Last Chance for Survival!

Over lunch while surfing the web I ran across an brief write up about Axolotl, the "Mexican water monster." Although I have never heard of this creature, I was sad to find out that it is salamander that is close to extinction. Due to human disruption in the axolotl's natural environment, it is predicted that in five years this salamander will be extinct. In further research, I learned that the International Union for Conservation of Nature recently put out their 2008 Red List. A list of endangered species around the world. Some species you may be familiar with like the African Elephant or the Tasmanian Devil. Many of the extinctions are noted to be due to human interference. Others might be due to disease within the species community. The list is long, but here is a link that includes a much shortened list including pictures and a brief description of the species. The full list is 1,642,189 species. To the right is a picture of the Axolotl...what a happy looking guy! Although I believe that some extinction is likely inevitable, I also have to ask: what are we doing to this planet?

Making Clothing Detergent

For the past year or so we've been buying earth friendly, chemical-free detergent for washing our clothing.   At first, it took a little getting used to because there was some sort of temptation over the synthetic fragrances like "Cool Breeze", when washing clothes.  Once I got over not having fake scents on my clothing, I realized that the eco-friendly detergents were just fine.  The brands that we've purchased that have worked have been Seventh Generation or Ecos detergent powder (cheaper than liquid). They are non-toxic, biodegradable, contain no chlorine, artificial fragrances, or dyes.  At around $8 for a box, I felt it was kinda pricey.  I decided that after using up the last bunch, I would make my own.  We feel that whenever possible, we should be using products that are as natural (from the earth) as possible.  So, instead of using a synthetic fragrance with a lot of words we can't pronounce in it, why not just use an essential oil, which is plant derived, non-chemical?  So, for the first time I made our own clothing detergent.   I am very happy with the final product!  It took just a little bit of work and it's great!  The first ingredient for the detergent is baking soda, which is a very safe product used in many "green" cleaning products.  It has been used for ages in cleaning and baking!  The second ingredient for the detergent is borax. Borax, although sounding a bit scary, is a naturally occurring mineral in the earth.   Borax is bad if you eat it, but safe for cleaning. It softens, disinfects, and deodorizes.  The third and final ingredient is castile soap.  Castile Soap is a soap that is made exclusively from vegetable oil.  I used Dr. Bronners Magic All-One Hemp Lavender Pure Castile Soap (organic).  It's vegetable base is Hemp oil and it is all natural and organic.  Since my detergent is a powder, I had to grate the soap to make it from bar to powdered form.    The differences are clear!  

Here is the list of ingredients from Dr. Bronner's Soap: Saponified Organic Coconut, Organic Palm & Organic Olive Oils (w/Retained Glycerin), Water, Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Lavandin Extract, Organic Lavender Oil, Salt, Citric Acid, Vitamin E

Compare that to a soap that is touted to be the most "simple", Ivory Bar: Sodium Tallowate and/or Sodium Palmitate, Water, Sodium Cocoate and/or Palm Kernelate, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Glycerin, Sodium Chloride, Fragrance, Coconut and/or Palm Kernel Acid, Tallow Acid, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Tetrasodium EDTA, Yellow 10, Green 3.

Compare that now to yet another soap, Irish Spring Bar: SOAP, SODIUM TALLOWATE, SODIUM COCOATE, SODIUM PALM KERNELATE, WATER, STEARIC ACID, COCONUT ACID, PALM KERNEL ACID, GLYCERIN, FRAGRANCE, SODIUM CHLORIDE, TITANIUM DIOXIDE, PENTASODIUM PENTETATE, BHT, D&C GREEN 8, FD&C GREEN 3

Here is the detergent recipe if you are interested in trying it out.  I have been satisfied with it!  The clothes come out fresh smelling, wrinkle free, and clean!

1.) In large bowl, grate down 1 bar of Dr. Bronner's Castile Bar Soap (I picked Lavender scent, but the clothes come out fresh, but not smelling distinctly of lavender.)

2.) Add 2 cups Baking Soda.

3.) Add 1 cup Borax.

Mix well.  Store in plastic bag that can be sealed and reused for the next batch.  I use about 1/4 cup per Large load of laundry.  It will not make bubbles in the laundry, but it will clean it!  I have stopped using laundry sheets in the dryer, and the clothes have been coming out wrinkle and static free!  Enjoy!

Sour Cream Apple Pie

One of my coworkers has too many apples on his hands so he brought in a large amount of HUGE Macintosh apples.  I brought a bunch home and dehydrated the majority of them, but still had a few left over.  I decided to make the following pie with what I happened to have on hand, it was good!  Below is the altered recipe. I lowered the sugar, used egg beaters, used whole wheat flour and more apples than the original recipe.  The altered recipe goes as follows:

Amish Sour Cream Apple Pie

INGREDIENTS

1 cup sour cream 

1 egg (I used egg beaters)

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

3-4 cups diced apples (your preference to peel or not peel)

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust

CRUMB TOPPING

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

1 Beat sour cream and egg together.

2 Add flour, sugar, salt and vanilla.

3 Mix until smooth.

4 Stir in apples.

5 Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

6 Mix the crumb topping ingredients until crumbly.

7 Remove pie from oven and spread with crumb topping.

8 Bake 20 more minutes.

Our Vacation Photos

Since we have so many vacation photos,  I figured I'd post them online so all can see.  Please visit our Minnesota Photo site for the opportunity to see most of the photos we took.   minnesotareitz.shutterfly.com  Enjoy!  Here are a few of my favorites as teasers! 

Day Eight - Goodbye Minnesota, Hello Wisconsin!

On Saturday, we packed up on were on the road by 9am.  We were sad to be leaving our vacation, but we had a great time!  The place we stayed was a fine retreat while we weren't on the road.  The 8 state parks we visited were great!  Here is the list in order of visit.

1. Crow Wing State Park
2. Itasca State Park
3. Lake Bemidji State Park
4. Mille Lacs Kathio State Park
5. Carlos Lake State Park
6. Glacial Lakes State Park
7. Charles Lindberg State Park
8. Buffalo River State Park

We are pretty sure we visited more State Parks in Minnesota than what we've visited in Wisconsin!  We feel one of our plans will be to get a Yearly Permit for WI State Parks in 2009 and start going to those.  I can't say enough about how much I learned visiting the Minnesota state parks as well are how enjoyable it was to be outside, getting exercise, and being able to do so with our dogs.

One of the things we enjoyed most about our vacation is that the places we visited felt like there were reserved just for us!  We rarely saw other people in the parks, and all other places were not crowded.  We visited many nice antique shops and 2 used book stores.  We also got a sense of local personality and flair at local restaurants (non-chain).  Since over the past 3 married years, and year prior to being married we've done some good regional traveling (and Honduras for honeymoon) we plan to get a wall map of the U.S. so we can start pinning where we have been.  Each trip we take we bank more great memories and learn more about how we like to travel and what we like to do.  We are blessed to have each other, our dogs, a reliable car that gets us around, and the financial ability to do our traveling (although we are frugal about it!).  I'm already thinking about where we could go next!

Day Seven - Minnesota Trip

Friday was the final day of our trip where we are actually vacationing, rather than traveling home.   It's also Tim's Birthday!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM! We hit our last State Park (#8) on our way to our final destination - Fargo, ND!  The State Park we visited was Buffalo River State Park.  We really enjoyed this park, it ranked at the top of both Tim and my favorite's list.  This is the first park where there was no lake, just river.  We did a mile walk or so with the dogs on an interpretive trail, learning about the geography of the river.  The other unique feature about this park is the prairie, which we didn't really see too much of in past parks.  It was interesting driving out toward Fargo because we watched the land flatten out right before us!  We spent an hour or more at the park and then hit the road again to North Dakota.  

