Monday, September 28, 2009

Prairie Home Companion

On Saturday, September 26 Nora and I and our friends Bob & Norma attended the season opening of the Prairie Home Companion at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St Paul. Marc and Amy and her father Tom also attended. This was Garrison Keillor's first show since suffering a mild stroke on Labor Day. He was in rare form with performances that moved quickly and entertained constantly. The theatre was packed by an appreciative crowd. It was fun to see what really happens during the live radio program. We sat in the second balcony nose bleed section. We had greet seats only one row back from the front. Following the show was the annual street dance and meat loaf dinner.





Sunday, September 13, 2009

Gate Makers

Today I returned from a fun and rewarding weekend working with Brian building an Erin designed gate for their fenced yard. ...and Roger came along and joined in the fun as well. Now Willem and the Hayden have a more secure play area.

Brian surveys the project.

Brian and Roger prepare to attach the hinges.

Brian assembles one side of the door "sandwich".


The finished door and fence.



Brian, Erin and Willem check out the finished project from their front sidewalk.





Recent Geocaching

Geocaching has proven to be a fun experience and I've been doing quite a bit lately. In late August brother Charlie and I were joined by Roger and Bob for an afternoon at Phillips Park outside of Eau Claire. Labor Day weekend Nora was quite patient with me as I cached our way from Eau Claire to Appleton, stopping numerous times to hunt for caches. Then Grace, Charlie, their granddaughters and I cached around Kaukauna. Later, Bob, Charlie and I were joined by Rich for some interesting caches in Door County. Roger and I cached our way to Spring Green and back this past weekend.

Caching at Phillips park near Eau Claire

Cachers in Kaukauna. Charlie and Grace cache under the name IMFULR2 while the three granddaughters are IMFULR3. I'm IMFULR! Coletta had found a geocache in the woods behind her home while attending a workshop this summer. She knew what it was from our June caching session. she left it alone without looking inside. We found it together during our recent session. We're all pretty proud of her for not disturbing it and not telling her friends where it was located.

Caching at the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal.


Roger found a beautiful Army Geocoin that he will move to another location. Seemed appropriate as he found it on 9/11. The cache is called On the Summit and is on Hwy 58 south of Mauston.



These are some iron crosses at a cemetery near Plain, WI. The cache is called WSQ Saint Lukes Iron Crosses.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

BeatleFest 2009 - Spring Green

The fun of our Labor Day weekend in Door County was extended into Monday when we drove to Spring Green for the 1st BeatleFest at the General Store. Daughter-in-law Erin played some challenging Beatle music along with the other three performers in the group called Thieves on Holiday. They played a 45 minute gig that afternoon.

Below: That's Chris on the left, Connie and Erin. The drummer unfortunately can't be seen.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Saturday's Tour Around Lake Pepin

On Saturday, the Klimpkes and the Fullers headed for Stockholm - Wisconsin for the annual Stockholm Art Fair. We combined that trip with a dozen geocaches beginning in Durand and moving to Nelson, Pepin and in the evening in Alma and Buena Vista Park with a beautiful view of the Mississippi and Lock Dam #4. While geocaching in Pepin we made a chance call to Chris and Larry Haisting to see if they were out sailing on Lake Pepin. They were - in fact, they were very near Stockholm. We made arrangement to meet them in Red Wing for lunch and eventually ended up at Hansen Harbor near Lake City and on their boat for some sailing time. After sailing we drove to Nelson for ice cream and then on to Alma.






Thursday, July 16, 2009

A Full (er) Weekend

Nora not only survived her 45th HS Reunion but also attending the Antiques Roadshow in Madison this past weekend. 22,458 people applied for tickets. We were part of the lucky 5000 to receive tickets. 70 appraisers examined items from 7:30 am to 6:30 pm. While no photography is allowed on the AR set, we did get a couple of pictures on the cell phone prior to entering the appraisal area. Check the Antiques Roadshow web site after July 20 for behine-the scenes pictures of the event. Here's Nora's account of the Roadshow:

On Saturday I arose at 4:45 AM and hit the road by 5:30 AM to head for Knott’s in Cottage Grove, where Bob was staying. The Knott’s, Klimpke’s and Fullers were at the Alliant Center in Madison by 7:30 for the Roadshow…and there were hundreds and hundreds of people ahead of us. However, the lines moved fairly quickly, as all the appraisers were there early, so they started by 7:30 instead of waiting until 8 AM. The host, Mark Wallberg, came along, and when I exclaimed at seeing him, he came right over and gave me a huge hug! It was so neat!


