Wines 101

Here is a picture of all the wines we bought on our winery trips. Read about our trips below. I don't know if we're wine connoisseurs, but we know what we like.

Bicycle Trip at Okoboji and Little Swan Lake Winery

We picked the most beautiful autumn day to take our bike up to Okoboji to ride their bike trail. The colors were perfect for me, still a lot of green, but patches of reds, oranges, and yellows. We had lunch at a restaurant on the lake and enjoyed good food and a nice view.

Close by is the Little Swan Lake Winery. We had to go. This lady serving me is from Australia and her accent gave her away. She had quite a story to tell, and she made sure we got some good samples to decide which bottle to buy. I decided on one with a nice label with a nice swan on it.

http://www.lslwinery.com/

This is their old elevator on their property which they have converted to a bed and breakfast. Interesting.
They also had buffalo on their property and sold buffalo meat which we did buy.

We also visited Little Swan Lake which is right next to the winery property. It is not developed. I didn't see any swans either. Maybe it's in the shape of a swan. : )

Winery Trip

We took a winery trip today and visited several wineries in this area. One is Calico Skies just east of Canton. It's up on a hillside on the Iowa side and it's new and very neat. They give you free samples and they had some tasty wines. http://www.calicoskieswine.com/

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Then we went to Falls Park in Sioux Falls to eat some lunch. It was a gorgeous day.

Then we went to Strawbale Winery. http://strawbalewinery.com/

It's also where I've gone for the quilts and vines event that I've put on my blog.

Then we went to Crook's Winery which is very close to the Strawbale Winery. The guy there is trying to sell his house/business maybe/or whatever. But we had a really nice visit with him. http://www.southdakotawinery.com/

Then we visited an apple orchard nearby but didn't buy anything.

Then we went to a winery just north of Brandon called Wilde Prairie Winery. It was interesting to visit with them too. http://www.wildeprairiewinery.com/

We bought wine from each of the wineries. The Calico Skies gave free samples, but the other three you have to buy samples and a glass for $5. One place if you do that and buy a bottle of wine they discount the wine $2. That was nice.

FALLS PARK LUNCH

APPLE ORCHARD

Another Omaha Visit

Bob had a magic club meeting in Omaha so we drove down a little early to visit with the Cardonas. We were going to go swimming at our motel, but, unfortunately, the pool was under construction and was closed. After a few tears, we went to a park and out to get a bite to eat. I guess the only pictures I got were of Logan, Aly, and someone even took a picture of me with Logan.

Next time we drive down to Omaha, we'll be able to take I-29 all the way to Council Bluffs/Omaha because they were supposed to have opened up the flooded area of the highway last Friday night. That'll be nice.

Update on Roof

Here's the roof in the middle of the repair. Notice the roof supports which held a board for the guys' support while they were up there.

The finished roof.

Roof in Need of Repair

We have a portion of our roof that needs repair. It's this side of the dormer. The shingles are curled, and it's because they were defective shingles. There was a class action suit, but it isn't really worth the trouble to pursue that so Bob is planning to repair it. Oh wait!! Bob bought all the supplies, and then he is hiring someone to get up there and do the work, and he'll help. As you can see it's a little steep up there, and he didn't really want to do the work up there. But that's OK with me.

Dry Grass Here

I know that our "drought" problems are not as bad as other parts of the country, but as you can see from these pictures of our lawn, there are definite signs of dry weather this summer here at our house. We had a pretty dry and hot July and August. We have gotten a little rain here and there especially the first part of Sept. and, of course, during the spring when the Missouri River flooded, but here we see that we still need rain to make our grass green. Hopefully it will recover when it does rain here.

This is what the ground in our garden looks like. I've also heard farmers around here say that their fields have ridges like these from the ground being so dry. This ground will probably recover once we get rain.

I don't envy the farmers who will have to clean up the flood debris and recondition their soil, etc. following the receding of the waters of the Missouri River.

I also don't envy the people who have had to recover from tornadoes, hurricanes, and wild fires.