I have never been this far west by car before, so it was cool to be able to travel to both Minnesota and North Dakota during our trip.  We crossed the Red River of the North into Fargo and drove out to West Fargo (yes, Fargo is actually big enough to have a WEST Fargo!).  Here we went to Bonanzaville!  I guess this whole time I misunderstood what a Bonanza was.  I thought it had something to do with the Wild wild west, but a bonanza is actually a farm that is over 3,000 acres.  We toured a museum where we learned about the history of the bonanzas in Cass County, North Dakota and then toured many of the preserved buildings from that time.  We were the only ones there, so it was pretty cool to have the entire place to ourselves!  We learned a lot about how the railroad was an important part of farming back then.  We also found out that Fargo, ND is named after the Fargo of Wells & Fargo.  The history was remarkable.  I love imagining how life would have been back then.  What a different time from now for folks of all walks of life!  It was interesting to learn some of how women kept the home back then.  We spent several hours at Bonanzaville and were really hungry afterwards so we drove into Fargo headed toward our next destination when we stumbled across a restaurant called Space Aliens, Bar and Grill.  Fargo is indeed a strange place now that I've seen this.  We decided to eat there.  It was like a TGIFriday's with a space theme.  Food was great too!  We left with our bellies full to the Fargo Walk of Fame.  Can you imagine on even exists?  Well, it does, it's on display at the visitors center.  Musicians like Metallica to celebrities like Dr. Ruth have their signatures on the Fargo Walk of Fame.  It's probably as close as we'll get to seeing the Hollywood one, so I  was satisfied :)  

We left to take the dogs down to the city park by the Red River of the North.  We haven't figured out why yet, but the river was severely flooded.  It didn't look like the surrounding neighborhoods were affected, but at least half the park was underwater.  We walked the dogs around for a while and looked at the flooded area.  Since it was a long day and we had about a 2 hour trip back we went on our way.  We left going through Moorhead, MN which is just across the river from Fargo.  That night we had dinner at the rental and watched one of my favorite movies that I haven't seen in a long time - What's Eating Gilbert Grape?  It was a great trip, ending all too soon!  

Day Six – Minnesota Trip

Our vacation is coming to an end too soon.  I am surely not ready to leave in 2 days.  Today was another fun day!  We visited three more state parks in the area.  First we headed to Carlos Lake State Park.  The fall colors are disappearing now, but the park was still beautiful.  We are feeling all the additional exercise we’ve had in the past days in our legs now.  When we were walking, I just didn’t feel as “robust” about it.  Since we’ve had more exercise than usual over the past 4-5 days, it doesn’t surprise me that we are feeling this way! 

After Carlos Lake State Park we went into Alexandria, MN.  We went through the downtown area which seems to be thriving.  We got lunch and then had enough time to check out a used book store (which of course we found 3 books!) and also stopped at a large antique store.  We left and went on our way to Glacial Lakes Park.  Along the way we noticed an extreme change in geography.  We went from flat roads, lined with hardwoods and pines and sandy soil to rolling hills, black top soil, and more farm field than trees.  We learned at Glacial Lakes State Park that we were in an area that was created by glaciers that came down out of the north a hundreds of thousands of years ago.  I learned the difference between a kettle and a kame and how they were created.   Although the lesson was interesting, this park was just okay.  We left, got ice cream cones from Dairy Queen (circa 1956) in Starbuck, MN and headed to our third stop, Charles Lindberg State Park.

 Along the way we went through Sauk Centre, MN where we saw a clock shop.  As many know, we have a cuckoo clock and Tim has found himself interested in cuckoo’s since we bought that one (on our 1 year anniversary oddly) so we quick stopped  at this clock shop.  Upon entering we found the clockmaker/repairman and a room full of clocks, clock parts, tools, etc.  We talked to the clock man for some time and found out that some of the clocks he handcarved, one was selling for $10,000! (It was about the size of a grandfather clock.) He took us into another room with many more clocks…it was his living room, the shop was part of his house.  It was interesting to talk to him, however we didn’t buy.  We went on our way to Lindberg State Park where we hiked some more and saw Lindberg’s home.  We were pretty tired, so we came back to the rental had dinner and are watching “The Office.”  Tomorrow will be the final adventures of our trip – we are going out to Fargo! 

Day Five – Minnesota Trip

Today, October 15^th is our 3 year Wedding Anniversary!  We started the day at The Shanty, which is a coffee shop in Pillager about 10 minutes down the road.  Since we were supposed to but don’t have access to the internet at our rental, we thought we should probably get over to the coffee house for free Wi-Fi to check e-mail.  We got breakfast there and sat on the comfy couches and got caught up on e-mail and posted some Day 1 – 3 on this blog.  Afterwards, we drove out to Mille Lacs Kathio State Park where we walked through areas where archeologists have recovered Indian villages and homesteads from the 1800’s.  We also saw the Rum River. 

