Birthday at the Farm

Yesterday Dad and I drove up to Standish to celebrate Uncle Louie's 82nd birthday. Louie is my dad's little brother and my one remaining uncle. Some of the cousins finally went through the necessary paperwork to get the Centennial Farm designation. It was Albert and Mary who built the farm. No one in the family knows anything about Albert's parents, although there is a rumor he may have run a house of ill repute in a neighboring town.

When we got out to my dad's car to start up there yesterday, the battery was dead. After leaving it overnight on the charger, it's still dead, so I am in town to buy a new one today.Glad this happened while I"m here to help.

It was the usual entertaining chaos up at the farm, with kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids all wandering through. Cousin Doug gave me two huge Kossak kohlrabi out of his garden... 3 or 4 pounds each. He's got every flavor of basil imaginable in his garden: pineapple, cinnamon, lime; I did not know these things existed.  I also scored a handful of fresh tomatillos and one of the last cukes of  the season.

On the way home made our usual stop to buy jerky and smoked whitefish, and we had a fine dinner of smoked fish and kohlrabi while watching Marty Stewart. 

Tuesday will find me driving down to  Grand Rapids where I will spend a couple of days wandering through Art Prize: 1537 entries at 174 locations around the city. Likely I won't make it to all of them. Check it out at http://www.artprize.org/ 

I'm hoping the weather improves as I'd also like to explore some bike trails in Grand Rapids.  It's been 45-50 with sporadic rain for the past couple of days, and we got a full 2 inches dumped on us one night, complete with a  little bit of thunder and lightning.