Arrival - note Knott's poles
Relatively empty queWe saw lots of cool stuff while waiting in line, and the Knott’s were filmed and photographed by AR photographers several times in line, as they’d brought some historical Wisconsin Dells Indian totem pole-like wall-boards with lots of Indian masks on them from an old store that was torn down in the Dells 30 years ago. While the website says you can take a collection, the check-in person refused to consider my carefully chosen box of 12 rolling pins as one, so insisted I pick out one material, so I did my glass ones…but Marty cagily got an extra ticket (since she only had I item) so I could try 2 appraisers with different types, and that worked out great. Alas, I discovered at the appraisals that my rare glass ones have fallen in value, due to the miracle of eBay. Since I’d gotten them for great prices on eBay, I couldn’t complain, as I was still making a profit—I just may weed a few more of them out of my collection, though!
(Several years ago, I’d have done a lot better in values.) My boxes were more positive—my $20 estate sale box (which 8 antique dealers walked past before I snatched it up) turned out to be a Persian lap-desk that the appraiser was very enthusiastic about, while my $12 decoupage Chinese box that has really cool Victorian rooms decoupaged on the inside sent the appraiser into ecstasies—he even ran it around and showed it to several people, as he’d never seen anything like it, which really tickled me, as I haven’t either. It didn’t have a huge
monetary value, but it was so fun stumping the appraiser that it was my favorite moment of the day.


A few hundred people ahead of us



A film crew takes our picture in line...

Bob K. took some of our wood toys, so we discovered the dancing figure Bob found in his folk’s basement WAS actually Hitler and my 50 cent walking figure from a church sale was also worth more than I paid. However, my handmade Conestoga wagon pulled by carved wood oxen was worth the few dollars I’d paid for it, so you win some and lose some (I was sure it was a folk art treasure). Another friend took in my box of better (but cheap!) costume jewelry and we discovered I shouldn’t be piling them around my papier-mâché skull at Halloween and knocking out the rhinestones, as most of them are worth about more than I
paid for them. The appraiser gave me all sorts of hot tips on what to look for when buying that stuff, too—mostly I look for a 50 cent or $1 price tag, however. My big find there, though, was my $1.65 pin from St. Vincent DePaul, which turned out to be real gold and quartz and worth $! There ARE bargains out there. Bob took in salesman sample books from the 1800’s that he’d missed last time, but cagily added the book that was our big value at the last show… the appraiser (a different one from last time) just glanced at his really valuable
book and said it was worth significantly less this time! Maybe eBay’s affected the book market, too. We got to see some really fabulous items while we waited in line…and some that we wondered why their owners had bothered bringing them. (They’ll probably end up being on the show, alas!) We stood right by one of the Keno twins as he did an appraisal, plus watched and talked to several appraisers we’d seen on TV, so it was a really nice day. By the time we left, however, the lines were humongous, so we decided our 8 AM time was the ideal one and we’d really lucked out.



Sunday, July 5, 2009

Deck Project Progress

Last September brother Charlie and I removed the upper deck railing and replaced it with a new style. That project continues...
With some assistance from friends Roger and Dick, the lower deck railing has been removed. All spindles from the upper and lower deck have been redesigned, reconditioned and painted, ready for installation. A new set of stairs will be added to the lower deck to reduce the current up and down travel and distance to get from the lower deck to ground level.

The new railing has been painted and the entire deck structure has been pressure wash, sanded and painted awaiting installation of the new railing and steps. Stay tuned...



Saturday, June 6, 2009

Confused Robin

This morning we discovered a robin attempting to fly into our solarium crashing into the sliding glass door. ...not once, but many, many times. I finally got the camera and shot some video. Then I taped some newspaper over the window but he continues trying.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Willem Swings!

An overnight visit on June 4th provided grandpa and grandma with their Willem-Fix!








Monday, May 25, 2009

BobFest 2009

Bob Dylan 1963
Wikipedia
On May 24
we attended
This was the
12th Annual
celebration of the
music and talent
Robert Allen Zimmerman
born on May 24, 1941

It's a family affair where numerous groups perform the music of Bob Dylan from 11 am to 8 pm. It's held each year on the back grounds of the General Store in Spring Green, Wisconsin. The event occurs over the Memorial Day weekend as May 24th is Bob Dylan's Birthday. Bob Dylan will be performing in Milwaukee on July 1, 2009.

The General Store in Spring Green

Check out our pictures below from the event. There are more photos at the General Store site.

Mike performing with Redneck Victim

Our annual favorite - Everybody Must Get Stoned

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Entry project Update

We continue to work on the entry project. Still to happen is a new radiator cover, casing and base molding and new door treatment. Stay tuned. See the before and demolition by clicking here.

Click on photos to make them larger






Thursday, April 16, 2009

Committed... Finally!

Part of brother Charlie's visit last week was devoted to getting me started on remodeling our entry to our split level home. This project has been in the cue for many years and now there's no turning back. We completed most of the demolition and did a lot of scheming and planning. The goal is to build the entrance to reflect our hobbies. Nora's collections are showcased on the crown molding shelves built from a variety of woods. The center entry railing that will replace the solid half-wall will be constructed of a variety of woods and include some modest inlay and dimensional attributes. The ceramic tile will also be replaced and the carpet has been removed from the steps allowing us to refinish the oak treads. All the casing and trim will be replaced as well. Stayed tuned!







Benched!


Jim and Babs Weyenberg
celebrating their
50th Wedding Anniversary
on their new glider.


The week of April 5-10th, brother Charlie came to visit with project in hand. Together we built this sturdy bench with gliders using 6/4 oak. The plans and hardware are from Rockler. It was a great project. Charlie and Grace and 7 other friends presented this to Jim and Babs Weyenberg who celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in April. We hope they have as much fun "gliding" and we had building it.