On Saturday we had our plumber over to fix a couple of leaky faucets preparatory to our home inspection. He did a good job, as usual, and then I had him look at the dishwasher.
I noticed about a couple of months ago that I could pull the dishwasher forward and back almost 3 inches. This was a new development. It never moved like that before. Daryl the plumber took a look and noticed that the four screws that secured the dishwasher to the sides of the cabinets had all been pulled out. He also showed me how short they were. He got four much longer screws and secured the dishwasher back in place. He was at a loss to explain how the short screws could have been pulled out like that.
On Sunday I was loading the dishwasher with the usual assistance of Kyrill the Cesky Terrier. He likes to do the pre-rinse on the dishes on the bottom rack and lick any delectables off the open dishwasher door. He has done this since we got him. Kyrill is a short dog of great length who can only get to the farthest dishes and door surface by standing with his front paws on the door. Sometimes he even jumps up so his whole body is on the open door. Did I mention he now weighs 30 lbs? Bingo. Mystery solved. I believe Kyrill, in his selfless attempts to help us as much as he can, stripped the dishwasher screws by putting his weight on the door. I am afraid he isn’t allowed to help us with the dishes anymore.
What repairs have you had to make due to animals? Any mysteries in your life lately? How are you at setting limits with pets?
I know that I always say that YA and I don’t go to the fair for the food but it would be a lie if we didn’t enjoy the food part of each day. Here’s a lowdown on the 2025 fair foods for us:
Hot Siracha Funnel Cake Bites. This is not a new food but it is still the first thing that I get on the first day of the fair. It doesn’t hurt that the owners of the stall know me and have the bite dough ready for me; normally they don’t make the bite dough so early because most folks want sweet in the morning. Savory and just a bit hot with the siracha sauce.
Beignets. This was a new stall this year and they knocked it out of the park. The beignets were hot, fluffy, just the right amount of powdered sugar. They also had a lot of tea and coffee selections, although the beverages were on the pricey side.
Sweet Squeakers. As always, The Blue Barn knows what we like. This year’s new offering was cheese curds batter fried with lemon whipped cream and raspberry sauce. A perfect way to start Day Two. The pierogies and the French toast bites are still on the menu and we sampled them on Day Three and Four. Still yummy.
Filled Churro and Chimney Cake. I’m putting these together because they were actually similar and disappointing in the same way. Both were churro/doughnut dough caked and filled with stuff: the churro with Nutella and the chimney cake with ice cream and Nutella (although not much Nutella). Both suffered by being stuffed which decreased the crunch factor. Nutella and ice cream however were excellent.
Dessert Dog. This is the second year that the West End Creamery was disappointing. This new food was advertised as ice cream sandwiched between pieces of coffee cake, drizzled with strawberry/rhubarb sauce and on a stick. First off, the stick was a waste – you could NOT eat this off a stick – fork was required. The coffee cake was more like cookie dough but not that good. And the price was outrageous. Probably no West End Creamery for me next year.
Green Apple Sucker Ice Cream. YA had this and informed me immediately that I wouldn’t like it because it tasted exactly like those green apple caramel suckers. Which she adores and I do not. Five stars from YA.
Jumbo Tater Tots. We finally had these on our final day – YA had been dragging her feet for some reason. We got the cheese bomb version and they were exactly as expected – huge cheese filled tater tots. We had sour cream and chives on the side and they were delicious.
All the rest of our favorites were still great: roasted corn, Hawaiian shave ice, pickle pizza, cheese curds, potato cheddar crepe, blueberry pie and multiple applications of cookies. Can’t forget to mention my favorite mocktails from Summer Lakes. They have several varieties and I switch up but my favorite one is the Wedgehammer – orange juice, lemonade, lime juice, ginger and a slice of orange.
When I read through this, it sounds like all we do is eat, but remember all this is spread out over 5-6 days and for the most part we share everything. There were several new foods we didn’t get to – if they’re still around next year maybe we’ll get to them.
Anything you’ve been craving this week (food or otherwise)?
I read for a lot of reasons. One of them is to find new ideas or to be reminded of ideas I may have had in the past.
The book I just finished (not revealing the title as there would be spoilers otherwise) had a fairly absurd premise but then managed to present several trains of thought that were tantalizing. A huge asteroid is heading for Earth and scientists have determined that it will wipe out everyone and everything in two years, six weeks.
