Star Spangled
Cyndie cooked up some star-spangled black cap jam yesterday! It all started with some pre-canning berry picking when Elysa and Ande arrived to join in the fun. Made from real fresh berries.
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Then the cooking magic in the kitchen commenced, using more sugar than I am allowed to be in the same room with, leading to jars upon jars of the precious dark jam.
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And a filled kitchen sink.
Just to top off the busy afternoon over the stove, Cyndie baked two loaves of bread so we could test out the jam while it was still warm. The flavor treat set off fireworks in my taste buds!
Speaking of fireworks, one of my trusted news sources (who shall go unnamed to protect their reputation) let me down royally with a timely story offering four tips to help dog owners ease the stress of frightened pets during the sunset hours of exploding ordinance this time of year.
One: Don’t take your pet to the fireworks show.
Really?
Two: Keep your pet safe at home.
Isn’t that the same thing as not taking them to the show?
Three: Try over the counter remedies.
Oh, why didn’t I think of that before?
Four: Make sure your pet is microchipped.
July 4 is the number one day dogs and cats get lost, it says.
Well, that is not a tip that will ease my dog’s stress, so that was only three morsels of expert advice.
Color me thoroughly disappointed in that “helpful” tidbit of intrepid journalistic expertise.
We ushered Delilah into her “den” for the night, and she was able to quietly ignore the repeating echoes of small arms fire sounds percolating well past my bedtime. Delilah sleeps in a crate with a cover draped over it, which seems to provide her with enough comfort that she will generally ignore most activity overnight.
Last night, I could have used a sound proof cover over my bed. Regardless, once I got to sleep, it was dreamy visions of star-spangled black cap jam dancing in my head all night long.
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The Fourth
Rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air. It being a wonderfully warm July night last night, we had all the windows open. Beyond the rhythmic ratchety chirp of a few nearby frogs, we were serenaded by holiday revelers getting a head start, lighting up over an hour’s worth of pyrotechnic battle sounds on the third of July.
Today is a mid-week pause from the day-job, but the ranch chores never take a break. Jackie traveled across Wisconsin to be with her family for the holiday, so Cyndie and I will be tending to all our animals for the day.
I may do some mowing, if it doesn’t rain, and Cyndie is considering canning some black-cap jam. She may even get some help from Elysa and Ande, who messaged an intent to visit.
Other than that, we have no special Independence Day plans.
I’m sure we will have another night of battle sounds echoing throughout the hours surrounding sunset.
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Happy 4th of July to all who reside in the US of A!
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Aqueous Abstractions
I’ve collected a backlog of full-frame images presenting varying states of water recently, starting a few weeks ago during my bike trip, up through this past weekend at the lake. I present them today in the order they were captured.
I hope you can linger long enough to maximize the mesmerizing effect of the abstract aqueous distractions.
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Intentional Community
Wow. Similar endings in both World Cup games yesterday, in that, the final results were determined by penalty kicks. I only got to see parts of both games, due to a special meeting of the Wildwood Lodge Club association members in the morning, and then our trip home in the afternoon, but what I saw was highly entertaining.
There is some work needing to be done to maintain the soundness of the aging lodge building up at the lake, which will require significant financial commitment. At the same time, after over 50-years of existence, the association is facing the aging out of the first generation. Financial burdens are beginning to fall on the multiple sibling families that make up the second generation members.
We are facing some big decisions as an intentional community, about what the six expanding families’ long term wishes and dreams are for the future of this communal vacation paradise.
I walked portions of the property in the early morning on Saturday and captured the some of the quiet beauty.
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I’ve written about Wildwood before, but to summarize for newer readers, it is an association of now 6 families that share a central lodge building, play field, tennis court, gorgeous beach, and boats. When the old fishing resort was purchased by 11 families in the 1960s, it was a number of small, mostly primitive small shacks surrounding the main lodge.
Moms and kids would spend most of the summer there, with dads coming from the Twin Cities for the weekends. Families would rotate cabins throughout the summer and often dined communally around the main fire pit in the central “triangle” on their peninsula of Round Lake.
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In the 1980s, when the member numbers had dropped to seven families, the maturing clans elected to split the property into separate plots in order to allow for enhancements to the living accommodations, while also providing equity for the investment by individual families.
Meanwhile, all the traditions and celebratory community activities from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and for a decade or so, New Year’s Eve, played out with emphatic zest.
It was intentional community at its best. Kids and dogs, and all the good and bad that happens with outdoor space, a lake, and time, became the joys and concerns of all. With this precious group, there were always a lot more joys than there ever were concerns.
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Saturday, in celebration of the mid-week 4th-of-July holiday this year, we broke out the red “bats” shirts and the blue “mice” shirts to split the community into two arbitrary teams for a mostly typical array of challenges for dominance.
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There was a relay race, water-balloon toss, three-legged sack race, shoe kick, watermelon eating contest, and finally, a water scrum to move a greased watermelon across the opponent’s line.
The day of games was topped off by a grand feast in the lodge for dinner, all prepared, served, and serviced by a combined effort of member families, kids included (to varying degrees of success).
