Monday, July 13, 2009
O_O
i realized last night as i was going to sleep that: i don't think moose lake has a chinese restaurant! (or any non western european restaurant for that matter now that i think about it.) i don't know why, i feel that is kind of refreshing!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
super pleasant sunday!
yesterday dr. reed (who i had shadowed in the ER on tuesday) called to invite me to her home for sunday! so this morning i set off on a series of gravel roads to her property. i got there at 9a, in time to watch her (and even try my own hand at!) milking her goats! she's got a nice little barn with milking goats, kids, egg laying chickens, barn cats, and a pretty little horse! she brought a large pail of goat's milk in, and i got to watch her make cheese! it's amazing that with the milk of the two goats she milks day and night, dr. reed makes cheese, yogurt, cream, buttermilk, and ice cream.
the property that she has made her home is pretty amazing. she has miles of trails for hiking, lots of maple trees that she taps for sap and actually makes her own maple syrup, a patch (at least) of wild blueberries near the house, lots of trees some of which became the lumber that is her house and her other buildings, solar panels and a wind turbine that is sufficient for 96% of her power needs, compost piles that date back 3 years, and an amazing vegetable garden. she has a greenhouse to get her plants going, then a large outside garden, then another part of her garden that is covered by a hoop house and can stay warmer, then yet another part of her garden that she plants vegetables that can grow more toward winter (at which point she can pull the hoop house over to cover the winter garden). she plants snow peas, shelled peas, green beans, celery, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, different lettuces, different peppers, newt potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, carrots, horseradish, fennel, beets, every kind of tomato, many kinds of chilies, garlic, different shaped eggplants, asparagus, melons, watermelons, pumpkins, squash, strawberries, raspberries, many kinds of other berries, a couple of different apple trees (just from what i remember), and more! then near the house, she has a giant herb garden, with many herbs i have heard of and many more i have not. she has a few different cold rooms in her basement of different coldnesses where she can store a lot of her fruits and vegetables and cheese to eat over the winter. her maple syrup operation is also quite impressive! the trees are tapped, with tubbing that runs all around and into a reservoir, which then has tubing that runs the sap to the syrup house where they have to boil the sap down 25:1 to make syrup. on her property, she has vegetables, dairy products, eggs, and maple syrup (which she uses in the place of sugar for everything) to sustain her and her husband, and a lot extra of many things to give away to friends. i think sustainability is a huge goal of her and her husband!
it was such a pleasant sunday; dr. reed showed me all around her place and we chatted while she made cheese, watered her flower gardens, and made killer blueberry wild rice pancakes! it's amazing that she began to build her home and life on this property at the start of medical school, and even had goats to milk before school started. she really knew what she wanted both in her career and in her life, and went all out for it!
i watched her make those pancakes, but forgot to take mental note of the recipe. i want to document what i remember so that maybe i can recreate it sometime. 1C whole wheat flour + 1C whole wheat pastry flour + 1Tbs baking soda + baking powder (?) + pinch of salt. 1/2 a stick of melted butter + 3 egg yolks + 1/4C maple syrup. combine dry stuff + liquid stuff + goat buttermilk + vanilla (?) + goat milk until correct consistency. then fold in cooked wild rice + blueberries. lastly fold in the egg whites, which were first beaten until stiff. butter the hot griddle and make pancakes! i don't know if i have forgotten ingredients or messed up the order, but doesn't it sound delicious?! we had these amazing pancakes with butter and her maple syrup, plus easy over eggs from her hens, and coffee with goat milk cream. she also sent me home with a bottle of her syrup!
i got back to walker's house a little after 4p, was still feeling lazy after yesterday's biking, but decided the two pancakes and two eggs (one brown, one green!) i had earlier merited some sort of physical activity. i biked a leisurely 12.5 miles round trip just past sturgeon lake (going south) and back. i wanted to make it to this gorgeous farm/ranch i saw last time on my way to willow river. apparently it is owned privately by a family. the building on the left is the house, and the equally gorgeous building on the right is the barn!
the munger trail basically runs right next to hwy61. here's a nice little stretch of the hwy with tall, straight pine trees lining the side!
there you have it in terms of pictures of the munger trail. two posts back were pictures of the trail going north of moose lake, and this post is going south. the rest in between is more or less the same. at least the part that i have ridden, which is about a 30 mile stretch from finlayson to mahtowa.
