A Day of Family and Food

What a great day we had today. As You may have read in yesterday's blog, today was our day to go to Owatonna, MN to celebrate Harv's 77th birthday and the college graduation of our nephew Luke. He is the youngest child of Sue's brother Mark and his wife Janet. They are a very nice, close family.

We picked up Harv and Molly for a nice 45 Minuit trip over to the party. We were greeted by Janet, who is a great hostess by the way. The three "boys" were out for a bicycle ride and returned home soon. Mark, Jessie and Luke showed up a bit later all decked out in their bike riding gear. Could that be at all comfortable? I take one look at those bike seats and have this pucker reflex take over.

Mark sold his Harley and just purchased a new BMW. What a bike that is. It even has heated grips for cooler weather.



I know we are getting older when the nieces and nephews start showing up with kids of their own. Here are a few pictures of the "new kids"....





And of course, we have a group picture.



And, of course, Harv with his birthday cake.



Tomorrow holds promise for another great day. We have a birthday party for our nephew John who is the son of Bob. He is married to Molly (not Harv's Molly) Bob is Sue's brother. After that, we will attend a graduation party for the daughter of the person who does our payroll.

Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Busy Weekend

Wow...what a schedule for this weekend.
If you read this blog on a regular basis you may recall that we have had several ill-fated attempts at having a garage sale this Spring.
The first two weekend attempts ending in failure. The weather was absolutely terrible. Wind, rain and COLD. Well, today is the day we try to make up for the past attempts. The weather forecast is calling for cloudy, highs in the mid 70's and 35mph winds. That sure beats the previous weather. So we will see what happens today between Noon and 6PM.
Tomorrow morning we go visit the garbage truck that parks about five miles from our home every Saturday morning. It is "free" to the township residents, tho I am sure the fee is buried somewhere in our taxes. The nice thing about this system is that they take anything except tires, batteries and chemicals. We have a full pickup truck of "junk" to deposit tomorrow.
At noon tomorrow we have a birthday party for Harv and a college graduation party for our nephew Luke to attend in Owatonna,MN.
At three o'clock we have a graduation party for the daughter of the person who does our payroll for us. We just have to attend that one. Gotta keep the payroll person happy you know!
Sunday at noon we will be attending a birthday party for another nephew. John will turn three.
Also this weekend our son Ben and his wife Anna will celebrate their third wedding anniversary. They are a very cute couple.
I am glad to be writing about all these positive events today as we were all prepared for some very bad weather that had been forecast for yesterday and last night. We were hearing reports of "storms of epic proportions" and "the perfect storm". You know the drill....super high winds, severe thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes. I didn't hear anything about locusts. Hmm, I probably missed that part.
Anyway, it missed us and we are all fine.
I will take pictures this weekend and post them as soon as I can.
As I like to say.."Tune in again soon for another edition of Now What Are They Doing?"

The Pictures I Promised

About a week ago I promised that I would post some pictures after we got the landscaping cleaned up. It took three days but we are almost done. Oh my aching back!
Click on pictures for a larger image.







The garden looks pretty sick in the pictures. I always buy the smallest and cheapest tomato plants and guess what? They always grow and produce like crazy. I am convinced that plants stuck in the ground in early June do just as well as those planted three weeks earlier.

Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

More Pictures

Just figured out how to retrieve some more pictures that Ben sent from our cookout last Saturday. When can we do this again?







Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Andy's Band's New CD Review

Just received a copy of the review that was published in Seattle touting Andy's band's music. His proud parents want to make sure everyone knows that he recorded and produced the CD.

RECORD REVIEWS
Daguerreotypes —Tropical Trust EP
{6.7}
Buy it!
{Auger Down Records}
{See Daguerreotypes at the Georgetown Music Festival on June 13th}
There is a paternal-sounding antagonist who's "got your nose" at the end of this record; he's "looking out for number one" but damned if I can tell who this is. This is that vague arcane feeling one gets when one is very high and feels some guidance in the root of it all, but that presence could also be inimical. You just have to trust the steady shuffle if the drums, the melange of sound around this friendly, yet somewhat fearsome, authoritarian voice. It plays with you, in more ways than one, on "Bridge of Daggers."

Daguerreotypes play out with the Cave Singers as well as many other bands such as Vampire Hands or PWRFL POWER. Call it the new misty mountain hop, subliminally lysergic, somehow crisply languid, a tropical bop of the bit of brain behind the two bits in front.

