Mosquitoes, clouds of mosquitoes, some really pretty canoeing, mosquitoes, trying to relax by lake while being bitten by mosquitoes, escaping to the tent, hunting down all mosquitoes in the the tent, listening to mosquitoes, oh, and ticks too! Lots of them!  Our first Midwest camping trip was a lot more challenging than I expected...maybe we won't be camping at any inland lakes for a while, and next time I'm going to check the park's current updates page so as not to miss the warning that was clearly posted at the top of the page saying THE MOSQUITOES HAVE HATCHED. Still, it was very pretty, and Matt and I are glad we went. We do both feel pretty tough at the moment. We're camping on Lake Superior next weekend, and I'm trying to believe the ranger who when I called to inquire, told me he had only seen one mosquito at the park...

My gocco calendar has been one of my favorite projects this past month. I got to create illustrations inspired by some of my favorite Minnesota and upper Midwest landscapes, and then figure out how to print them using my gocco press. I'm excited about how it all turned out. The photos could be better...I promise it looks better in person.
I'm only posting a few photos up here, but the whole calendar is up on ETSY too:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ilsahan

are starting to fall.

Today Matt and I discovered the Root River biking trail. The trail goes for 60 miles, and the section that we rode started in the town of Lanesboro, and offered views of the river, the usual fields of corn, adorable little towns with more than enough bike racks for everyone, and farms with barns that I kept telling myself I didn't need photos of. We are going to enjoy biking more of this trail, and in the winter, skiing it.

As kids my sister and I loved having aebleskivers for breakfast, and still love to have them on special occasion. Aebleskivers are similar to pancakes, only they're shaped like a sphere, and you can put berries in the middle. Anyhow, I do have my own Aebleskiver pan, but I was still pretty excited when I saw that we could buy an Aebleskiver pan at our local Ace Hardware. Is this a Minnesota thing, or do all Ace's have Aebleskiver pans? I think just in Minn...

I enjoyed sitting and drawing some trees in my backyard

Saturday was warm and sunny, perfect for riding bikes to farmers market. And it was an impressive market. The biggest cabbages I've ever seen, delicious heirloom tomatoes, radishes, blackberry jam, honey, and beets. Ed, I need recipes!

I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to get a lot of my favorite foods out here in Minn. And I'm pretty sure I won't find any kaffir lime leaves at our local grocery stores, but today I did find one of my favorite things - Purple Haze Goat Cheese all the way from Arcata, CA. And I found another favorite that I never saw in the East Bay...Brown Norway Goat Cheese! So I'm happy about my grocery store surprises for today.