What I Did on My Autumn Vacation
I often use this blog as a diary of life, because so many of my memories just slip away if I don't document them. It is my normal habit to take my long "priority" vacation from work sometime around the beginning of October. In many years, this is prime hawk trapping time, and also the time of year to get any current hawk on the wing for the season. Mostly, I have been using this time to just get some stuff done. As of the start of this posting I still have a week of time left. I hope to get Seneca, my current falconry bird, flying next week. I have mostly been doing a lot of organizing and de-cluttering, but trying to fit in some fun stuff too. Unfortunately, I did have a bout of Covid take me out for a few days. I recovered quickly, but it kept me from mingling much out in public so I would not share. It also limited some activities with Fox and Roman, as I especially did not want to share with them. They have a trip planned next month and I don't want to be the one that prevents that because I am generous with the most recent version of the virus going around. More on that later.
I was able to start my 2.5-weeks off by leaving early on the morning of October 2. I took a picture of myself in my hot tub, thumbs up for the start of my vacation. I also took a picture of the Eastern horizon, with Venus shining in the dawn sky.
After a couple hours of sleep I awoke, and quickly jumped into a project that has been wanting to be done for some time. The arrangement of the bedroom I share with Rich has been bothering me for awhile. The heating/AC vents into and return ducts out of the room have been mostly blocked by the arrangement of and then clutter. In order to address this problem I found a free program online that allowed me to map my room and the furniture that needed to stay in there. I was able to print a concept of what I wanted the room to look like. It would take a week, but I did get Rich to help me make it a reality shortly after the design. Previously I had addressed the location of the big dog's kennel (each dog has their own bed in the bedroom for the humans), which had blocked Rich's access to his side of the closet, which was then mostly under utilized. With that fixed, I set my sights to fix the rest of the room.
Almost fortuitously, I heard a timely podcast from a show that I follow on NPR (Radiolab). It addressed the concept of living a long life, as in the experience of time dilation. Apparently, the concept revolves around doing new things. Our brain feels like it has done so much more when we are laying down new memories. When we go about our routine, doing tasks that we have experienced many times, our concept of time speeds up or just blurs out, but when we are having novel experiences the passage of time can slow down. Here is a link to that podcast.
I decided to try and fill my vacation with new activities, as much as was possible and within budget. A quick phone call to my best friend Darla found that she didn't have anything going on in her life, any commitments for any jobs (she house and pet sits) for a few days, so she spontaneously tossed an overnight bag into her Blazer and drove into the night to come visit us for a few days. It allowed me to tick off one thing on my life list that I've wanted to experience. I'll just leave this image. I know what it means!
With Darla watching our place for a day or so, Rich and I struck out on a quick day's trip up North. My goal there accomplished, I bought him a tasty dinner at an Irish Pub in Saint Cloud, the Olde Brick House. Of course, he got the bangers and mash, which is what he normally gets. It's one of his favorites! The whole idea of finding an Irish Pub wherever you go reminds me of this song:
Unfortunately, I couldn't buy him a "pint", as he was driving, although I usually do when we go to a pub for dinner. There were no bodhrans being played, but there was some sporting event on the TV. Rich was positioned to see it. I don't really care! I had my usual, Irish Stew.
After returning home we spent the next day enjoying our friendships, with Darla as our guest, and then taking her that evening to share dinner with Fox & Roman. I don't have a lot of friends, but the few I have are very close. The next morning Darla had to return to her life, so we ticked off another thing I have wanted to do for a long time but hadn't yet, and we went to breakfast at a restaurant in La Crosse, called The Breakfast Club. It is 80s themed (our generation), with emphasis on John Hughes movies (think The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off). It was a fun breakfast!
Breakfast accomplished, Darla headed home, and we probably went and picked up some auction items.
Rich had taken that first weekend off to share with me while I was off, so on Saturday, October 7, we took another little road trip, but not as far. This time it was to Montgomery, Minnesota. We hit up a Czech bakery, arriving one hour before closing, so I could try some kolacky, which is a fruit filled bun, although by far I thought my apple turnover was better.
