We went to mainland and Canada last month, visited Terry’s relatives and friends, it was a great trip. We flew into Wisconsin, our friend Tom picked us up and we stayed with him for a few days; he lent his car and cell phone to us ( Fortunately we still don’t need a cell phone in our daily life ); we drove to Mich.Upper Peninsula, Toronto, Waterloo, Port Dover, London; then to Detroit, back to Wisconsin; from there, we flew to San Francisco, spent a week there and Big Sur.

I took lots of pictures, and I want to share some pictures and stories on my blog. We’ve been home for three weeks, I’ve just been lazy and enjoy my time not doing very much first two weeks. Next week we spread the farm with BatonicGuard.

It has been six years since we all visited mainland, these two trips were quite different, especially to Sonny and me. Sonny was 3, too young to remember very much of that trip. To me, I was still in process of getting used to American food. Rice was one of main food in my daily life, if I didn’t have rice for a day, doesn’t matter what I ate, I still felt hungry. That was one of the unpleasant part during that trip .This time, Sonny will remember more people we met and places we went; and I enjoyed our trip with other kind of food, it didn’t bother me if we skip rice for days.

Tom picked us up at airport, drove 2 hours crossing some farm land to his place.

Comparing it with Kona’s landscape, Wisconsin has big flat farming land, rich fertile soil, big size farms. It’s so beautiful at this time, different shades of green made the land into an interesting picture. Tom can tell us, what kind of crop is growing there by their shades of color.

 

Before we reached to Tom’s place, we stopped at Louise place, she is Tom’s friend and we met her this February. She has 80 acres of land, beautiful flowers and plants growing around her house, and some handsome horses. They are not farm horses,  they got very good care and live in a nice home, a very good and luxury life a horse could ever ask.  We even got to see a one day old baby horse, really cute.

 

Mama horse was very protective of her baby. When I stood by the door and tried to take a picture of the baby, she kept  blocking me by standing between me and her baby, .

Second day afternoon, we went back to visit Louise, she wasn’t at home. We waited for a while, enjoyed ourselves by watching horses and taking picture. The sky was getting dark, a storm was coming, sounder and lightning scared the horses, they broke the fence and ran to stable. Terry tried to close the stable, but couldn’t get everyone into it, they ran out and roam around the house and near the road again and again.

A man and his two kids were testing an old boat on the pond which they just fixed , he came over and introduced himself, he is Louise’s brother. He and his kids helped to lead the mama horse and her baby into stable, before we herded all of the horses in, Louise came back. Her dogs herded these scared horses into stable just in a matter of few minutes.

Terry and Sonny helped Louise to give some food and water to horses. Terry picked up a brush and started to groom the horse, he looks like he knew what he was doing, his every move was so firm and so sure. But when I asked, he said he didn’t know very much about horse, never groomed a horse before. He said, “You don’t want to surprise them, before you touch them, stand beside them where they can see you. When you touch them, you have to be confident and no doubt of yourself, otherwise they can sense your feeling and not trust you.”

Horses are beautiful, especially when they are running, so graceful, so powerful. Standing beside them, I felt very small, not only of my actual size, but also the invisible power I carried around me. If their power was brilliant halo, mine was a dim light. I know, if I had a chance and time to get know horses, I could conquer my own fear, be confident around them. For now, as a visitor, I’m happy to respect them and admire them in safe distance.

 

 

We went to one of Tom’s favorite bar a few times, Junior’s family has owned this bar for over a hundred years. In the picture, he was serving us homemade root beer, a new drink Sonny fell in love with.

 

A Friday evening, Tom took us to a local restaurant, a special event, serving German food buffet, live music with lots of old songs.

Walking In the main dining hall, right side were buffet, in front of it were about 20 dining tables, stage was at front only few steps higher, pass those dining tables, a big round bar and some high bar tables and stools fill up the rest of the hall.

It was around 6pm when we got there, the dining hall was full of people, no dining table or bar table available. We got some drinks and waited in back room which decorated with antiques and old pictures.

There were quiet bit of old folks, some came from other town or city. Three musicians were entertaining people with old folk music, they even played some music under people’s quest. Food, music and people created a merry festivity atmosphere, Sonny and Tom were eating,drinking, and swinging their body along with the music. Since nobody were dancing there, they stood out, attracted musicians and other people’s eyes by their jolly mood, made a quite scene.

 

 

Uncle Roy giving Sonny a lesson how to drive tractor. Uncle Tom taught him how to drive golf car and four wheeler.

 

Tom has some woods behind his house, he made some trials to go through the woods, and he planted some mushroom sports into the log by the trial. Every day Tom gave us a couple times of riding through the woods, looking for mushroom in the woods.

Mushroom from jungle is one of the special food I miss from my hometown, a taste with my memory, no other food can replace it.

When my family moved out from the village, I was 6 years old, I don’t have any experience of looking for mushroom in jungle. Don’t know where to look, and what kind of mushroom to look for.

One raining season, I was about 12 years old, my mom, younger sister and I visited my aunt. When we arrived there, my aunt wasn’t home, she was in forest looking for mushroom. She came back around 2 o’clock, with a basket full of mushroom. Not the basket you carry with your hand, it’s a big bamboo basket Aka people carry on their back, she got about 15 or 20 lb of mushroom.

At that time, there were no transportation from village to town, villagers collect most products from the forest were for themselves, not for sale. So my aunt prepared the mushroom in many ways. Steam mushroom, then mash it up slightly with salt and garlic. Or wrap up diced mushroom with fresh herb with banana leave, bake it by fire. We had mushroom every day at that visiting, my sister was sick of it.

Tom has a mushroom guide brochure, I studied it and believed I can recognize the edible one. We had some rain every day when we were there, mushroom were growing, and the woods are right by Tom’s house. I couldn’t let it go, without trying one time to hunt mushroom in the woods. So one morning, I went out with a small bucket, a knife and the brochure by myself, nobody wanted to do this as much as I do.

My mushroom hunting adventure only lasted for 30 minutes, it ended when I found a big clump of mushrooms. It looks like turkey mushroom to me, but different colors. It’s not looks poison to me, I cut a small piece off and smelled it, it smells like oyster mushroom. I picked it and went back to the house, it weighs about 3lb. Terry and other two people didn’t know this mushroom, but when Tom got up from his nap, he told me it’s chicken mushroom and it’s edible.

 

 

Views from Tom’s house, a beautiful place he’s got.