Christmas for the Birds

This morning I met girlfriends for breakfast and was greeted with what looked like a sundial but ended up being bird seed.  One of the girlfriends said her daughter received this as a gift but didn't have a desirable place to hang it and remembered all the birds we have and feeders we have out here.  We got rid of a couple feeders earlier so had an available hanger. 

 

It didn't take long for the first customer to arrive.  This special treat will probably be gone by the time we get home from our winter trip.

 

 

Thanks, Kerry!  I'm sure the all the birds we get around here will be enjoying this special treat before too long.

Small Group

This year's Anderson family get-together was smaller than usual mainly due to illnesses.  We had enough food left to send home with everyone that came so nothing went to waste - lots of "care packages" as my Dad would say.

 

 Watching the Vikings winning.

 L-R: Herb May (my niece's husband); my brother, Jerry; niece, Kaylyn; and half of my sister, Joanne. 

 

 

I did a good job of getting the back of my sister, her granddaughter, Brandi, is facing us and her grandson, Brady, in the back.  These are Kaylyn's children.

 

We missed Joanne's husband, Jim, this year too.  He's currently in a rehab facility recovering from a hip replacement.  We fixed him a big plate of food along with some goodies that he can share. 

 

Hopefully, everyone that was sick will be well by Christmas and we're hoping next year to be back to a full house.

Good Friends

Even though we're having some very cold weather here lately, three of us who use to go dancing every Saturday night in temperatures much colder than this got together for lunch today.  We haven't been together for almost ten years so it was nice to get caught up in person rather than e-mails and Facebook.

L-R: Suzanne Johnson, Me, Mary Ellen VonRueden

We all live in different small towns so trying to find a place that was somewhat central was a little hard.  We found a town that none of us had eaten at so good thing there's "Google Searches" to at least get a starting point.  We ended up at a local cafe called K-Bob's in Princeton, MN and it was your typical small-town, local, cafe.  It worked out well - each of us was about 1 hour away. 

Maybe next time we'll try for a warmer day but I'm glad we made this one today.

Snow?

We are having our first measurable snow here today but it doesn't stop these guys from eating.  We've never seen ducks around our place this late in the season.

After they finished eating, they sat under the apple tree.  They've been here before.

It's dark so the bright red doesn't show up the best for this Cardinal - still a pretty bird though.

The Chickadee is on the "grab and go" plan with the sunflower seeds so it's hard to get a clear picture.  This was the best out of 4 tries - doesn't say much for my photography.

Surprise Visitors

This is the latest we've ever seen these visitors around our bird feeders.  This picture was taken this morning.

The river is frozen over now but when it was open - just last week - we had as many as 18 Mallards coming up to clean up under the bird feeders.  They have the Blue Jays to thank for this too.

We don't have any snow on the ground yet so they're still finding good food around here.  Crazy birds - we thought they'd be flying south by now. 

This picture was taken this afternoon.  They seem quite comfortable when they sit down to eat.

More Experimenting

These rainy days can get a little long unless you enjoy experimenting with new recipes.  That's Patrick's hobby when he finds something that sounds good on the Internet.

Yesterday, he tried out a new chicken recipe in the crock pot.  It wasn't too complicated - just time consuming.  It included a couple cans of cream of chicken soup, butter, onions and de-boned chicken along with some Pillsbury biscuits that were suppose to guise as dumplings.  We both agreed it was ok but nothing to get excited about.  We have a rule that if we really like it, it goes in his 3-ring binder.  If not a "do over", it goes in the shredder.  This one hit the shredder as soon as we were done eating.

This morning I woke up to a mixer and chopper sound.  Patrick was already trying out a new pecan bar recipe he found. 

They are still cooling so haven't been given the taste test yet but they sure look and smell good.

Early Start

This morning got off to an earlier start than we expected.  We have been waiting all summer to get this project done but due to a few obstacles; e.g., bids too high, contractors thinking the job is too small so aren't interested, and contractor no-show, we finally found someone.

The project is just replacing some edging around some of our trees and septic system.  Probably doesn't sound like much, but more than we could handle.

 

Patrick is talking to the owner and discovered they were almost done.  We have no idea when they arrived but it had to be very early because it was before 8:00 when we first saw them.

 

Train Ride

I have wanted to go on a train ride for some time and finally made it yesterday.  There is a train in Duluth, MN that does short rides daily.  We were there yesterday and did the ride.  It was interesting and gave me some experience  to have in thinking about taking a long train ride.  The following pictures are of trains in the museum at the depot and while we were on the ride.

This is Pat sitting on an old steam engine.

This is me standing next to another steam engine.

This is one big snow plow.

This is an old Pontiac that was made to run on the rails.  

Another snow removal device.  How is that for a rotary snow plow.

This is the engine that pulled our train for the ride.

This is an ore ship that was out in lake Superior.  The haze was very thick out over the lake.

Lift bridge and beach along the lake.  Those two little things in the lower left of the picture were Kayaks.

This is an old ore ship that is docked for tours.

That was the tour.  It was a good day.

Patrick

Rainbow

We had a short thunderstorm here tonight but it wasn't too bad - only pea-sized hail.  The sun came out and this appeared.  Too bad it was raining; otherwise, I would have tried to get the whole thing.  There's a double ring on this shot.

Murphy's Law

We have a little (and it is little) Farmer's Market in town every Wednesday afternoon.  Last week, I was hungry for sweet corn so thought I'd check it out to see if I had any luck finding some.  Patrick asked me to get a couple slicing cucumbers if they had any.  They did have the cucumbers and home grown tomatoes but no sweet corn.  There's another vegetable stand in town that did have my sweet corn so the trip wasn't a total bust for corn.

After we ate, Patrick checked out his cucumber plant that he's experimenting with - planting cucumbers in a flower pot.  This is what he found.

Maybe we should start checking the "garden" before heading to the Farmer's Market.  He did plant a regular garden too but so far nothing showing except vines and blossoms.  Can't say he isn't trying.