last month we spoke of june. it’s either a little late or a lot early to take up that discussion again but july ah july… it draws a picture immediately doesn’t it? And one of the best.
july is summer …
july in minnesota is vacations and fireworks and time at the lakes and camping and making sure you take time for you. you can do it any time I suppose but there is no time like minnesota in july. It still exists in november and i like that too but man july can’t be beat.
i think I have mentioned i used to have to go on my summer vacations with my kids almost the moment the school let out for the summer and we had june all to ourselves. The 4th of july marks the official beginning of summer for america, the campgrounds get full and the roads are full of travelers.
i hear this year things are down a bit because of the high gas prices and tough economy. all the better, let the nay sayers stay home and leave the back roads to those of us who need them for medicinal reasons. it dawned on me the other day that the 15th of july marks the halfway oint in the summer. the state fair is closer than the last day of school was and if you don’t have an x on your calander for yourself at this point you had better get busy. don’t miss the minnesota glory.
if you never leave the area around where you live and/or frequent, where would you recommend we go?
things like the concerts at the zoo, lake harriet bandshell and the recently past winnepeg folk festival are what i am thinking about. i feel like a point gets made to get to yelowstone but the boundary waters get overlooked. if you go off to florida you miss out on a beach in town. where are the special places that are local and easy access that we should all know about? this call goes out to our bloggers in north dakota south dakota canada and elsewhere too. what is so good you can tell us to be sure to do it with our remaining time this summer or our remaining time on the planet?
what does july make you think of , what are you doing about it and what do you recommend?
Trail Baboon 
i have faspitch tournaments for two daughters today but i will check in from iphoneland to discuss july further (quick before its gone) ..there is july in theory then there is july in practice. step outside.
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tim, with no attribution on the discussion starter, but with absent capitalization can we assume that you are our igniter today or has ee cummings begun blogging??????
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i like to feel i channel ee regularly
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i was 6 or 7 when visiting my uncle paul and aunt maura in fargo for a week or so. it was never an inconvenience heck it was cousins. the house was a big old house on the boulevard in fargo and the rooms were big and posh. the kids there were bunked up there were 6 of them , must have been a three or 4 bedroom house but it had nook and crannies, a reading room, a study off the master bedroom a separate bath for the master bedroom. all the tubs had claw feet and the water would come up to your chin. i liked the life in that house and that is where aunt maura made her first impact on me. i was sitting in the big easy chair in their bedroom and watching tv when i checked the bedside table and there were books scattered around. among them was ee cummings. i picked it up and was very taken with the fact that he used no capitals. how could this be. his words were arranged in interesting patterns that would make you wonder if the placement had something to do with the meaning and of course the only conclusion was that it did. it made me realize that there was a literary world out there i had not thought about up until that moment and on our way out of town back to minneapolis i made the comment to aunt maura ho much i enjoyed her ee cimmings book. well i guess looking back that would be a little bit of a smile coming from a 7 year old ut it was a sincere comment and it was acknowledged as such. from that point on i got an ee cummings book for the next 4 or 5 years for christmas from aunt maura. got me started on poetry and love of words. i have never studied it in depth but as a casla observer i must say i would live to spend about a half a life time wrapped in it. wouldn’t it be nice to take a sabbatical and study an area of interest that you just haven’t gotten around to? maybe i will i had better do it soon. i find myself having a thought and putting it on the back burner for a minute until i get to it then turning around to check it out a minute later and discovering 6 years has passed.
lawrence ferlinghetti,alan ginsberg, john berryman, bill holm, billy collins are all outgrowths of ee cummings on aunt mauras bedside table. think i made a comment in the blog that recently going back to fargo for a funeral i was at a post funeral get together at aunt mauras house and was taken with her collection of books in the bathroom and made a comment on it. you know you are in a good place when the 3 bathroom books are shakespear woody allen and robert fulghum, she laughed and we remembered once more the bond that connects us at a level different form most.
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nothing to do with july but when this blog goes off in a direction i find it best to respond now and question the flow later.