The morning was cold and overcast so we were moving quickly on our walk to stay warm.  We headed out to Crosby, where much antique shopping was to be had.  I think on two blocks there were about 6 antique shops.  We were in 4, since the other two were open.  Although we didn’t find anything to buy, as always the antiquing was interesting!  By then we had worked up a heck of an appetite, so we headed back toward the rental and ate at Poncho and Lefty’s, a tex-mex, Mexican style restaurant.  The food was very good.  We took a moment to go to Crow Wing State Park down the road since we already had our $5 day pass and then went back to the rental.  We fed the dogs and went for a walk down the dead-end road our rental is on.  Since we’ve been doing so much activity outside, we came back to relax.  We watched the final presidential debate and will be in bed soon.  The dogs are completely sacked out.  Maybe, just maybe they will sleep in tomorrow. On Day 5 we plan to go to 2 or 3 more State Parks.  I’m pumped! 

Day Four - Minnesota Trip

On Day Four (postdated) we spent the most rewarding $5 ever, and we’re going to do it again!  A daily pass to the State Park system in MN is $5 and on Day 4 we went to two wonderful State Parks.  We left our rental around 8am and headed north to Itasca State Park.  Since State Parks allow dogs, they came with (in fact, they were with us the majority of the trip except yesterday). I had never heard of Itasca until I read about it in our travel book I am borrowing from the library.  Itasca State Park is home of the headwaters of the Mississippi River.  The park is a massive 32,690 acres (2^nd largest in MN).  We spent a while walking around and observing the humble beginnings of the Mississippi River.  There was a part that is about 8 feet across where you can walk down steps and walk right through the Mississippi River.  If it wasn’t so cold out, we would have done it, but we reached down and put our hands in the water and it was to cold to be walking through barefoot!  After leaving the headwaters, we took a 10-mile Wilderness drive. I’ve uploaded a video so you can take the drive with us.  It’s a minute of footage from the drive. (Find it below, turn volume down since the sound is WIND mostly.)  Along the way we stopped and took a one-mile walk out to a bay area of Lake Itasca.  The walk was serene and calming.  The leaves were bright to our eyes and crunching under our feet.  The air was cool and crisp.   After walking back and getting back in the car we finished the 10-mile Wilderness drive, stopping along the way to see the largest white pine in Minnesota. 

We spent a lot of time at Itasca State Park, so we had to get on our way to our next stop…Bemidji.  Now, the reason we ended up in Bemidji is because I wanted to go since I heard of it when we were in Red Wing a few months ago.  I thought Bemidji was a funny name and worth checking out J  We turned the GPS to “shortest distance” rather than “fastest route” and took a very scenic tour of the countryside on the way to Bemidji.  I think on day four we saw more bald eagles than ever before. We made our way into Bemidji, quick stopping for lunch, and then heading to Bemidji State Park.  Bemidji as a community didn’t seem very impressive; however we were just driving through.  We got to Bemidji State Park which lies on the north shore of Lake Bemidji.  We got a map of the park and the lady at the park office recommended that we take the “bog walk.”  I am so glad she did, it was a great hike.  We parked and headed out on what we thought was going to be hike one-mile each direction.  It seemed like we had been walking for sometime before reaching the bog, so we looked at the map again, realizing it was 2-miles in and 2-miles out.  The trail we were on was an interpretive trail, meaning that it was designed to be educational.  We learned about the history and geography of the area we were walking through.  Besides the scenery being magnificent, I believe the educational experience was even greater (at least for me).  We continued on our trip and reached the tamarack bog and finally Bog Lake.  The bog was wonderful and we saw many unique flora features, including the carnivorous Pitcher Plant (picture on right).  By the end of Day 4 I felt so impressed by the State Parks in Minnesota I wanted to see more.  I can’t believe that it was only $5 to help support this magnificent park system where we got fresh air, exercise, and a learning experience - all this and we got to have our dogs with us!  By Day 4 we’ve seen 3 Minnesota State Parks.  What a great day it was!  Upon getting home we were tired and so were the dogs.  The moment I hit the pillow and shut my eyes, I was out.

