Things have been a bit of a whirlwind this last few days, as you might suspect, so I have some leftover stories to tell…

I had mentioned a week or so ago that we got some plants and planted a small garden.  I had planned to leave the tomato plant we bought in the plastic pot it was in when we bought it…

The potted tomato plant

But in talking with my mother who is an avid gardener, she said that it wouldn’t grow well in a plastic pot and that we needed to find a way to get it into the ground.  I gave that some thought and realized the answer was at hand.  There are some big rocks around here, so Mark helped me get them and build a rock planter:

Hand-built stone planter

There’s also a story to tell from yesterday.  I’ve been doing some research into Rowleys Bay since we’ve been here, and I heard that Rowleys Bay Resort is one of the places where they have a traditional fish boil.  I believe Door County is the only place where they do a fish boil.  Rowleys Bay resort also includes a story teller who tells the history of Rowleys Bay from the point of Peter Rowley, one of the first white settlers here.

The story teller

I had been wanting to see a fish boil for myself, and since John and Francine were staying at Rowleys Bay Resort, we asked if they’d like to go with us.  In between parts of the story, the story teller would stop and have the chef show us what was going to go into the big kettle outside the window:

Our chef

The first part was large quantities of salt and red potatoes.

Next he put in onions

Finally he put in a basket of white fish steaks.

When the pot was boiling and the fish was just about ready, we all went outside to watch the final stage of the process.  The story teller rang the historic old school bell:

Ringing the school bell

Then the chef had everyone clear the area and he threw kerosene on the fire.  I think the heat or the smoke made my pictures come out blurry:

Throwing the kerosene on

A burst of flames and smoke

The salt in the water drew out the fish oil

…and the pot boiled over, taking the fishy oil with it and leaving a better tasting fish.