Headed for a Cannon blast

Jennifer has moved to Northfield and today Stan's kayak got a free ride to the Cannon River, awaiting a rendezvous for an excellent paddle adventure all the way from Northfield to the mighty Mississippi at Red Wing. There's still lots to study and plan, but we know that if we put in and just go with the flow. . . and portage around the Lake Billesby Power Plant Dam, we're home free to Lake Pepin.
Kathleen says "wear your life jackets."

Where are today's fighting editors?

Thin-skinned?
The present editor of the Chaska Herald, Mark Olson, is preserved
for posterity as a cardboard cutout at the Chaska History Center.
The 1970s artifact, at right, made his appearance in person.

The editor was fed up and he let his readers know it.
One-hundred fifty years ago the very first editor of the Chaska Herald fired off a front page editorial, the likes of which none of his successors, including the two wimps pictured above, have ever had the courage to write.
The biting paragraph is preserved for public viewing to this very day, under plastic wraps, in the archives of the town's history center.
Read on:
Those persons who are in the habit of visiting saloons on Sunday, kicking up the devil from morning till night, disturbing this quiet village to the sore annoyance of its well-meaning inhabitants, should bear in mind that such conduct is not becoming to themselves and doesn't reflect any credit upon the proprietor of the establishment. They would be much more highly respected by all good citizens were they to remain at home with their families, and reserve such hell-a ba-loosa to be enacted upon rainy weekdays. Mark, and don't compel us to refer to this matter again in still more scathing terms.
Charles A. Warner, The Chaska Herald, May 22, 1862

The Chaska History Center is celebrating the 150th anniversary
of the Chaska Herald, the town's oldest continuous business.
Among the numerous displays is this
copy of the Warner editorial written in 1862.

Happy Birthday, Laurie

Happy Birthday to Laurie Hartmann today, shown here with the silver medalist in the obnoxious dog competition. Laurie "sits" for Birdie from time to time, and we appreciate it, Birdie loves it.

Out it goes. . .

High-top table set as seen on Craigslist.
Steve and Denise liked it.

Two years ago we bought a nice high-top kitchen set that we thought was perfect for our eat-in kitchen area. It was. We enjoyed the tall chairs, big boy size table. It was fun.
We got tired of it last week and put it on Craigslist. Denise and Steve from Plymouth immediately emailed us to say they'd like to own the set, and next thing you know, Steve was on his knees in our living room, taking our long-legged table apart so it would fit into their Durango.
Out  it goes, and so we're here, cash in hand -- with no place to set our cornflakes.
Now what?

Steve and his tool kit.
Just the right socket to remove the 36" legs

We're shopping for a deuce, a small restaurant- size table-for-two. That will leave room for two big easy chairs for Mama Bear and Papa Bear to relax, watch tv and use the area for more of a family room than a breakfast nook.
We'll serve company in the dining room, whenever.
By the way, Denise and Steve actually didn't want the counter-height table for themselves. They have an aunt who has remodeled her kitchen and they helpfully figured that this would be the perfect thing for her, but they couldn't get a hold of her to confirm that before making the deal.
So if you're liking the looks of this set, you just might check out Craigslist. Last we heard, Denise and Steve's aunt said she wasn't so sure about any of this.

Proud Owners
Nice table, nice people.

Watch it grow! Wisteria races up trellis at Olympic pace!

Our skinny leader is growing skyward at a blistering pace. Hai Dang
(a newspaperman with a degree in biology from the U of M)
said if we just cut it back to almost nothing, it would thrive. It has.

We've had good luck with a couple of wisteria vines on our back deck over the past eight years. So when our friend Randy planted one to cover his gazebo in his Los Angeles back yard this spring, we were inspired to start another planting on our front deck pergola.
We transplanted a big pot of wisteria in May. It was a promising specimen, all bunched up about three feet high, clinging to some support sticks. Paid $35 for it at Minnesota Valley Garden near here. Believe it is the Japanese version.
We gave it a fair opportunity to establish itself, but it just sort of galumped along for the first month or two. Then family friend Hai Dang suggested that we prune off everything but a single dominant leader. This was hard to do, cutting off all that expensive foliage and woody growth, but we did. Snip, snip, snip, we left nothing but one pathetic stem.
Our wisteria is off to the races.

Fifteen month-old Emmy K. took early steps among the
wisteria growing crazy wild on the back deck in 2007.
The cracks between boards surprised her
as she looked down at her baby feet.

We can barely keep up with installing new pig-fence trellis, it is ten feet tall now, gaining about three inches a day, galloping toward the top of our 26 foot high gazebo on the southwest corner. Eventually we will allow it to branch out, fill out, trimming out any suckers, allowing only dominant branching. This is an entirely different approach to our wisteria husbandry. The one in the backyard has been allowed the freedom to grow like topsy and it has, throwing out shoots almost daily, tough to control. It's beautiful, but most of its energy goes into running off in all different directions, not producing blooms, just a mass of foliage offering good privacy to the back deck.
Our new wisteria display will be the result of disciplined, controlled cultivation. A single big trunk with organized branches. Let's see what works.

Chaska's River City Days

Stan helped start Chaska's annual small town celebration, "River City Days," over 25 years ago. . . and it is still going strong, blessed this year by perfect weather that brought out the throngs we would have been proud to host in the early years. Our big draw then was the "Picnic in the Park," featuring dinner for a dollar. Chaska has a town square with a band gazebo, so it's a natural for community gatherings. We served up a hot dog, cold beans, a cob of corn plunged in butter, a local Gedney pickle, and a watermelon slice -- for just a buck. You'd still have plenty of money left in your pocket for the Jaycee beer tent. Folks lined up down the block, especially larger families.
Kathleen was a fellow member of the chamber of commerce and one year she was the bean lady, placing a dollop of cold beans on each outstretched paper plate. Many diners had never heard of such a thing... beans served cold. Kathleen hadn't heard of it either, but she dutifully performed, scooping beans from the big industrial size cans with her ready chamber of commerce smile.
Another Chaska delicacy: spicy chopped beef and onion served raw, yes, cold and raw, bound up with raw egg, on a cracker. You just don't see that around much anymore, do you?

Careful on those corners!

Kathleen was faithfully working on her exercise bike this morning, watching the exciting Olympic cycling event in front of the wide-screen television. As she pumped away, on two separate occasions she felt an overwhelming sensation that she was in the race. She couldn't help but lean into the turns, trying to turn the handlebars on the stationary bike to avoid a nasty spill.

Happy Birthday, Melissa!

Events earlier this week overshadowed daughter Missy's 46th birthday on July 24, but today we're wishing her the very best. Here she is with our granddaughter in a light-hearted moment.

Excitement at peak on Abbey Point

The installation of six brand new sprinkler heads and a delivery pipe extension tops the local news this week on Abbey Point.
Two days after the city marked out all the buried bodies with bright red flags, today's hero arrived with a trenching rig that pulled black plastic pipes to some thirsty patches on the north side that are apparently under-served by the original setup.
The workman commented on the relatively pleasant weather for today's task, but stripped down to a tee shirt and reflective vest anyway.
Not sure why you need to wear the safety vest in our backyard, but we don't know that much about sprinkler technology either. Looks pretty complicated: timers, valves, junctions, low-voltage wiring, head choices and the politics of rain vs well vs how much is too much at what cost.
Pray for more rain so we can shut down nature's back up.