The Brimson Market

Brimson is not a town, or a gas station, or a street, or anything like that. It must be a geographically defined area - that's all I can figure. It's where I live in the summer. Actually, I live in Fairbanks, but that doesn't exist at all anymore. Someone even came along and sawed off the road signs. That made me both sad and mad. I used to be able to give people directions by saying, I'm the first driveway after the Fairbanks sign. No more. Now I have to get all involved with the Bundle Lake Road and Pauline's Bait Shop. It's much more complicated.
Brimson has a market, a farmer's market and the farmer is Diane. I think the market is about four years old now but I discovered it two years ago. I knew about it the previous summer, but never got up on Saturday mornings to get over there. There is this area off highway 44 where there are two garages. One is for the fire truck and ambulance and where the post office is located. The other garage is a mystery to me - although it's where I purchased "My Beauty" - see story below (Going Green In White). The land just in front of the garages is where we have the market.
Yes, I am now a participant in the Brimson Market. See, last year on my way to Minneapolis, I happened to go right past the market and stopped. I bought some cranberry scones for Susie and Gary and something about the set-up made me want to be a part of the whole thing. I asked if there was anything I needed to do and the answer was, "No, just come on over." The scones were a huge hit. "Best I ever ate," said Gary.
You probably have an idea in your mind of what this Brimson Market must be like. First of all, whatever your idea is, make it smaller. Now smaller. And finally, think tiny. The Market is Diane, Sherry, Jan, Pam, me, Joy this year, and sometimes Lisat (I think that's her name). Other people will come, but they don't come back. Not that I've noticed anyway.
Diane, as I said, is the actual farmer. Lettuce, garlic, squash, greens of all kinds, cucumbers (OK, those are Mike's), and tomatoes sell out in a flash. She also makes pesto - boy was that yummy.
Sherry sells the scones and home made bread. I've never actually seen the bread, because the first two or three people who show up buy it all. She also makes and sells note cards with photographs of local flowers. They're so pretty. Her latest venture is caps made of hand made felt.
Jan is seventy-eight, I believe. Short, but a real fire cracker. Every week, the same purple, fur lined, galoshes. She sells plants mostly, but also odds and ends and "antiques". She has large gardens on her property which I think are filled with plants and flowers. Her peonies this year were spectacular.
Pam knows all about herbs and uses for local plants which she makes into salves and ointments which she sells. I think she also conducts classes. There were some young people who I think were staying with her this summer and learning.
Joy is new this year. She's a summer resident (Diane, Sherry, and Pam are year-rounders), from Washington D.C. and she makes jewelry. I don't even wear jewelry, but I couldn't resist one of her necklaces. She also remembers playing cards at the cabin because her parents were friends of my parents.
Lisat makes quick breads (green tomato and zucchini) and Italian wedding cookies that are to die for. She also makes baby quilts and sells fabrics and the cookbook from Pequan Lake where she lives. It's over twenty miles away so we don't see her every Saturday.
Then there's me. What could I make that would sell at this market? The only thing that is originally mine is a variation of an oatmeal cookie recipe from The Joy of Cooking. I add a bunch of spices, so mine are oatmeal spice cookies. This year I also thought I invented chocolate brownie cookies, until Don told me he saw them on sale at Cub's. I was mad. The big seller this year though? Biscotti.
The wonderful thing about the market is just being there. Spending time during the week making the cookies, but then getting up early Saturday morning, loading everything in the car, including Mom's old bridge table, and seeing these people who have become so special to me. It's also fun to think about the people who have bought my cookies. Did they like them? This year one lady came back and said she had an order from her husband for more cookies. That made me so happy. The whole experience makes me happy.

When you go inside, don't be mad

Those were his last words to me before I left Duluth for my long-anticipated trip to the cabin. "What? Why will I be mad? Is it a mess? Did you and your buddies destroy the place this winter?"
"No, never mind, just don't be mad."

