties are Dumb

With Dancer graduating next year, naturally we know a lot of kids who have graduated in the last couple of years and, in turn, have attended quite a few graduations.

It seems that kids, or at least their parents, start planning their graduation parties during graduation season the year before.  I have also noticed that cake and ham buns just doesn't cut it any more as acceptable graduation fare.  Now they have themes, gourmet food, some kind of bar (candy, ice cream, fish taco, etc.) for guests to graze on while staying at the party for what seems like an appropriate amount of time, bounce houses, petting zoos and even fireworks.

It also seems that no matter how interested I appear to be in the plans for their graduation the dreaded question always comes, "What does Dancer want for her graduation party?"

"Um, she doesn't"

"She doesn't?" they ask with the same disbelief we heard in their voices 13 years ago when we said that she wasn't going to kindergarten because we were going to homeschool.

"No," and this is sort of uncomfortable when we are at a graduation party, "She thinks they are dumb?"

Chirp, chirp, chirp......

So let me explain why she thinks they are dumb.  First, Dancer is not a "look at me, life of the party" kind of girl.  You could go as far as to say she is a bit of an introvert, okay, a lot of an introvert.  She has lots and lots of friends, but you might not hear her talk very much until you have met her a couple of times.  So being the center of attention at a party would be equivalent to having a root canal without Novocain.

Secondly, why would you invite a lot of people over who don't know each other (which is really the case when you homeschool) and you don't really have time to really talk to them?  I never thought of it that way but yes, that does make sense.

I try to explain this to people, which usually results in a little smile and a quick change in conversation.  One parent, however, said that I should force her with the reasoning that she will regret it later in life.

Okay, now I think that is dumb.  I just spent 17 years teaching her to be a critical thinker, not go along with the crowd if she feels differently just because it is the ideas of the majority, to be her own independent person and feel comfortable being that person and to make her own choices.  Why would I, at the end the road, "force" her to have a party?

So will there be a graduation party in honor of Dancer's hard work next year?  I don't know, maybe she will opt to have a few low key bonfires with groups of friends.

And what about Spark?  He is already planning his party and I wouldn't be surprised it included fireworks. And a taco bar.  He's already making a guest list.    

Baby Chicks

Our extremely cold winter was so hard on our animals that we only had one chicken survive and no rabbits.  So this year, after several years of not raising chicks, we got an order of heavy layers and meat birds.  We quit raising meat birds because the rabbits, which taste so much like chicken that the whole time you are eating rabbit you have to be reminding yourself it is rabbit, are work all year around and the meat birds are a project that only lasts a couple months.

Who Let The Goat Out?

Nico, our buck, was looking in our deck window when we got up in the morning.  We  keep patching the corral but he keeps finding new ways to escape during the night.  This time he took a gate off of its hinges and munched his way around the yard until we got up.  His beautiful white beard is now full of burrs, short of cutting it off I don't know how we were going to get those out.  Fluffles was very curious at who this large white beast was looking in at him.

25th Anniversary

Our 25th anniversary was a trip to Mall Of America and IKEA (yes, we are one of the few people left in the free world who haven't been there).

At the Disney store Spark tried out the prince castle.  He may be too tall to even rescue a princess properly.

Tried on Forest Gump's shoes.

Dancer checked out the Barbie car.

Spark modeled a Siberian hat that may be warm enough for our winters.

Fish from Long John Silvers - oh, yumminess in a basket!

Finally got my hands on one of those annoying monkeys.

Found these plastic animals most disturbing.  If you have rats in your barn larger than your llama, run like hell and lock the door behind you!

We found a few geocaches which always brings us to interesting parts of a city that we wouldn't otherwise visit.

We finished the day with burgers and malts at Fudruckers.  Now onto the next twenty five!