Now the community is needing to address what the next version of Wildwood Lodge Club might be?
There are many variables involved, and few, if any, right or wrong decisions to be made. That presents us with a significant challenge.
If Wildwood is to remain some version of its former self, it will involve a big commitment from all the members.
In my mind, big commitments are what it takes for “intentional communities” to survive and to thrive.
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Frail Connection
I had hoped to share a collection of images I captured yesterday in a stroll around the lake property, but our location on the fringes of robust signals are hampering my upload abilities.
The one image that made it through the static speaks to the serenity of scenes we get to enjoy here, but it belies the chaos that played out in an afternoon of community games marking the annual Independence Day (adjusted for the nearest possible weekend) celebration.
I tried a good dose of patience, but doing the same thing over and over with no change in result has only brought me to the start of this morning’s World Cup game between Spain and Russia, so the tales of yesterday’s adventures will have to wait until we get back to the ranch.
I’ve got a beautiful game commanding my attention…
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Breezes
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lake
breezes
wafting
leaves
roiling
serenading
voicing
rejoicing
flora
floating
singing
nature’s
amelioration
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Overload Warning
Cyndie and I finally got around to accomplishing a dinner date we had talked about way back at the beginning of the month, around the time of her birthday. Now my birthday has come and gone, and last night we made it down to our nearby fine dining destination restaurant, Shady Grove, to celebrate.
Despite my usual habit of choosing fish, I found myself entranced by a choice of the bison ribeye, instead. I wasn’t disappointed.
It being a special occasion, we allowed for a little indulgence after the meal.
Warning! Warning! Sugar overload ahead!
Chocolate, caramel, sea salt —chilled. I had two bites more than I deserved, and we brought a third of it home. I think I can hear it calling out to be eaten for breakfast this morning.
Who am I to argue?
Yesterday, I enjoyed a perfect execution of a plan to finish mowing the lawn in the narrow window of time between work and our dinner reservation. That makes up for the last time I had high hopes of squeaking in the mowing, when the spring broke just before I left for a week of vacation.
Despite the consecutive days of rain that fell at home while I was away, Cyndie enlisted the help of Mary and Tim, my sister and brother-in-law, to finally knock down the crop of lawn grass in the days before I got home. Picking up where they left off, starting late Wednesday after work and finishing last night, I completed the whole property again, with the exception of the arena space.
Today, we head for the lake for the weekend, leaving Jackie to care for animals at home. With the Independence Day holiday landing in the middle of the following week, the annual Wildwood 4th-of-July games have been moved ahead to this weekend.
It’ll be Bats vs. Mice in a no-holds-barred battle of strength, cunning, stamina, and good humor in the field beside the lodge.
To heck with the sugar overload, I’m gonna have dessert for breakfast this morning. I’ll use the rush to get mentally prepared for the weekend events looming on our horizon.
Warning! Warning! Hyperactive blissed-out old man ahead.
Bring on the shoe kick!
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Berry Bounty
‘Tis the time of year when raspberries suddenly appear in significant numbers, materializing magically against the dominant green backdrop in every direction we turn. Sometimes they surprise us by showing up in a cluster of growth that we didn’t even realize included raspberry canes.
Cyndie has tried pruning some of our wild berry patches in the past, hoping to make it a little easier to walk through for picking berries, but the vigorous bushes seem to grow themselves into a solid mass again as soon as we turn our backs.
Time to dig out the Ball jars with the two-piece metal lids in preparation of preserving the harvest.
As is clearly visible in the image, we are lucky to be getting Black Cap Raspberries. I am not clever enough to successfully describe the flavor distinction between a red raspberry and a black cap, but after developing a taste for the unique flavor of the black caps, I have truly become a snob about the black cap supremacy.
One of my absolute favorite treats is well-toasted New England Brown Bread spread with a layer of cream cheese and topped with Cyndie’s home-canned black cap jam. It’s an explosion of texture and unparalleled flavor that is pure culinary bliss.
The first year she canned berries here, we gave the majority of jars away to friends and family before we realized the distinct difference of the black cap flavor. It was a minor disaster when we discovered there were no more jars of the preferred black cap jam left in the house for us.
Now we know to hoard a secret stash of our own, separate from the stock that gets shared.
Honestly, of all the different ways we have considered monetizing our activities here, Cyndie’s black cap jam is probably the most valuable. Too bad we aren’t willing to part with enough of that black gold to make that idea worthwhile.
The yield looks bountiful this year. Something tells me I should be stocking up on loaves of brown bread, too.
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Brief Treat
Just before sunset last night, we let the horses have a few minutes to graze on the mowed arena space. They were thrilled with the opportunity.
It is so precious for us to see them grazing on the grass outside their paddock. Be it ever so brief, it provided a compound reward.
The chickens seemed pretty excited over the activity and came running to join in the fun.
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Do they look like they are getting bigger? They are.
After we returned to the paddock, I crouched down to visit with the chickens, but it was Hunter and Cayenne who moved in to love me up.
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Apparently, they wanted to offer me a brief treat of my very own.
Love, gratefully accepted.
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