Busy Bea

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Rive Gauche roses @ The Meadow

Kristina B. Salmi Klotz

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Holiday Lists 2011

 

 

treats:
Eric Kimmel author reading of his new book Golem's Latkes
Oregon Symphony holiday children's concert

latkes & sour cream
olive & cream cheese penguins

 

Hanukkah party with friends in Happy Valley
pomegranates & clementines
decorating cookies with homeschoolers in Amboy
layered Italian almond cookies (with homemade almond paste!)
homeschool cookie exchange
sea salt caramels
Finnish pulla

 

homemade gravlax & Swedish limpa bread
oat cakes, quince paste, salami, Papa's favorite olives, & CHEESE!
Grandma Cam's cookies shipped from North Carolina
Christmas Morning popovers
homemade baileys irish cream
malfatti con burro e salvia (spinach dumplings in a butter-sage sauce with homemade ricotta)
Papa home for eleven days in a row!

 

things found in Bea's stocking:

Nighty Night Tea (how did he know, mom?)
orange fizzy bath powder
unicorn & penguin Japanese puzzle erasers
pick up sticks
a real fountain pen!
watercolor pencils
metallic colored pencils
modelling clay
and a baby emperor penguin finger puppet named Cheep Cheep

 

things that didn't happen:
ginger bread houses
lighting the candles all eight nights
mama's favorite maple pecan caramel corn
pumpkin seed brittle
going to mass
snow

surprises:
carolers!

 

December 12, 2011

There is way too much going on right now so it was nice to take a few minutes to notice what is going on outside on this gorgeous day.

shallots!

Hens on the heap

    Hickory

Venersborg Community Club

The events hosted by the Venersborg Community Club at their 100 year old school house are definitely planned by kindred spirits. Seed exchanges, wreath making parties, Sweethearts' Dances, Homestead Days...Next up is Apple Fest this Sunday, October 23. I'll be there cutting (and sampling) some of the more than 200 (!) heirloom varieties.

I was lucky enough to be invited to demonstrate soap making at their recent Homestead Day. It was an opportunity for folks to share some of the skills that would have been vital to the community when the schoolhouse was built a century ago. I had a chance to learn a little about spinning and wool, ogle Brenda's Heirloom Hens and the beautiful quilts made by the lady set up next to me in between demos, but missed so much more like the pickling demonstration.

Oh, I also got a lesson from Jacqueline Freeman of Friendly Haven Farm on how to make real whitewash for the chicken coop. Jason got a chance to ask questions about the finer points of goat keeping, check out the school house's old school construction, and take some of his panoramas. Bea made delicious strawberry jam with other children and helped to ring the school bell! There was a nice article and photo gallery in the Columbian about the day.

 

Rainbow Unicorn

Kristina B. Salmi Klotz http://busybea.typepad.com

Sent from my iPhone

Day Six - Part Two

Scenes from Aunt Kathe's really lovely garden which was to be the first setting for reunion activities including the pasty social.

 

I love this Finnish rug beater poking out of the flower bed.

The children went wild for the ripe sweet cherries.

Aunt Kathe and Gracie chatting with Bea.

The wedding photo of Grandma Margaret's parents Andrew and Hilda Eskelinen. They met and married soon after each immigrated to the UP from Finland. He became a sucessful cobbler and she a mother, housewife, and reportedly eager hostess.

Sent from my iPhone

Added Sept 9, 2011:

Here's where I became dissolutioned with reporting from the road. I could only include 5 photos and no videos in each post sent from my iphone. I also knew many of my photos were appearing sideways or upside down on the web. I decided to live the journey rather than document it and to catch up when we got home. That's what I aim to do now.

We were meant to have the pasty social in this enchanted garden, but Mother Nature had other plans. I think we did a whiz bang job of transforming Aunt Kathe's garage into a suitable gathering space in a very short amount of time.

Of course, it isn't a family reunion without T-shirts and Uncle Alan designed very attractive ones for us. Did you know he's also a master shirt folder?

 

 

Day Six

A lovely morning in Houghton and Hancock (Michigan).

I do believe this is the world's largest lift bridge.

 

Goofing around at one of Grandpa's favorite stores.

Flags across the street from one of my favorite independent book stores, Northwind Books at Finlandia University.

I like to spend Bea's birthday and Christmas dollars from Grandma Margaret on books from here. It was a treat to shop in person this time and we left with a rare Richard Scarry ABC book in Finnish, a new Jan Brett tale involving armadillos and cowboy boots that we just had to have for the Texas portion of our travels, a stuffed deer aptly named 'Dearest' and the comprehensive Book of Finnish Elves by Mauri Kunnas. We were first introduced to Kunnas by Uncle Alan's gift of The Canine Kalevala which is a nice introduction the epic poem for anyone and a real favorite of Bea's.

I didn't get a good photo of any, but street signs in this part of Hancock are bilingual, too, Finnish and English.

Ama, Grandpa Bob, Bea, and Dearest pose in front of the Suomi Restaurant sign. After a yummy breakfast here (pulla toast!) we were ready to head to Aunt Kathe's home and help with preparations for the reunion.

 

Sent from my iPhone

Day Five - Wisconsin & Michigan

Last night we disembarked from the California Zephyr at Union Station in Chicago. After waiting hours for our delayed arrival, Ama and Auntie Barb whisked us away to Ama and Grandpa Bob's house in Darlington, Wisconsin.

 After a brief sleep and a load of wash we were once again on the road and headed for the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Here is how we settled in at the hotel here on Hancock's waterfront:

This is where my dad, Grandpa Bob, was raised and my Grandmother Margaret and Auntie Kathe live today. This weekend we will be meeting many new cousins at the first Eskelinen family reunion.

Here is Grandma Margaret aged (almost) 88 and the last of her Eskelinen siblings looking elegant at dinner tonight. I hope we've inherited her formidable genes.

Beasy, after five solid days of travel, is set free!

Sent from my iPhone

Day Four - Crossing Iowa & Illinois

Just outside of Council Bluffs, Iowa, this farm has an unwelcome visitor- the Missouri river.

 

Letting off steam on the platform in Ottumwa, Iowa.

 

Behold the mighty Mississippi!

 

I will never tire of this landscape....

Sent from my iPhone

Day Three - Utah and Colorado

A little of this...

 

A little of that...

And lots of....

 

 

Sent from my iPhone