Herbster sunset and antenna work

When we got to the Herbster Campground on Monday, Carl continued work on the UHF/VHF antenna that he had started over the weekend,

Antenna parts and components being assembled on the picnic table...

... and it is installed!

Our campsite at Herbster Campground

We knew that sunsets might be quite brilliant from this location, across Lake Superior, so we'd been keeping watch and we headed out Monday evening as the sun was about to be swallowed by the lake...

Carl got out there first and was enjoying the view from the bench...

... as the sun just touches the water (can you hear the "hiss" as the sun boils the water?)...

Last sliver...

... and it is gone.

 

Herbster Campground

On Monday, we drove just a short distance up Wisconsin-13 to Herbster, Wisconsin, and the Herbster Campground.

It is right on the shore of Lake Superior, so we headed over to enjoy the lake for a couple of hours on Monday afternoon, since the weather forecast is not favorable for pretty beach weather for the next several days...

Looking north east...

...looking south west.

Patti braved the cold water to see if it was bearable...

... so then Carl did too...

... it isn't unbearable...

But the ground felt a bit unstable, and we found we really had to watch our step.

And though dipping your toes in got a thumbs-up, any further swimming activity got a thumbs down from us... though there were a few others who were brave enough to get in and do some swimming, stand-up paddle boarding, and kayaking.

On Tuesday morning, the medium blue pointer near the right of center is where we are... it looks like we might be in for quite a bit of rain! Good day to do some picture scanning!!!

Such a nice visit with friends!

We were so welcomed by friends Rich and Marcia at their beautiful home and property near Superior, Wisconsin...

We said "Good-bye!" and "Hope to see you soon!" on Monday as we headed east along the coast of Lake Superior.

 

Happy Independence Day! and work on an amateur radio antenna

Happy Independence Day!

We are visiting friends near Superior, WI. Their involvement with ham radio got Carl inspired to get an antenna put together that he has had, still in the packaging in Gracie's storage bay, for several months...

It is out of (most of the) packaging!

Better check the instructions!

The new VHF/UHF (2m/70cm) antenna is mostly assembled, but will probably wait until our next campground to get deployed. Something new for Carl to work and/or play with!

Our site at Dragsmith Farms

Our Harvest Hosts site at Dragsmith Farms was near the farmhouse and along side the river... just a couple of pictures...

Gracie on the old barn site which was next to the farmhouse.

Looking over toward the river - you can see a canoe pulled up on the bank. The grass was very "crunchy" -- so dry in this area of Wisconsin.

Humbird, Eau Claire, and Barron, WI

After a very restful night's sleep, serenaded by frogs and some birds, on Thursday morning we decided to bike over to the Farm Store at Scholze Family Farm to make some purchases.

We are lazy and didn't want to unhook the Jeep if we didn't need to...

...and biking gets us a little exercise...

... generally exercise is harder to fit into our schedule on travel days.

Over near the farm store we saw the weanlings all in a mass in the field. They had a yellow tag-type thing in their noses -- we asked and the farmer said that it keeps them from sucking on each other... I found something like it on the web: https://quietwean.com/ -- though that seems to be intended to prevent them from nursing their mother.

The Farm Store

Information from their brochure about their cattle.

We brought our purchases back to Gracie and got them into the freezer (the meat was already frozen) - we'll enjoy it later in July!

We did not have a long drive planned for Thursday, so we left after having lunch and a nap.

We had looked at another Harvest Host location that was in Eau Claire - it sounded interesting, and was about halfway to our planned overnight Harvest Host location, so we decided to stop just to have a break. We figured if they had enough room to support overnight visitors, then they would probably have room for us to stop for a look around too!

It was a combination coffee house, micro-brewery, and store selling all sort of local goods. https://www.thecoffeegrounds.com/

We enjoyed looking at all the interesting things in the shopping area, and Carl enjoyed a mug of coffee. 

From there, we drove up US 53 to Barron, WI, where we had reservations to stay at a produce farm, Dragsmith Farms (https://www.dragsmithfarms.com/). After getting parked at the old barn site near the river, we drove the Jeep back over to the farm store to get some produce.

We selected some mixed greens, and then went into the greenhouse to have some small head lettuces cut for us...

Beautiful small head lettuces

Gail recommended a few and then cut them for us...

