Salsa!

Today was my day to monitor my streams. I got to my first location about 9 a.m. Then I stopped at a farm near the Cloquet River to buy some vegies. For ten dollars I got 2 trays of jalapeno peppers, two trays of cherry tomatoes in three colors, 2 zucchini, 2 trays of new potatoes, and 2 trays of carrots. I got a great deal there. Then I stopped at my second stream monitoring location (see picture). I am standing on the gravel snowmobile trail right above one of the 3 culverts. Last week when I was here I spent 15 minutes breaking off the flowers of the invasive tansy. In the picture above you can see the yellow tansy on the right and the wild sunflowers on the left. I could tell that the work I did last week destroying tansy flowers made a difference so that made me happy. Every blizzard starts with a single snow flake so every destroyed tansy flower helps.

I would much rather see sunflowers instead of the nasty tansy. I went for a walk and met a guy who lives 3 houses away from the river (which is at least a half mile away). He said he saw a trout in the river this week. I asked him to pronounce the name of the river. He tried but he had no idea. We both laughed. He and his kids like to pick agates on this road. His five year old daughter finds inch sized agates every day. He said she has a talent for it. Also, it helps that she is small and close to the ground. He gave me some tips on where to find large agates at a new location a lumber company has cut into the hillside. Then I made a few more errands and stopped at another vegetable stand to buy more tomatoes and onions. These tomatoes came from Stewartville, MN which is down by Rochester, MN.

I made salsa from this old recipe I got from a coworker. I made this recipe before years ago which is why it is stained with tomato juice. 

The salsa turned out delicious but on the mild side. I wish I had added three or four more jalapenos. I ran low on clean jars so I put some in a butter dish to keep in the fridge. The fresh salsa tasted delicious on fried eggs for supper.

This should last at least 8 months.