Saving Summer

in a plastic bag ...

Oh yes, it can be done!

A few weeks ago I picked a bunch of tomatoes from our backyard and whipped up this tasty tomato sauce so that later, once our backyard is a wilderness of snow and I forget the smell of fresh tomato on the vine and how you can almost taste the sunlight in its rosy skin ...
... I will open this bag and welcome a little bit of summer into winter.

Here's how you can do it too!

Roasted Summer Tomato Sauce

2 lbs vine-ripened summer fresh tomatoes

1/4-1/3 cup olive oil

minced garlic (1 clove per 1/2 tomato)

salt+pepper

fresh basil, chopped

Cut each tomato in half (across the wide way) and place cut side up in a glass baking dish

Spread 1 clove minced garlic onto each half

Drizzle olive oil over the tomatoes

Sprinkle generously with S+P

Bake at 300 for 2 hours, basting juices every 20-30 minutes (I don't always baste)

Dump tomatoes and juice into a big bowl

Add fresh chopped basil (a handful; adjust to taste)

Either chop with two knives for a chunky sauce, or puree with a blender, immersion blender, or food processor for a smooth sauce

You don't really have to follow the recipe in regards to lbs of tomatoes -- just use a bunch and drizzle enough oil by what looks right, and same for the basil. But the above is the original recipe from here.

Outdoor Dining at its Finest

When your fence is complete and you finally purchase an outdoor table, it doesn't matter if it's 100 degrees and so humid your camera lens fogs up -- you're eating outside!

Adventures in Finland

"...We have joined the greatest of all communities, which is not that of man alone but of everything which shares with us the great adventure of being alive."

Joseph Wood Krutch

This past June my dad and I spent a weekend in Finland ... Finland, Minnesota, that is. My sister Karrin had just completed a year as a Student Naturalist at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, so it was a weekend filled with commencement celebrations, hiking and exploring, and fond farewells.

Below you'll find a little slideshow I put together of our weekend. If interested in hearing the story behind Karrin's photos with the canoe ... well, you better ask her ; )

You may notice some familiar scenes from our visits last August,


October (click link to see blog post); didn't make it to Marshall Mt. this trip,


and February (click link to see blog post).

And now in June (it was really foggy)!

My, how the landscape changes with the seasons!

As you will see, Wolf Ridge is a place where the word "adventure" is truly at home. I noticed it popping up in speeches, goodbyes, and casual conversations -- certainly these young naturalists have many more adventures in store for them.

(Once the video starts playing you can change it to higher resolution -- even HD if your computer can handle it!)

"It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy ... Let's go exploring!"

Farm Tour Adventures

The other day I got you wondering what all of these plastic-covered shoes were all about:

Well here's the rest of that story!

Evan grew up knowing the terms mastitis, sire, and oxytocin; he was able to differentiate a field of alfalfa from barley at a young age; and he knew the meaning of hard work. Even now that he lives in the city he reminisces about the smell of milk replacement powder (mmm, pudding) and the wonderful bouquet of smells that are home to a barn. He will forever appreciate manure. As you may have guessed, or already knew from this post, Evan grew up on a farm. A dairy farm, to be precise.

Sapa Ska Farm, in Lake City, Minn., was founded by Evan's grandpa and is currently run by Evan's dad and uncle. The National Dairy Convention was held in Minnesota this year, and Sapa Ska Farm (which means black and white in some Native American tongue) was lucky to be one of the few properties to be toured by the convention participants. After a lot of hard work cleaning up the barn and renovating the old cheese house to hold the calves, Evan's family opened their doors to about 200 people from around the country. It was an exciting day to be a part of the family, and as you can imagine, I had a blast photographing the event. Here are a few of my favorite photos:

Farmer Denny

Evan's sister Riley painted these -- how clever! I loved them and couldn't help but take a photo.

Evan's cousins, granddaughters of Farmer David, keeping each other company as they survey the newcomers with some trepidation. Evan's sister Tessa enjoys the day.

Turn up your speakers and enjoy the slideshow! If your computer is able, select for it to be played in HD (a button appears once you hit play).

Mr. P's Summer Job?

E and I were hoping to have the satisfaction of constructing our own fence this summer, but after coming across a great deal from some contractors, we decided to sit this one out. There'll be plenty of other things to construct, right? (deck, patio, etc).