One character, who works in banking, came up with a scheme that basically defrauds people but will make the bank a ton of moolah. His theory is that by the time folks figure out they’ve been defrauded, the world will be ending. Sadly the other members of the board agreed with him.
Another character, an aging rock and roll star, was facing terminal cancer and decided to end his life so that his music royalties would go to his first ex-wife as soon as possible. He also made an extremely heartfelt apology to her for how he had treated her back in the day.
A third character, an anthropologist, was worried about the end of civilization before the end of the world. Why, he postulated, would be the incentive to keep working? Who would do the jobs that keep us all fed and clothed?
This last character’s questions have remained with me for days now. Whenever there is some news of an asteroid that’s coming close to the planet, I do muse about the end of days. But I have never considered what would happen if we KNEW it was end of days for sure. How could we keep civilization going? How would I personally get by until the end? Would I feel the need to atone for my “sins”? I’m not sure, but I think I would definitely make a trip to Alaska, the only state in the union I haven’t visited.
Anything on your bucket list you’d like to do if you knew the world was ending in two years and six weeks?
While I love the State Fair, I’m not all that big on the grandstand shows. Not sure why – just not my thing. Every now and then I go to a show – last one before this year was Garrison Keillor, back in 2017.
Back in the spring, the Happy Together tour was announced in an email from the State Fair folks. Later that same day, my friend Lori, who loves the fair as much as I do, emailed me with the dates she and her husband were going to be on the fairgrounds (she lives in Chicago now). For some reason, the grandstand show and Lori being in town seemed like a sign. We texted back and forth a bit about going together and then I bought the tickets.
When I was leaving for the fairgrounds on Monday night, YA said “will you know any of the songs?” Her opinion of my musical knowledge is that I don’t know anything written in the last thirty years. She might be correct, but I assured her that the 60s and 70s are another thing entirely.
Here was the line-up: the Cowsills, the Vogues, Gary Puckett, Little Anthony, Jay & the Americans and the Turtles. Each group got four songs – they all did their most popular and on the fourth song, videos of each group back in the day was aired on the big screens.
It was a fun show and I DID know all the words to all the songs – and sang them unashamedly (along with everyone else in the grandstand). It was a little bittersweet though as the 60s is now too long ago for these performers to still be stumping around. None of the bands had all their original members; only the Cowsills were all Cowsills, just fewer of them. The Turtles were actually represented by Ron Dante, who was a member of the Archies, but was never a Turtle. (This turned out to be fun because there was an extra song for that set – Sugar, Sugar, which is one of my favorites.) And the single performers (Gary P, Little Anthony) were struggling. And while I know all the words to the Gary Puckett songs (Young Girl, Woman, This Girl is a Woman Now and Lady Willpower), listening to the lyrics in 2025 is a bit…. squirmy.
If another Happy Together tour comes around and it again features the 60s, I think I’ll take a pass. Unless it’s for the 70s – then I might give that a go!
When I started the rough draft of this blog Thursday, I didn’t have much farm stuff to talk about. Now Friday afternoon and I’ve got a few farm related things.
I needed some straw bales for Friday. First of the 2025 crop to be used and climbing up into the straw pile and trying to hit the truck bed was a challenge.
Trying to aim under the rafter and get the bales in the truck bed.
We hosted daughters group, PossAbilities, and gave them a wagon ride through the fields. Kinda cold and windy, but they had blankets, Kelly made hot chocolate for them when they returned, and they enjoyed it.
I hauled in the scrap iron on Thursday. The wagons I pulled out of the trees and scrapped last week.
The net weight of the scrap was 3200 lbs.
The cranes are always fun to watch. My goodness, the amount of scrap is overwhelming. Juxtaposed with such a pretty blue sky!
I took secondary roads there, and I took gravel back roads most of the way home. I saw two Bald Eagles eating something that left a pretty good sized red spot in the field. I saw more of those ‘Bigfoot’ silhouettes. A few farmers are starting to chop some corn, and lots of guys are doing 3rd or 4th crop hay.
A couple months ago when our fridge died, we purged a lot, and moved a lot to the basement chest freezer and spare fridge downstairs. I still haven’t figured out why the new freezer section upstairs is so empty. What happened to all that stuff?? I thought we needed it? Isn’t that a story for our times…”But, I need that!” No, evidently, no you don’t.