This is typical Don. Without him, there would be no cabin in the summer. With him, however, there is dirty carpet, dog hairs on the bedding, and the one I'll never let him live down, the ruined Martha Stewart cookie sheet.
What could it be this year? Visions of complete filth filled my head. Instead of just relaxing, I'll have to spend I don't know how much time cleaning.

Up the stairs to the deck - everything's the same - into the screen enclosure and unlock the door to the front porch - no changes here. Finally, I unlock the main cabin door and enter. Well, the furniture's been rearranged, but it looks very nice. Is that the surprise? No big deal. Hey, wait a minute! What is that huge thing in the corner? With dark metal edges and glass plates on two sides, it looks like the snake cage from the zoo and it's big enough to keep pythons; anacondas even. And it has what appears to be a fake snake habitat in it. What is this thing? As I walk slowly toward it, and notice the faceted, aluminum pipe rising from it and curving into and through the outside wall, I realize that I am now the proud "owner" of a gas fireplace, complete with fake logs. This fireplace idea of his has been run past me for a long, long time. "A fireplace would be great in here." "Exactly why do I need a fireplace in the summer?" "It will increase the value of the cabin." "First of all, I don't ever plan to sell it, and secondly my taxes are already going up yearly."

This is not the first time "The Donald" has surprised me with new additions. Much of the furniture in the cabin has nothing to do with me, nor was I asked if I wanted or needed it. Yet, now that it's there I love it all; the wing chairs, the sofa, a coffee table, the table and chairs, all of it. Well, not quite all of it. There is Don's favorite chair which I would happily leave on the side of the road with a FREE sign. It's a giant, blue recliner with families of spiders who live inside.
For many months after the new shed was built he asked over and over what I would be doing with the dilapidated, little green shed. "I don't know" was my only answer. The following year the shed had disappeared from it's aboriginal spot and had transported itself closer to the lake. It also had a new floor, a split wood interior, benches, and was sporting a wood stove. The shed had become a sauna. "Thank you for the sauna, Don. I never take saunas." "You will." I never have.
This creativity in managing me is part is part of the charm of "The Donald." He wants a fireplace. He runs it past me. I turn it down. He keeps bringing up the subject. Finally, knowing by that time just exactly how mad I'll be, he finds a bargain and figures he can put up with my harassment. So "I" now have a gas fireplace that everyone but me thinks is lovely. Every time I notice it I wonder how the snake is doing.

