Dreams, Moments, Travels
During my mother-in-law’s visit to America, I have her blogging about her stay and what she’s been doing, trying, seeing, tasting, and riding. Nearly every day she sits down at Caroline’s computer and hunts and pecks a brief description of events onto Caroline’s blog. Her target audience is her granddaughter back in Germany so she is of course writing in Deutsch. So if you read German, go on over to Caracolina.com and you can read about Jutta’s America experience in her own words.
Come on Jutta, it wouldn’t hurt so much had you not sat around so much after retirement but you’re doing great for a 73-year-old grandma!
Riding high on her success of mastering the horse, Jutta was primed for some mountain biking. Well, except that she was so wobbly we decided the stationary bike might be a better choice until she builds up some endurance. The good news, my mother-in-law only tipped over once…and I was right there to catch her. During her stay here in America we will try to get to the gym more often, walk more often, go for a swim as much as possible and if the Gods are favoring us, hike a couple of local mountains.
After only a brief 11 months away, my mother-in-law, Jutta Engelhardt is back for another vacation. Arriving in January allows her to avoid some of the worst winter weather back home in Frankfurt, Germany. This trip will be her longest in America at a grand total of 85 days, just 5 days short of what is allowed on a tourist visa. Jutta’s first visit to the United States was back in 1996 for a brief couple of weeks and then in 1997 for 21 days. The next visit was in the year 2000 for 30 days, followed by 2003 – 21 days, 2005 – 57 days, and then 2006 – 65 days. To date and including the days she will spend on this vacation, Jutta’s time in America adds up to 293 days. Maybe we’ll consider 2 more vacations for her here, each being 36 days to bring her to 365 days of vacationing in America.
Told you that I was at the farm, well it was from that farm that tonight’s dinner came from – most of it anyway. The previous weekend we bought a bunch of kaleidoscope carrots, beets, potatoes, mazuna, onions, spinach, broccoli, and turnips. We still had some of those leftovers this weekend and so into the pot they went. Dinner was steamed carrots, steamed broccoli greens, steamed beets, and southern style collard greens over brown rice and barley. This was our first time ever eating broccoli greens; I never even knew they existed. You will probably never find them in your grocery store, and for good reason, their smell is not a nice one. But once cooked, wow, they are terrific. As for the collard greens, they went into the crockpot with garlic, chipotle, plenty of onion, and some stock – yummers.
Caroline’s second attempt at dyeing was with pre-reduced indigo. This is an easier process of preparing indigo instead of the traditional cumbersome method. While she’s learning this stuff at home, another workshop in Harveyville, Kansas is coming up this spring. Nikol Lohr organizes and hosts the event, this year being held in both spring and fall. Plane tickets and a deposit have been taken care of. While in Kansas, I’ll be scoping farm properties. Eastern Kansas is hilly with lots of trees and just beautiful. This will be a busy crafts year for the wife, in March she and her mom will be attending a weekly Navajo Weaving class, then in April, the two will venture south to Tucson for a three-and-a-half-day workshop to learn all about felting. In late April is the aforementioned Yarn School in Kansas, August is the Fabulous Fiber Fest in Santa Monica, California, and in October we are off to Taos, New Mexico for the Wool Festival. If you are interested in the Spring Yarn School visit Nikol’s website at www.harveyvilleproject.com.