Also on Tuesday, my bestfriend Jen and her husband Don welcomed their baby daughter into the world!  I totally had a sneaking suspicion that she would have the baby while we are gone, and sure enough, that’s how it happened.  Congrats to Jen and Don!  We can’t wait to see them and baby when we get home!

Day Three - Minnesota Trip

Day 3 (post dated) - Monday we went to Little Falls, MN. It was about 30 minute drive South of where we are staying. Little Falls is the home of Charles Lindberg. We didn’t explore much about that; we were busier doing other things. First we say an outdoor mural painted on the side of an old building. Then we headed to a local antique shop. We found a couple of cool things there and everything over $10 was 20% off. After the antique shop we went to Maple Grove Park. It is a park next to the falls, which is actually an operating dam. Since I was expecting natural falls, it was a bit  disappointing, but beautiful fall foliage nonetheless. We then traveled just south of Little Falls to an area off the beaten path. The place was called Blanchard Dam. Supposedly you can find incredible rare and expensive rocks there so we went looking. We didn’t find any of the rare rocks, but it was beautiful! Both damns are on the Mississippi river. We have encountered the Mississippi river many times along the trip. It is quite winding up here in North central Minnesota. After this we grabbed a bit to eat at a place called Royal diner (wouldn’t recommend it) and then headed over to the Pine Grove Zoo. By now the weather had improved a bit. It was raining all morning and now the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. At the zoo, we were the only people there! It was great! All the animals were active and we got to see some animals in action or up close more than most zoos. Although the zoo was small, I think it was one of the best times I’ve had at a zoo. We spent a good amount of time by two bears that were playing and very photogenic! 

After the zoo we went back home, picked up the dogs, and went to our first State Park on the tour. Crow Wing State Park. We went back to an area where they had a historical trail. It was a learning experience I didn’t expect. Where we were standing was once an Indian village and then became a major hub in historic Minnesota. The town was called Crow Wing.  The place we were was where the Crow Wing River met up with the Mississippi River. There was a combination of Pine forest, hardwood forest and prairie in this small area. We walked around for a while and then checked out different areas of the park including the Chippewa lookout. Wow! We are definitely here during the right time of the year. The views are spectacular!

Day Two - Minnesota Trip

Day Two (postdated) - The morning started out early with the dogs waking up. Of course, once they were up, I couldn’t fall back asleep! I feel that this is a sign of age…I don’t have the sleeping habits nearly like I used too. Seems like I’m more of an early riser now. I stayed up and put together breakfast. At the rental, we are supposed to have Wi-Fi, but no network is being found on the computer. The recipe for the breakfast casserole is on the internet, so without access I was doing it on a whim. I thought it turned out tasty, but I must have had the cook temperature not quite right because it took forever! We called the owner (who happens to live across the street) and she came down, but the Wi-Fi situation hasn’t been fixed yet. (I’ve post dated this blog.) Monday she’ll be calling the provider to see what can be done.

In the meantime we drove into Baxter and found a Starbucks where it said they had Wi-Fi. After ordering a drink we found out that we actually had to buy a gift card for a minimum of $5, register it with Starbucks, register it with AT&T and then we get 2hours of Wi-Fi at Starbucks free each day. After this whole ordeal, we found out that Culvers offers Wi-Fi for free. Damn! But, the good news is that I managed to get online and copy/paste the recipes I had planned from the net to a word .doc. It has been raining on an off all day so we decided to stop at the Tourism Center and pickup some tourist stuff.

