Little Free Library in Princeton Wisconsin

Little Free Library in Princeton, Wisconsin

On the news and on Facebook recently I heard and read about Little Free Libraries popping up in many towns.  The first one was placed in Hudson, Wisconsin in 2009.  It was in the shape of an old schoolhouse, and it was to honor a loved one who was a teacher who loved books.  The idea took off, and now there are little free libraries all around the United States and the world.  The purpose is to encourage people of all ages to read.  At anytime of the day or night, a person can lift the lid and borrow a book.  You can replace it with another book or return it later and take another.  The little libraries can be in any shape or size.  The news show I saw had one inside a coffee shop, and the proprietor said she didn't care if people returned them.  She just wanted to see people read. 

The NBC Nightly News aired this piece more than a year ago.
http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/03/10/10634425-using-books-to-build-community

I was very surprised one day when I went to mail a letter at our local post office.  There standing right next to the mailbox was the Little Free Library shown.  It was stuffed full of books.  Our town is lucky enough to have a very nice public library, but some towns don't.  This is a happy little addition.

Zuzak's Divery of Ripon Wisconsin

Last weekend we found a new place to eat.  Anything besides Taco Bell is a welcome change for me.  We had to pick up a few groceries in a neighboring town, so I got my dad settled with lunch and a thermos of coffee.  A football game was on the radio so I knew he would be occupied for a couple hours.

It is always a good idea to eat before grocery shopping, so we ate first.  The place was called Zuzak's.

It says it is a divery.  I didn't know if that meant it was a dive or they misspelled delivery.  My daughter had eaten here so I knew it wasn't a dive.  It was very cute inside.

The menu was very interesting.  They had every kind of burger you could imagine.  Here are a few of many many choices.  They also have hot dogs, fries, gyros, ice cream and a number of other items.  I had the Veggie Burger with Sweet Potato Fries, and it was very good.

Beach Burger
Topped with avocado, tomato, red onion and special cream cheese spread.
The Duke
Topped with fried mushrooms, grilled onions and melted cheddar cheese.
Thank You Very Much Burger
Topped with peanut butter, bacon and bananas.
Chickie Burger
Topped with a fried egg and bacon.

 

It was a nice little outing.  We stopped for groceries, and we were home before the game was over.  

NOTE:  I am sorry to report, this place went out of business.  It is a shame.  We enjoyed going there.

The Beautiful Wisconsin Cranberry Harvest

This time in October reminds me of some of the fun activities that we used to do with our grandkids.  It was a time to do corn mazes, visits to pumpkin farms and apple orchards and of course watching the Wisconsin Cranberry harvest.

My husband walking the corn maze with Melissa in 2004.

Melissa, Sam and Dylan from 9 years ago.

I found these photos recently.  They were from 2004.  Our oldest granddaughter will be 13 in a couple weeks.  Dylan is now 12 and the baby in the middle is Sam and he is now 9.  They are growing up and not very interested in going to these places anymore.

I don't know about the kids but my husband and I really enjoyed visiting the Cranberry harvest.  We haven't gone since Dylan was a baby which was twelve years ago.  Recently a relative of mine posted some pictures of her families cranberry harvest.  Her family has been in the cranberry business for a long time.  I believe my grandpa Jepsen's brother Chris started this family business.  It reminded me of how beautiful this is to see, and I have to make a point of going next year.

I don't know a lot about the technical aspects of the harvest, I know that cranberries grow on bushes.  Then when they are ripe, the growers flood the bog.  The berries are harvested by beaters that beat the cranberries off the bush and the loose cranberries float to the top.  Cranberries float because they have a hollow area in the center where the seeds are and so they float upwards even before they are beaten off.  They are floated to the conveyer which lifts them into the truck. These pictures are from the Jepson Cranberry Marsh in City Point Wisconsin.  I want to thank Dorene for letting me use her pictures.

Jepson Cranberry Marsh

City Point, Wisconsin 

Cranberries floating on the water.

They gather them up toward a conveyer.

Up the conveyer and into a truck.

Thousands of berries falling into the truck.

Close up of the cranberries.

Once in the truck the berries are off to Ocean Spray.

Wisconsin is a leading producer of cranberries.  Over half of the United States production are from Wisconsin.  Central Wisconsin has many cranberry bogs.  Some of them give tours throughout the harvesting season.  If you have never seen this process, I would highly recommend it.

