Exploring the History of our House

Last spring we were asked if we would like to participate in the historical house tour in our town by opening our house to the public and providing them with some historical information on our house. As we started researching we found that Grant Wheat inventor of the first rechargeable headlamp for miners was the original owner of our house established 1920. Yesterday at Boarders my husband saw this book In the book it said that Grant Wheat was buried in Maplewood cemetary We were lucky enough to find the Wheat family plot

In this post I used picnik editor through picasa and I am not sure I am happy with the results, I think that they shrink the image too much, however there is a premium upgrade for $2.08 a month but I don't think that will speed it up much, I found it way slower than photoshop and I wasn't even doing a complicated edit. Let me know if any of you have used it and have any tidbits for me.



****update**** I re-uploaded and tried again the pix look better now

Food to Keep you Fueled

So I have been craving this wild rice salad that my mom used to make and I didn't realized how much I took for granted the midwest and their awesome foods! I have bought wild rice twice recently at two different grocery stores and it is amazing because they have 1 kind, no variety and it is soooo expensive. I may have to have someone from back home send me some wild rice because this is ridiculous!
Anyway enough with my ranting! I decided to add a few things to the original recipe and take some out, ok I only took out one ingredient and that is the peas. I did added a purple pepper and some chives.

My husband made a nice dressing but you can use store bought italian if you are so inclined.


Here is the finished product ingredients are

• wild rice (chilled)
• grape tomatoes cut in half
• celery
• onions
• chives
• purple pepper
• marinated artichokes
• dressing, something of the italian variety.

I made a batch of this and it is great as a side dish or a lunch and lasts in the refrigerator! It also has a great amount of fuel and I used this to work on my new garden.

We are going to have a fall garden including spinach, lettuce (a few kinds), potatoes, garlic and some parsnips. We should get a small harvest from the leafy greens before it frosts and everything else will be in the ground ready for the spring, at which time we will fill the rest of the garden beds with our favorite vegetables.

I need to get the seeds in this week and in order to do that, we need to get more dirt as we are using raised garden beds. I am amazed at how quickly we executed this project as I had only just seen the garden that inspired me to do this:


I saw this garden on a walk last week and fell in love! I can't wait for next year when I can get it all laid out.

Weekend full of Cleansing and Backyard Nature

I am on day 6 of my Standard Process Cleanse and it is going very well! It is so strange but the minute someone says you can't have you want! In the last several days I have had cravings for things I haven't eaten in years! Anyway here is a normal routine 2 times a day that is 19 pills and a shake!
Today I made one of the best shakes yet containing:

• flax seed oil
• vanilla coconut milk
• the supplement
• apples
• kiwi
• banana
• spinach
• grapes
• tart cherry juice

Yesterday was the first day using the flax seed oil and I made a delicious shake with it too:

• orange juice
• supplement
• flax seed oil
• organic fresh wild maine blueberry's
• strawberry
• banana
  

While enjoying some time out back and watering my garden the birds were in full force enjoying a bath in the sun!

Here is a yellow bird that I think my husband and I saw a month ago and thought it was someones pet but it rolls with the sparrows in the neighborhood.

This was a gift from a friend and I just love the pot and dish it is in.

I can't just exercise I need an activity,

I can't just exercise I need an activity, so I decided to walk the trail by my house and take pictures! I had no clue how far I was going to walk but I was going to walk! So these are the items that I brought with me:
spring water, sketch pad, pens, ipod, phone, wallet, and some fruit

There were a bunch of these butterfly's hanging out so I was able to grab a couple snap shots of them.
I thought this was a neat tree with the contrast from the sky and the death of the tree.

Mushroom Hunting in the Garden

As I was watering and weeding this morning I noticed there were a few mushrooms that had sprouted up over night. So I decided to hunt through garden and found that there were several. Fungi has always been intriguing to me. It has all sorts of different textures from slimy to powdery. The arrays of colors that they are is quite amazing as well. Here are a few shots I took of the mushrooms I found today that I thought were interesting...

Outdoor Studio Work is the Best

As I am often times most creative in the morning I grabbed a few supplies to continue work on Project Bedroom Artwork and brought it outside to enjoy the lovely breeze! However, not too good of an idea working with paper in the wind, but what can I say I love a challenge! Here is what I am working on today. I would love your feedback and comments.

The Weather has been amazing!

The weather has been really exciting in New England this summer, I feel as if I have transported back to Minnesota. These are pictures of a storm that barely missed us, this was a wall of clouds that was shooting lightening back and forth from cloud to cloud. I was lucky enough to catch a few of the amazing flashes that we viewed that evening!

Delaware and Domestic Diva

While I was in Philly the first week of August I thought, I have never been to Delaware, I am going to go check it out. I visited an old mansion with the most beautiful garden, so picturesque there was a women who had set up an eisel and was painting on a perfect hot summers day! While I was looking at all the great places to visit in Delaware I realized something I had not known, it was settled mostly by the Dutch, the English and Swedes. In fact the first American Swedish Lutheran church resides here, in a run down neighborhood not many swedes in the neighborhood now.

I then headed down to Newcastle which is a really quaint seaport filled with history! Below is the Amstel House which resides on an old brick road surrounded by some of the neatest old houses I have ever seen.

On a domestic diva note, the garden has been baring fruit so there has been a lot of new recipes being had, using all the ingredients that we seem to have an abundant amount of. This weekend we emptied out the hot water heater to prepare for the winter that is soon upon us and have had the luxury of using my friends breadmaker to crank out some fabulous breads! Can't wait to get the house decorated for Halloween, the best holiday ever!

Checkin in and then checkin out!

So sorry for the lack of posts I have been without a computer for a week as my computer had to go to the doctor AGAIN! Now I am heading off to 1 of the 10,000 lakes for some R&R and well needed family time. Here are a few pix from my NYC trip a week ago and here are some pix of my garden. Have a happy and safe 4th and here is some patriotic inspiration.

Cemetary Pix