One of the things missing from the upstairs freezer was the last loaf of chocolate chip Amish friendship bread I had made back in March. Most of us freeze and savor those summer time flavors in January. Here in September I’m remembering last winter. I didn’t think I’d have thrown it out as I know the chocolate is bad for dogs. The chickens would have loved it, but I just didn’t remember doing that. Took a month, but I found it in a bag in the chest freezer and I’ve been enjoying it. It’s not as dried out as I thought it might be, and I look forward to baking more this winter.
When I was researching how to remove those old tires last week, I saw one video where the guy talked about using diamond tipped cutting blades. The cheap abrasive cut-off blades I can buy at big box stores wear away quick. They’re about $3 each, but as the name implies, ‘abrasive cut off’, meaning they wear out as fast as they’re cutting. Cutting off the 16 tires I used 4 small, 4” wheels, and one 7” wheel. So I went shopping online for diamond tipped wheels. An “Indestructible” wheel comes in a 5 pack. Well, Huh. You see where I’m going with this? If… then why…?
I ordered a 3 pack of diamond tipped cut off wheels. We’ll see what happens when I get to the next set of old tires.
(There might be a photo here if I remember to go out to the shed and take a photo)
I REMEMBERED!
Abrasive disc on the top, diamond disc on the bottom
Kelly and I have a joke that I can’t find anything if you’re going to put it under my nose. This morning it was my cell phone. It was 6” away from where I was looking. No wonder I couldn’t find it. I had to borrow daughters phone to call mine and track it down. I was the kid with my mittens attached to my sleeves…Why is that getting worse instead of better?
We’ve talked before about that magic ten minutes in the morning. Every. Morning. It was later than usual one morning. Daughter and I got in the car to leave and she says “I was pretty fast this morning, wasn’t I.” Uh. Not really. But I don’t know why. Maybe it was petting the dogs longer than we should have. Which seems like a pretty good excuse. One night she was mad at me for not letting her do something. She begged and pleaded and then stormed off yelling “YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD!” I replied, “Actually, biology has nothing to do with this.” and then I got the giggles. She didn’t think it was so funny but a few minutes later we talked it over. She gets over stuff quick. I like that. 
Last weekend Kelly and I attended a wedding in St. Paul. It was at a relatively new wedding venue called Le VENERÉ. A pretty nice place. Newly remodeled. The Groom told me when they toured it in February it was full of scaffolding. It is an old building with a really cool stone foundation. They had a 1920’s ‘Speakeasy’ theme and encouraged people to dress the part. I wore sleeves. And after looking up 1920’s styles, just decided to order a cheap 1970’s style ruffled shirt like I had in high school. It came with a bow tie that wouldn’t fit around my fat neck, so I just wore it on my sleeve. Kelly and I drove up Friday and had a weekend vacation. We had a great time at the wedding with friends.
As of last Sunday we had our house on the market for two months. We had many showings, but no offers.
Our real estate agent couldn’t understand why. The house was clean, well kept, and nicely updated, with lovely features. We knew that our rather wild yard with the mass of raspberry canes, the large strawberry bed, the front veggie bed, the large flower beds, and the rampaging rose bushes just didn’t appeal to some viewers. Others wanted a larger yard, something we really couldn’t do much about.
Our agent wondered if the basement, which we had extensively remodeled and updated. was just a little dark. She advised us to try ro make it brighter, so last Sunday we replaced all the basement light bulbs with Bright White LED bulbs. We did the same to the upstairs lights for good measure. The whole interior was somewhat brighter, with uniformly tinted bulbs.
The next day, Labor Day, was somewhat trying as we had two showings, and that meant keeping the house beautifully pristine and having to leave for about an hour with the dog. I don’t quite understand this, but both of the viewing parties on Monday gave us offers immediately after the showings!
Was it the lightbulbs? I seem to think it was, and I find it ridiculous. I am grateful and relieved, though. Now we can focus on wrapping things up here.
What would you look for if you were buying a new house? What decorating trends, past or present, have you loved or loathed?
My bales look sorry this summer. Saggy and disintegrating looking. Ben explained to me how this can happen – kinda made sense.
But saggy and disintegrating doesn’t seem to be a problem for my veggies. We’re having a bumper crop of everything. Basil, chives, rosemary, cilantro, poblano peppers, hot macho peppers, mint and 4 kinds of tomatoes. Romas, some heirloom, sweet 100 cherry and in a summer surprise, I’ve actually gotten a couple of Santa tomatoes from the plant that I grew from a seed. I’m sure there’s more out there but I haven’t harvested for a couple of days.