the property that she has made her home is pretty amazing. she has miles of trails for hiking, lots of maple trees that she taps for sap and actually makes her own maple syrup, a patch (at least) of wild blueberries near the house, lots of trees some of which became the lumber that is her house and her other buildings, solar panels and a wind turbine that is sufficient for 96% of her power needs, compost piles that date back 3 years, and an amazing vegetable garden. she has a greenhouse to get her plants going, then a large outside garden, then another part of her garden that is covered by a hoop house and can stay warmer, then yet another part of her garden that she plants vegetables that can grow more toward winter (at which point she can pull the hoop house over to cover the winter garden). she plants snow peas, shelled peas, green beans, celery, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, different lettuces, different peppers, newt potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, carrots, horseradish, fennel, beets, every kind of tomato, many kinds of chilies, garlic, different shaped eggplants, asparagus, melons, watermelons, pumpkins, squash, strawberries, raspberries, many kinds of other berries, a couple of different apple trees (just from what i remember), and more! then near the house, she has a giant herb garden, with many herbs i have heard of and many more i have not. she has a few different cold rooms in her basement of different coldnesses where she can store a lot of her fruits and vegetables and cheese to eat over the winter. her maple syrup operation is also quite impressive! the trees are tapped, with tubbing that runs all around and into a reservoir, which then has tubing that runs the sap to the syrup house where they have to boil the sap down 25:1 to make syrup. on her property, she has vegetables, dairy products, eggs, and maple syrup (which she uses in the place of sugar for everything) to sustain her and her husband, and a lot extra of many things to give away to friends. i think sustainability is a huge goal of her and her husband!
it was such a pleasant sunday; dr. reed showed me all around her place and we chatted while she made cheese, watered her flower gardens, and made killer blueberry wild rice pancakes! it's amazing that she began to build her home and life on this property at the start of medical school, and even had goats to milk before school started. she really knew what she wanted both in her career and in her life, and went all out for it!
i watched her make those pancakes, but forgot to take mental note of the recipe. i want to document what i remember so that maybe i can recreate it sometime. 1C whole wheat flour + 1C whole wheat pastry flour + 1Tbs baking soda + baking powder (?) + pinch of salt. 1/2 a stick of melted butter + 3 egg yolks + 1/4C maple syrup. combine dry stuff + liquid stuff + goat buttermilk + vanilla (?) + goat milk until correct consistency. then fold in cooked wild rice + blueberries. lastly fold in the egg whites, which were first beaten until stiff. butter the hot griddle and make pancakes! i don't know if i have forgotten ingredients or messed up the order, but doesn't it sound delicious?! we had these amazing pancakes with butter and her maple syrup, plus easy over eggs from her hens, and coffee with goat milk cream. she also sent me home with a bottle of her syrup!
i got back to walker's house a little after 4p, was still feeling lazy after yesterday's biking, but decided the two pancakes and two eggs (one brown, one green!) i had earlier merited some sort of physical activity. i biked a leisurely 12.5 miles round trip just past sturgeon lake (going south) and back. i wanted to make it to this gorgeous farm/ranch i saw last time on my way to willow river. apparently it is owned privately by a family. the building on the left is the house, and the equally gorgeous building on the right is the barn!
the munger trail basically runs right next to hwy61. here's a nice little stretch of the hwy with tall, straight pine trees lining the side!
there you have it in terms of pictures of the munger trail. two posts back were pictures of the trail going north of moose lake, and this post is going south. the rest in between is more or less the same. at least the part that i have ridden, which is about a 30 mile stretch from finlayson to mahtowa.
surprise!
i guess when you bike straight with the sun coming from one side...you do not get bilateral sunburns. last night i discovered a patch of sunburn only on the left side of my left calf.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
i am doomed to have strange tans
didn't go biking thursday because i got back late from camp heartland. friday i was touring the hospital's lab for 2 hours in the morning, and then at the retail pharmacy in the clinic across the parking lot following a pharmD student (who had a stash of almonds in his white coat pocket and would pop 1 or 2 almonds every 20 mintues or so) around. we got let out at 1:30p (instead of 5p)! so i decided to go for another bike ride! i was really tired, but somehow i still made it relatively easily to mahtowa (25 miles!) and back. the sun was super shiny on the way there, and when i got back i realized i finally got a sunburn. but instead of evening out my farmer's tan, i basically only burned my back because i sit so forward on my bike! + all sorts of straps: bag, camera, bra, tank top...it's a riot back there!
i finally took my camera along, which made me realize even more that, although the trail is wonderfully paved, there is really not a whole lot to see along the way.
after getting back from biking friday evening, i realized my tires were pretty flat. i went to alco and bought a super light tire pump and, on impulse, bought a little "bike computer"!
