Kathleen is recovering well from Tuesday's major surgery.Last night we had an incredible electrical storm at about 3:30 a.m. We watched as 2 and a half inches of much-needed rain fell, filling the ponds, watering the lawns... and dousing the tomatoes. Repeated lightning flashes revealed a soggy party of muskrats working its way upstream and across the road. . . to get to the other side. Apparently nature tells them that if you go upstream, things will get better. Amazing.
We went for a ride this morning over to the nearby Matt and Anne Drees home. Matt and Anne have a big yard and field, machine shed and, of course, multiple gardens. It is adjacent to the Mystic Lake casino so his little hay field makes a great place to watch the fireworks.
We've sampled their garden produce in the past, enjoyed their boiled red potatoes yesterday. Today we stopped by for tomatoes.
Found Matt by his attached garage with a yellow rope around a big basswood branch that had partially torn off in last night's storm. He'd already chain-sawed away part of it, was waiting for his son, Jim, to come by and wrench the rest of it away from the house. Basswoods grow fast and what goes up must come down. Matt, always a positive person, was just happy that it hadn't wrecked his garage roof.
While we waited, we had a nice visit with Matt and Anne on their porch. They had just returned from a mini-vacation in Canada on Trout Lake. Weather was great, fishing was average, they report. We then went into their garden to pick some tomatoes. Anne has already put up a big batch of tomatoes (see pix) and says her "grandma would be so proud."
Did someone say, "vine ripened, picked at the peak of perfection?"We're thinking about making up some Rolfsrud salsa. We acquired a taste for salsa in Arizona recently. Kathleen will fetch some serrano peppers for the cause. We have friends in Albuquerque (Harland and Carolyn Hoffland from Alexandria) who cure their own peppers. It is quite a process.
Anne supplied us her favorite salsa receipes. Click on the picture if you want to read it. We're beef eaters so we picked one for steaks.Do you have a favorite salsa receipe? Email it to trailboss@swpub.com. We'll see what we come up with. Who knows, if it turns out, we'll enter it in the State Fair!
As you can see, Kathleen is doing well. She is not in pain, but is sore. She's sleeping alright and, as expected, is on a fast track to full-recovery.
Thanks for your best wishes!