With a container of pastry I thought some fresh apple cider would wash it down well. We navigated to a local orchard, which also just happened to be having a Fall Festival, with live music and other food options.
I didn't feel like having any hard cider, which was available, but snagged a 1/2 gallon of fresh pressed apple juice instead. We then avoided the crowd at the orchard and went to find a local park to enjoy our pastry and beverage.
I realize I took a lot of pictures of Rich, and what I was eating, and not myself. Oh, look at that apple turnover. So flaky! Fall treats are the best! Yummy!
After our snack I wanted to make up for not being able to buy Rich some beer for all the driving he had been doing over the last few days. Montgomery also has a brewery, so off we went for him to try a flight of beers. I was rested enough to do the driving from here on out.
I am not a beer fan. Never have been, and have no interest to acquire a taste for it, but Rich does love a brew now and then. It's a nice gift I can give him from time to time.
There was one last thing in Montgomery that I was interested in trying, their local pizza place, but it wouldn't be open for another hour when we were there, and we were still pretty full from pastry and him beer, so we started navigating home, and looped through Owatonna, where I found a non-chain pizza place. We got the giant Hawaiin pizza to take home, which we would enjoy for a couple days.
It was quite good! Gotta love hand tossed pizza!
The next day Rich burned off all his pastry and beer and pizza by cleaning out the goat enclosures inside the pole barn. The accumulated hay and poop packs down and has to be shoveled out, then hauled to the compost pile. Rich does this thankless task for me, as it also justifies the owning of and allows him to play with his skid steer.
On the day of Darla's departure, Thursday October 10, and for the following overnight of, I stayed at the farm with Rich's dad, Cletus. In the last month he had experienced a stroke. Due to the family reacting quickly and getting him to medical care, the damage was limited. However, now at home, he is still a little unsteady on his feet, so needs someone there to keep him safe. My two sisters-in-law have been taking turns at this task. They asked if I could spend a night on that Thursday, and I was happy to help. Unfortunately, Cletus was incubating Covid, and I caught it from him, as did several others. On the day Rich was doing the skid steer work, I was developing a fever. This bout of Covid was not as difficult as the first time I caught it, and only lasted a few days with the worst of symptoms, but it did go on to exacerbate my occasionally experienced vertigo, which is never fun. Cletus was able to get the anti-viral medication, so he also had a mild course and recovered.
I rested a few days, but by Wednesday I was a little stir crazy to do something. I decided to take advantage of a Wednesday Big Wash Discount in Rochester and took several of my quilts that have been needing to be washed in a big machine. Gotta love those giant washers and dryers, and the discount day made it not too expensive.
Big washing was followed by going to the farm and bringing our goat bucks back from their summer vacation. It is best to keep the bucks, the breeding boys, far far away from all our girl goats over the summer, while they raise babies. Bucks have only one purpose, to make new babies, and it is now time for them to return home to begin that process for Spring kids.
I usually stagger the breeding into two or three windows as I do not want to be dealing with laboring mammas all at once. The first set were paired up as soon as we got home for hopeful mid to late March births. I will set up the second window for mid to late April births, hopefully avoiding any kiddings at the beginning of April of next year, as we have plans for a family gathering of my sisters down in Texas.
Thursday, October 12 was the big bedroom furniture moving day.
Above is a panoramic picture of the BEFORE. Below was the AFTER.
I am so very happy with the results. It gave me the opportunity to clean the room, although the stained carpet really needs replacing and the walls could use some new paint, but I'll be happy for now with just rearranging the room, and doing a declutter and clean out, and making Rich do the same.
I would go shopping over the weekend to find a picture for over the bed and get some baskets to organize some of my stuff on top of my dresser. I went through all my clothes and cleared out many good but unused to donate, and made Rich do the same, and organize his stuff. I am happy with the results of our work.
