DELICACIES!

In our spare time every other day, we pick blueberries. This was one picking during the height of the bearing season.

I have several varieties that produce enormous berries.

This perhaps is my favorite of the lilies.

This is an "Alisa Craig" onion, purchased from Jungs as a plant. Almost all of these onions grew to this size. And they are sweet; like a vandalia.

Karol's first shot at making a "Bloomin Onion," although this one is baked and not deep fried. YUM!

While Karol says that this was not her "best looking" loaf of bread, the taste was unbelieveably wonderful.

Dinner this evening; fresh broccoli and ham quiche. Was it great! No crust and so the calories were cut in half - and the taste was still out of this world.

PS:  I continue to recover from viral meningitis. My strength comes back more and more each day. I am so very thankful to our gracious God.

FAMILY REUNION

It all began at the time of our family reunion, brothers and sisters and their families. I began to feel sick; headache, body ache, temperature, and just bad feeling. I made it through the reunion from Wednesday through Sunday, and then decided that it was time to go to urgent care at the hospital in Stevens Point.

I don't want to burden you with the details except that I moved from urgent care back home and then to the hospital at Marshfield where I was diagnosed with viral meningitis. I'm back home recovering little by little day by day. I don't want to overdue it because meningitis is serious. I have to rest until the infection disappears. In my mind I'm thinking another week or two.

Thanks to God for healing and for wife, family and friends along with medical personnel who all participate in the process of returning to health. I am most grateful for the hundreds of prayers. I am blessed!

Let me share a few shots from the reunion. You do have to understand that I was really not "in my right mind" during the whole time.

Sweet cousin, Grace, and her husband, Jack

IT WAS A GREAT REUNION (EVEN THOUGH I WAS NOT THE LIFE OF THE PARTY!

SECRET SPOT

These fish were caught at a secret spot on a secret lake somewhere in Wisconsin. The "bull" bluegills fought nice and, of course, are fun eating. This is the second 9" bluegill in as many days.

Why is it that they never look quite as big when they are away from the lake?

IRIS

 

Siberian iris

On beautiful Lake Jacqueline. We ended up with 14 nice bluegills.

On Lake Jacqueline, the legal size limit is 18" so this nice 15" largemouth bass needs to go back!

You'll enjoy this video. Luke, Joshua, and Megan, as directed by their grandmother, love to splash in the fresh puddles made by the sprinkler (which they just finished enjoying) on this hot day.

Karol enjoying time in a kayak on Lake Jacqueline

Andrew and Suzanne's new cottage on Lake Jacqueline

Suzanne and Karol taking a break from playing with the kids/grandkids

THE FARMER'S WORK BEGINS

When Spring comes, the farmer has to get hopping. Feed supplies from a long winter may be dwindling so the ground needs to be prepared for a new planting of crops that will make food for the next winter.

Some of the remainder of last years crop remains in what I call "ground silos," contrasted to what we call silo where the silage is contained in an upright cylinder. These ground silos seem to be the wave of the future since I don't see other silos being constructed.

It is not at all uncommon to see huge tractors pulling immense pieces of equipment on the road. This tractor is pulling a planter (it's crumpled up on itself in order to make it roadworthy. When open, it no doubt would fill both lanes of the highway.

Grandpa Mueller with his horses or small tractor would pull a much smaller version of this disc. Around here, this seems to be the most common implement. Perhaps plowing turns up too much soil that has no organic matter in it, while this discing only "mixes up" the top layer of the soil.

Here you can see how the disc simply stirs up the topmost layer of the soil.

In recent years, I've begun to notice more and more "tracks" on tractors instead of the customary wheels. The biggest tractors here have 8 giant wheels; two on each side of the front and two on each side of the rear. Perhaps these tracks do not crush down the soil as tightly as do wheels.

In these here parts of Wisconsin, we have lots of hills. Normally that means that we have some connection with the movement of glaciers years ago. The glaciers left lots of stones in some fields and few in other fields. Here a bobcat scoots around a field picking up the larger stones and then making a deposit in the dump truck.

Our largest crop in central Wisconsin is the potato. It grows well in loose sandy loam and with all the irrigation pins, there is never a lack of water. This tractor/planter will put the potatoes right in the ground and automatically make a hilled row for them to grow in.

In addition to potatoes, central Wisconsin produces lots of good sweet corn. Other crops include green beans and carrots. Regular farmers raise alfalfa, soy beans, field corn, and sometimes oats, rye, or barley. Along with tourism, farming ranks high in our central Wisconsin economy.

I'd still take a little calf over all of the big tractor farm work!

THE REALITY IS.....part two

While there are always problems and difficulties in the world, there is always much joy both to experience and to share. Some of that joy comes in the color, form, smell and texture of flowers. One day ago, I saw little evidence of the wild flowers. This morning, lo and behold, the 72 degree weather had made them pop. Here's the visual evidence.

Early this morning the blood root looked like this.

By lunchtime, they were in full bloom.

The mayapples look like soldiers right now, but by tomorrow, they will have placed umbrella-like leaves over their heads.

Another patch of blood root. The flower spreads and now that I walk around, I can see many of the places where the flower has seeded itself.

This beautiful clump by our back door decided to go from bud to flower overnight. What a wonderful surprise this morning when I walked outside.

And everyone likes the "All-American flower," the dandelion. They come up like clockwork with all of the rest of the spring beauties.