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Yes, I think we can all guess who the ghost writer is for today’s blog post! 😉
July always gets me counting the days before Rock Bend! It is now seven short weeks away! The schedule will be posted on the website soon – hopefully next week. The graphics arts gurus are designing a new site but the old site is still there with some new info. Just don’t look at the tabs that say “Saturday’s music” and “Sunday’s music.” That’s last year’s schedule. There are some links to videos done by a few of the artists we have confirmed on the home page, so please check it out: http://www.rockbend.org We’re going to have a really great festival this year. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Something that has always been fun and relaxing for me is visiting southeastern Minnesota. I love the area around Rushford and Lanesboro. Riding bikes on the Root River trail is quiet and beautiful. It’s fun to explore some of the back roads and get your feet wet in a cold stream. I like to camp at Beaver Creek Valley State Park. There are no mosquitoes there!
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My high school girlfriends family moved to rushford Houston when we were dating late 60s
Great area
I was talking with a guy who talked about hunting wild turkey in this unbelievably beautiful part of the world. Turned out to be rushford Houston
Great secret spot
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When wild turkeys were reintroduced into MN around 25 years ago, they were released in the southeastern corner of the state. They did very well and and have been able to spread north and west and now are found just about everywhere. We have loads of them around here now. The hunting season is April-May. They number about 30,000 statewide now.
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That general area–extreme southeastern MInnesota–might be the only place on earth where a trout fisherman in spring can hear turkeys gobbling, ruffed grouse drumming and pheasants crowing.
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Cliffy
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I also like the Lanesboro area. There are some good restaurants in Lanesboro. My top reason for doing any traveling is to try out restaurants that have a good rating or to return to good ones I have tried in the past. I have enjoyed taking some day trips down the Root River by canoe and also like using the bike trails in the Lanesboro area.
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Good morning to all,
I am looking forward to going to Rock Bend and to seeing some of you there including, of course, Krista. I have two events to recomend for August 13, The Minnesota Garlic Festival and the Square Lake Film and Music Festival. The Garlic Festival is held at the fair grounds near Hutchinson and will center around all kinds of local food as well as garlic and will include a food service with food prepared some of the Minnesota’s best chefs. There will cooking demonstrations by the chefs which usually includes Lucia from Lucia’s Cafe in Minneapolis. It is organized by a chapter of the Sustainable Farming Assoc. and also includes musical entertainment.
I will have to skip the Garlic Festival this year because I have a ticket to the Square Lake Festival where the Orange Mighty Trio has been comissioned to write music to play live to accompany a film. I don’t want to miss this even if does mean that I will not make it to the Garlic Festival this year. There is a line up of good musical acts at Square Lake and several films.
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Krista, keep reminding us about Rock Bend. We’re saving up to go ;).
Getting time off is always a struggle for me (don’t ask), so what we have to work with are the weekends. I don’t love driving so much that I want to spend my weekend doing it, and then there is also the price of gas-so we are pretty good with finding things right here.
In the past, we’ve enjoyed the little beachlette on the Mississippi down at Crosby Farm Nature Park, as well as the little cove area (the s&h calls it the Lagoon) at Minnehaha-back in my at home free-lancing days, we made a point of packing our lunches and going down there to spend the whole day. He would start arranging the flat limestone into dams to form channels and pools-other kids would come and go and join in for the time they were there. We haven’t really been back since the area has been “renovated”. I guess it needed to be done erosion-wise, but it did make for more of a city park and less of that “going up North” feeling. We’ve seen people fishing off the last bridge before Minnehaha dumps into the Mississippi and that looks like a good idea too.
This weekend, we are planning to see Into The Woods performed by a youth theatre group at the Como Pavillion, next weekend, the Antique Power Show in Hastings at the Little Log House grounds or maybe a quick jaunt up to Madeline Island, as I have determined that we MUST dip our toes in Superior at least once a year.
I fear we are running out of weekends!
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Free Range Film Festival coming up next weekend!! http://www.freerangefilm.com/
then, the Carlton County Fair – best i’ve seen – LOTS of animals, veggies, fruits, photos, fiber arts, and other exhibits. Come visit Cynthia from Mahtowa at the Historical Soc. log cabin. and the goat show is thursday morning beginning at 9 a.m. 4H goats. open class immediately after that (around 10 a.m. or so).
y’all come!
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I like some of the things at county fairs. There is big county fair here in Freeborn County which will be held in the first week of August. I will go to it, but will not stay too long. Our fair is heavily attended and there is a lot of obnoxious behavior that I don’t especially enjoy. There are some good exhibits of home grown and home made stuff that I like to see. The Carlton County Fair sounds like a good one which I would like attend if I can find time for it.
