Excursion to Pike's Peak, IA

We took the car and drove to the southwest border of the state, about 100 miles from here. The Mississippi River forms the Western border of Wisconsin. It's a big, slow-moving river, important for shipping (barges) and historically significant due to it's early years in the explorer, pioneer, and steamboat days. Rivers were the only means of traversing the impenetrable wilderness of the upper Midwest until about 1850. We drove across the Mississippi to Iowa, where we visited a state park overlooking the huge river. It was picturesque, but quite buggy. We explored the hiking trails there, Both Avinash and I came home with a wood tick aboard, which we did not discover until Sunday, whereupon we had to extract the awful things - including some attached flesh. They're pretty disgusting. At least it wasn't a deer tick, which carry Lyme's disease.

I'm off tomorrow, and plan on spending the day doing household chores. There is a roofer coming to look at the roof of the house and the garage - last year we had some hail damage. Perhaps we may need to make an insurance claim and get some repairs done. I'm hoping that I can get the garage re-roofed out of the deal, because it needs it and I was planning on doing it myself with my dad's help this summer. It would be far nicer to have it done and paid for by insurance.

Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison

Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison
Originally uploaded by avinashbhat.

The flamingoes were eager to show their dexterity and one-legged balancing act during our visit

Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison

Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison
Originally uploaded by avinashbhat.

The lioness on her heated rock

Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison

Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison
Originally uploaded by avinashbhat.

Avinash took this photo of Nanuq the polar bear snoozing in the afternoon sunlight

Time to Get Caught Up...

I haven't posted to the blog with an update in quite a while. We've had a busy weekend. Saturday we went to Madison to the Henry Vilas Zoo, Yue Wah, and a bunch of other errands. We stopped by State Street to have some lunch at Chipotle; there was a classic car show in progress and we took some photos of the cars. Here's a nice swoopy Jaguar convertible, and a view of the state capital on this lovely spring day.

Our electric mower died this weekend. Our reel mower works well for smaller jobs but the power mower is really required to kill all the weeds. Dad's buddy Charlie had a gas one he was getting rid of, and he said I could have it for a case of beer. Dad brought the mower over, so tomorrow I will go to Baraboo and get him a case of Budweiser. I'm also making him some onion-dill bread to go with it.

Today I worked until 11 am, and afterwards I worked on transplanting seedlings into the square-foot garden on the back terrace. I also put in the last of the 10 oak-leaf hydrangea bare-root plants I had ordered to replace our rotten back fence. So far, in the square foot beds, I have snow peas, long beans, Mr. Big peas, armenian cucumbers, a variety of mesclun lettuce, marigolds, and Indian mustard greens. I have made some chicken-wire tube supports for the climbers. We shall see if those are sufficient, or whether I need to escalate to livestock panels. The heirloom tomatoes are up, but still too small to transplant. The asian hot peppers seem to be a total bust; we may have to fall back upon jalapenos this year. I should have started the seedlings a little bit earlier, although this spring was so cold and yucky, it might not have made any difference.

This afternoon, it hailed pea-sized hail for about 20 minutes. Fortunately, it the storm missed Avinash's car at Badger.

Kodak Junior Deluxe Six-20

Up for bids on ebay this week, yet another camera from the Chickering attic.

Colleen trims vine

Here's a nice photo Pam took of Colleen helping with the garden work.

Desert Hummingbird

Mom and Dad are back from their vacation in Arizona. Here's a photo Mom took of a hummingbird in a desert wildlife center near Tucson.

HQN lot

Click on photo to enlarge view of this ebay lot.