Going Green In White

Yes, going "green" is in everyone's thoughts and I'm no different - just selfish. See it really had nothing to do with the environment, it had to do with my olfactory senses. If you've never slept in sheets that were hung out to dry, you don't know the magic of that smell. No, "Fresh Linen" by Renuzit doesn't even come close - unless your idea of fresh air is a chemical factory. So one day I decided it was time to buy a clothes line. A mail order, Internet purchased clothes line. In no time at all here it was. Let's see, now I have to dig a hole and put it up. In Northern Minnesota, in these glacier created lands, digging holes is quite a challenge because the ground is one part soil and ninety-nine parts rocks - big rocks. But when you're determined, anything is possible - and I was determined. So carefully and with much bending over and picking out rock after rock, I was able to get a fairly decent hole dug. No, of course I didn't follow the directions and pour cement in there to create anything permanent. The area I'm using has to be completely excavated for a new septic system - one of these years.
Into the hole I put a short length of PVC pipe and into the pipe went the holder for the clothes line. Then I used rocks to keep the holder in place. I opened the clothes line like an umbrella and stuck it in the holder. Voila! My dream clothes line. In moments, the whole thing began to closely resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa. More rocks, more gravel, more straightening - OK, it's not perfect, but clothes won't touch the ground. Now for the "fun" part...washing the clothes.
No, I don't have a clothes washer, nor even a wash tub. What can I use? How about some rectangular plastic containers with lids that I use to store old linens? That'll work. One for washing and one for rinsing. Everything was going about as well as could be expected until I began the wringing part. See, you have to wring out everything before you rinse it and then you have to wring it all out again before you hang it up. By the time I was done, both hands were a mass of blisters. Yes, everything smelled great - although quite stiff - but I could no longer move my fingers. I needed a wringer - thus the quest began.
Finding the clothes line was a piece of cake so how hard could it be to find a wringer? Pretty darn hard. Seems that the only folks interested in wringers these days are large car wash operations. I wasn't about to spend seven hundred dollars for a wall-mounted wringer. Well, how about going whole hog and buying a wringer washing machine? Do they still make these? They sure do, and for a mere $1,100 you too can have a brand new model. Not including shipping. I don't think so. How about ebay? Yes, there are some old wringer-washers there which all seem to have an opening price of $120.
The following Saturday, at the Brimson Market, where I was selling my Oatmeal Spice cookies, I mentioned my search to Diane of Ladyslipper Organic Farm. "We have an old wringer, do you want to see it?" "Wow, that would be great." But, the summer passed and I never got over there. This year, my first summer Saturday with cookies came, and back to the market I went. Well, things are changing. Diane and Sherry both have tents this year - that's festive. The garage where town equipment is kept is open and there are odds and ends for sale. Let me look around. Oh my gosh, there's the wringer. It truly is an antique. Made of wood with a handle, it sits on a stand and I assume you put your foot on it to hold it while you wring. I would feel terrible using a true antique for it's original purpose. But what's this? Right next to the wringer is a squat, white, wringer washing machine. I could feel my laundry hormones surging. And the price? I hope you're sitting down. Diane was asking $20 for this piece of American history. She proudly plugged it in and showed me how it agitated and how the wringer worked. I was entranced, smitten. Did I want it? I was in love, of course I wanted it.
Diane, Lynn and I put it in Diane's truck and she drove it over to the cabin and I lovingly put it in the shed. Nancy and Bobette were visiting for the weekend and they pretty much thought I had lost my mind. Nevertheless, the very next Monday, I was ready to try her out. I wheeled her onto a platform of planks that I made from some that were under the deck and I started to fill her with water. Suddenly, the water was all over the planks and not in the tub. Ah, the hoses are bad. OK, let me get on my back and see what's going on.
There are two hoses, and with a great deal of grunting, screwdrivering, and plyering, I managed to get them off. OK, hoses - that can't be too hard. I bet they even have some in Two Harbors at the Tru-Value. Well no, they don't. I'm surprised at that and realize I'll have to go to Duluth for this major item. I did check the Internet, of course, and found the Maytag club. Yes, she's a Maytag, manufactured in the 1940's, is the N Model, and called the Chieftain. I found lots of information about the motor and none about the hoses. I'm pretty sure that the Maytag club is a guys club.
Bringing the old hoses with me, I'm first sent (from the plumbing supplies store in Two Harbors) to a big repair center for just about everything. It's in the area around the airport in Duluth. As I walk in, I'm sure they'll have just what I need. "Hmmm", the man behind the counter scratches his head as he looks at the hoses, pulls out the Maytag parts catalog, says "Just as I thought" and swivels the book around to me as he points to the words, "no longer available". "What should I do?" "Try the big auto parts place." The weather, which had been lovely when I left the cabin, had become a sea of fog - so dense that I had to open the window to see. I made it to the auto parts place and the young guy - with direction from an older man, went to look for something similar to the hoses I'd brought in. As the minutes passed, it got quite a bit darker and suddenly, there was a huge flash...boom. The sky opened up and it was a downpour. "Nope, we don't have it." "What?" "This is the closest I could come and it's not even close." So I got to spend the next half hour browsing auto parts while the sky continued to pour mass quantities of water over Duluth. Finally, I decided that I'd just get wet and I ran out to the car. Yes, of course I went to the Home Depot - nothing. Defeat. My love affair with the Maytag was being sorely tested.
Back at the cabin, I paid a visit to my friends Chris and Bill who bought the old farmhouse and then built a cabin closer to the lake. Bill can do anything and is currently adding a beautiful enclosed porch on one end of the new cabin. I told him my tale of woe and he recommended L & M in Virginia. "Never heard of it." "It's huge. They're bound to have it." I hotfooted it right over there. It's a big place all right and kind of confusing. I think it's aimed at farmers and builders. All kinds of everything - including snacks. An odd place. I find someone to help me, but it looks like I'm going to strike out again. They don't have exactly what I need. Now I'm giving up on getting duplicate hoses and am looking for alternatives. Finally, he shows me a washing machine hose that's the wrong size, but it's too big and most importantly, it's flexible. I figure that with a small enough clamp I can tighten it onto the metal end. Sure enough, it worked perfectly.
Now I have everything I need to do laundry and I proceed with my first multi-loads; whites, colors, darks. The machine works like a dream. While it's agitating I use the old, rusty, child's wagon, which I load with dirt from the gravel piles I have on hand for future lawn leveling, and fill holes. After a load is finished, I wring it through the wringer, put it in a big tub that I found at the Family Dollar store in Aurora, and let it soak in water. After everything is done, I drain the soapy water, wring out the soaking clothes, agitate them in clear water, rinse, wring and finally hang to dry.
Nancy had mentioned the stiffness which I attribute to too much soap clinging to the fabrics. What I need is a clothes softener. Back to Google and I find a recipe for home made clothes softener. There are only three ingredients; baking soda, water, and vinegar. Baking soda and vinegar? Isn't there some sort of chemical reaction if you put those two ingredients together? Seems to me there is. Maybe, if I dissolve the baking soda in the water first it negates the reaction. Guess what? No. Luckily, I was doing this right by the sink so the reaction - which is similar to shaking a warm can of Coke as hard as you can and then opening it - didn't make too huge of a mess. It did work very well to make the clothes softer.
So now I'm green. I no longer drive the twenty-five miles to the laundromat in Aurora. Nor do I spend about $6 each time to wash and dry everything. Yes, it takes about three and a half hours to do all the laundry in "My Beauty" and about another three hours before everything gets dry, but my dears...the smell...that wonderful smell. It's better than any lullaby.

