Storm Damage

We took a drive last night with friends to take a look at damage to area crops from the big honkin’ hail(tennis ball size in areas)  we received Friday night.  We were spared here at the home, just receiving monsoon-like rains.  Can you say water in the basement?

Warnings were issued for us for large hail as well but thankfully only a small pebbles fell.

As close as 15 miles away though there was pretty extensive damage that will drastically affect the yields. 

It has been such a goofy, cool, wet summer and now the gi-normous hail. 

It sure did a number on this soybean field. 

See how the leaves on the corn are shredded.

Just doin’ what the sign says…

Don’t you always do what you’re told???
Sorry, I just couldn’t resist throwing that in.  :)

 

A little partial

Thought I'd pass along a photography site...

Our daughter-in-law's sister, Marci, does a great job catching the right moment with a photo. This particular post, I'm a little partial to.

Isn't the second photo just about the most adorable grandson anyone could have??? It's quite alright to agree with me. ;)

Day Two

After a wonderful breakfast at Bob & Judi’s we headed west to Amish Country.  Wisconsin state highway 33 rolls right through the middle of it.  With all of the recent rains, everything appears so lush and green.

   

We turned south of LaCrosse along the river in time to see this old steam train pass by on it’s way to a festival in Chicago. 
 

The rest of the day was spent meandering our way back home past cornfields, soybean fields, lots and lots of cows (Wisconsin is the dairy state, ya know) and

even some Wind fields.

Even though it was tad bit chilly and wet, it’s always nice to get away for a couple of days and re-connect with your best traveling partner.

Never trust a weather man

PART ONE

Weather man:  Cool mornings and highs in the upper 60’s, may even hit 70!

Translation:  Stinkin’ cold mornings and highs maybe in the upper 50’s

Weather man:  Partly sunny skies with a few passing clouds

Translation:  Sun for 5 minutes and mostly clouds

Weather man:  Light breezes

Translation:  pretty constant 20 mph winds

Weather man:  Very slight chance of a brief shower

Translation:  Drizzly rain most of the day with a downpour or two thrown in

When riding a motorcycle, being cold isn‘t great but tolerable and being wet isn’t so much fun but tolerable, but being cold and wet is not incredibly fun.

We used to say that if we needed rain, we should go camping.  We could be in the middle of a drought and if we planned to go camping, we would get rain.  That theory held true this weekend as we took off for a couple of days on the motorcycle.    The weather forecaster was saying unseasonably cool for July but an overall nice weekend.  Boy, did he call Friday and Saturday wrong!  Understand I’m really not complaining too much as we’ve been pretty fortunate with the amount of traveling via motorcycle we’ve done and have really only got caught in nasty weather a couple of times.   I do have to say though that it’s the first time we’ve ridden in July and needed our heavy cold weather gear.

We left Friday morning in sunshine but the weather went downhill from there.   However, it was still a nice time away just the two of us. 

We stopped for lunch in a neat little town, Mineral Point, Wisconsin at the Red Rooster Cafe.  Have you ever walked  into a place and all the heads turn to look at you with a “stranger danger” look?  We obviously must not have been from around there.  We sat at the counter and ordered a pasty which they are famous for.  The pasty was filled cube steak, potatoes, carrots, onions & rutabagas.  Yum! -- Some good ole hot comfort food.  Just what we needed to warm our cold bones.

After leaving Mineral Point, we headed further north and passed by this huge motorcycle dealership just outside of Richland Center.  

 

As we pulled in the driveway, we saw a couple of new CanAm Spyder motorcycles. 

We’ve noticed a couple on the road in the last year but had not seen one up close.  As we were checking them out, the salesman asked if we wanted to take it for a test drive.  At first, we turned him down, but another customer who was walking by encouraged us to do it.  He did, however warn us, that if we rode one we would want one.  WOW, did he ever know what he was talking about.  What a blast!   These bikes have two wheels in front and one in back.  The one I drove had an automatic shift and computerized downshift.  Virtually, idiot proof!  Now, that’s what I need.  

After blowing a couple of hours here, we moved on to our lodging for the night in Wonewoc with Bob & Judi P.  We’re part of a Motorcycle Travel Network.  We pay yearly dues and then are able to stay with others in the network for $20 a night which gets you a bed to sleep in, shower facilities and breakfast the next morning.  In turn we agree to host other network members in our home.  It’s a wonderful way to meet new like-minded people.

Tomorrow I’ll share a few pictures of  Wisconsin Amish country.

Takin’ a ride

 

We’re takin’ a ride for a few days hoping to run across more roads like this. 

Not sure where we’re going other than heading north to Wisconsin and maybe Minnesota. 

See y’all next week,  with some great pictures(hopefully) from our weekend.

Last nights sky

Yesterday, I think we spent more time on the bike than we did off of it.  The sky as we were riding over to our son’s for supper was gorgeous.

Here are a few other typical rural Midwestern pictures from yesterday.

 

 

And the three above pictures exist to take care of this.

A few scenes from our ride today

We rode up to our church’s JoDaviess County campus in Galena for church this morning.  Any ride through the JoDaviess County hills is beautiful so I took my camera along telling my husband that I was going to take a lot of pictures.    All but the last couple of these shots were taken from a moving motorcycle because “you certainly don’t need to stop to take pictures do you??”  For a 55mph drive-by they didn’t turn out too bad.

Here are just a few. . .

     It looks like someone was doing a little drive-by target practice on this guardrail, wouldn’t you say?  The flowers growing out of it were gorgeous.

Deck Party

We used to entertain alot, especially in the summer using the deck and fire pit.  The last couple of years, not so much.   Not for any particular reason.  The timing didn’t work out or just didn’t feel like it.  A week ago, DH and I were eating supper and decided it was time. 

I shot out an email to a bunch of people from church saying last night was it.  We had a great turnout (38 total) and served BBQ pork.  We provided the meat, beverage and table service.   

Everybody brought a dish to pass which makes the work for an event like this so much less.  These are pies I made(sorry I forgot to take a picture until they were dug into).  I saw a picture online and thought it would be a fun “fourth” thing to do.   One was strawberry and the other cherry with a mixture of blueberries and blackberries in quadrant with the stars.  They were actually pretty easy other than I tried a new pie crust recipe.  Big mistake, it didn’t want to hold together.  I should have stuck with the ol’ tried and true.

We kicked back around the fire, played bags and ladder ball.   

Guests also tested their skills by picking up an egg with the backhoe and placing it in an egg carton.  
above – Nephew Nathan supervising our pastor :)

Placing it ever so gently in the carton. 
Three or four were able to do it without breaking the egg. 
Myself?  I didn’t even attempt it as patience is definitely not one of my stronger qualities.

Hope you had a great holiday weekend as well!

 

Third Generation

We were daycare for the Grandkids today.  It was a tough job, you know, playing with those babies all day,  but hey, I’ll step up to that plate anytime! 

We had to go to Monroe, Wisconsin (about 30 miles north of us) on an errand.  Along the way there all these tractor displays.  What was this about? 

It was “8 miles of Ag-tiques” weekend.    Along the 8 miles on Rte. 26 between Orangeville, Illinois and Monroe, Wisconsin farmers open up their yards for collectors to bring tractors in.  There were at least four different pull-offs with 30 – 50 tractors each.  It runs through Sunday if you’re from the area and are looking for something to do, check it out. 

On the way back we stopped at the John Deere exhibit so the Grandkids (& Grandpa) could wander through them.

There is something about this picture that just touches my heart.  It seems like only yesterday we were looking at tractors with our boys and now it’s with the grandkids.  Three generations, wow, ok I’m really feeling old now!