Fall Arrives

So the temperature here in Saint Closet, MN has fallen considerably overnight and it is in the low 60's today from 80 a week ago. It doesn't ease into seasons in MN they drop from the sky rather abruptly here.

We wandered to the Quarry Park here in town with Elias. The are was once noted for it's granite mines which have subsequently filled with water. It's a lovely little park and we have a season pass. In the summer teenagers swim there but away from the swimming hole it is a peaceful place.

I'm rolling along on the sweater and should reach the shoulder saddles tonight if I'm diligent. I'll be certain to post pictures.

~Eikon

Concerning Popples

Knitxcore has reminded me of the 80's which make me think of Popples.




The franchise came out with popple stuffed animals which could be used as a weapon like a flail (hard plastic faces and appendages) or thrown at high speeds like a sling.



The big ones were just cute it was the little ones that were thrown across our playroom.
The joys of my childhood.

~Eikon

More Tofutsies

I really do like this yarn though one of the previous pair has disappeared. I'm sure it will show up again. For some reason I made these a bit too short. 56 stitches on # 2 with plenty of yarn to spare; I tend to make my socks with short ankles . I have another ball of this in green and white and think I'll use all the extra to make a pair of striped socks combining the three. That brings me up to 4 pairs of socks (minus one blue sock that as I mentioned is MIA). I am going to finish Flopper's sweater (I just got a 32" #8 circular so I don't make any more mistakes) and then begin working on a pair of Jaywalkers; Everyone else seems to have made this pattern and I might as well jump on the band wagon.

~Eikon

Fall Semester Begins

The fall semester starts today at Saint Cloud State University; they have to try really hard to find nice pictures of this campus. I'm taking 16 credits and am really excited about getting back into a class room for student teaching. Unfortunately student teaching doesn't begin until the end of October and is very inconveniently placed in the middle of my day with the result that I am taking three night classes this semester.

After student teaching the highlights of this semester are "The History of Moern South Africa" and an upper level Social studies pedagogy course which is worth 4 credits. I'm a bit apprehensive about the latter (4 credit courses are very rare here) but hopefully it will turn out all right.

~Eikon

Harvest Time

Dan's farm covers some 120 acres of hills in NW MN. As a child he used to wander around gathering the berries and fruit that grow wild there. So when he mentioned that the plums and grapes (both wild and delicious) would be ripe this weekend I was very excited.

We got to Rollag around noon and soon set out in search of jelly ingredients.

Eli volunteered to be our fruit bearing pack dog.
and Flopper decided to be a scare crow.

We were pleasantly surprised to find the last of the seasons choke cherries ; these aren't good for jelly but make a very nice heavy syrup.

There were highly unorthodox fruit gathering techniques utilized resulting in people being joined at the sack and bad Siamese Twin jokes.

I kept being distracted by the butterflies and the flowers.
Eventually we found a bounty of wild grapes.
The plums had all been knocked to the ground in high winds on Friday so much to Flopper's chagrin we picked fruit off the ground. There were two types on the farm; the small red ones pictured and then a larger yellow and red type.
Eli took the opportunity to look pretty and be cool in the glade while we were slaving away picking plums.

We probably collected 20 lbs of fruit all told and trudges back to the farm house to process the juice.

~Eikon

Hot Dish in Rollag, MN

The next few posts will be about going to our friend Dan's home in Rollag, Mn. Dan grew up in this house and has rather deep Minnesotan roots and is a master of the cuisine of the upper midwest. An integral part of the holy trinity that dominates this under appreciated cuisine is the hot dish.

Hot dish is defined as follows:

Hotdish is any of a variety of casserole dishes popular in the Midwest of the United States and especially in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

It consists of a starch and a protein (meat and/or a vegetable) mixed together with a binding ingredient (most often canned soup or a sauce) and a topping.

Dan starts with ground beef that is browned and empties a bag of frozen corn on top of it and some carrots.

Then come the frozen peas.
The tater tots.
The crowning glory of the hot dish is the thick coating of creme of mushroom soup (held by a smiling Dan)

This is tossed in the oven to bake and is served at countless church potlucks across the Midwest.

Dinner on Sunday evening was delightful and full of many bottles of wine, jello, and Dan's matriarchal ring pasta salad.

It was a wonderful evening.

We went to bed well fed but too tired to make jelly.

~Eikon

Challah

So last night I made 4 cups of sourdough sponge and woke up at 5 this morning to knead my dough for two loaves of challah. I promptly went back to sleep until 10:00; sourdough takes a while to rise.

I decided to try two new shapes this time.


The simple three braid in a circular loaf (I'm most familiar with this shape as we often make pascha like this. My foremothers probably stole the ideas from neighboring Jewish people.)

And a long five stranded braid loaf. I'm getting better at braiding bread and am contemplating a sourdough Pascha experiment. Commercial yeast only became available in the late 19th century so it must be possible to make pascha from sour dough yeasts. Pashcha is exceptionally heavy and calls for butter, eggs, honey,

The Challah turned out rather nice; though I got impatient and it probably would have done well with another hour of rising after being braided. The longer the bread rises the more the braid stands out.

Here is the round loaf.

The five strand is my favorite shape so far and I think if it I let it rise more it will be rather lovely.

I'll be taking them both to Dan's house tommorow for the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion. We'll also be making grape and plum jelly so expect lots of pictures.

~Eikon