Carleton College Northfield, MN
There's a Japanese-style garden behind my dorm at Carleton College. I'm staying here for the week for an Advanced Placement Teachers Institute to learn about the redesign of the AP course I teach: AP Government and Politics US. The garden has been a peaceful place and perfect for me to practice parts of the First degree. I'm going back over it to refresh my memory.

I passed my examination and wrote it about it on this blog, and it's coming back. I have used much of what I've learned in memorizing the Entered Apprentice degree, but it's helpful for me to go back over all of it, in order.

Petunias and blizzards

I started my petunia and impatiens seed yesterday. Not that a blizzard warning makes for a good time to start seeds indoors, but it was comforting to me. I suppose it was the promise of spring that brightened an otherwise cold and snowy evening. Or maybe it was the nature of a seed that sparked my imagination, and not just any seed, but a petunia seed, which has to be about the smallest seed I’ve ever started indoors. These tiny, somewhat ugly, specks will turn into months of colorful flowers.

This is just the third year I’ve started seeds indoors under lights for replanting later in our garden. I wanted to try petunias and impatiens this year in part because of the economy of planting seeds instead of buying transplants. Even after the cost of my additional seed starting equipment, I’ll save money. Now, I’m not sure I’ll consider that such a strong reason in the future. I wasn’t thinking about dollars and cents last night while the wind howled and my 2 ½ year-old son watched as I planted these tiny seeds. And when I see their first blooms this spring and think back to that cold winter’s night, I doubt I’ll be thinking money, either.

Sweet Pickles

Our sweet pickles have moved from the brine to the sugar syrup stage of production. They soak in the syrup for four days before going into the Mason jars. At the end of each of the four days, I drain the syrup from the pickles, boil the syrup, and then pour it back over the pickles.

The syrup solution is incredibly sweet: 2 parts sugar to 1 part vinegar. I harvested just over 2 gallons of cucumbers and that meant a staggering 10 pounds of sugar and ½ gallon of vinegar, plus assorted spices.

Iowa State Fair

I attended the Iowa State Fair on opening day, Thursday, August 12 with my family. The heat index that day was 110 so we didn't stay too long. We did have time to see some of the sites we enjoy most: the quilts in the Varied Industries Building, the Discovery Garden outside the Agriculture Building, the animal barns, and a couple of politicians. I had a dutch letter and 2 lemonades.

I'll go back to the fair this weekend on Saturday and Sunday to volunteer at the Discovery Garden. The Garden is sponsored by the Polk County Master Gardeners (PCMG) and I started volunteering there last year to earn my yearly re-certification hours as a PCMG. ISU Extension sponsors the PCMG and I've enjoyed learning from ISU professors, Extension staff, and other veteran gardeners.

By the way, I took the picture above on Thursday morning a about 9AM- that's why te Grand Concourse looks so empty. I imagine today and tomorrow will be a different story.