Well, last night when I came home expecting to find some men working in our yard with Evan happily checking his sport scores and relaxing inside, you can imagine my surprise when I saw this through the window:

And this:

Looks like Mr. P has found a new summer job! Maybe I shouldn't have been too surprised; I know how he loves his house projects and learning new things - what better way than alongside the pros themselves! (of course he was just helping dig holes and measure the yard, not lay the cement or anything too intense... I think legally he can't do all that, and I don't want anyone thinking he was crossing any lines).

This is what the fence looks like right now:

The rest of the posts should be set tonight or tomorrow, and then the fence should be up within a week! Can't wait!

Patriotic Adventures

Question: What animal has a record of only 20% reaching adulthood? Can see up to 2 miles away? Loves living along the Mississippi? Makes the biggest nests of any North American bird; up to 6' across, 13 feet deep, and weighing 1 ton?

Ok, well maybe I kind of gave it away... ; )

Answer: this fellow!

He kept moving his head! But I like the effect in this one! His head isn't white yet because he hasn't yet matured. This was during a presentation where we got to see him eat a mouse!

On the 4th of July we headed down to Lake City for a picnic with Evan's family. Well, it was raining, so we ended up eating at the Chickadee Cottage, a little cafe run by Evan's aunt and uncle. After brunch it was still coming down so we decided to take an impromptu trip down the river to Wabasha to visit the National Eagle Center. We didn't realize we had planned such a patriotic outing until we saw all the other people milling about in their festive red white and blue garb - what a perfect activity for a rainy 4th of July! It was great fun learning about and observing our national bird. (Did you know that it is called bald because that used to be the word for "white"?)

After walking around the Eagle Center and enjoying some flag cake outside, Evan and I went for a little hike in Frontenac State Park, which overlooks the river and parallels the bluffs of Wisconsin. We ate dinner at the St. James Hotel - where we spent our wedding night and also a fun evening last June. We are always impressed with their food and it is nice sitting on their patio overlooking the river in Red Wing. We made it back home just in time to walk over and catch the Edina fireworks (which we were joking were designer fireworks, with their intricate patterns)! The night before we watched them at Canterbury Park - also a great show. We missed the horse racing so will have to head back there sometime this summer so we can yell "C'mon Dover, move your bloomin' arse!" (My Fair Lady anyone?)

Here's a little montage I made encapsulating the weekend events:

...It's about time!

Wow, I guess I've had a bit of a blog vacation... oops! I'm discovering that it's a lot easier to keep up with the blog in the winter time. These long days keep us outdoors working in the yard, going on walks, traveling to weddings and various family events, and just living life... so long story short, I have a ton of pictures but not a lot of time to blog about them! So here's a little overview of the recent adventures of E & C:

We've been busy replacing the old interior doors in our house with brand spankin new ones. We really only needed to replace the bathroom door (pretty warped and peeling), but since it's nice to keep everything cohesive and they only cost $20 a pop (well, minus the doorknobs and hinges), we decided to tackle all of them. You saw in an earlier post how we trimmed the doors down to size, but unfortunately the doorframes weren't perfectly square, so even after all of that we had to take the sander out and sand down edges to finally get the doors closed. We're done with the bathroom, office, and bedroom doors. All we have left now is the closets! It's a nice project because it doesn't really invade our living space too much; we can decide to tackle one door in a night and be done with it. I think we're really getting the hang of it now!

We've had visitors!

We're making progress in the yard!

Now for a photo hint to what we were up to celebrating the 4th last weekend -- full story to follow soon:

Any guesses on why these troopers had their shoes wrapped in plastic? I'm hoping to finish editing and creating a slideshow shortly, so stay tuned to find out!

Family Photos

I met up with the C family the other weekend for a photo shoot in their backyard. We had a lot of fun playing under the willow tree, rolling around in the grass, and since they live right on a little pond we got some great photos hanging out on the dock. I hadn't seen little A since she was just a few months old, so it was a real treat to see how she has developed into an adorable one year old - who is just starting to stand on her own! R is such an energetic and curious boy - showing me snails he caught in the pond, gathering up the biggest sticks he could find, and swinging from the branches of the willow. No one can make A laugh like her big brother. Just about all the smiles you see in the photos below are thanks to him! C family, I hope you enjoyed the photo shoot as much as I did!