For the past two weeks when I have a spare moment and need to relax and shake off the frantic foam of daily existence I have been spinning this new EP by Daguerreotypes -- sometimes you love a band and you are happy others "get it" too, because its sublime qualities could easily be lost in the look-at-me hustle of modern music making and marketing. I was happy to see Megan Seling at The Stranger liked them enough to do a sweet write-up.

This album pays homage to the cream of the early 70s British eccentrics like Kevin Ayers, Kevin Coyne, John Cale's more melodic solo work, and the delicious blues and easy listening subversion of Dave Thomas in Pere Ubu (and his solo landscapes and various collaborations). The lyrics here are all worthy of inspection. I will let you discover their sublime pleasures, and the music is there for whenever you want to chill out alertly and intelligently. Very smooth, but not at all sedating.

The Tropical Trust EP is a generous five-song sampler of some of this Seattle band's dazzling reptile meditations. As I write this, outside a warm rain absorbs my apartment on a dirty street above the Ave, and memories of psych trips in the region echo though my cells. This is a soundtrack for a psychogeographic memory.

Songs like the beginning-of-civilization sounding blues rant "Bridge of Daggers" or the 80s-telepathic "Telegram to Tegucigalpa" could be on repeat for hours as I stare out the window, feeling this private world I'm in melt into the city. I have the feeling they're like classic Brit bands like the Creatures live, creating masterful rhythms beneath jungle fevers. I'm going to check that out as soon as I can.

-Chris Estey, June 02, 2008



You can listen to some of the cuts by clicking on the link on the right side of this page. We have a copy of the CD and played it through our stereo nice and loud. I could not believe the production that went into this. Most of the cool stuff just doesn't make it through standard computer speakers.

OK...enough proud parent talk...for today anyway.

Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Great Weekend Camping Trip

After work Friday, Sue and I loaded up the camper and headed out of town camping. We went to a real nice county campground near Mapleton, MN called Daly Park on Lura Lake. The park is very well maintained by Dave and Peggy the caretakers. They are very nice and do a great job.
Thursday night we had almost two inches of rain then just as we were backing into our site the sky opened up again for a brief downpour that lasted only about sixty seconds. I am happy to say that the skies cleared up and it was perfect the rest of the weekend.

Saturday after we returned from town picking up more beer and a few groceries we headed for the lake for some fishing.


We caught two fish each...and yes, they were MUCH bigger than the ones in the pictures.

Lura Lake is a nice sized little lake that covers about 1500 acres. What we have noticed the last few years is the large number of white pelicans that live there.




Saturday afternoon our son Ben and his wife Anna came out to join us for a cookout. They are a delight and fun to be around.
Before supper we went geocaching. If you are not familiar with that hobby....people hid "stuff" in various locations and post the coordinates on the Internet along with some hints. You then download the coordinates to your GPS and off you go. It is fun and a great way to get some exercise.

Ben took some pictures and will be sending them to me. As soon as that happens, I will post them for you.

After hiking several miles we decided it was Miller Time and cracked open a few cold ones and snacked while visiting. I am a bit worried about Ben in that he seems to have acquired my humor. That's OK, he could have done a lot worse!

Lots to do before going back to work tomorrow, so I will sign off for now with this invitation...Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Just Returned

Sue and I just returned home from a weekend camping trip. I will sort through the pictures and see what I have for our online show and tell.
In the interim.....I just found some pictures of this cute little restaurant called "Mother's Kitchen".

Their food was VERY good and almost under-priced. Hey, it was a great bargain for us as diners, but I do hope that they are charging enough to stay in business. The staff was exceptionally friendly with even the owner coming over to check on us.
Once again, this is a very small world. Come to find out, the owner and his wife were from Pennsylvania, our destination on this trip.
The proprietor told us that he uses his mom's recipes and some Amish women bake fresh pies six days a week for him. And yes, they use lard for the crust and are totally delicious.
Here are a few pictures for you.


The town itself was very nice and well kept. It had a great mix of old and new. That is so nice to see because so many towns just tear down the older buildings and loose so much history and character.

While we were there, I was expecting to see Andy of Mayberry giving us a warm welcome to their town. I don't mean that in a bad way at all. Those are our kind of communities.
Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"