Minnesota State Fair and Wild Ricing 2010!

or Weekend Rewind! 

This was a whirlwind of a weekend!  It began on a very blustery Friday when the Husband and I decided at 8 in the morning to head down to the Minnesota State Fair.  Of course, I neglected to bring the camera so I don't have any pic's of the Masses of people (155,185 to be exact) or the food booths (we shared a corn dog, a pulled pork sandwich, a thing of cheese curds, a monstrous hunk of Irish soda bread glazed with cinnamon, and a bucket of Martha Sweet's Chocolate Chip Cookies).  We bought that last and it was heaped so high I had to carefully carry it all the way back to the park-n-ride lot.

And, being the sort of people we are, we didn't actually take the park-n-ride bus.  Noooo, not us!  We walked both ways figuring a mile and a half would be better than waiting.  The cookies made it intact! 

But the fun didn't end there!  Saturday I was up bright and early to meet my friend for a day of wild ricing.  And again...I left the camera in the car.  Darn it!  It was a glorious day out on the water, a far cry from the pack streets of the fair ground.  The little sora birds would occasionally flush, the wind didn't pick up until about noon and it was sunny but cool. 

My two little bags of rice at the end of the day.

The downside was the rice harvest is not very good this year.  I was only able to harvest 35lbs (not processed weight), as compared to 50lbs my first year and 80lbs my second.  High water levels combined with days of significant wind have taken their toll on the wild rice harvest for 2010.  I am waiting to see what my freind and his wife were able to harvest, and all of us are waiting to hear from a third couple - we are pooling our rice together so we can get it processed.  Hopefully we'll have enough.