So THAT's why we all have basements

I was just hanging out in the kitchen munching on some bread and getting ready to do a little baking. I heard this faint siren sound somewhere outside and it reminded me of growing up in Netarts with the weekly siren for the volunteer fire fighters. The siren would go off and all the dogs in the neighborhood would start barking and my grandparent's dog would come racing up the street and dive under our porch, cowering and trembling in fear. Ah memories.

My reverie was interrupted as Meg came bounding down the back stairs and knocked on the door. She poked her head in and told me they were all heading down to the basement because of the tornado siren. What!?!? That's a warning siren for tornadoes!?! What!?! No way!! I grabbed a sweater and some shoes and clomped down to the basement to hang out with Meg and Claire, who is home sick.

The siren ended shortly after that so we all returned to our warm apartments.

So that explains why every house around here has a basement...

Success

April 11th - I peered into the seed starter tray and saw a tiny little sprout!!



Five days later five sprouts were up:



Yesterday I potted six that were getting too big for the sprouter. There are still two little ones in there and several more I'm still waiting on.

Those who are plant savvy might be thinking - "hey! those seeds you planted on the first day of spring were marigolds and these are NOT marigolds!" Well, you're right. The marigolds didn't come up, they were never meant to be. So I bought some nasturtium seeds because I love those too.

Jeremy and I just bought seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange: beans, tomatoes, chard, kale, herbs, etc. I've been working on digging up the garden space. We have a big 4' x 18' one in the back yard and a littler 2 or 3' x 8' in the front yard.

Just getting things ready though, we're not planting yet. I guess the last frost date is sometime around mid-May! In fact, they're calling for snow again this weekend. Hard to believe after the last three days have been well in the 70s and glorious. I suppose that will make all the Northwesters happy since they've been having bizarre frigid weather.

Syruping

Over the weekend Jeremy and I went syruping in the Quaker Community Forest. This is a piece of land in Wisconsin past Monomonie.

Crossing the field climbing up the hill to where the syruping is:



The trees are tapped like this, with a tube either feeding into a large container like this:



Or sometimes running in various tubes down the hillside and dripping into this huge tub:



We kept these three pans full of sap, boiling away:





Maple syrup is made at a 40 to 1 ratio: 40 gallons of maple tree sap make one gallon of syrup. So we had to keep the fires burning and the sap boiling all day long.




There were a ton of dogs along for the day, but they weren't much help:






Jeremy and I took a brief break after lunch and I thought I'd climb a tree:



After boiling all day, we filled up jars with "half way there" syrup. Everyone took some home to boil it down even more. And voila! Maple Syrup.

Local Language: 1

There's a particular phrase I say pretty often and Jeremy recently informed me that it must be a Northwest phrase because he had never heard it before he lived in the Northwest. It is: "...in forever."

As in:

I haven't had brussels sprouts in forever!
I haven't been to the zoo in forever.
I haven't seen so-and-so in forever.

I wondered if I was the only one that said this, but other people in the Northwest say it too (at least in Seattle!) I haven't heard anyone here say it yet, but perhaps they do.

Minneapolites (or Minneapolitans) don't seem to have an accent - at least I haven't detected much of one yet. A few times I've heard what sounded like a Canadian accent (on the 'ou' words). I have yet to hear some interesting midwestern or Minnesota-type phrase - but I'll report as soon as I do!

The First Day of Spring

Happy first day of spring everyone!

In honor of the day, Jeremy and I have been spring cleaning - putting moving boxes and different odds and ends in the attic and cleaning up the house a bit.

But to really celebrate, we got a little seed tray setup and I planted some marigold seeds. Jeremy played Vivaldi's concerto no. 22 in E major (otherwise known as Spring, of the Four Seasons). The seeds may not sprout at all, but we've got more room in our tray and we've been ordering seed catalogs - so we'll be growing something soon.

Of course, here in the good ol' midwest we're in the midst of a 24 hour snow advisory and we're supposed to get between 4 to 7 inches of snow by tomorrow evening. Ah, the joys of spring.

Recycling

I miss recycling in Seattle. I didn't realize Seattle had one of the best programs around and was quite progressive in that. I remember the giant green tubs we had where I could toss in any recyclable: paper, plastic, cans, newspaper, cardboard, etc, etc. Of course they preferred glass in a separate tub on the side.

Minneapolis recycling is, I think, a pain in the rear! At least they recycle I guess. We are required to separate mail & office paper, shredded paper, newspapers, magazines, phone books, and cardboard into separate bags. (That's six different bags!) Also separated into separate bags are plastic bottles (but not plastic yogurt containers - what!?), glass bottles, cans, and batteries. We have to separate recycling into 10 different piles, and yet they don't provide the containers to do this. We're supposed to use paper bags. What about those of us who use canvas bags for shopping and don't bring home dozens of paper bags a week??

The Move: Day 7

Sorry for the delay, but we did make it to Minneapolis on Friday. We left western South Dakota around 8am and arrived in Minneapolis around 8pm.

It was a long day of driving. We had picked up so much snow and ice in the previous days and it just kept adding on. The tires made an awful squealing sound whenever we turned a corner. We took turns hacking ice off the car every time we stopped to get gas or tea.





We stopped in Sioux Falls for a late lunch at Bob's Cafe where we had the Big Bob - a burger with cheese and bacon and onions and barbecue sauce. It was very tasty!





So, for the rest of this post, I give you: the travels of Ant, our trusty road trip sidekick and mascot...