The Rug That Wanted To Be A Fish

It all started with a trip to the library in Florida. Browsing...browsing...nothing of interest. How about a video? Comedies...dramas...how to's. Say, here's an interesting one, "How to Make a Braided Wool Rug." I take it home and watch it carefully. The downsides? You need to purchase a special tool, and wool material is pretty pricey. The reason this idea appealed at all was the shabby and getting shabbier condition of the oval, wool, braided rug at the cabin. I'd priced new ones and they were in the many hundreds of dollars and even into the thousands. For the cabin? I don't think so.
The following summer, on a visit to the Ben Franklin in Hoyt Lakes, I notice a sale on cotton fabrics. $1.00 a yard? I'm all over that. Lovely pinks, red flowers, white backgrounds, blues - this is going to be so cheery. How about I take the fabrics, tear them into strips, braid the strips, and make myself a cotton braided rug? Genius!
Then followed many hours of tearing fabric. After that step was completed it was time to turn the strips into braids. You know braids - like a little girl's hair. Three strips, hold the left one, right over center, left over right. Gotta be careful to turn those frayed edges in to create a nice smooth edge. Then figuring out how to connect the end of one braid to the beginning of the next so it would hold tightly and be invisible. On and on and on. Feet of braid, yards of braid, miles of braid. Enough braid to get to the moon and back. OK, that should be about enough.
Now to go about attaching the braid to itself so it will form a round shape. How hard could this be? Just take strips of fabric and use them like thread to "sew" the braid into an oval or a circle. Everything was going just fine at first. Yes, there's the center, now I just have to keep the tension of the thread loose and it'll be a done deal. Wait a minute, the edges are turning up. Maybe the tension is too tight. I take out all the connecting fabric and start again. The next try...same thing. I pull it all out again. Finally, after the third time, with great attention to fabric tension and the edges still turning, I decide that perhaps I'll turn this into a big, floppy hat. But no, much to my chagrin, after the initial turning up and widening out, the "rug" starts to narrow. What the...? I loosen the fabric thread tension even more. It's still narrowing until, for no apparent reason, it starts to widen again. OK, the rug is in charge and I'm the obedient creator. Finally, I begin to run out of braid. What have I created?
If I take the center and fold it up, it actually will stand and looks like a soft sculpture of a vase. So, this is the rug that wanted to be a vase. It remained my artistic vase for several years, until it found it's way to the bottom of a drawer where it remained peacefully for several more years.
Last year, in a fit of cleaning, I found it again and took it out. Holding it upside down by it's small center, it suddenly became completely clear what this rug was, after all. Small at one end, widening, narrowing and widening again? Hey, if this had a mouth and an eye, this would be a fish. What's more appropriate to have on your wall at a cabin? Of course you're a fish. What else would you be?
So now it hangs peacefully in my bedroom, secure in the knowledge that its' real and appropriate self has been discovered. You know, maybe that's true for people too. It can take quite a bit of time sometimes to acknowledge or find our "meant to be" selves. Or maybe we just change and evolve over time. Philosophy is not my strong suit and the chocolate brownie cookies have to be bagged up for the market tomorrow. The old cabin rug? It's in Don's shed and has been replaced with a multi-colored berber from The Home Dept.

