Raspberry picking at our CSA. Seriously wonderful.

Fair warning, folks: I’m going to get all “Sunrise, Sunset” in this post so if you’re not in the mood, move on.

We’ve been in Northfield for just over a year now. I remember when we were making final plans to choose Northfield over New York City, I warned Dan that I would likely cry every night for the first 3 months. I feared being friendless, lonely, isolated and further from a Trader Joe’s or Vietnamese sandwich shop than any person ought to be. Reader, I haven’t cried once.

Living in Northfield really suits us. For example, Dan’s gigs start at 5pm (as many of you know, we are often asleep by 10pm). But, more importantly, living in Northfield has also encouraged us to change the way we live. The lack of stores selling essentially prepared foods (I’m looking at you, TJ’s) has forced us to learn how to actually cook, which we enjoy immensely. Our large swath of much-less-than-perfect lawn encouraged us to plant a vegetable garden and pumpkin vines which nicely distract the eye from the scourge that is our grass. My fear of being lonely led me to be aggressive (uh, maybe “assertive” is a

CSA Haul or Why We Cook Now

better word) in making friends with other new mothers. Most of our friends in Chicago were our friends and I’ve really enjoyed having my friends. Living so close to the library has sharply reduced the amount of books I buy and having entire reference sections at my disposal has made it much easier to learn how to knit and garden. The astonishing fitness level and slender figures of our friends and neighbors has encouraged me to keep running and eat well.  The ecological conscientiousness of the town has led us (or guilted us, to be entirely honest) into being more responsible about recycling, reusing, etc. Being a nurse at the free clinic has forced me to learn how to take care of adults and discuss condom use or syphilis testing without embarrassment and not have a heart attack when I get a blood pressure of 150/90.

I do miss Chicago. I miss our friends there very much, especially at this time. I miss feeling anonymous and hearing the El. I miss my old job and my wonderful co-workers there. I miss, of all things, the lake. There are 10,000 lakes in Minnesota according to our license plate but none of them are in Northfield. But Northfield is most definitely our home now, lake or not.

Tonight my mother’s group is having a dinner to celebrate almost one year of parenthood. It’s been just under a year since we met at a “Baby and Me” class run through the school district. I remember agonizing over what to wear just before our first meeting and treating it like a first day of (baby) school. The women who I met that day and those who have joined our band over the months have turned into my most valuable resource and one of my greatest joys in Northfield. I am so excited to watch as our kids grow up together and to see whether or not Eleanor will eventially poke somebody’s eye out.

Last Sunday we headed a couple of miles south of town to visit the Valley Grove Churches. The two churches and graveyards sit atop a hill (neither in a valley nor a grove) and command beautiful views of the countryside around our town, including a small portion of restored prairie and some magnificent old Oaks. The churchyard has graves from the Civil War, WWI and WWII and is on the National Register of Historic Sites. The churches were built by Norwegian farmers in the mid 19th century. One church is stone and the other is clapboard; they are both white, spare and quite lovely. There are no longer used for regular services but do host a Christmas Eve service that I would love to go to one year.

The site is open year-round. There is no parking lot, no admission booth, no posted set of rules; and on a beautiful, warm and sunny Sunday, no people. It was just us and a pair of excited bluebirds.

Emily reads the tiny history of Tiny Shanty

Man I love this state. Yesterday, Emily, Dan H., Eleanor, Leo and I headed west of the Cities to Medicine Lake, the site of Art Shanty 2010:

“A four-weekend exhibition of performance, architecture, science, art, video, literature, survivalism and karaoke, ASP is part sculpture park, part artist residency and part social experiment, inspired by traditional ice fishing houses that dot the state’s lakes in winter.”

We walked out on the lake (the ice is about 24″ thick) toward a group of shanties, following a large Groundhog that was making its way toward a large Polar Bear (?), who was getting ready to distribute free cakes to the winners of a modified form of musical chairs. No cake for us I’m afraid. Undeterred, we made the rounds, visiting each shanty in turn, including the Tiny Shanty, the FantaShanty (complete with a taxidermied baby dear), the Black Bania (complete with a 97 degree sauna), and The Guerilla Shanty (where visitors were asked to teach the occupants something. Dan H.’s lesson, “If people tell you their baby is sleeping through the night, they’re lying.”) My favorite shanty, however,  was Dance Shanty wherein people simply danced. The best part of Dance Shanty was that whenever someone opened the door to come in everyone would go “Yay!” as though they had been waiting for you. That really cracked me up.

In an impressive display of Minnesota parenting, Dan H. fed Leo on the ice in sub-freezing temperatures:

We left our own mark at Art Shanty. Leo and Eleanor need to get married so we can pull this picture out at their wedding (look carefully now):

I was pleased as punch by the everything to that point. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to learn that they were selling hotdogs. My day was complete:

Self-portrait with hotdog

And so was Eleanor’s and Leo’s:

Art Shanty!

Behold:

This clip is from a state-wide competition performance and our local channel, sadly, limits us to regionals. However, I can say for certain (from the 3 shows they replay over and over (and that we’ve watched over and over)) the Faribault team is the best. Burnsville is OK; Apple Valley stinks and Lakeville is all right but their JV team is crap. We’ve only seen the Northfielders perform once but they were only so-so. And so, we always cheer for Faribault.

]]> http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/10/october-10th/feed/ 4 http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/08/the-minnesota-state-fair/ http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/08/the-minnesota-state-fair/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:24:48 +0000 dmjg http://thefamilyroll.com/?p=533 We went to the Minnesota State Fair yesterday. The State Fair is a big deal in MN. Just to give you an idea: in the 7 years I lived in Illinois I never once heard of the Illinois State Fair. I’m sure there is one (it’s probably down state?), but it certainly wasn’t on anyone’s radar in Chicago. Since our arrival in Northfield four weeks ago, we have heard about the State Fair all over the place including, and perhaps most surprisingly, on MPR. To be clear: The State Fair isn’t advertising, via sponsorship, on MPR. Rather MPR just talks about it all the time. The most common topic is the weather. Everyone wants to know: what’s the weather going to be like for the State Fair? Indeed, Minnesotan’s love of weather-talk knows no bounds. On our way back from camping, we listened (yes, we actually listened) to an hour long call-in show, live from the Fair all about Minnesota weather.  There were live spectators whooping it up in the background (I kid you not). Weather talk live at the State Fair — Minnesotans everywhere were in rapture.

Kim and Jason, pictured left, were very kind to invite us along for this year’s Fair. Ellie was fantastic — she slept in her stroller more or less the whole time (which is why there are so few pictures of her) — leaving us to see all the awesome and crazy stuff you go to see at the Fair: seed art, beauty queens carved into blocks of butter, gnome homes, tons of wonderful farm animals and, my personal favorite, pigeons. We (well I) generously partook of all the awesome crap available for ingestion, consuming over the course of the day deep fried pickles (thanks for the tip Bonnie!), a hot dog, french fries, chocolate dipped cheesecake, a bag of mini-donuts, deep fried cheese curds and root beer. I had one hell of a headache last night. Can’t wait until next year!

Tons of pictures, here, but here is a sampler: