Today's rain is annoying for the laundry, but it should bring up the onions and multipliers I planted Saturday morning.
On Saturday afternoon, I went to Aldi to buy potato salad, but it isn't potato-salad season in the Little Salad Bar yet — which is just as well because Sara Lee made potato salad.
I bought hummus, guacamole, and inappropriate chips. The Big Dippers weren't opened, since there were other chips, so I'm giving serious thought to making hot cheese dip for the next event. [checks] We do have tea lights for the candle warmer.
Almost nothing happened for All Fool's Day, even in the comic strips. One poster on rec.arts.sf.fandom said that he was swearing off because he couldn't compete with alternate facts.
My timer keeps evaporating out of my timer pocket. The West Bend timer I very recently spent twenty dollars for appears to be gone permanently. Dave says that it will turn up in one of my pockets, but it's such a big chunky thing that I don't think a pat-down would miss it.
I was reading my camera's manual while waiting for a back-up to finish, and discovered a nifty mode: when in that mode, it will shoot pictures as fast as it can until you take your finger off the button or hit the limit of forty shots, and save the last four. So you could point the camera at a child and take your finger off the button after you see a pose you like.
But all my pictures are of carefully-posed inanimate objects, so even if I figure out how to get into that mode (the manual is PDF displayed on a screen), I'll forget which button to push before I come across a chance to use it.
I also can't figure out how to get into the mode where it takes three shots: one just right, one underexposed, and one overexposed. But I haven't tried; all my shots are of subjects that don't mind waiting while I examine the shot I just took. And if the exposure is wrong, I don't adjust the camera, I adjust the light.
After pushing a pile of papers from one room to another, Dave said "Boy, that walker is handy for all sorts of things other than walking."
I don't think we'll be packing it away into the closet again. I frequently use it to get my blood circulating in the morning, and any other time I've been motionless too long.
Last spring, when I had recovered from my backache enough that clothing was accumulating on our other walker (the one we inherited from Dave's father), I compared it to exercise equipment. Our current walker *is* exercise equipment!
A few days ago, I remembered that when we moved to Hawaii for a year, we spent a couple of weeks in a room that had a king-size bed, and I complained that I had to walk a mile while making it. Since we've been sleeping in king-size beds for decades now, I figured that I'd learned how to make one without walking so far.
This morning, while watching myself changing the sheets and one of the blankets I use for a mattress pad, I realized that I haven't stopped walking a mile to make the bed. I've just stopped minding it.
Yesterday's Amish Cook column was a recipe for seasoned crackers, which reminded me that I have the e-mail in which Jaime gave her spiced crackers recipe, so I created a Web page and added both recipes to Cookbook.
I pushed the cultivator back and forth in the garden. The soil is a bit too wet, but I got some of the weed sod off. I was thinking of riding my bike to Kroger today, but it's so cold that it would take me longer to put on appropriate clothing than to take the ride.
ARRRGH! It's cottonwood stickypod season. And as soon as the flower-bud covers are done, the leaf-bud covers will start to fall.
It's a glorious sunny day with not too much wind, so I washed a blanket I've been using as a mattress pad and hung it on the line. The little table fell over while I was pinning, but the blanket stayed inside the basket and I don't think it got any stickypods on it.
I went to Taste of Ag yesterday; it was an extravagant affair. Creighton Brothers even brought live chickens — and you know that after being exposed to the public, they can't be put back into the flock. They were actually letting people hold the baby chicks. There were only two laying hens and two pullets, and those stayed in cages that were well out of reach.
I presume the Creightons were also involved in the boiled eggs on the orderve table.
Maple Leaf also had a major presence.
I hadn't brought my walker, so I didn't even get near the booth giving away duck-bacon sandwiches. I thought the crowd was too big to wait in when I saw the barbecue truck, so I veered aside to enter the "food samples" building. Once one was past the orderves, one was in a line that stretched the full length of the building and went out a side door to become the crowd around the barbecue truck.
I think I'd been standing in it long enough to hurt myself before I figured that out; there was enough of a crowd that for a while I thought I was waiting in line for another orderve table.
So I went to the displays in the other buildings (which included samples of cheese and a dish of ice cream from the dairy farmers), then went back to the entrance to claim a bottle of Beachler's Sugar Bush maple syrup. (I'd skipped that table on my way in, to avoid carrying stuff around.) Lo and behold, there was a sticker on the bottom of my bottle saying "you have won a Maple Leaf Farms product" — which turned out to be a huge space-blanket tote bag stuffed with frozen meat, including three boxes of chicken and two "Black Ice" packs. And there was a coffee-table recipe book in a pocket on the side.
So we had duck bacon for breakfast. If you ever see some (we've been searching for it in vain for months), try it. They just lard a duck breast, smoke it, and slice it; they don't make it into lunch meat like "turkey bacon". It's sliced thick, so one slice per person is plenty.
Wikipedia says that a lardon has to be pig fat, but if you can lard an essay with latin, you can lard a duck breast with duck fat.