Enjoy the slideshow! (If your computer can handle it you can up it to 1080p HD with the little button at the bottom that appears once the video starts. And I recommend getting rid of that ugly ad that appears across the bottom).

i SAW that!

Have you seen what we've been up to lately at the Pierson house? A couple weeks ago our bathroom looked like this:

old door removed, new door waiting in line ; )

And that's still what it looked like when my mom came to visit for a few days!

But we quickly remedied that with a little help from this (purchased off of Craigslist for just $70, and will double up to help Denny on the farm):

trusty little lamp helped out too

Look at those teeth!

After a little fun in the garage with sawdust,

and a lot of help from Denny,

Notice his awesome $1 glasses! I love them! : )

This was before E found his trusty safety goggles -- Mary's reading glasses worked pretty well!

We have one new perfectly trimmed door! Although we are having trouble with the bathroom frame apparently swelling every day as sometimes the door will close and other times it won't. But we don't really want to close the door yet anyway as we are still handle-less and could easily find ourselves stuck inside! Hopefully we will tackle that project this weekend.

Any door-hanging sleuths out there? If you have any tips of the trade we'd love to hear them as we have 5 more doors to replace in the coming months!

Question: does anyone know how to add an audio clip to a blog? Evan thought it would be fun to upload a song from the Doors to this post... clever, eh?

**Interested in reading up on our great bathroom project? Here's how our spontaneity almost got us in over our heads! The middle of this post shows Evan the bathroom tiler hard at work. And here is some more background on the early stages of our homeownership -- and you can see us (and my dad) donning our plumbing hats!

Sounds of Music

When I go to concerts, whether they be local men's choirs, college gospel singers, or professional performers, I am always struck by the fact that these individuals who just spent hours (and often months) rehearsing and perfecting their music, are actually in the act of saying goodbye as the song is born to my ears for the first time.

I first became conscious of this paradox when I was in seventh grade playing violin with the Strings Preperatory Orchestra in Princeton, NJ. We spent months working on difficult pieces like Tchaikovski's Marche Slave -- working on fingering, bowings, dynamics, difficult passages, and bringing it all together with the full orchestra. We were so wrapped up in preparing the piece that it wasn't until I was sitting in my chair at the concert about to perform a difficult passage that I'd remember "hey, this is my last chance at this run!" This revelation always came with a sense of surprise, because who thinks about saying goodbye when you are rehearsing to bring it to life for the first time? You may play the piece someday in the future, but the truth is that at that moment you are saying goodbye to that piece of music as you know it right then -- with those musicians beside you, the late night rehearsals behind you, those ears and eyes in the audience, even who you are at that time in your life -- you are saying goodbye the moment you deliver it to the world. As you speed through the familiar stanzas, all the discussions and jokes that occurred with those pages opened on your stand play through your head one last time -- you barely have a chance to absorb the fact this is your final moment with the piece when you nail that final chord. The music lingers in the air; you can feel it leave your strings, your bow, the crowded warmth that was its home, and stretch out to feed the audience.... applause.

I was inspired by these thoughts while listening to Evan's latest Minnesota Valley Men's Chorale concert a few weeks ago and jotted some notes down in one of my many notebooks I carry around with me (more on that someday later). One of Evan's favorite pieces from this most recent concert is "Sure on this Shining Night" by Morten Lauridsen (arr. by their conductor, Steven Boehlke). I'm pretty sure Evan will never fully say goodbye to this piece as it is one of his favorites. (Evan is in the middle -- can you find him?)

Last weekend Evan and I buzzed down to Northfield to enjoy my sister Sarah's concert with the St. Olaf Gospel Choir. What an enthusiastic and spirited group! (Sarah is the third from the right in the second row)

Last fall Evan's choir concert had a special treat: Mary Wilson, world-famous soprano opera singer and daughter to the conductor (also a graduate of St. Olaf!), graced us all with her presence, and beautiful voice! Here is a slideshow I made with some of my favorite nature photos taken throughout the past few years - and the wonderful voice of Mary Wilson in All is Well. (You may need to turn the volume up as it starts much softer than the previous gospel clip).

I promise it won't be so long before I post again! I have some photos to compile to show you what we've been up to!