Does this Bus go to Duluth?

Trip with Davey to Duluth yesterday. We left the farm at noon. Betsy fed us a great lunch of herring and potatoes and Mike's homemade applesauce, we got the hay out to the horse-asses, and we blasted off in the Stealth Schnaab for shopping for garbage cans and dog food and light bubs and such, where I had hoped to spend a dollar less on each purchase, and maybe save enough to buy gas. I'm a fool, I know. I should have hauled hay instead, because it's raining today. I wanted to burn the burn-piles at the farm today.

Anyhow it was fun bumming around with Dr. Grin. I got a mouse for my laptop. We ate at Arby's in Cloquet near the Farm Store, couldn't find even one wool shirt (that's dumb), tried out some orifice chairs at OfficeMax, and then went into Home Depot twice, because I forgot stuff right there on my list, and then Menard's once for the caulk I forgot on both trips into HD. They even have the Miller Hill Menard's closed for expansion, so we had to go 'way back down to West Duluth. The price of gas was 2.09 in Two Harbors on the way down, 2.07 in Cloquet, 2.29 all over Duluth in the evening, which I paid to fill up, then 2.19 on the way home in Two Harbors.
What the hell?

Dare I divulge David's constant agitation to go to Best Buy (whom I have pledged myself to boycott, onnacounta the bad service Marce got on this puter here) where we finally went anyway, which resulted in him buying a teeny little laptop that has amnesia, but is supposed to work on the internet. I told him not to do it.

We finally made it to Beijing for my favorite General Tso's Chicken with Chinese Vegetables. Washed it all down with a quart of Root Beer from the TH gas station. What a day. We got home after midnight. Now it's raining. It hasn't rained a lot this fall. It never warms up enough, and the days are not long enough to dry out when it does. This is pretty much of a soaker.

Movie Night at Betsy's

We watched a movie on the big screen arranged by Davey with his puter. Bobby brought the DVD to share with a few of us. The movie was called "Why We Fight" and it reviewed the development of the military industrial complex since the Bomb fell on Hiroshima, in spite of Eisenhower's admonishments. It was a very graphic review of the carnage caused by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Ashcroft and Wolfowitz's demonization of their former puppet Saddam Hussein. I got rid of the TV in the cabin shortly after 911, so I had never seen a lot of that video. It made me sick. It made me cry. The military made it happen, because they have to do something, just like Homeland Security, even if it is wrong. And most of it is.

Hey! Rides!

Yesterday Bessie and Julie took some little kids and their folks for a big ol' wagon ride down the Cardinal Road west through some muddy tracks (it was quite bouncy) and came out the North-South road by Surbaugh's driveway, and back on the Pike Lake road. The horses, who have not done much work yet this season, needed about a fifteen minute breather at the top of the hill on the undeveloped part of the Cardinal Road. It was a bit of an adventure. Thanks to Ray for his help all afternoon starting to frame up the wagon benches, and to the lovely Surbaugh family for booking a wagon ride, giving me a deadline to get that up and running for Will's birthday party on Saturday, the day before. Thanks to Don Noyce for the trailer we turned into a wagon, as well as the forecart he framed up for me this spring/early summer.

The Oars Are Here--Yay!

After a pretty long wait--you can't rush an artist--the 9'6" Sitka spruce spoons arrived in Thunder Bay at the DHL terminal. All the folks I talked to on the phone there couldn't have been nicer, more on the ball, or more helpful. But their 800 number and their email communication couldn't have been less helpful, slower to respond or more discombobulated. it took me seven calls over two weeks to get the address and the phone number, one from some dude in Vancouver and one from some chick in Texas...aaarghhh! And then there was the email guy or whatever he or she was--Sumair Ashraf. Write me back after seven days apologizing on behalf of DHL. Paul Bagshaw at least kept me posted on the progress of the oar making.

So Davey and I took the oars out on the big Norse pram, and they are actually about a foot too long for that deal. Hands crossed over, but I really liked the way they pulled. Now I need to get my boat away from its eternal residency at the motor-repair shop, so I can at least row that around a little bit before it gets nasty out. A little fall fishing would be great.

Row, Row, Row Some More

Last evening I took the smaller of the two Norse prams out for a bit, just out to the end of Artist's Point and back. I liked the fact that I could place my feet just right for pushing off of the stern seat. After about 35 or 40 minutes out, however, there was about two or three inches of water amidships. Since we have gotten no rain now for a month or so, the boats have been high and dry on the boat-slides there at North House and could probably use a dunking. There were a couple of streams of water pouring back out where the floor planks join the transom when I pulled her up on the beach. Dryers are done. Gotta go.

Rowing with Rain & Kris & Ben & Miles

After having a campfire down on the beach last night, and musical beds last night on the hottest night of the year, and after a couple of great pony rides on Frisky the Magic Pony, and Mary just wiggling and eating constantly, Ben Cervenka came over for a visit, and then about 4:30 we headed off to the harbor to take the Batteau out in the rollers coming on over from Michigan. Rain and Kris really got the boat moving and Ben too. Miles (three going on four now) was sitting up in the bow cuddled up with Ben and singing his rowing song out on the wind. The Professor came sailing by and showed us the bungie-ties he rigged to hold the oars back in the thole-pins. That really helped. We stayed in the harbor, but we went around both ways before we decided to head in for smoked salmon, whitefish and trout, and some creamed dilled herring. Damn, that was good. What a nice weekend with the kids!

The LOONNNG GOOODDBBYYYE

So there it is. The last show of How to Talk Minnesotan the Musical was yesterday afternoon. It's so transitory, that live theatre thing. We struck the set last night, it took about 2 1/4 hours to demolish the illusion of the Lost Walleye Lodge. I was surprised how much more time and work it was doing a musical than a play. These nice folks who came yesterday said, "that sort of silliness is just what we need right now." It's funny how material as irrelevant and vapid as that becomes popular in hard times. "The Grapes of Wrath" it isn't, but there is a certain value to celebrating our ordinary understated customs and ways of thinking and talking, traditional foolishness the way it used to be. To quote Lucy Humde, "That's just the way it is, so we do it." I sure enjoyed singing those sweet harmonies and sort of "dancing" in the show. It was fun. Goodbye until we meet again, Miller Johnson, part of the Muskies.