Mish-mash conglomerate and Off we Go!

Some people are dreaming of winter. Can you imagine?

This blog is a mish-mash conglomerate.  You know what that is, right?  It’s a blog with all sorts of unrelated ideas and photos and perhaps even a recipe or two. 

It’s a bits-and-bobs type blog.  A type of blog which starts with one idea and ends up in Duluth, Minnesota.  

(Of course–laughing–LOTS of my blogs start out in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and end up all over the place.  Sometimes in the most unexpected places.  So maybe this mish-mash is nothing new…) 

Whole lot of mailboxes

 First things first.  The recipe Cindy Lou found for dill pickles.  She put it under the Comments of the blog Live the Questions Now.  You guys who aren’t reading the comments are missing the best part of this blog, I swear.  

 These are the  kind of pickles you eat up within a week or two.  Not the kind you work hard and can in quart jars and eat in January when it’s snowing.  Barry nibbled his first pickle the other day and proclaimed it one of the best pickles he had ever eaten.  The flavor.  That’s what makes them so good.  They’re called “Almost Hands-Free Dill Pickles.”   Not strong dill.  OK, I’ll quit babbling.  You make ’em and decide. 

1# cukes, quartered lengthwise
*Put into 1 qt. jar w/ tight-fitting lid
3/4 C white wine vinegar (we used white–turned out just fine.)
1/4 small sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, smashed
2 T sugar
1 tsp dill seed
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
2 tsp. salt
3/4 c hot water
*Mix until sugar dissolves.
*Pour over cucumbers, cover and frig for at least 1 day before serving. 

We doubled recipe.  That’s how fast we’re eating ’em. 

Water bugs

Here’s what it looks like outside the window right now:  Trees leaves waving gently in the strong breeze.  Gray and white clouds on the horizon.  Yellow goldenrod swaying in tall green grasses.  

Half a peach–with its delicious August peach smell–awaits diving into a bowl of Kashi cereal to be drowned in sweet almond milk.  The computer motor buzzes.  

White caterpillar. Anyone ever see a white caterpillar before? About two inches long.

I am humming the song “Under the Quarter Moon” about Lake Superior’s beauty:  Sing to me sweetly, Superior.  Sing me Ojibwa stories under the Quarter moon.  Here is a YouTube video of a group called “Nutshell” singing this classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbfOsYVWOBU  (It’s the only version I could find on YouTube.  

Sorry you guys. This trout has been begging for blog inclusion since the beginning of August.

And now comes the part where the mish-mash conglomerate (definition of conglomerate:  To gather into a ball or round body; to collect into a mass.  Definition of mish-mash:  a collection or mixture of unrelated things; a hodgepodge) veers toward Duluth. 

We are driving 221 miles toward the Big City today!  YES!  You know how I love to travel, right?  You’ve picked this up?  

Well this trip is for my beloved husband.  The poor lad hasn’t had much of a vacation this year and he can’t get away for extended trips like moi.  His four-day trip to Isle Royale was kinda dicey this year with eight to nine foot seas and fish hibernating from the storm.  He deserves a little more vacation.

Last summer we had SUCH fun in Duluth that we’re packing the Buick with a suitcase, cooler, extra shoes and, yes, rain coats and headed out for this city of 86,918 souls on the western shore of our Lake Superior.  Ooops, didn’t mean to tie two things together by mentioning Lake Superior again! 

Anyone who wants to read last year’s adventure (although why would anyone want to return to the past I ask you?) click here or here or here or even here if you want to see some funny signs along the way.  (P.S.  so of course I have to go back and read for a refresher course…) 

Fly, all you fellow travelers. Fly! (or drive. or walk. or bicycle.)

We’ll be back home in a coupla days.  Probably before you read this we’ll be back in Aura harvesting our tomatoes which are almost–yes, almost–ready to pick. We’ve eaten maybe six of the exquisite red globes hanging in the garden. 

Wishing you a hodgepodge day filled with your very own enchanted life!

(and now…on to pack the suitcase!  And, yes, I’ll be bringing the laptop, Miss Ellie.  She’s wanting to go so bad she’s busting out of her carrying case.  She’s asking every five minutes “Can we go yet?  Can we go yet?”  She’ll be coming to you next with news from the road.  Or the hotel.  Or the coffee shop.)

Enchantment