Farm, Rain, and Macaroni Salad

I know I'm in the midwest... lunch at two salad bars in the past two days, and they both had four different types of macaroni salad.  Yesterday's lunch was at Wheeler's, in Standish, where my dad grew up. Wheeler's  is our traditional stop when we drive up to the Hagley farm for a visit. It's been there since 1935 and has some of the best chicken noodle soup I've had anywhere, with homemade noodles.  They still have those cool individual jukebox things in the booths, although sadly I don't think they work anymore.

After lunch we drove out to the farm. I'm sure I've written about this before, but here goes anyway. It's a Centennial farm, started by my dad's grandfather, and now being run by the 4th and 5th generations, with the 6th generation starting to help a little. One of that generation, Delia, is raising chickens and pheasants to show at the fair this fall. Parts of the 3rd through 6th generations live in several houses scattered around the farm, and there's a continuous parade of them through Grampa Louie and Gramma Gin's (my aunt and uncle) house. I love seeing this!

While we were there I finally got the big close-in flash bang thunderstorm I'd been wanting. It can stop raining now, thank you. The farmers up there haven't been able to plant yet because the ground is so wet, and it's getting late. The golf course and park in Midland are still underwater, and I need the river to go back down another foot or so before I can kayak.

Today I went to lunch with my cousin Pat, here in Midland. She's from the Whittington (mom's) side of the family, and we always enjoy reminiscing about Vera (my mom), Onie (her mom), Dorothy and Marie, the four sisters and Grandma, and five very strong, loving, wonderful woman that we miss so much.

Dorothy, Marie, Grandma, Onie, and Vera

Fifty baby pheasants!

Tiny pheasant. That's Delia holding him or her.

Below, two short videos for your enjoyment. Still can't figure out how to caption them, but one is "floating down the Chippewa", and one is "Frog Chorus"... which is a bit of a waste of bandwidth since the video is just black, but crank up the sound on this one!