More Tomatoes

More tomatoes in deed! Like I mentioned before, my friend Joan had this bumper crop of tomatoes.....too many tomatoes for her. Once again, she offered for Bike man and me to come on over and pick tomatoes. We came home with two laundry baskets full. Spent most of our Sunday processing tomatoes.

We invited our friend Caryn to come over and help with the canning process. So what did we make this time? We made 30 more pints of salsa, 7 quarts of tomatoes chunks and 10 quarts of tomato soup.

Our outdoor kitchen was so nice and so airy! All of the mess was outside, so that made me very happy. Finished our canning by 9 pm last night. Lots of work, and lots of sore feet!

My treat to a hard day of sweating among the tomatoes yesterday, was a late afternoon ride today with my friend Kim. Beautiful day for a ride. Very warm and breezy, plus we were covered in gnats when we finished our ride at 7:10 pm. The pink sunset was amazing tonight, but now we are experiencing 30-40 mph wind gusts from the cold front moving in. The weather is certainly changing......a sign that fall is really coming. (22 miles)

Off to Durand

We haven't done a longer ride in a while, so we were long overdue. Simply a great day for that long ride. We headed out on the Red Cedar trail late this morning and rode towards Durand. Not a lot of other riders out on the trail this morning....so strange since it was a beautiful day.

I was wondering if we'd see a snake today, and we I did. In fact, I almost rode right over the snake since it never moved when I quickly approached it. I turned my bike around and rode right up to it, but it still didn't move. Both Bike man and I stood there and stared at the snake, and finally it slithered away. I think the snake was annoyed at us!

It shouldn't be any surprise to our blog readers that we stopped for food when we reached Durand. Who can resist the old fashion drive-up food place? Hamburgers, french fries and a root beer (chocolate malt for BM). We ended up sharing our outdoor table with a couple traveling by motorcycle. We enjoyed the 45 minute conversation with this Minnesota couple who were out cruzin on their cycle. Really nice.

Headed back towards Menomonie and came across lots of UW-Stout students that have discovered the Chippewa River bottoms.....party time!!!!

Just a great day to be out of the bike (43 miles).

What?

He said he doesn't know what he did, but after a while Bike man realized his hand was feeling sticky.....geez!

The blue green algae is starting to decay on our lake now, and is especially bad out in front of our dock. Lack of wind and rain makes a bad situation for the algae. So Bike man decided to attach an extra hose to our lake pump in order to stir up the water and move the algae out. It's been running several hours now and I think it's working, but I still smell the rotting algae tonight....ick!

We might continue to run the water hose all night to keep the algae from settling around our dock. We've never tried this before, but I think it's a good idea since the smell is disgusting.

No bike ride tonight, but a nice long walk after work.....the fresh air was much needed.

What's This?

You can never have too many mushrooms in your yard! Went shopping with my daughter months ago and bought this ceramic mushroom. Of course I had to place the mushroom among the hostas. Saw some beautiful white mushrooms today on my walk....really big ones. Forgot my camera, but they were the biggest mushrooms I've seen in a long time. Wonderful night walk with much needed fresh air.......

Headed West

I think I'm starting to enjoy this 60 degree weather, especially since there is plenty of warmth from the sunshine. Hopped on my bicycle after getting home from work and headed west. This is my only route where I actually turn around and head for home on the same highway. The other choice would be to head for home following a busy state highway and that's just not a nice comfy bike route for me. Enjoyed the sounds of the crickets tonight and watching the birds flocking. First time wearing a jacket while biking since.....I think May!

Work Day

After polyurenthaning the cedar planking last summer, we decided it was time to finish our bedroom project. Thanks to the Son, we were able to tackle the start of our project this weekend. I love the look and smell of cedar, so decided to remodel our bedroom to give us the cabin feel.

We finished about 1/3 of our bedroom today and hope to continue during the month of September. Like most projects, you have the domino affect......one thing leads to another. After the walls are complete, we hope to redo the ceiling, and install new lights and a ceiling fan. It's never a dull moment when you are a homeowner!

Enjoying the fall-like temperatures. Tonight's low should reach 40 degrees....wow!

Harvest

Labor Day weekend for us usually means harvest time.....tomatoes that is, and lots of them! Thanks to me friend Joan, her garden exploded with tomatoes this summer and she couldn't harvest them all, so lucky us.

My number one passion is salsa. Yup, I love to make salsa....good hot salsa, with lots of garden ripe vegetables like colored peppers, roma tomatoes, onions and jalepeno peppers. Bike man and I finished making the salsa late last night. Ended up with 20 pints.

Woke up this morning and guess who was guarding the pints of salsa? Abby! The jars were still warm from last night, so I guess that made a really nice comfortable bed.

Not really sure what she was doing, but I think Abby was excited to see all the jars of salsa. Never a dull moment in this house, you know, the house of cats!

Turned into sweatshirt weather this weekend. More dark clouds, wind and rain all day today. I'm starting to believe fall has really begun.