Zesto's

We celebrated the return of spring with a walk down the street to Zesto's. They have soft-serve and a different sherbet flavor every couple of days. It's a delightful little walk-up ice cream stand that is open from March to October. There's no Meyers Dairy or Rita's in this town, but Zesto's is a pretty decent substitute.

The turtle sundae. Delicious.

Josh and the strawberry cheescake twist.

The closest thing we have to a CSA

When we moved to town, I looked around to see if there were any farms nearby that had CSA shares. There weren't any (but there are two farmers' markets this year!), but there is a co-op called Bountiful Baskets. Each Monday you can contribute $15 for a basket and then pick it up on Saturday. The number of baskets is limited and last week they were all spoken for within 10 minutes. It was great shades of registering for classes back at Case using SOLAR.

Anyway, Josh picked up our basket yesterday while I was in Huron and he sent me a picture.

2 head of lettuce, 6 tomatoes, potatoes, onions, broccoli, celery, 2 mangoes, strawberries, pineapple, mini watermelon, and bananas.

This is seriously the best produce we've seen since moving to Pierre, and the most affordable. I completely understand why the baskets are claimed so quickly.

Bridge:1 Truck:0

There are railroad tracks that run through town. The tracks go over Pierre Street, and the resulting bridge has a clearance of 11 feet 3 inches.

No, really. 11 feet 3 inches. This is very important.

For the record, we were not the only people taking pictures of this unfortunate truck.

I'll let you know if it's on the front page of the paper tomorrow.

Artsy arborvitae

Every camera I've used up until this point was a point and shoot or in a cell phone. At work, I have a Canon Rebel something fancy to use to photograph samples and generate images for my projects and publications. It even has a lens adapter to use with my microscope, and a macro lens is on the way. This arborvitae sample came in today and using it to test out the new camera seemed like a better idea than using my cell phone.

Bird sightings: American White Pelicans

I went to Kadoka again today, and on the trip we passed a bunch of migrating American White Pelicans. Traveling at 75 mph is not conducive to getting a good picture, but this is what they look like:

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenblumin/2210233545/

Kadoka

I was supposed to go to Kadoka tomorrow to pick up a bunch of stuff for work, but ended up making the trip today because of the snow and ice in the forecast. According to the 10-day forecast, it should be spring by the end of the week. Maybe.

When driving in South Dakota, the closer you are to civilization the greater the number of billboards on the side of the road.

No other humans in sight.

Getting closer.

If you're low on gas, now is the time to be optimistic.

Someday it will actually be spring

Current weather in Pierre: snow floofies.

Weather in 10 days: maybe sunny and 68, but that high temperature keeps changing.

This was the view out my office window during the storm two weeks ago.

This is Cleo enjoying cat TV back in Pennsylvania.