I also began the process of going through some of my boxes of books downstairs that I have held onto for far too long. Some were taken into our local library that was about to have a book fair and donated, a few nice kid-friendly books were tucked into one of the Free Libraries of which there are several in our town, and then a whole lot more were taken to the Cities, to the Half Price Bookstore to put back into circulation. There are still a lot more books in boxes to sort through, but I ran out of time and energy for the task.
On Saturday October 14 there was a partial solar eclipse, or Annular, if you were in the path. The moon would not cover the entire sun, but a good portion of it if in the path. Minnesota was far East of the ideal path, so it would just appear to be a bite out of the sun. However, it was a very cloudy day, so I didn't get to see much of anything. It did allow me to practice with my smaller telescope, of which I had previously purchased some solar filter paper and made a cardboard attachment to the end of the scope.
I did get to look at the sun when it peeked between the clouds, but was never long enough to get a picture of it with the telescope.
I did get a picture with my cell phone looking through some solar glasses. It's a neat effect below.
Mostly, this is all I saw . . . lots of clouds.
My friend Sharon, who lives in New Mexico, was in the annular path, so did share this picture, which I stole and have posted here. There is another total solar eclipse next April 8. I plan to be in Texas on the line of totality.
By Sunday October 15 I was testing clear . . .
. . . so I packed up Seneca and we went to visit Fox to get a beak trim, called coping, equipment inspection, and have a backpack installed, which will hold her transmitter on her back. This was getting her one step closer to starting up the hunting season.
Just a selfie with my girl!
Below, I present this baking accomplishment. I won't say too much about it. I know what it means!
Unfortunately, during the execution of this slightly harder than normal brownie making, I dropped one of my large Pyrex bowls, which shattered into a million pieces. That was fun to clean up. The dogs seemed to want to walk through it all as I scrambled to prevent them from cutting their paws.
Tuesday October 17 was Seneca's first free flight day for the year. It was short, just flying around my yard, and she did try to chase a squirrel, but I didn't give her too much time on the wing. She came quickly when I tossed the lure. That afternoon, with hawk safe back in her mew, Rich and I drove up to Red Wing to the Duluth Trading store, where I found a new clearance hunt duds. It is not as thick as the one I was currently using, but the price could not be beat, and will work just fine.
Wednesday, October 18 was reserved for seeing the Como Sunken Gardens, and checking out a few things at the Como Zoo. I really wanted to see the Minnesota Zoo, but because I had been sick with Covid I was not able to arrange a trip with Fox and Roman to join us. I had also wanted to camp a night with Fox, but that also didn't happen because of my sickness.
The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory rotates out their flower show every few months. Normally I want to go somewhere in February to March, because I am just tired of winter and snow, but this fall show was different, and as always beautiful. I've never seen them use so many succulents to decorate.
It is ALWAYS Beautiful!
The chrysanthemums were just enormous!
One of the other reasons I wanted to visit was to see the new snow leopard cub. The Como Zoo's female, named Alya, gave birth this summer to a single cub, that would eventually be named Willow. She was born with a congenital defect to her eyes, and the vets decided it would be prudent to remove them, as she would never have vision with them, and to prevent further complications. In the last couple weeks she was released into the outdoor enclosure with her mother, and seems to be navigating the area just fine without eyes. As a captive animal, it will not be a problem for her.
I was there when one of her keepers was doing some target training on her, to teach her to come when called for a food reward. This will allow for future moving her from one area of her enclosure to another to maintenance and clean her environment. The video below is not the greatest as it is taken through the fencing, but is good enough to see what was going on. She is very pretty, fluffy like her mom.
After the zoo we visited the Half Price Bookstore to get rid of some of those books I cleaned out. I discovered a Portillo's nearby, so treated Rich to a couple Chicago style hot dogs.
It was a nice break away from my routine. I always appreciate time away from work. I sometimes, most of the times, wish I didn't have to work so I can enjoy more free time and hobbies, but having money in the bank account is nice too. I did accomplish many things while not at work, many cleaning projects that needed to be tackled. For now, it's back to "the salt mine", and within the week the start of the 2023-2024 falconry season.
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