I DuckDuckGoed "duck bacon" and learned that other brands leave the fat all on one edge; I don't think that that would be nearly as good.
I garnished the eggs with slices of red mini-sweet peppers, and every time I open the fridge, I'm struck by how pretty the trays of eggs are. But they look more like cherry-garnished pastries than like eggs.
The trays are covered with plastic wrap. I poured a cup of water into each of the two boxes and put them into the freezer; to my surprise, the ice is perfectly flat, without the usual hump in the middle. [I did find small humps when I put the eggs in, but they didn't tilt the trays.] I tried a tray of eggs in the top box, plastic wrap and all, and there is plenty of room.
To celebrate my birthday, we went to George's Highlander Grill in Etna Green for supper. Dave had a bourbon steak and I had half a chicken. I ate a drumstick and a wing, broke the spine off the thigh, had some skin to season my rice, and the rest is in the fridge. Dave also left a big chunk of his steak. I may have the remains of his potato for my bedtime snack; baked potato is good cold. The salads were good too; I even ate my cucumber slices. (Completely covered with blue cheese.)
I helped set up for the Easter breakfast this morning, mostly chopping onions and dicing pineapple, since I can do that sitting down. When we broke up, I asked what time tomorrow. Abby first said seven, then eight, then said don't come in at all. So I get to sleep in tomorrow! I'll miss seeing the decorations, but this does simplify my day.
And no Good Friday meditation this year! Indeed, I've already been on two thirty-mile rides. You don't even have to add "for a seventy-six-year-old" to "I'm in great shape".
I've been spoiled rotten all my life.
I'm thinking about trying to write an article to persuade people to buy rolling walkers before they need them. If you set the handles high enough that you can stand up straight, it makes walking so easy you are apt to do a lot more of it. I haven't needed it for that lately, but whenever I want to get my blood to circulating, I take it for a little run. Dave likes to use it for a truck when he moves his computer stuff around. With a battery on the seat of the walker, you don't get pulled off balance, it's easier than unfolding our hand truck, and you don't have to bend over to put the battery down or pick it up.
The cottonwood flowers are all open, and the stickypods are far enough apart that one can walk around them, and not very sticky.
There are two swans near the mouth of the creek. I suspect that one is a pen and the other a cob.
I wonder whether there is some way a human can tell the difference. I've been wondering the same about geese: is that a pair, or just two geese? The last two geese were definitely a pair; they had a clutch of goslings.
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A couple of weeks ago I set a box of papers that hadn't been looked into since we moved next to the typing chair, and every time I sit down, I take out a few papers and put them where they belong — or into a box marked "needlework", to be further sorted eventually.
This evening I took out an envelope containing a coverless copy of of Hobby Huddle for May 1954. On the contents page, in mother's handwriting, is "direction for rug loom/P.Loveless".
The rigid-heddle loom in question is in the barn attic. Unfortunately, we broke the frame hauling it up there, and I doubt that fifteen years in an attic have done it any good. To pass it on, I'll have to find someone who is *really* into restoring antiques.
I put the envelope into the box marked "needlework". So far, tatting is the only needlework filed separately.
Before I was distracted by the old papers, I had sat down here to report on today's get-together, but half of you were there.
It's such a good drying day that I decided to go shopping instead of washing clothes. The weather has settled enough to go out in synthetic tights, so I hunted out the Spalding exercise tights I bought at the fall clearance. I've worn the tights once before, and may have worn them under my sweats once or twice.
They are pilled. If they hadn't been so cheap, I would be greatly annoyed; as it is, I'm disinclined to pay full price for any Spalding product.
I wore tights with some trepidation. At Taste of Ag, I happened to walk behind a slender, healthy teenager, and if tights look that gross on *her* . . .
At least mine are black.
The leaves on the cottonwoods are shedding their stickypods, and the male flowers have fallen.
Our crabapple is putting on a glorious show, but there aren't a lot of places where one can stand to look at it. Redbuds seem to be at peak.
I cut a flower stem off the rhubarb today. I also moved the thyme from the Joe-Rickets strawberry bed to the lawn, and plan to cultivate one of the volunteer plants infesting the strawberry bed. I had intended to move the main winter-savory plant to the fern bed, and cultivate an offshoot — but I took the precaution of tasting the offshoot, and it turned out to be some random weed, so I pulled it up by the roots. Which I couldn't have done if it had come up from a runner.
Dave hitched the truck up to the rotten stump in the lily-of-the-valley bed, and yanked it out. The first two pieces came easily, but the third was a yard long. I may photograph it before I burn it.
Dave mowed the front lawn for the first time today. Back lawn needs it too.
Dave picked asparagus yesterday — one stalk was overripe — and I picked more today. We had asparagus fried in butter for supper yesterday, and this afternoon I put some of yesterday's harvest into a small skillet, added a pat of butter, and popped it into a 400° oven twenty minutes before the frozen pot pies were due to come out. This proved to be about right; some of the tips had fried crisp, and tasted like mushrooms. If I do that again, I think I'll use a bigger skillet and fry more.
