Flooding to the south of here

Three years ago, in 2007, there were catastrophic floods in the hilly farm country of southern Minnesota. After the rebuilding, they've been struck again by even worse floods in the last few days. Thank goodness the forecast is for sun the rest of the week.

At the farm, Loren has had some water in his basement, in part because he had not yet installed his sump pump, but basically things are OK: he had one in his garage that he put in, and will have a better one installed tomorrow. No major damage to the home or any furnishings, but kind of a scare! The news is more dire for many communities.

Here is some film of the Cannon River that flows through downtown Northfield. Normally, there is a drop of several feet at the dam, but here you can see that the river has risen almost to the edge of the dam, and large logs are snagged. Some of the riverside businesses and homes are flooded. For comparison, here's a photo of this same spot from earlier in the year:



Lots of folks turned out to sandbag, to protect what areas they could.

News from Northfield

Here, by request, are the latest pictures of house construction. It's going to be done very soon! The heat works, the boiler is waiting to be installed. The tile in the shower stall has been placed. This week, the appliances will be delivered. Although some details will not be done until spring, the house will be ready to live in within the next three-four weeks
The floorboards are all laid. L. kept the oak floorboards from the Lakeville farmhouse. He also found some gorgeous old floor boards from a gym in the ReUse center; they had to sand the green lines off them. So many parts of the house are recycled, and have a story behind them. Here's what the view south looks like now, with the leaves starting to fall off the trees,and the farmers harvesting the corn and beans down the road.

We love the fall

My antidote to heartsickness: a visit from mom!

My mother will come to stay with us for about ten days at the end of October-beginning of November. She usually visits us at this time of year because it's birthday time. We'll be celebrating my daughter's birthday, and mine, a week later. Yes, we are a double Scorpio household, and we enjoy it.

This photo is from a big fall party two years ago that celebrated birthdays and anniversaries; it also included an impromptu dessert competition. We have a special chocolate cake recipe we use for birthday cake. It never fails.

In between our birthdays, there is Halloween, and the trick-or-treat gang has been planning their costumes all year. Last I heard, there was a Midsummer Night's Dream theme going on, with some influence from those Ren Fest costumes.




Although I'm sure I'll be plenty busy with work, I'm scouting out things for us to do when she get's here, because my mother is a great companion for outings of all kinds. I'll show her the new buildings: the Minneapolis Public Library, the Guthrie, the addition to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I'll take her to the St Paul Farmer's market.