Yum! That's about as fresh as you can get your salad!

All around this area there are large poultry raising houses with turkeys...

They are not part of Dragsmith farms, but other farmers who produce turkeys for Jennie-O.

When on a farm (whether our family farm in Virginia or various others we might visit), we are reminded what a tough job it is and how thankful we are that people are willing to do this task to provide food and sustenance for all the rest of us. Wednesday at Scholze Farm they were getting in hay for haylage -- I asked Theo why they made haylage instead of baled hay and he said that they just don't get enough drying weather to bale hay. He said if they need rain, he just cuts hay, and rain is pretty much guaranteed! For Dragsmith, if you visit their website, you'll see that they are recovering from a tornado that hit last year on July 18, taking out all but one of their greenhouses. Gail mentioned that when bird flu came through 2+ years ago, one of the local turkey farmers had just gotten young birds, the disease was found in a few of them, and they had to kill 187,000 birds across all of their raising houses.

Gail also told us (as I recall the story) that they had been growing produce for local sales and farmers' markets, but then a well-known chef came one day (from Minneapolis?) and made an arrangement with them that Dragsmith Farms would provide the greens for the exclusive restaurant where he is the chef. That led to contracts with other restaurants and they now have great demand for their product without the need to go to weekly markets -- what a great story! They still offer farm shares for local folks to be able to enjoy their products. 

North to Humbird, WI

On Wednesday, we drove up US-12, I-90/94, I-94, and US-12 to Humbird, WI, where we stopped at our 7th Harvest Host location, Scholtze Family Beef/Farms (https://www.scholzefamilybeef.com/) near Humbird, WI. 

Before we left Baraboo and the Quartzite campground, Miss Kitty had found a new place to get some sun!

We had "lost" her for a few minutes before we realized where she had settled!

Also before pulling out, we drove down to the North Shore beach area...

... it had been cloudy and overcast most of the time we were at Devil's Lake State Park...

...but Wednesday was beautiful, and there were a LOT of people out enjoying the beach!

We only had about a 2 hour drive to make it to the Scholtze Family Farm... so after dumping our tanks at the campground and filling our fresh tank with water, we headed out for our relatively short journey.

When we got to the farm, we weren't certain where to go, but soon a youngster came to us and said his dad would be coming soon. The boy and his dad drove their Gator over to another part of the farm...

... guiding us to the place for us to park.

The location is right in the middle of corn fields,

... next to a pond - well away from the area where there is a lot of activity.

It is a beautiful location.

Very peaceful! You can also see our solar panels on top of Gracie!

We are really enjoying our Harvest Host stays! (https://harvesthosts.com/) Definitely preferable to stays at Walmart. When I had looked at joining Harvest Hosts in the past, I felt that it would not be worth our while because we would normally do one-night boondock stays on our way from one place to another, and Walmarts were normally right by the highway and easy to get in-and-out. While we have had to go a little further, in some cases, to stop at a Harvest Host, the locations are so much nicer. 

One of the concepts with Harvest Host is that we will spend $20-30 to purchase products or services from the host. Here we plan to purchase some beef, and maybe some cheese curds, from the Farm Store on Thursday before leaving.

A funny story: I had located a Harvest Host location in Rockford, IL, thinking we may need it if we were going straight from Amboy, IL to Madison, WI (we ended up staying at Paul Wolff and meeting up with friends). The host was a funeral home and cremation services... I am not certain what services or products we could have purchased from them! Other Harvest Host members who have stayed there have indicated that it is a pleasant and quiet stay, but not what they might have purchased.

This reminded me of another "funny" story... at least, it is funny looking back. When Dwayne passed away, knowing he was to be cremated, I shopped for urns on Amazon. I ended up purchasing two urns that were just alike, one for him and one (eventually) for me. I found it odd (funny?) that there were some urns on Amazon that had "subscribe and save" prices (if you sign up to purchase certain products on a regular basis (1 a month, 6 every 3 months, or whatever) you get a better price -- think like toilet paper or supplements). But, just *who* would sign up for subscribe and save on a cremation urn? A serial killer?

There was also marketing gone wrong from Amazon -- for a while after my purchase, they recommended other urns I may wish to buy, based on my purchase history. I can understand how their marketing routine would have thought that was appropriate, but, that's one of the times that there should be an override in the programming.