Fishing - that's why they don't call it catching

Why I don't go fishing more often each year is always a puzzle to me. Once I'm out on the lake, the beauty of it entrances me. Of course it's the technicalities that are the obstacle. I've found myself more than once in the middle of the lake, a stiff wind kicking up, unable to get the motor started. This year - as last year - it was the low lake level and the difficulty of docking the pontoon boat that kept me on shore. Once, in a desperate attempt to get it fully on the lift, I actually found myself with one foot on the dock and the other on the boat, beginning that America's Funniest Home Videos clip of "doing the splits before she falls in the lake" howler. The adrenalin was certainly pumping as I discovered upper body strength I never knew I had. I and the boat both ended up where we belonged. Finally this weekend, my buddy Don just docked it on shore- a revelation. Hey! This is easy.

This summer, after Don, Sarah, and I each caught a nice Walleye, Don called to say that I was going to be the provider of next weekend's fish dinner. I have enough fish for the three of us, but he then called back to say, "Rick and Cindy are invited - you'll have to catch more fish." A challenge is mother's milk to me. A fishing I will go. One more Don call - "I've invited my mother too." Yikes - the pressure's on.

As Don, Sarah, and I were fishing, Don had to redo Sarah's line. While he was doing it I thought to myself, "I don't remember how to thread the hook", but didn't say anything to Don. The next night out alone on the pontoon, I caught a small fish and as I was freeing the hook allowing the fish to plop back in the lake, the hook came off. Uh oh. Now how does this go again? Through the eye, make 6, 7, or 8 turns and then back through the beginning? It just unraveled. Expletive. Finally, I mostly gave up and just tied a square knot with attachments. Not pretty but it seemed to hold - until a big fish got a hold of it and bit the whole line off. Cripes! It's getting dark - my eyes aren't great - and I don't know what I'm doing to begin with. The fish are biting and I can't get a hook to stay on. So that night was a bust.

The solution? The source of all knowledge, of course. Google. There I found my choice of many easy knots. Armed with this knowledge out I went again. I'm sorry to have to admit that I'd left the container of leeches on the boat - in the sun - all that day, so all that was left was leech soup. Not pleasant. So it was nightcrawlers for me. Big juicy ones.

The wind was blowing from the east (wind from the east, fish bite the least), so I was prepared to be skunked and just enjoy the scenery. After about an hour with the wind getting colder I was reeling in slowly when it seemed the hook got snagged. Darn. Hey, wait a minute, the snag is fighting back. Ooo it's a big one - well big for me. Sure enough, the biggest Walleye I ever caught. 19 inches. What was that Don said this morning? "Be sure to put the net on the boat." Right. Well, I'd forgotten to do that. So, with a great deal of trepidation, and that Walleye shaking himself like a Holy Roller, I managed to hoist him onto the pontoon and into the old, plastic, dog food bucket I use as a fish keeper. He was bent in half in there. As I held the line to take out the hook, much to my shock I saw the red hook with my line from the night before. I almost laughed out loud. "Gotcha fella."