A great concert...

Oh yeah... tonite Jewels and I - and Kim and Scott attended the Red Horse concert at the Sacred Heart music centre in Duluth.  This is an old church that is now used for concerts and entertainment - a beautiful setting for such a wonderfully talented trio.

I've enjoyed these three (John Gorka, Lucy Kaplansky, and Eliza Gilkyson) when they perform as individuals and their talent shines through as a group.  The crowd wasn't huge bt very vocal, we had second row seats and totally enjoyed the concert.

Life indeed, is good!

The latest...

Ten more inches of snow last nite.  That makes just over 50 inches for Duluth in the month of April...

Golfing anyone???   Life is Good!

Cooking maple syrup...

On Saturday we had the gang up at Scott's cabin where we were doing our ongoing job of cooking sap to make maple syrup.  It was quite a nice day (sandwiched between snow storms) and everyone enjoyed the sun.  Looks like we will go through around 200 gallons of sap which should yield around 5 gallons of sweet syrup.

Life is Good.

The morning after....

Last night we had quite the storm and although everyone is getting quite tired of the cold weather, the snow sure looks lovely this morning.

We got 18 inches of the white stuff at the Duluth airport and just north of us in Two Harbours, they recorded 22 inches since yesterday afternooon.

Jewels and I have already been out helping two cars to get unstuck. That's one of the great things about our neighborhood - everyone is quick to come out and help distressed drivers.

The garden looks like we may have to wait a couple of weeks before we plant the corn... I think my truck is one of the snowdrifts in the photo of the garage/garden..

Life is Good.

Winter in April... I just want to go golfing... Stop the insanity....

Earlier this week the wind howled in from the Northeast and the ice on Lake Superior blew into the harbour area blocking the ships from entering the harbour.  We had up to 10 ships at anchor and visible from our front deck.. they were visible until the snow squalls started blocking off the view... it is April after all.

Then today, as it happens every 3 days around here, a system blew in from Colorado bringing more GD snow.. we're expecting up to 12 inches tonite...I took some pics from the front and back of the house.. it's really kind of pretty..

but I WANNA GO GOLFING.

Life is Good.

Maple syrup time...

I was out at Scott's cabin the other day starting the collection of maple sap to melt down into that luscious maple syrup.  It takes 40 gallons (one drip at a time) to make 1 gallon of finished product.

It's a time consuming project but its fun... no stress and when the weather's nice (now this a rumor coz the weather never seems to get nice here), there's nothing better than stoking a fire and boiling the sap down to a sweet syrup.

Julie's kids and their kids will be out this weekend and we'll spend more time working at making maple syrup.. fun fun fun...

Life is Good.

Back into Duluth...

We had a lovely trip to Chicago... but...

Well, the weather was cold and wet and I guess the best word for it is "shitty"...

We started out trip home yesterday and stayed in Wisconsin Dells at a lovely hotel... to make ourselves feel better about the weather on our trip, as well as to dodge the storm that hit Northern Minnesota the past two days..

After seeing all the snow that accumulated while were were gone, I guess we can't complain to much since we didn't stay home and suffer in the storm here.  I just finished shoveling the walkway, the back deck, and a trail out to the garage. Apparently we can expect 3 more inches of snow overnight and another storm Sunday/Monday.

The photos that I posted above were ones I lifted off the local newspaper's website...  Nothing like a snowstorm in April.

Life is good.

the Art Institute... Picassoooooooooooooooooo...

We visited the Art Institute of Chicago... the presentation of the day was the works of Pablo Picasso.  It was sooo interesting to see.. to take part of this fantasic presentation.  In addition there were works of Monet,  Van Gogh, Renoir, etc etc etc...

A fun day and so very interesting...

Life is good..

It's a big BIG city.. lotsa restaurants that reflect the city of Chicago and the athletes and things that make it famous...  We ate at Ditkas.. an expensive but very busy and interesting bar and grill...

Life is good...

The BIG City...

We strolled around the "downtown" area of the city.. it is soooooooo impressive... the buildings are huge.. bigger than I have ever experienced before..the tops of the buildings were lost in the clouds.. like me... soooo nice...

Life is good.