Susie's Roadhouse Saloon

Saturday night we decided to take a trip to Ostrander, MN and have dinner at Susie's Roadhouse Saloon. It was recommended to us by a friend, and we needed to get out of town and do something a little different...

It was an interesting drive to Ostrander due to all the snow and the drifting of snow that has happened over the past month. There were some pretty impressive drifts along some of the roads, farm building, and fence lines.

When we got to Ostrander, we drove right past Susie's because the sign was not lit. We knew in a blink of an eye we'd missed it since Ostrander is not that big...so we turned around, parked the car, and walked to the "business district" where we located Susies.

Susie's is one of those great little out of the way spots where the waitresses call everyone "Sweetie" and "Honey" but won't take any crap from anyone...when you sit down you're given a basket of peanuts in the shells and popcorn. You just brush the peanut shells on the floor, and someone probably sweeps the floor once in a blue moon.

Anyway, the steaks and food were great...and the atmosphere is that of a traditional midwest small town bar/grill. So, it was a lot of fun for us. We'll certainly go back.

Frosty Trees

Yesterday morning the trees on the west side of the Zumbro River were covered with frost from the mist that was rising out of the river. It was very beautiful, so I snapped a few pictures. Enjoy!

Roses

Richard bought some roses the other day. They certainly did help to brighten things up and make it feel like spring is just a little bit closer.

Of course, Gizzy wanted to eat them right away. Can you blame her? Luckily, I put them high enough that she can't reach them. At 17 years old, she just can't jump like she did when she was a young cat.

Enjoy!

Copycat Churches and Silly Signs

As we're driving around town, I always like to take note of some of the sayings on church signs. One of the local churches posted this silly one recently -- "Is God your steering wheel or your spare tire?" The really funny thing is that a week later, another church in town (different denomination) copied it for their church sign.

Well, if their God is viewed as a steering wheel, then their God is something that YOU manipulate to get wherever YOU want to go. A steering wheel has no choice but to turn the way YOU turn it...doesn't sound like a good Christian view of God, and I don't think that's what they intended...At least I can understand the spare tire part of the analogy, but I don't think they view God as a "spare tire" either.

Thanks for the laughs guys anyway!

I must be getting used to it.

The temperature was 4 below zero this morning, but it didn't seem all that bad. I guess I'm getting used to it. In looking at the long range forecast, we may finally get above freezing next Friday! That's going to be so nice and balmy compared to our weather this year.

I can certainly tell that the days are getting longer now. I'm getting to work around the time the sun rises instead of arriving when it's dark. Lately, both the sunrises and sunsets have been quite beautiful. The other day there was a spectacular bright orange sun pillar against a background of light orange clouds. It was such a beautiful sunset, but of course I didn't have my camera with me.

The More I Think About It...

I did a little bit of research/reading on William Wallace, Edward I, Edward II, etc...the more I think about it, the more I think that the movie Braveheart really missed the boat!!! I actually think the movie could have been better if they would have been more accurate with the portrayals of the events and people...and if they would have had someone other than Mel Gibson play William Wallace. His acting really wasn't all that good...and the most laughable part of the movie is the fact that belted kilts weren't worn at the time of William Wallace. The highlanders started to wear kilts near the end of the 16th century and William Wallace died in the year 1305...oops!!! How could they make such a mistake???

Busy Weekend and Spring Fever

Even despite the cold weather that Mother Nature has been giving us (it's currently -5 F), it's turned out to be a busy weekend. Yesterday, we had a friend over for a pancake breakfast, we went to the Home Builders' Show here in town, and we watched the movie "Braveheart". Today, I've been keeping wood on the fire in our fireplace, finishing up Richard's taxes, and doing laundry...oh and browsing for plants on eBay. I'm ready for spring and wondering how the perennials that I planted last year have survived the winter. I'm also excited to see if the 120 daffodil bulbs that I planted are going to come up. I'll certainly post pictures if anything survived ;-)

Just a note about "Braveheart"...I wish the movie would have been more historically accurate. Sticking more closely to the historical facts would have made it just as good of a movie or even better. I'm also certainly not a Mel Gibson fan, but it was still OK to watch.

More freezing fog

We had more freezing fog overnight. This time, the ice crystals were even thicker on the trees and pretty much everything else. Unfortunately, it was too dark before I left for work to get any good pictures, and I'm sure that by noon most of the ice will be off the trees.

I really don't mind winter weather like this. I don't even mind the bitter cold that we get here in Minnesota. About the only thing I don't like about winter is driving on slippery roads and having to shovel or blow out the driveway.

Freezing Fog

This morning we had freezing fog. It made Richard's drive to work rather difficult. He had a hard time seeing the road between the thick fog and the ice crystals that were condensing out of the fog.

The nice side effect of the fog was a frosty coating on the trees. Here's a picture a I took this morning of some pine cones. Enjoy!

Disappearing Cat

Yesterday, we had a relatively warm and sunny day. The temperature didn't make it above freezing, but it was still significantly warmer than earlier in the week. When I took Weezer out into the backyard for his lunchtime break, Puff decided she'd follow us since it did seem warmer.

She climbed up on our retaining wall and tried walking along the 1/2 inch edge or so of the wall that didn't have snow on it. She did a pretty good balancing act. Eventually though, she decided she'd had enough of trying to walk on the edge. So, she made her way along the edge to a nearby pile of snow that was a few feet from the retaining wall. She crouched down and jumped head-first into the snow. Poof!!! She completely disappeared in a cloud of fluffy snow!

Of course she immediately jumped out of the snow and ran to the patio door, but she was completely covered in snow by that point.

I just stood there and laughed at her and then let her in the house...

Anniversary

It's been a year since I bought the new house. Tomorrow, it will be a year since Richard and I started living there. My first memory of the new house is shoveling the driveway. We knew we'd have to shovel it, so on the way over to the closing on the house we stopped by a nearby hardware store and bought a snow shovel...we definitely have more snow this year at this time than last year. However, last year we had a couple of big snow storms after we moved in. One of them caused drifts so high that the tops of the drifts were as tall as our retaining walls. We haven't had that amount of snow yet, but who knows what February and March will bring.