Apple Crisp, Gluten Free and Regular

On Sunday we went to our oldest daughter's house for brunch.  We celebrated all the October birthdays.  My daughter, her husband Mike and my other son-in-law Bret all turned 42 within twelve days of each other.  On top of that Mike's mother also had a birthday on the same day as her son.  There were 15 of us.

I brought three packages of little smokies.  That has become a tradition ever since all the grandchildren were little.  My mom always had them, and now we have them every time we have a family brunch.  I also made a Sunday Breakfast Casserole with O'brien hash browns, sausage, eggs and cheese.  I also scrambled a dozen eggs and made a pan of overnight french toast.  We had fruit and muffins plus apple cake and gluten free apple crisp that my other daughter made.  We had lots and lots of food.

The apple crisp was delicious and because I have apples to use up, I decided to make a pan for desert tonight.  Thank goodness for apple peelers.  It shouldn't surprise anyone that I have one.  I'm the gadget girl.  I like gadgets but only if they make the job easier and are easy to store.  The apple peeler, corer and slicer does that for sure.

Put the apple on the peeler.

Turn the crank to peel the apple.

Remove the core and cut the apple rings to desired size.

Apple Crisp

10 cups apples that have been peeled, cored and sliced
1   cup sugar
1 tablespoon flour (gluten free use King Arthur flour)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place the sliced apples in a 9 x 13 pan.  Mix the white sugar, 1 T. flour and cinnamon together and sprinkle over the apples.  Pour water evenly over all the apples.

1 cup quick cooking oats
1 cup flour (gluten free use King Arthur flour)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, melted

Combine the oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and melted butter together. 

Crumble evenly over the apple mixture.  Bake at 350 degrees F  for about 45 minutes.

Sandhill Cranes are Gathering For Their Migration

Today was a great day for the eight young Whooping Cranes  and everyone involved with training them for their journey.  After a pretty rough start to their migration to Florida, all eight were able to fly to the second stop on the route.  They flew 14 miles today.  Hopefully this is the beginning of a great trip for them.  You can follow their adventure from the website.

I think the sandhill cranes got the migration memo because today the sky was very busy and loud.  They were gathering out on our marsh as the sun was setting.  I estimate at least three groups of at least 50 in each group are spending the night.   I won't write much tonight but just share some of the awesome photos I took tonight of them circling and landing to rest.

Nylon Net Scrubbies

I'm going to share a little project I am involved in.  I am making scrubbies.  It all started with a call from my daughter.  She works for Community Health Network as the community relations manager.  For a long time they had a woman who made Nylon Net Scrubbies for the hospital gift shop.  Recently she decided that she didn't want to do it anymore so my daughter asked if I would like to make them.  I thought that is the least I could do.  My husband volunteers once a week at the hospital, and I wasn't interested in doing that.  After practicing with a few different patterns, I finally settled on one.  Here is the pattern:

1 yard of Nylon Netting (makes 2 plus a couple strips)
Size N Crochet Hook

Fold the netting several times.  The width of netting is 72 inches.  The photo shows this width folded to about 3 or 4 inches.

Then I laid a yard stick on top, first to weigh the netting down and second to measure 2 inch increments.  They can be 2 1/2 or 3 inches or you can buy rolls of netting already cut.

 

Cutting 2 inch strips across the length will give you 18 two inch strips from a yard of netting.

Next you tie the strips together.  The knots will be hidden inside the scrubbie.  This scrubbie uses 8 strips.  Then roll up and start crocheting.

Chain 3, slip stitch to form a ring.  Chain 1.  Continue around making 2 sc in each stitch around and around until you use up two strips.

Then make 1 sc in each stitch until you use up 5 more strips.

With the last strip, sc in every other stitch until you don't have a hole.  Pull the starting tail through and tie with the ending tail.  Tuck the ends inside.

I realize my instructions may be a little hard to follow.  There are many variations of this on many crafting sites.  If you have never used these, they are wonderful.  They don't scratch but get off the toughest stuff.  *Since I wrote this blog, I have changed them a little.  I use a smaller hook (size I) and one more strip to get the size.  It makes a firmer scrubbie when it's wet, which makes it last longer.  http://www.thecabincountess.com/2014/05/revised-nylon-netting-scrubbie.html

It's Hard For Me To Identify Mushrooms or a Fungi

Color me dumb!  I have been seeing on Facebook all the interesting photos of those beautiful large mushrooms and fungi that people are finding.

These are all lovely and amazing.  I love seeing all the different varieties.  Even the ugly ones are beautiful in their own way.

Some people even find edible mushrooms although they all look the same to me.

