Double Rainbow!!

My BFF came to visit this weekend.  Since she is nothing but sunshine and light, she completely impacts the weather and environment.

This time she brought the rain and with it, a rainbow.  We sat outside under the patio shelter to enjoy the final remnants of the storm and--imagine our surprise--we noticed a second rainbow.

If you look to the right of the rainbow, you can just see the second one.  It was quite a sight!

I tried several times to get a better photo, but my little camera is hardly up to the task.

It lasted for about fifteen minutes.  The light must have been just right.  We wondered over it.  We chatted about other pretty rainbows we'd seen.

My favorites are the perfectly round ones you can see if you get the sun behind you while flying a small plane.  If you line up just right on a cloud, you can see a round rainbow.

Rainbows are a magical blend of water droplets and light.  Obviously both are made more perfect by adding my BFF.

--  Sandee Wagner

It's Shark Week!

It's possible that you don't know what Shark Week refers to... if you live in a cave, or don't get basic cable.  Shark Week is a television celebration of all shark shows, shark attack movies and shark specials.  The channel will program a full week of just those shows.

This week of programming has become so popular that it even has its own drinking game.  I kid you not.

Shark Week is a product of the marketing and programming geniuses at The Discovery Channel.  And in my family, we love it.

My oldest grandson is obsessed by sharks.  He does a countdown waiting for Shark Week, which he watches with his dad.  I found these swimming goggles and I've been told that he keeps them on while they watch the programs.  Very fun.

During my latest visit to my other grands, I found out that grandson #2 is just as wild for sharks.  He insisted on swim trunks with sharks and his beach towel is festooned with the toothy creatures.  Once I learned that, I decided he needed some shark goggles too.

His parents promised him swim goggles when he graduated from his very first round of swim lessons.  I got to watch him at two classes and he loves the water.

I bought him these goggles and he's wearing them around the house.  I'm not sure he knows about Shark Week yet, but I'm sure it will be in his future.

I think the reason that Shark Week programming was adopted by The Discovery Channel is to protect sharks.  People always think when folks are informed, they will be less scared of a predator.  I'm not sure whether or not Shark Week has helped with over fishing of the bigger sharks, but I do know that it has engaged the minds of youngsters and is killing the brain cells of college kids.

--  Sandee Wagner

Tractor and Thresher Show

I spent a week in Minnesota visiting my number two son and his lovely family.  While there, we made a short trip to Jordan, MN to attend the 49th Annual Scott Carver Thresher Association's Harvest Festival.  For a bunch of urban dwellers, this was an eye opening outing.

First and foremost, the Scott Carver Thresher Association are focused on preserving the history of their farming heritage.  Think "antique car show" and then imagine tractors in place of autos.  Really.  Rows and rows of antique but running tractors in all stages of restoration and daily usage.

There were tractors dragging trailers full of benches to ferry people from the car park to the display area of the grounds.  They even had a parade of tractors.  We saw corn being popped off the cobs, then ground into meal.  We saw wheat being threshed.  It was a big operation and very well run.  Vendors sold their wares, lots of fair food available and live music and dancing all day long.

I was quite taken with the juxtaposition of new versus old.  There was someone riding around this show on a Segway.  I walked from a building filled with steam powered antique farm equipment down a short walk to a snack bar and saw it standing parked beside the building.  It made me smile.

Fields filled with 1940's tractors still in working condition... all having been driven to their spots on the line... and still, folks drove around in golf carts labeled "I wanna be an Oliver!"

We wandered around looking at steam equipment, farm implements that run off the tractor engines, and stuff that's pulled behind to harvest all kinds of crops.  They even had a working sawmill set up to show how farmers made their own boards from felled trees using their farm engines to power the milling equipment.

This whole operation was celebrating the working farm and its historical roots.  Great fun!

One of the obvious crowd favorites was the "Priceless 88" a pink Oliver tractor with custom painted lettering proclaiming that she was "pulling for Papa".

While we were admiring this tractor fit for a princess, the owner came up and offered to let us take a picture of our princess aboard.  She even dried the seat off before we set my granddaughter on the seat.

She wanted to drive it, and I got the feeling that she wasn't much younger than the farm kids were when they learned how to drive these things.

Since this festival is a harvest festival, one of the operations that went full time was wheat threshing.  We watched for a while.  I had no idea what was happening, so I asked an older gentleman who was also in the crowd.  He explained the operation and then laughed at us city dwellers.  That long belt is connected to the tractor motor.  Two guys use pitchforks to shovel wheat onto the conveyor belt.  The threshing machine whacks the heads off the wheat stalks, then winnows and filters the wheat berries/seeds into that red hopper while the chaff is shot out into a pile that you can just see at the right of the hopper.  It was really an elegantly simple process.  I guess that is what works long term in farming.  Simple.  Elegant.

I really recommend this festival (the first weekend in August is glorious in Minnesota) for anyone.  It was a fun family outing filled with interesting gadgetry, antique equipment and lots of educational opportunities.

--  Sandee Wagner

For Marilyn, the biggest Tractor I've Ever Seen!

Just for a reference point, my son is six foot two inches tall and my grandkids are GORGEOUS!!