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AND, Jim, alcohol is not allowed on the fair grounds (think that gets rid of some of the behaviours you are talking about). we are not abstainers, but the municipal liquor store is a half block away if one would need a drink. 🙂 the atmosphere at the fair is very family oriented. and lots of fun, i think. tho’ we don’t stick around for the evenings…..
Aug 18 thru 21 – goat show on the morning of the 18th. many dairy breeds (besides the one, true and wonderful breed of Alpine 🙂 – La Mancha, Nubian (last year, the “Best Udder in Show” was a Nubian – said like Seinfeld says “Newman.” ha, ha, not really,) Toggenburg, Saanen, Nigerian Dwarf (last year the Best in Show was ND) and maybe some Oberhaslis.
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July is traditionally the month for the Highland art fair. I used to live and work in the area and I always like to go back for that. I missed it this year, though. I’ll try for Stillwater in the fall instead.
Today’s Slice of Shoreview parade was called off because of rain.
Some years July is like this, rain and heat and more rain and more heat. But that means you can stay inside and read, and there’s value in that.
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I’ve got a cousin in Shorview, Nancy and Scott and their little dog; whose name escapes me…
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Just finally got a chance to sit down…. busy busy today.
July is chainsaw month at our house. June always seems too soon to drag it out and August seems too late. Fired her up today to chop up a tree that came down two years ago and has been pushed against the back fence out of eyesight. I always get a “I am woman, hear me roar” feeling when I use the chainsaw.
We also did one of my other favorite July things… grilled out with friends this afternoon – lovely afternoon on their back deck. Took the dogs to play with their dogs, so everybody had a great time!
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VS, I have always had an 18″ chainsaw for normal stuff but this year bought myself a 12″ saw and I LOVE it! I realized mostly it’s little stuff I’m cutting up; trimming branches or what-not and this is small and easy to use.
I already had the safety chaps.
I hope you’re using proper safety precautions; eye, ear, face, chaps. Good for you on the “…hear me roar…” but we want you safe doing it. Imagine what BTSO Rafferty would have to say about chainsaws!
(My Dad calls me the other day; he’s 86 years old. Says “I’m having trouble with my chainsaw. Will you come and look at it?” And all I can think is 1), where did you get a chainsaw?? and 2) What are you doing with a chainsaw!??.
Of course he meant ‘Band saw’. I fixed his bandsaw…. )
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Hello Great Apes, It’s Way Too Late to Rise and Shine:
Pheeew! I am in the final stages of finishing the decorating of our expansion space at work. Lou and I just spent the day purchasing workroom cabinets for installation next weekend. I am also ordering artwork, some donated by our Steve in StP. So that was my day Off Blogway. BTW, there will be an Open House to which I will invite all of you, Sept 22. Free food and wine of course.
I just read the blog from yesterday and found the request for the salad from BBC. Here it is. This is a recipe that has lots of room for improvisation. You will find my methods inexact, at best!
Jacque’s Greek Orzo Salad
Serves a bunch
1/2 to 1 package Orzo cooked according to package directions
Olive Oyl (or Oil if you don’t like cartoons in your dish) 3-4 T Add the Olive Oil to the Orzo after it is cooked.
Juice of 1 lemon
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
Add these together and allow the flavors to mingle several hours. Then add the following:
1 bunch chopped green onions
1-2 tomatoes chopped, or cherry tomatoes work, too
1/4 c. feta crumbled
10 to 15 salty black olives chopped
1 can of artichokes, drained
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 small cucumber, chopped
Sometimes I add chopped chicken breast if I want to up the protein.
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Jacque, when you say 1/2 a package, about how much is that? I buy orzo in bulk at the co-op – not sure how big a package is. Thanks.
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I MEANT to say that this sounds really good and I’m going to try it!
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I buy Barilla in a pound package. Just depends on how much pasta vs. other ingrediants you like.
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Oops–also cilantro or parsley — a handful.
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Oppa!
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that reminds me-the Greek Fest at St George’s in St Paul must be coming up. We eat, we watch the dancers, we buy as much baklava and other fabulous Greek pastry as we think is only slightly unseemly! Almost forgot that one!!!
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And, you can get your picture taken on a camel!