Tomorrow, I think I'll do the bit where I bring the tough ends to a boil, then turn off the heat, throw in the tip ends, cover tightly, and set them on the table.
I hung the wash out today, and had it all inside, folded, and put away before nap time. Except for some stockings and gloves that I dried on a rack in the parlor.
After supper l walked a mile and stopped at the teller machine to activate my new debit card. All I got was a note that my PIN was wrong, contact issuer. Perhaps I'll walk to the bank tomorrow, if the thunderstorm holds off.
When I looked out this morning, it was raining crab-apple petals.
I walked to the bank this morning. The teller said that when I put an un-activated card into the machine, the machine reported it as stolen, and there was nothing to do but shred it and order a new one. Note: teller machines no longer activate cards, and having done something a million times before doesn't mean you don't have to read the instructions.
I rushed to push the cultivator around the garden before it rained, but it never did. 75% chance we'll get rain tomorrow, then dry Friday through Monday.
We've set up one rain barrel.
And Dave is out mowing the lawn. I think I'll get the dandelion digger and pluck a few of the weeds in the asparagus bed.
It takes very little warm weather to make me very intolerant of cold.
Bonneyville Mill is open May through October, Wednesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
It makes a pleasant excursion to drive to Bristol, stop at the Pay 'n Packet for snackies, tour the mill and picnic in the adjacent park, go to Middlebury and check out Gohn Bros. and the meat market, then finish up at the Cheese Factory. I would like to go on to Shipshewana, but that would require a professional driver and a van with a cot in the back for him to nap on.
Google Maps shows Old Hoosier Meats in the triangle formed by Wayne Street, Brown Street, and Mall Street in Middlebury, behind the hardware store. It also shows a Taco Bell on E. Warren that I don't remember.
I baked the pre-cooked half-duck that was in my door prize for supper tonight. It neatly filled half of an iron skillet, so I put two zapped potatoes, cut-side down, and a handfull of fresh asparagus in the other half. Then I salted the asparagus and put a pat of butter on it. Dave says he wants me to buy another one; I told him not until after we clean the freezer.
I'm thawing a pound of ground beef for tomorrow. Haven't finalized what I'm going to make of it. Dave wants me to dump a can of sloppy-joe sauce in it; I want to make an elaborate soup, but if I'm tired after the hike, sloppy joe is quick and easy.
And it was a lovely day for a walk in the woods. Surprisingly few walking sticks: I picked up a crooked one at our first stop, and never saw another. After the hike, I put it back where I found it.
I should make that loop by myself now and again.
There was a much larger turn-out than for the fall hike. Afterward, someone asked a question that reminded the interpreter that he had forgotten to point out a stand of pawpaws somewhere along our loop; I got the impression that it was in the second half of our return leg.
I need to buy a copy of Peterson's Field Guide to Medicinal Plants. I'm not sure I have the title exactly right, but "Peterson" should be enough to find a list I can pick it out from. Since all plants are medicinal, it's fairly complete.
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Ever since we started feeding Al Purrfect Weight dry cat food, I've been complaining about the insane design of the bag it comes in. Yesterday I was complaining again, and Dave said "Why not empty the bag into those #10 peanut cans you've been saving for just such a situation?"
Duh.
I came through the park on the way home from church today, tried the drinking fountain, and it works!
I wonder whether the restrooms at the Krebs Trailhead have also been opened
The Big R strawberries are in bloom, and the Joe Rickets berries are thinking about it.
I'm running an extra load of wash today. Tuesday, I put my jeans on before supper so I'd be ready to go to the Winona Lake Preservation Society meeting, and dropped greasy onions on them. So I had to go walking in my better pair of jeans. Then when I got to the meeting hall, it was set up with tables with white cloths on them, so I backed out and re-joined Dave for a walking tour of the island.
I've got a respectable fraction of a load. There's a pair of sweat pants I put back two washdays in a row because the washer was full and washing them to put them away for the winter could wait, and some other black and red wash had accumulated.
I may have to postpone seeing the art exhibit until tomorrow. It will be almost time for my nap by the time the washer is finished, there is barely time to cook between nap-time and supper, and the exhibit closes at five. Since I'm not drying anything outside, I could have waited to put the wash in until I got back from walking.
Ah, well, I've got until the sixth of May.
I'm going to have to start freezing asparagus soon.
I walked to the exhibit on Friday. I was surprised that so few students had participated, but some of the projects were ambitious.
One team had produced a slick-paper printed book called (if I recall correctly) _Fashion Through the Ages_, but it was random fashion sketches in no particular order and without any comment, and none went back very far. I wonder whether there is more than one copy.
The art gallery is well supplied with benches to sit on while contemplating the exhibits, and there are benches in the hallways as well. I toured all three floors and found everything attractive and well kept. I didn't find any sign of the handrail Dave used to slide down. When the place was remodeled to accommodate college students, I'll bet that that was the first to go.
The second load is in; all the clothes would have fit comfortably in one load, but I wanted to separate the blacks and whites.
Our snowball bush is covered with pale-green snowballs.