  Then we visited an antique shop in Pillager. We didn’t find anything of interest to buy, but we did get a good story about the store. The owner saw me taking a picture of the outside and asked why. “For our vacation album.” She explained to me that we were standing in the oldest building in Pillager, built in the early 1900’s. Some of the shelving in it was original. It was interesting to think of the history of the building, and that some of the “antiques” she was selling may have been sold in that same store as new items. Today we lay low as the Packer game was on and it’s raining quite heavy now. Seems that the rain will keep up through tomorrow and then let up. Sounds like I might have the opportunity to read more of my book! Time to make dinner. –L

Day One - Minnesota Trip

Day One (postdated) was a day of travels. We started out at 7:20 a.m. leaving home. About 3 hours later we arrived at Roxie and Doug’s. We were just there 2 weeks ago. It’s a little funny how patterns of seeing people tends to be either feast of famine. You know, how you don’t see someone for a year, and then the next month you see them repeatedly? Strange how that happens. We were just stopping there to drop off our mouse, Alice. Someone had to take care of her for the week and they didn’t mind. We stayed for about 1 hour to run the dogs around and also steal some yummies out of their garden! Carrots and an onion, and a large jar of freshly pressed apple cider. Delish!

We set off for the rest of our ride, about 4 hours or so to our final destination. Pillager, MN. Prior to this trip, we had never heard of it, but it seemed like a nice place to go so we booked a vacation rental for a week during our anniversary and Tim’s birthday. The drive seemed long…and a bit frustrating. The road we were on was a highway with stop lights. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but they’d get you going up to 60mph for about 3 miles and then there would be stoplights. Probably not very good for the gas mileage. We arrived finally to our home for the week, a small stucco home on 40 acres.

During the ride up, the tree colors seemed to be transforming from greens to reds, oranges and yellows right before our eyes. It was very beautiful most of the time except where there where patches of conifers or what looked to be some sort of oak tree that was neither green nor leafless, but some mundane shade of tan/brown. Later in the day the rain came in. Since we were tired from traveling all day, we went to the grocery store to stock up (I pre-planned some meals) and just decided on a low effort meal for the evening. Pizza. When we arrived back we ate and got comfortable on the couch with a movie. Tim fell asleep around 8:30. I stayed up and watched the movie (“88 Minutes”, it was horrible). I was a bit restless so I stayed up and read for a while. My goal is to finish this book and start and possibly finish another by the end of our vacation. This book has about 300 more pages, so to start and finish another after this may be a bit lofty goal. We’ll see. By 11, the bed was too comfortable so off to sleep I went. –L

Real Patriots Don't Spend

While scanning through the most recent issue of Time magazine I stumbled across a "commentary" titled Real Patriots Don't Spend. Since Tim and I try to be as thrifty as possible, I was immediately interested in the article. Without becoming zealous or political, I'd just like to say that I think this article makes a brillant point! Click Here.

Homesteading...away from home!

It is officially fall here in Wisconsin. Blue skys, sunny days, but blustery with a temperature hanging in the 60's during the day. Perfect in my opinion! Last weekend was probably the last chance to do some unoffical camping. As you know, we've had a few staycations this summer, camping in the backyard. This time we took it offbase, and went to visit family in Western Wisconsin. We were really looking forward to it since they have something similar to our dream property. I believe it's 80 acres that they have. It's part farmed/open area, part forest/treed area. They have groomed trails throughout the property and ponds with wildlife. We camped by one of the small ponds. The dogs absolutely loved exploring the property, and so did Tim and I! We walked the trails several times and got a good tour of the property, describing much of the work that went into creating it and developing it to the way it was today. We also fully enjoyed the garden! A little bit to a lot of just about everything was growing! They have an area of fruit trees, grape vines, turkeys, and they even bee keep!! Wow, Tim and I were in heaven, dreaming of our own real homestead we plan to have someday. We came away with many practical ideas!

Roxie and Doug were very helpful in sharing a lot of what and how they do things on their organic homestead. We were really spoiled, eating several wholesome meals while we were there. We were only there from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, but it felt like we accomplished so much more. Not only was it great to visit and learn so much about homesteading, but also to see family! Also, Roxie sent us home with fresh foods from the garden that we helped pick. Tomatoes (which we made 4 jars of sauce with), carrots, jalapenos, raspberries, and eggplant. We have been eating well this entire past week, cooking together the tomatoes, eggplant, and carrots, and serving it over bulgar, or whole wheat pasta. Yum! Since we have quite a few eggplant, I'm also going to try something new. I found a recipe for "Eggplant Meatballs", so I'm going to give it a whirl tonight. I'll post the recipe if it's anything worth sharing.

It was a great weekend away and we look forward to visiting again! It was helpful to understand their homestead so we can help plan ours. -L