saturday morning i went on a search for a farmer's market! there is one grocery store in moose lake, and it is kind of crappy and not cheap. some people had mentioned that there might be a farmer's market on saturday in the parking lot of the hockey arena...and there it was! there were only 2 stands...apparently it is still early in farmer's market season. i purchased round yellow beets and long red beets, romaine, onions, some big round purple root thing, green beans, and a cantelope.
then set off (toward the south) for my bike adventure to finlayson! the whole trail has been really flat so far, but near finlayson there is a group of hills. i had to get off my bike twice, once on the way there and once on the way back ;( but it was fun to climb the hills and even more fun to go down them! i totaled 38.6 miles today! i was so tired the last 5 miles. and with my new bike computer, i've realized...i'm a really slowwww biker...i averaged 10.6mi/hr ;(
finally back, i was exhausted. i drove back to mahtowa to purchase some brats. apparently tj's corner store has the best brats. when i biked there, i couldn't really buy brats and bike back with them. for dinner, i had boiled yellow beets, steamed beet greens, and a chicken wild rice brat. it was DELICIOUS! i had never made beets before, i never thought i liked them, but the yellow beets were SO GOOD and sweet. i thought about taking a picture of my dinner, but then i was too tired and hungry, so alas, no picture.
maybe next time i'll actually blog about why i am here, the internship.
i finally took my camera along, which made me realize even more that, although the trail is wonderfully paved, there is really not a whole lot to see along the way.
after getting back from biking friday evening, i realized my tires were pretty flat. i went to alco and bought a super light tire pump and, on impulse, bought a little "bike computer"!
saturday morning i went on a search for a farmer's market! there is one grocery store in moose lake, and it is kind of crappy and not cheap. some people had mentioned that there might be a farmer's market on saturday in the parking lot of the hockey arena...and there it was! there were only 2 stands...apparently it is still early in farmer's market season. i purchased round yellow beets and long red beets, romaine, onions, some big round purple root thing, green beans, and a cantelope.
then set off (toward the south) for my bike adventure to finlayson! the whole trail has been really flat so far, but near finlayson there is a group of hills. i had to get off my bike twice, once on the way there and once on the way back ;( but it was fun to climb the hills and even more fun to go down them! i totaled 38.6 miles today! i was so tired the last 5 miles. and with my new bike computer, i've realized...i'm a really slowwww biker...i averaged 10.6mi/hr ;(
finally back, i was exhausted. i drove back to mahtowa to purchase some brats. apparently tj's corner store has the best brats. when i biked there, i couldn't really buy brats and bike back with them. for dinner, i had boiled yellow beets, steamed beet greens, and a chicken wild rice brat. it was DELICIOUS! i had never made beets before, i never thought i liked them, but the yellow beets were SO GOOD and sweet. i thought about taking a picture of my dinner, but then i was too tired and hungry, so alas, no picture.
maybe next time i'll actually blog about why i am here, the internship.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
tired.
biked to barnum and back. i think about 12 miles. my butt is starting to hurt...
schedule of last 3 days:
monday. met with CFO of the hospital; occupational therapy
tuesday. ER
wednesday. quality improvement meeting; hospital pharmacy; chiropractor
take home message: paperwork, paperwork, paperwork
blah!
schedule of last 3 days:
monday. met with CFO of the hospital; occupational therapy
tuesday. ER
wednesday. quality improvement meeting; hospital pharmacy; chiropractor
take home message: paperwork, paperwork, paperwork
blah!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
crafts and cruising
i have no roommates in this 4 bedroom walters house, and i am officially lonely! last night i realized i had to shorten my dress pants (even though they are already "short"). i had the dinner table all to myself, and i was feeling especially crafty! i spread out my bath towel on the table, got out my iron, some safety pins, and my sewing kit. my hemming looks not too shabby if i do say so myself! first time i've ever hemmed too! i have another pair to do, but i'll probably do it tomorrow night. tonight i am pooped, because i just got back from a...
25 mile bike ride! i biked on the willard munger state trail, from mercy hospital in moose lake to mahtowa (a tiny town, literally 4 square blocks big) and turned back. on the way, i almost biked over a very slithery snake! and there is all sorts of mini-roadkill on the trail. from mahtowa it is another 26 miles to duluth. alternatively, the trail goes as far south as hinckley, 38 miles from moose lake.
25 mile bike ride! i biked on the willard munger state trail, from mercy hospital in moose lake to mahtowa (a tiny town, literally 4 square blocks big) and turned back. on the way, i almost biked over a very slithery snake! and there is all sorts of mini-roadkill on the trail. from mahtowa it is another 26 miles to duluth. alternatively, the trail goes as far south as hinckley, 38 miles from moose lake.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