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the uptown art fair
the edina art fair
the winnepeg folk festival (weekend after the 4th)
bayview blues dulurth august
farg blues fst end of july
italian automotive sexy cars and motorcycles in the parking lot at lake calhoun,august
lake harriet bandshell
dunn brothers st paul
red house records artists stuff landmark series friday nights for 15 bucks and barnfest (red wing)august 6 25 bucks
pat donahue peter ostrushko stuff
ginko coffee house
the cedar cultural center
coffee house by st thomas st kates
dakota
minnehaha walks
arboratum
taylors falls for an afternoon
rush tickets to
the guthrie
spco
the library
people watching in various locations
so many things to do so little time
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You forgot biking by the creek to the bronze bunny at Portland Ave.
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And breakfast on the patio at Day By Day. And the Irish festival on Harriet Island.
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I’ve been considering going to Barnfest but it’s not FREE!
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is there any good music out there thats free?
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Rock Bend Folk Festival in Minnesota Square Park, St. Peter, MN, Sept 10 – 11, is FREE, FREE, FREE! This year you will get to hear Red Horse, Beausoleil, Larkin Poe (formerly Lovell Sisters), Eilen Jewell, Brian Wicklund and the Barley Jacks, City Mouse and Friends, the Erickson Sisters, Orange Mighty Trio and many others for zero dollars. If you stick around on Saturday night you’ll get to hear some rockin’ blues by Kelley Hunt. If you’re really adventurous and go downtown St Peter after the festival on Saturday night, you’ll get to hear some of the musicians playing (for free) in the local bars.
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is there a good b&b in the area?
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There is a B&B, tim, but I’m not sure if it’s available. I’ll check into it. They have an AmericInn and the Viking Jr Motel but we have almost booked those solid already (Beausoleil wanted 7 rooms to begin with – we got them down to 4 or 5 I think). If you’re thinking about staying in St Peter, you should make reservations soon!
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The Locust Street Hotel
720 S Minnesota Ave
St. Peter, MN 56082
(612) 990-0090
I don’t know if they have anything available.
Otherwise
AmericInn
700 North Minnesota Ave
St. Peter
(507) 931-6554
I don’t know what is available in Le Sueur. There might be something there – not sure. Le Sueur is between Belle Plaine and St. Peter on Hwy 169.
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anyplace that would be good to pitch a little tent perhaps????
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Coming up, The Lower Town Roots Festival, also FREE. This is a FIRST ANNUAL, so I hope they have a good turnout. With Greg Brown and Monroe Crossing in the lineup, how can they not? Here are the details: http://www.lowertownrootsmusicfestival.com/
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lower town roots looks good. im hoping to head to steves but if that blows up too lower town it is
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twice baked potatoes
a fistfull of potatoes with hole punced in em and a garlic with the pointy end cut off and olive oil drizzled over it
bake a potato and a head of elephant garlic each for 1 hr at about 400 ( i like the bar b q )
so if you are doing 4 potato pertions do 4 elephant garlic (the monster ping pong ball sized cloves)
pull em of and cut the ends off the potato then cut em in half so the look like tree stumps not half pickles
scoop the potato int a bowl and
save the cigar band of the potato skin
get the meat of the garlic either but peeling the paper off or squesexing it out paste style
add it to the potato in the bowl
mash it up good
grate up cheese of your choice,
i used smoked gouda,parmesan and cheddar
enough sour cream to make it a paste
spoon it all back ito the cigar bands and cook it another 45 in or so at 375
sauted mushroon and or kalamata olives are gooood in there too
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I’ve been reading entries on this blog for too long……this recipe actually makes sense to me and sounds yummy
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thanks tim I’ll work on my squesexing technique
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i don’t think I want to know what that technique is.
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I’m intrigued and sufficiently lacking in imagination that I can’t quite figure out what it might entail, but it sounds verrry interesting.
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July means outdoor Shakespeare for me. Shortly after college I worked with a summer repertory group up in White Bear Lake (Shakespeare & Co. for those taking notes). Three shows, 2 comedies, one tragedy, in rep for 6 weekends. I still go, even though I am no longer active with the group, and try to hit all three shows. It’s staged on a back corner of the Century College campus, lovely outdoor stage, near a bit of a slough/pond, nice breeze usually…good productions for a pretty cheap ticket price. Daughter has been going since she was weeks old, and truly a babe-in-arms. I haven’t introduced her to the tragedies yet (waiting a few more years for those), but she likes the comedies.
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Just got home from the Rice County Fair. String Fever Bluegrass Band has been playing there for 20 years! Our last set got rained out so we came home early. This is July for me.
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nice to have a 20 year tradition. most of the band stayed the same?