Imagine how excited I was when I saw an amazing display growing on the side of a tree.  

 

As we got closer, I asked my husband what kind of fungus he thought it was.

He pulled the car over so we could get a photo and a closer look.

Take a good look.  It's insulating foam.  I wonder how many other people were fooled.  At least I hope we weren't the only ones.

Thanks to Dee Ann McGary and Joanne Vogt for the use of their photos.

Grape Jelly Making

Today I'm doing an update on my daughter's jelly making.  One month ago I wrote about them making a lot of jelly from plum trees in their yard.  http://cabincountess.blogspot.com/2013/09/plum-jam-or-plum-jelly.html

Well it didn't stop there.  They had another plum tree ripen, and this is what they did with those plums.

21 more jars of Plum Jelly

Then a couple weeks ago they visited my son in law's parents in the Baraboo/Reedsburg area.  They had a lot of grapes to harvest, and my daughter wasn't  going to let them go to waste.  You guessed it, more jelly. 

Heather picking grapes.

Ewan helping with the grapes.

Sampling a few along the way.

More than enough grapes to go around.

Using the same process as they used for the plum jelly, they made grape jelly.  I'm not sure how many jars they got this time, but we have enough to last until next year and I'm sure they do too.  It's delicious.  They also had extra juice and they really didn't want to make more jelly.  I took home a half gallon of plum juice, a half gallon of apple juice and a gallon of 100 per cent grape juice.  As you can see, we drank some of it before the photo was taken.

 I'm so thankful to have all this jelly.  Not only is it wonderful, I didn't have to make it.

Anniversary of the Peshtigo and Chicago Fires

I usually don't write two blogs in one day.  I have all I can do to write one some days, but I heard on the news tonight that it was a historical day.  On October 8, 1871, there was a terrible fire in Wisconsin.  It killed more people and burned more land than any other fire in history.  It was the Peshtigo Fire.  On the same day, one hundred forty two years ago, Chicago had the famous Chicago fire.  Over 1200 people died in the Peshtigo fire and 300 in the Chicago fire.  After I listened to this information on the news tonight,  I thought of a fiction book I read years ago. Most of the story took place in northeast Wisconsin.   I like books that are written in the area I am familiar with.  The book started out in the wild land around Waupaca and Amherst Wisconsin.  It is about a woman's survival.  Later in the book the characters end up in Peshtigo and Chicago.  That was the first time I realized that both fires were on the same day.  Connecting Waupaca and Amherst Wisconsin is the Tomorrow River which is a tributary of the Wolf River.  It can be seen when traveling along Highway 10.  The book was titled Tomorrow is a River by Barbara Fitz Vroman.  I am by no means a book expert and I listen to most of my books, but I enjoyed it.  It was a little long in some parts, but that may be my short attention span.  Maybe it can still be found in some libraries and used book stores. It was probably written over twenty years ago.   I have had two copies but I have no idea who I gave them to or where they are.  So if you like historical fiction, this book might be enjoyable to read.

Broadway Apple Cake

On Sunday I visited the Berlin Marsh Apple Orchard with my daughter and grandson.
http://cabincountess.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-berlin-marsh-apple-orchard.html

I have a lot of apples to eat and bake with, so today I made this Broadway Apple Cake.  We ate it for the first time a few years ago when my daughter's mother in law made it.  It was so good, we have made it ever since.  I don't know why it's called Broadway Apple Cake, I'll have to ask.

The only change I made to the recipe is that I didn't peel the apples.  One of my friends told me that she never peels the apples in a recipe.  I tried it and it worked just fine.  I used the Wolf River apples and they are so large that I only used 1 and 1/4 apple. 

Broadway Apple Cake

2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 
3/4 teaspoon baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt or 1/4 teaspoon salt 
2 1/2 cups peeled and chopped Granny Smith apples 
1 teaspoon lemon juice 
1 1/2 cups sugar 
1 cup cooking oil 
2 teaspoons vanilla 
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted 
Powdered sugar (optional) 


Allow eggs to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, grease and lightly flour a 10-inch fluted tube pan; set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In another bowl toss apples with lemon juice; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine granulated sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add flour mixture and beat on low speed just until combined. Fold in apples and pecans. (Batter will be thick.)

Spoon batter into the prepared pan. 

Bake in a 350 degree F oven about 1 hour or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool cake in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes.  Carefully remove from pan.  Cool thoroughly on wire rack.  If you like, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cover; store in refrigerator. Makes 12 servings.