“Up North” and More

Here we are in Wisconsin with all of its treasures. First there are the friends–inspirations, all. And the food they share with us around their respective home tables…from white fish and trout at Lake Superior, to ratatouille fixed in a new Instapot, to a new kind of risotto created by friends who just returned from northern Italy. What a pleasure all of these dishes were, and what a gift of friendship. Talk about “bring joy to the table.”

And then there are all the fun adventures experienced  along Lake Superior from Duluth, Minnesota to hilly, beautiful Bayfield, Wisconsin, then south to Madison…

stopping in the very small town of Cornucopia to shop at the 102 year old Ehler’s General Store– food market/hardware store/gift shop, you name it;

mailing a package from Cornucopia post office, the most northern post office in Wisconsin;

hiking at Houghton Point, out to the lake to see the “sheep on the field,” a mariner’s term referring to the white caps on the lake on a windy day;

buying our $2.00 ice cream sandwiches at a local self-serve dairy shop where all transactions were via an honor system–we put our money in an envelope and left it on the counter;

visiting the Washburn Cultural Center to see a show about birch with all kinds of objects made of birch bark from around the world –baskets, purses, shoes, jewelry, even a canoe.

seeing an Amish family, young and old, driving their dairy cows home;

helping pick vegetables and herbs from our friends’ Bayfield garden to garnish our dinner plates;

having my first Cardinal sighting and hearing its “cheer, cheer, cheer” song

watching the sailboats and ferries work their way across the lake to Madeline Island;

driving the two lane highways with the quintessential Wisconsin white farm houses and red barns along the way;

walking through a park with unique sculpture of people and animals created by a local folk artist out of concrete decorated with colored broken glass shards

            and

giving thanks for life and the opportunity to experience not only what we know and love about Wisconsin, but also to discover the new.