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Guitar, bass, and banjo players are the original crew.
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after 20 years you about get the hang of each other
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That sounds great, Holly! It totally escaped me that the Rice County Fair is on. I’ll have to make a point of catching you guys somewhere.
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Evening–
July. When I was farming more seriously July was still a busy time; 2nd crop of hay and then into oats and baling straw and the Olmsted County fair the end of the month.
Now I don’t have the hay but I still do oats and straw… and the fair is still the end of the month. What I liked a little better was the first part of August; crops are done for the moment and I’d spend a couple days driving around the SE corner of the state just randomly looking at machinery and having lunch in whatever little town diner we found. Still had cows to milk morning and night.
So if anyone is traveling through Rochester — at any point, not just July– we’d love to sit for a spell. Don’t cha know…
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Ben, do you bale your straw into rectangles or just into those huge rolls? I miss those old rectangular straw bales. They were best for gardening. You can take them apart in relatively square slabs, like a book, and lay those slabs out in the garden for great mulch. That was the easiest, best mulch I ever used!
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I do some of both. You are exactly right regarding the mulch; I market my small squares to gardeners. But if I have a barn full of small squares then I’ll have the rest round baled for farmers.
This year I have a neighbor that has already requested two wagon loads of small squares for animal bedding.
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Good Sunday Morning to all:
Two of the big July activities for me have come and gone: Festival of Farms and the annual gathering of seed savers in Decorah. This year these two events occurred on the same day and I had to skip Festival of Farms so that I could go to Decorah. I did a lot of the work needed to organize the Festival of Farms tour of three organic farms near Wells, MN and I hear it turned out well.
I couldn’t miss the seed savers gathering because the Seed Saver’s Exchange had a program that included some of the best seed savers from across the country, some that I know through exchanging seeds and had never meet in person. I had a great time visiting with these people in person for the first time and also with other seed savers that regularly come to this gathering.
July is also a big month for gardening. There are still some things that can be planted, any weeds that didn’t get cleaned up earlier need to be weeded out, and there is lots of harvesting.
The earliest tomatoes come in, green beans need picking, and there is a good selection of other stuff to pick. Garlic, shallots, and early onions are pulled and laid out to cured before going into storeage. In the flower garden there is some dead heading to do where old spent flower heads are picked off to encourage more flower production.
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I look forward to July for the bee balm and the daylilies. I have everbearing raspberries, so the first crop comes in in July. July is just sort of a teaser, though, the real bumper crop comes in the fall. July also brings gooseberries and nanking cherries.
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Linda, I have some of the common type of day lillies that were very full flowers this year and I also like bee balm which has put on a good show this year. As for raspberries, I’m making an attempt to raise some everbearing ones which are not very productive so far, but I am getting a few berries. I don’t have very much fruit and would like to grow more fruit.
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my hostas and daylillies both pop at the same time love the daylilly flowers and the hosta supreme effort to be more than a green leaf even if its short lived and a little meager. this time of year the color and personality of the hosta is what is in full bloom. i will look into bee balm. i just havn’t started that perrenial chunk of the garden yet.
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I drove through Wells just a few weeks ago.
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Ben, I think you might find one of the farms near Wells that was on our tour to be especially interesting. That farm is an organic dairy farm run by Dennis Lutteke and his family. On this farm you can see crops that are in excellent shape raised without synthetic chemicals and very well cared for dairy cattle that produce milk that has a high market value because it is certifed as organic.
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TIM: I saw you asked late on the previous blog about how to use jicamas. The best way to eat them is fresh and raw. Peel off the tan tough skin. The white flesh tastes rather like sweet peas I think — it’s like vegetable candy! I usually cut into match stick size to put in salads or in slices or french fry size to eat plain by themselves. Either way they’re a treat!
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thanks joanne
late is what i do too often . thanks for catching it
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They’re eaten raw as street food/fruit in many tropical countries – I grew up eating them with sour/salted plum powder.
They turned up in our wedding as an appetizer: spicy crusted shrimp with jicama slaw. The tasting might have been the funnest part of the wedding prep (this from a girl who ordered dress + cake online). I will always remember Christopher Ray (who was doing the catering)’s non-verbal response to our “We like the heat, but maybe dial it down a little for grandma” — it was essentially a look that said “weaksauce”.
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MN, I’m sure I’d love your cooking. I love the Peninsula restaurant in Minneapolis, such exotic flavors!
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