Santa Tomatoes
I used up all the cilantro already. Four jars of pesto so far, an ice cube tray of chopped mint with lime juice, another ice cube tray of chopped basil with olive oil. Eight containers of tomato sauce. Gifts of tomatoes to neighbors and friends.
And lots and lots of tomato recipes. (This was all going on while I had a MASSIVE zucchini to deal with as well.) I’ve made my favorite pasta with cherry tomatoes a couple of times. Made tomato butter that was terrific on the zucchini corn bread. This weekend I’m making panzanella, tomato basil soup and some tomato rice. Probably time to consign some of the tomatoes to the freezer as well. Whole tomatoes right into freezer bags for use this winter.
Gosh – I feel like Renee and Chris with all this produce and cooking!
You all know I have an affinity for Godzilla movies. I don’t know why. Most of them aren’t all that well made and of course they are pretty violent. But like many of the mysteries in life, Godzilla and I seem to keep crossing paths.
It happened again last week when I stumbled across Godzilla Minus One, which came out in 2023, written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki. This is the 37th film in the Godzilla franchise and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen most of them. While Minus One got great reviews, I wasn’t holding my breath.
There is much more of a human element to this one, although seeing the aftermath of WWII on the ordinary Japanese citizen was depressing. Then this massive, basically indestructible monster comes and destroys what little is left. And, as always, nobody can ever say why Godzilla does what he does.
I noticed right away that this Godzilla is a really good match for the earlier Godzillas. Of course, much better CGI and photography but his spiny back and the shape of his head and neck were just like the classic. And then towards the end, I thought “this music sounds so familiar”. After the movie was over, I found the original 1954 Godzilla with soundtrack composed by Akira Ifukube. This is apparently now known as The Ifukube March and has been used in several of the movies over the years:
The composer for Godzilla Minus One (Naoki Sato) did a great salute by incorporating the march into the final “battle scene”:
If you had suggested to me when I was younger that someday I would know enough about Godzilla to recognize his classic form and his classic music, I would have laughed until I cried. Guess I’d better get out the tissues.
When I went to bed the night before Opening Day (do I need to say, of State Fair?), I was ready!
I had the alarm set for 5:40; I wanted to have enough time to do my leg exercises before we left for the fair. We normally get home around dinner time and I didn’t figure I would do both sets of exercises at night.
The turtle bag was packed – everything on the packing list crossed off – cash, coupon booklets, tickets, Tylenol, bandaids, wipes, container for cookies, fan, hat:
Packed and ready to go
I went to bed a smidge earlier than normal, but not too much. I pet the cat and then snuggled down. That’s when the trouble started.
Apparently several episodes of Death in Paradise was a bit much for evening viewing. Woke up from a weird intense dream of bodies floating in the Caribbean. Dozing off again did not come easily and I ended up turning on “To Catch a Thief”. Then woke up to the dog whining at 1 a.m. – one of the smoke alarms was squeaking. Took a few minutes to figure out if it was my room or the hallway and then we had to dig out batteries. Dozing off again did not come easily. Ended up reciting A is for antelope, B is for baboon, C is for capybara…. got all the way to the end of the alphabet – twice. Woke up at 2:30 to make a trip to the bathroom. This time I ended up turning on Murder on the Orient Express. At 5:15 I rolled over and when I looked at the time, I just gave it up. Plenty of time to do my exercises, pick up a bit, feed the critters, water the bales.
I can’t recall the last time I had such a rough night. Obviously opening day was clearly keeping me a little over-wired! Luckily it didn’t keep me from enjoying my first day at the fair and I slept exceedingly well that night. But I do wonder if I need an updated “go back to sleep” routine?
You’ve probably heard me say that the only good things to come out of Covid were working from home and drive-up service. I know that many businesses are making people come back into the office but hopefully drive-up service is here to stay.
With a sore knee, running errands wasn’t the top of my to-do list the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, you can’t just keep putting off errands or else your household starts to sag at the edges. As I started to list things that just needed to get done, I realized that drive-through was going to be my friend. Here’s what I managed to do without getting out of the car:
Aldis
Target
Value Village (this was a drop-off, not a pick-up)
Post office (again, a drop-off)
Bank ATM
Dunkin’ Donuts
Caribou Coffee
There was one more errand that did require me to get out of the car – returning a library book. The only library with a drive-through return in the Hennepin system was the Southdale Library – and as of this past week, the drive-through is no longer available:
I can’t remember a time when I had so many things I could do without exiting my vehicle. I do like drive-up and drive-through!!
Trail Baboon 