okay, back to fourth of july weekend again... on monday evening, we visited with my grandma and went out to dinner at the stage stop in wilmot. it's wisconsin's oldest tap and dining room and was, indeed, a stagecoach stop and hotel in days of yore.
the menu is pretty meat-centric--lots of steak and chops. as if the onslaught of red meat weren't enough, the stage stop is famous for not holding anything back when it comes to the sour cream and butter they provide for your baked potato. 
rob, ever the inspector, had to hold up a nickel for scale in this photo. unreal. 
now, the houghs love butter as much or more than the average midwestern american family, but even we can only take so much. before our food came, grandma mentioned that after other meals at the stage stop she had asked for a take-home container for her unused butter. at first, this seemed a little excessive to me. i soon changed my mind...
can you feel your arteries clogging?
now that i think about it, there's a really good reason why we started this blog in february. that is, there's not a whole ton going on in the shortest yet longest month of the year. there tends to be a lot more on the agenda come the warmer seasons, which means more to blog about but less time to do it. that's as it should be, but i've come to see blogging as an enjoyable commitment (to myself, i guess--i think that most folks who are reading are pretty much up on what we're doing with ourselves, anyway) and it's always a bit disappointing when i realize that i'm already a week behind. over the crazy long holiday weekend (did anyone else feel like wednesday was monday?) we went up to my parents' cottage in powers lake, wisconsin. we've made our independence day weekend in dairyland a bit of an annual ritual. it's always a fun and relaxing time. on saturday morning we drove to east troy to check out their electric railroad museum and get some pre-lunch dessert at lauber's, a 1920's era ice cream parlor with a 4-page menu, tons of antique soda fountain accoutrements on display and this jukebox that plays 78s.
rob showed ultimate restraint by having a one-scoop ice cream cone, my mom had a chocolate soda, i had a chocolate malt and my dad indulged in a black and white sundae (vanilla and chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce, marshmallow topping). delish. as if that weren't enough, we then drove to the elegant farmer to pick up an apple pie baked in a paper bag, their specialty, for sunday's grill-out. after lunch in burlington, which was apparently a stop for mormon settlers heading west, we walked around echo park for a bit. i'm showing ultimate restraint by not including the photo of rob using the tide pen on the special delivery of bird poop he received when walking under a hackberry tree. 
back at the cottage, we played some mildly competitive bola wrap. this is a game rob found out about from his friend and co-worker brian who was nice enough to give him the plans to make his own version. each player gets three bolas (a nylon rope with a golf ball at each end) to chuck at the three-tiered, hurdle-like goals. the idea is to get your bola to wrap around one of the bars (top bar=1 point, middle=2, bottom=3) and whoever gets to 21 first, wins. of course, rob used hawkeye golfballs for the bolas and black and gold tape on the goals. along with bocce, petanque and horseshoes, bola wrap takes its place among the noble lawn games that can be played while holding a beer. oscar is the official hawkeye bola wrap mascot and enjoys sitting just close enough to game play that you're always a little concerned that he's gonna get beaned. 
more about the rest of last weekend soon. we're taking the mascot to iowa city's new dog park this morning...
we spent a great weekend in st. paul with our friends jeff and amy. on saturday morning jeff made us a pancakes and sausage breakfast, which provided a good base for a little browsing at some cool twin cities shops, including crafty planet (the boys were bored to tears, but check out the fabrics on their website!), kilroy's (a self-described "classic malt shop supply" purveyor--we wondered if will knows about this place?) and jeff's local comic and gaming shop (the girls were bored to tears and i have nothing else to say about it).J. and A. live mere blocks from the minnesota state fairgrounds, which was hosting a big classic car show. we considered checking it out up close, but there were so many cool cars on the street that we didn't even need to.that evening, we had a fabulous dinner--grilled steak and portabellos, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and a chopped salad. here's jeff readying some tomatoes for the salad in their renovated kitchen.
hilarity ensues at the dinner table...
after dinner, we took a walk with oscar over to como park zoo. the zoo was closed for the day, but we were able to walk alongside the wolf enclosure fence. all of the animals were either hanging out in their dens or patrolling other parts of their territory when we arrived, but not a minute later, a wolf undoubtedly sensed the presence of another canine and came bounding out of the greenery. i think all of us forgot for a second that we were separated by two fences as this creature came toward us. approaching the fence, he (male? female? didn't try to check) and oscar sized each other up--no barking, snarling or aggression at all, just curiosity. 
after hurrying back to the house in the rain we decided to kick it old school for dessert--baker's square for coffee and pie. later, we played the very fun time's up! which might just replace catchphrase as my favorite party game. on sunday morning we had a delicious late breakfast at jay's cafe in st. paul, said godbye to our gracious hosts and hit the road.
we've been getting a crazy amount of rain here over the past few weeks. it's my understanding that there are parts of iowa facing near-drought conditions, but i've spotted mushrooms growing in our woodchips, so it's safe to say that we're a little waterlogged in iowa city. this spring we converted the aluminum buckets used for kegs and ice at our wedding into planters by drilling some holes in the bottom and snagging some topsoil from one of rob's road expansion projects. the brandywine tomato, green bell and "carmen" sweet peppers are flowering right now and my little herb garden (the bucket in front--basil, oregano, thyme, terragon, rosemary and peppermint) has been going crazy. 
here's our healthy red corn poppy. joyce gave us fair warning that these don't transplant very well, and our other plant has been looking pretty pathetic, but i was really happy to see these delicate, papery little blooms emerge.
close-up of the impatiens that are overflowing the half barrel in front of the house. last summer, i stubbornly planted sun-loving annuals (on sale, at least) in the barrel and after a few weeks in the shade they got droopy and i felt guilty and vowed to be more realistic this year. here's my reward...
i have to say that i don't love this rose bush. i like flowers with big, vibrant color and the pale pink of these blooms doesn't really do it for me. still, i have to admire its pluck. a few months ago we cut it down to the ground, mistaking its brittle brown-ness for certain death (admittedly, we don't know a lot about roses), but lo and behold, it fooled us and came back with lots of healthy growth. our tigerlilies are also blooming and the lazy stargazers have just started to show themselves above ground.
finally, the bright bee balm. we visited our friends jeff and amy in st. paul this weekend (more in a later post) and their lovely yard has an abundance of established perennial flowers. unlike our well-spaced clumps of recent transplants, their tall and hearty plants overlap and really look like a garden. right now they have lots of shoulder-high purple bee balm beginning to bloom. maybe that's what our plantings will become over time, but i guess it's likely that the next owner of this house will have to take that on and we'll start over at our next home. i hope that we'll find a sunny yard with some coneflowers, black-eyed susans, and flowering flax when we get there!
