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| Jeanne and Donna make the Danish round pancakes--aeblskivers. The trick is separating egg whites, whipping them and then folding it gently back into the batter so they are so light you have to put a raspberry inside to keep them from floating above the stove |
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| This customer looks like he has had plenty of aebleskivers and Danish breakfast sausage. |
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| The water stained poster shows a young boy surrounded by yo-yos. The young man standing here was back in Luck from California for his 50th high school class reunion and was the lad in the photo. His parents both worked at Duncan Yo-Yo and they had him pose for the photo in Milwaukee Magazine back some 60 years ago! Paul W. |
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| Erling, standing right, explains to an old guy about the 1 cylinder, 2 cylinder and 4 cylinder cars he brought to the auto show. He has his own museum nearby. |
Son Scott helped take the place of Margo who is helping with her father after his stroke. Merlin needs some help, so has decided to go to an assisted care apartment in West Bend, WI, where meals and some assistance is available. It is hard for him to give up driving and the active life he had, but the stroke made things much more difficult. He can do much of the things of daily life, but has enough problems that he can't live on his own and does need help. Not driving is hard too, but the left side of his vision is gone--and driving is not possible if you are not aware of traffic to the left.
He will be moving at the end of this week, and then Margo takes a couple of weeks to head back to Pine Island for some more health checks and to see why a hip is giving her so much pain. Probably goes back to being born backwards (breech birth) where the doctor broke both her hips in getting her out and she was in a body cast her first 6 months.
Having been on my own now since the first of April, I suppose I will have to adjust back to married life again. It will be tough, but a guy has responsibilities!
Spent most of this week getting the 150 year old Red School House on the Polk County WI fairgrounds ready for another fair season--starts Thursday and runs through Sunday. Yo-Yos from Luck, WI, the Yo-Yo capital of the world when Duncan Yo-Yo was there 40s through 60s, bunch of old 4-H information (100 years old this year), lots of old school stuff and much more.
For the next 4 days, I will be there most of the time from 9am to 9pm. Friday at 10 am we judge the dozen maple syrup entries. A very sweet job, but also difficult as good taste is important, and Margo thinks I lack that. We have 4 judges, so along with exactly 66.5% concentration, perfectly clear and wonderful appearing, it also has to have an excellent taste. Stop in at 10 and you can try tasting it with us.
Sunday at 1 pm on the big stage under the canvas, a program on 100 years of 4-H will be held. Various folks will tell about their experiences in 4-H in the old days, and I guess they picked me because they thought I might remember 100 years ago! Actually, my 4-H leaders who are still around included John and Millie Lundgren and Marie Olsen. John and Marie are past 90 years old-so may have longer memories than I do! I know John was in 4-H himself. Another neighbor, Maurice Christenson, just made 80 years and he too was in 4-H in his youth.
I remember fair projects in photography (under the guidance of Marie Olsen), electricity and miscellaneous others. For electricity, I built a motor and a telegraph. Both of those two fields stayed with me the rest of my life, so I guess 4-H can be credited with helping me with both my working life and my recreational life.
On Sunday, I think I will tell the story of when the Cushing 4-H with me pitching beat Frederic 4-H with one of those athletic McAbee boys pitching against me. We beat them 32 to 3 as I remember. After a quiet 2 innings, we got up to bat and managed to get 30 runs in before retiring to the field. Frederic had fallen apart. Well, when they got up to bat, we fell apart and they ran the score up to 33 to our 32 with only 1 out. It got so dark we had to quit, and the score reverted to Cushing 32, Frederic 3. I don't remember our strategy being to let them just keep making runs until darkness fell, but that is the whole truth! And maybe our only win that year.
The County fair only costs $6 to get in (free parking) and is probably the most interesting and fun event in the whole county. If you haven't gone recently, you should drop in. If you like less crowds, Thurs and Friday morning and early afternoon are great. If you like crowds wait for the evening. With almost perfect weather on tap, we should have a great fair.
I forgot to bring my camera today, but will post photos tomorrow. These are from last year.
