Extra! Extra!

This isn't exactly "breaking" news as this article ran on October 7th, but I am just now getting to posting about it!   We were featured in the Berlin Journal!

That's us!

Don putting up trellis wire.

Aaron, Grandma Millie, and Dennis doing the grape stomp with the vineyard in the upper right hand corner.

We got our first press coverage of Schram Vineyards this month Aaron's hometown paper, The Berlin Journal.  Berlin, WI is where Aaron grew up and shortly after his family came out to help us for a work weekend, we got an email from Jim Wolff at the Berlin Journal asking if he could do an article on us and the Schrams coming to work for a weekend.  He did a great job, and even scoured this blog for some article worthy content! There is not an online version of this paper, otherwise I would include a link.  So, my scanned article will have to do!

I had a few pictures from the Schram family weekend that I sent to him, but Jim also wanted a picture of me and Aaron in the vineyard.  After sorting through all of my bazillion pictures of the vineyard, I found we didn't have one that actually had the two of us in it.  So, we asked a friend to snap a photo of us one afternoon.  I told Aaron to look pretty because all of his old high school girlfriends would probably see this article or their mothers would cut it out and send it to them..."look what Aaron Schram is doing..." 

We were very excited to be featured and so glad that Schram clan got the deserved recognition in their hometown for all their hard work that last weekend in August.

10 Years Ago

There are certain dates in history that I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing.  On this day 10 years ago, I was celebrating my 21st birthday in Iowa City, IA.  

I was getting ready for a big night out with friends.  I was living in a sorority house with my best friends and was the reigning Alpha Chi Omega Social Chair.  I can't believe this picture was taken about 6 months before I got my first cell phone.  I hardly can remember a life without one!  And being that I had to scan these pictures in, it was before digital cameras were the norm.   

My sister, Allee, came down to celebrate my birthday and buy me my first legal drink.  She was 28 at the time and I thought she was soooo old!

Here I am buying my first drink.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't wine.  Little did I know at the time the significant role that certain alcoholic beverage would play in my life. 

Believe it or not, I still have this fuzzy red shirt hanging in my closet.  I don't think I have worn it since, but for some reason it is one of those sentimental clothes items that never makes it into my Goodwill pile.  I always look at it and remember this night.  And I figure it might be good for a costume one day. 

All the sorority girls in this picture from 10 years ago have become mothers in the last 18 months.  Well, except me and one other...but I'm only 12 weeks away!     

If 10 years ago, you were to show me a glimpse of what my life would look like today, I certainly wouldn't have imagined that I would be doing things like mowing my 12.42 acres on a lawn tractor wearing an ugly polyester jacket.  And smiling while doing it, no less! 

Or that I would trade in my black knee high boots, mini-skirt, and manicured nails for green rubbers, overalls, and dirty knees...

Or that days after finding out I was pregnant, I would go outside my house and hit golf balls on my own property with my husband. 

That girl 10 years ago had visions of moving to New York City after graduating and living the high life for a while.  Which she did, but lasted less than 6 months.  She learned that big, BIG city life wasn't for her.  But never did she think she'd eventually settle down on a farm and spend her free time training grapevines.

But this...

This she envisioned all along.  She just didn't know when it would happen or with whom. 

It's definitely not the lifestyle that 21-year old college girl was dreaming of 10 years ago. 

But now, she wouldn't dream of having it any other way. 

Where were you 10 years ago and where did you think you'd be today?

Scenes from Laketown Township

This time of year, on my way to work in the early morning, I always think how one of these days I should bring my camera and snap some photos of the first three miles of my trip when I am still on the country roads in Laketown Township.  

I want to capture the pink clouds as the sun is just coming up behind the colored trees, outlined in white picket fences and winding roads.  I am usually the only car on the road for the first five minutes of my commute and I love soaking in the serene setting.  It always makes me feel like I am hours from city life instead of just miles from bumper to bumper traffic.  I usually have these ideas about taking pictures in the morning as I am stuffing my mouth with a breakfast bar, or digging in my purse to make sure I didn't forget my phone before I am too far from home to go back and get it, or checking my heels to make sure I didn't step in dog poop before I got in the car. 

Needless to say, I'm not exactly put together in the morning, so I can't help but laugh at myself when I think that I might actually get up earlier than I have to already to take some pictures at 7am at the beginning of my 40 minute commute to work.  It's just not going to happen and I've finally given into that. 

Instead, I grabbed my camera last Saturday afternoon on my way to run some errands.  I didn't get the sunrise, but I got a beautiful afternoon.  Afternoons are much more manageable for me.

And it was still a gorgeous day to get the fall foliage, the white picket fences, the country roads...

And the golden colored corn farms just ready for harvest.

And then I come home to the vineyard.  It's a scene that never gets old.

The changing of the seasons keeps things visually interesting year-round.  I still love fall, even though it means winter is just around the corner. 

In Minnesota, we have to take in the fall colors while we can!  In just a few week, the trees will all be barren.



The $20 Mouse Trap

Don't let this 82 degree and sunny October weather fool you.  It is still very much mouse in the house season.  I don't care if you live in the city, the country, or the suburbs, mice coming inside seems to be a problem anywhere.   Growing up in my house in the suburbs, we had mice.  In our family cabin in the middle of nowhere in northern Minnesota, we had mice. And I even remember seeing a mouse run across the floor in my favorite neighborhood restaurant in New York when I lived there.

So it should be nothing new that our old 1950s farmhouse have mice every year too.  Just because I am "used" to dealing with mice, does not mean that I've grown any sort of affinity towards them over the years. I still find them dirty, disgusting little rodents and I want them dead. 

This is the first place I have lived where I have been aware of mice living outdoors on our property.  Prior to living here, the only time I saw a mouse was where they are NOT supposed to be...inside.  But when the snow melted this past spring and the dogs were out hunting, I was aware of these little creatures scurrying around, trying to get away and hide from our 100 lb mutts.  I try not to watch when I know the dogs are out hunting for rodents.  I think that is just as disgusting, but I figure any mouse they catch outside, is one less mouse capable of coming into our home. 

As long as they are outside, I am fine.  But the first year we lived here and I actually spotted a mouse inside (and the only time I have actually seen one alive in the house), I freaked out.  I screamed bloody murder and I woke up in a cold sweat that night after having a nightmare that a mouse was crawling into bed with me. 

I put Aaron on mouse duty.  "I want them dead!"  I told him.

So he came home the next day with, and I'm not kidding you, a $20 mouse trap.  I bet you were expecting me to say he built his own mouse contraption, weren't you?  But no, he decided to splurge on this fancy electronic mouse trap that required batteries and was "guaranteed" to ensure his wife and our home were safe from these devilish creatures. 

It was basically a black plastic box with a cover on top of it and a little entrance on the end of it for a mouse to get inside.  Inside was a maze and at the end of it you were supposed to put a little peanut butter.  And that's where the electrical charge was set and where the little suckers would get zapped right when they found their way to the peanut butter.  On the cover of the box, there was a light, and if the light was flashing green, that was meant to alert you that there was an electrocuted mouse in the box.  That way you wouldn't have to actually deal with getting its mangled head out of any trap.  You could just open the top of the box and dump the mouse out. 

Sounds pretty nifty, huh?

We set this trap up right away and when I got up for work the next morning, I was delighted to see the green light flashing on the black box.  I was like a kid on Christmas morning!  I ran back into the bedroom.

"Aaron, Aaron!" I said shaking him out of his slumber.  "The green light is flashing!  C'mon...get up! We got 'em! We got 'em!"

So Aaron rolled out of bed and in his boxers, went to check out the $20 mouse trap.  I followed behind him, wincing as I watched him slowly open the top of the box.  I didn't want to actually see the dead mouse, but I did. A part of me took pleasure in seeing evidence that he was dead. 

We both peeked inside the box.  No mouse.  Nothing!  Even the glob of peanut butter was completely gone.  It was as if the mouse broke into a restaurant, feasted on peanut butter and licked his plate clean and managed to waddle his way out without any consequences.  He just got a free lunch.

I was livid.

The $20 mouse trap was crap. That was the last time we ever used it. That afternoon, Aaron came home with the good old 50 cent mousetraps and that is what we have been using ever since. 

And just in case a mouse decides to move in on the off-season, we have a permanent peanut butter filled mouse trap set in our house in what we have found to be the "sweet" spot.  As it turns out, mice do not discriminate between fresh peanut butter and moldy peanut butter, which only further qualifies my point about them being dirty and disgusting creatures. 

Aaron doesn't have a whole lot of indoor household chores,  but I assure you that disposing of dead mice is one of them.  Even when he was gone for a night and we caught a mouse in the trap, I waited until he got home the next day to get rid of it.

Who's on mouse duty at your house?  What do you use as bait?  Cheese? Peanut butter?  Moldy peanut butter?  Have you caught any mice this year?