Sunday, September 29, 2013

Garden bed

Tuesday night (9/23/13) we began the process of starting our raised vegetable garden. I dug up the hostas and someone in our town came to pick them up (via craigslist) 


Then I painted the egdes of the cinder blocks that will line three sides of the bed. 


Here they are lined up 

Then I painted the tops of them. And transplanted our basil plant. 

Then tonight (Tuesday 10/1/13) I went to Home Depot to get an eight foot piece of 4x4 for the posts. Came home and started digging the holes for the posts. 

Then Kyle got home and pointed out I didn't get a pressure treated post so we headed back to HD to return what I got and get the right piece. 

Then Kyle cut the wood for me and I finished up putting together the one wall. 

We used left over deck pieces for the long sides. 

And it's finished. Just need to add the dirt. 

Apple orchard ECFE play date

Monday we met up with some of our ECFE friends for a little orchard play date. We didn't do any apple picking but did play with the fun kids stuff. 

Isaac loves trains and loved this big wood train climber. 


We saw sheep, a cow, bunnies, and goats. 

Got to climb the hay mountain

And play in a big sand box. 

It was a gorgeous day and good time. We finished with a snack of apple donuts. Isaac loved them so much he was saying "no-nut, no-nut" all evening. 

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Weekend in La Crosse, WI - Apple Picking

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Last weekend we headed down to La Crosse about 2.5 hours away for our second visit to our friend's parent's house where they have a small apple orchard in their back yard. They make cider every year and love the help, and we love helping! I blogged about last year's visit here.

Last year we drove down Saturday morning, but this year we headed down Friday evening. Isaac was great in the car ride down, we had dinner as we left town and didn't need to make a stop on the way. We arrived with enough time for Isaac to run around and get familiar with the place before crashing for the night.

The next morning we woke up and had a wonderful breakfast, then headed out back to get started picking apples.
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(photo by Bri)

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Here I am using the rolly picker-uper to get the bad apples off the ground:
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(photo by Bri)

Isaac liked to help too
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(photo by Bri)

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(photo by Bri)

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Eating one of probably many apples:
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Isaac's new friend:
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Got a cute family picture taken by Bri:
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(photo by Bri)

Isaac making the train sound as he heard the train going by in the distance.
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(photo by Bri)

Found a humming bird as I walked back to the house:
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The neighbor kids made it over to help at the tail end of apple picking
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Once we had all the apples picked we took a break for lunch. Isaac went down for a nap (ended up being a nice long nap 3 hrs!) while we all started on making cider.
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(photo by Bri)

I'm straining the juice into the jug
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(photo by Bri)

Here Bri is cutting the apples that will be cooked to make sauce:
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More cider:
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After Isaac woke up we were almost finished, but he got to join in on a little of the cider fun
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He wasn't a fan of the bee's that were flying around the waste barrel. They are 'drunk' on all the sugar so they don't sing anyone, just annoying and a lot of them.
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Bri's mom cooked up some of the apples and we made a nice sized batch of sauce.
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I tried to get a photo of Isaac by all the gallons of cider like last year... but he wouldn't cooperate. Bri helped me to get at least one of him standing by our 23 gallons of cider.
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It was pretty warm during the day, which was surprising because fall is upon us... the sun was out and we were all looking forward to a swim. Of course by the time we finished up and were ready to hop in the sun was behind clouds and the warm air was vanishing. But we got in anyway.
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We had a lovely dinner followed by card games and a nice night of sleep. The next morning we got up and headed out as Bri and her family were heading to church. Last year I learned that I had ancestors in the local cemetery... and we ventured around last year but I wasn't sure what to look for. This year I did some research ahead of time and found my great-great grandmother's name Maria and a section number so we had a general idea where to look.

We stopped by the La Crosse Catholic Cemetery to take a look around before heading home. And we found them pretty quickly.
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My great-great grandpa (Frank Stanek) and his wife Maria are buried here. The reason I couldn't find Frank's info on the public library is because his stone was listed in Czek: Franzisek.
Frank J Stanek 1844-1932
Maria Frantesl 1845-1904
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Frank's father (my great-great-great grandfather) was near by. His name is Joseph, but listed as Jozef on the tombstone. Again why I couldn't find records of his site.
Joseph Stanek 1822-1909
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It was pretty cool that the stones were so old, but disappointed they were hard to read. And being in Czek didn't help that they were hard to read. Not even sure if I can make out the letters to translate what it says.
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Here are the two:
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They both came over to La Crosse, WI in 1865 from Czecho-Slovakia where he (Frank) was born.

On our drive home we took the river road going up along the Mississippi. Isaac took a good nap for about an hour.
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