Copper Olive, Ron LaPoint and Art in the Park....

It's a few days away from the official first day of summer but you sure could have fooled me. Today it got to almost 90 degrees here in Winneconne and it was plenty hot. I spent most of the day outside and now my shoulders feel like they are on fire. Guess that's why they make sunscreen...too bad I didn't  use any.

Barb, her husband Mike and I started the day by going to downtown Oshkosh. The city closes about 4 blocks of main street and sponsor a huge Farmer's Market every Saturday morning during the summer months. The booths were full of fresh flowers, produce (pea pods were the most abundant today), lots of different kinds of fresh eggs, salmon on a stick (that was a new one for me) and much more. Local growers and stores were represented. We stopped by one booth, The Copper Olive...their oils were amazing. They gave us samples of freshly popped popcorn spritzed with garlic butter oil and then seasoned with a dry seasoning (sorry I can't remember the name). It was the best popcorn seasoning ever...and that's says alot for me because I love loads of butter on my popcorn. When you go into their store, you choose what oil you want and then they fill a bottle and seal it for you. Can't get any fresher than that! Check them out. http://www.thecopperolive.com

I had my first fresh, home made egg roll today. I liked the pork more than the chicken. I was hesitant to try it at first because I've tried egg rolls before at Chines restaurants, but they were usually sitting in a buffet for who knows how long...and I never really liked the taste. Today we watched the girls make our egg rolls and they tasted nothing like the others.,..these were good.  Every day is a new experience.

Barb and I stopped to talk to a local man, Ron LaPoint, who has recently finished his third book about the history of Oshkosh. He had a booth filled with all his books and he loved talking to us about how he started writing and collecting old photographs of Oshkosh. We both bought a copy of the most recent book (we already own the first two books)  and he autographed them for us. This third book is titled "Oshkosh, Preserving The Past". Sounds like something we would talk about at Heritage Makers. I've already read the first 50 pages or so. I read a few chapters then I call my sister JoAnn or Barb and talk to them about what I just read. All three of us sisters like discussing about how we remembered Oshkosh. It's amazing to me how different we interpreted places, people and events. We especially love researching anything to do with the South Side and the Hi Holder district of Oshkosh. That's where our great-grandparents, grandparents, father (and years after WWII, my mother)  and us six kids all grew up.I love, love, love this kind of stuff!

Late this afternoon, Barb and Mike brought their son and a friend up to Winneconne to fish. It was the perfect day for it, warm, sunny but a constant breeze off the lake to cool us down. We just relaxed for once. It was rather nice for a change.

Now tell me, couldn't you relax with this view?

We went to The Well in Winneconne for supper. Another first for me. I've been coming up here since the late 60's and maybe I ate there way back then but I just don't remember. Today was cheeseburger night and we weren't disappointed. I splurged and had a chocolate shake with my cheeseburger and of course, we are in Wisconsin so a double order of deep fried cheese curds had to be ordered.. I had forgotten how good and refreshing a shake is.  While we ate, our little feathered friends enjoyed their supper too.

Time for bed because tomorrow is Art in the Park. An event that my sister Barb attends every year and now FINALLY I get to go with her. It's suppose to be just as hot if not hotter tomorrow. This event doesn't start until 10am so we don't even have a choice of going early before the heat. But when you think about it...no day, no matter what the weather is,  is a bad day when you get to shop. Right?