Yesterday we went to the Great Wall to celebrate Dave's birthday, and as soon as that had settled a bit, we pigged out on ice cream and cake. Black walnut ice cream on brownies cockaigne with half a pound of pecans in half a recipe of cake, and one bar of 70% chocolate melted on top. I think I could have squeezed in some more pecans. I spent yesterday morning buying ingredients and the afternoon making cake.
This morning I cut up the cake and put most of it into the freezer.
Today was a gap in the rain. I went on a shopping tour by bike, and Dave mowed some of the lawn. He also wrestled a wheel that needs mending off the trailer, and plans to take it to the Tire Barn for repair.
When I went out to see whether we could have spring onions with our baked beans and franks tonight, I noticed that I should have pulled weeds and pushed the cultivator. The garden will be a real mess after tomorrow's rain encourages the weeds and rain on the next two days keeps me inside.
I've got a lot of volunteer mustard. I've been thinning it by pulling plants and eating them on the spot.
So far, the asparagus hasn't been producing any faster than we can eat it.
I just read in Ink Free News that the Marsh store is closing May 21. That's a pity; all the other groceries are clustered on the other side of town.
Owen's West isn't too far from Marsh; I suppose it can fill the gap.
Gaak! I'm going to have to find another place to buy fresh ginger.
Today I noticed that I had Sara Lee's recipe for corn salad, and added it to Cookbook: http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/COOKBOOK/SALADS.HTM
Then I added some comments comparing it to potato salad.
Three pairs of geese are feeding goslings on our lawn. I think I'll sew in the morning and garden in the afternoon.
I pushed the cultivator around some yesterday evening, and pulled out some of the sod-like new weed. I think I'll call it "chickweed" until I find out what it is. At least it's fairly easy to pull up by the roots. I've also got a lot of seedlings with heart-shaped leaves, which I'm making a special effort to persecute even though the trunk-like stem suggests that they aren't bindweed. Anything that looks anything like a morning glory goes!
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I didn't sew in the morning, but I did spend about forty minutes in the garden in the afternoon, and got rid of a lot of weeds. I also brought in two mustard plants to season Dave's tossed salad. By Memorial Day, there should be plenty of mustard leaves for my potato salad.
I should dig out more of the garlic chives. If I do, I won't throw them on the compost heap. The kow choi that I dug out last summer are sitting on logs on the outdoor fireplace, still growing.
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I scored eight at Hexavirus. I think that that is a new record. (I scored only two on the previous game.)
And then I played just one more game and scored eight again.
I think I've got a handle on the garden. Still haven't got the blank row cleaned up enough to plant carrots, and there are *lots* of weeds in the asparagus.
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I outdid myself making tonight's gravy. I thought the remaining duck meat ought to be heated, since it has been thawed a few days, so I resolved that I'd make a big batch of gravy and put all of it in even though several meals haven't used up half of it.
I hadn't picked asparagus for a few days, so first I went out and gathered a handful of short spears. Weather Underground says it's going to get much warmer soon, so I may yet have to start freezing it.
I sliced the tough ends of the spears very thinly until all were short enough to put into a sandwich bag. Fried asparagus for supper tomorrow — I should have held out a little duck meat to fry with it.
I put the spoonful of asparagus slices into my second-biggest skillet with half a stick of butter, a quarter cup of red-wheat flour, and a boullion cube. Stirred all that over high heat for a while, then gradually stirred in a pint of milk. After a while I added a slice I'd taken off the end of a bar of extra-sharp cheddar. When that disappeared, I tasted the gravy and added half a teaspoon of salt. Then the boullion cube dissolved! Dave loved it. It wasn't *too* much salt.
Added the duck meat, which expanded enormously when I broke it into separate chunks, and kept it over low heat until I'd made a salad and zapped some potatoes.
I think I'll copy the above into Cookbook.
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/COOKBOOK/SAUCES.HTM
Come July, I'll add my recipe for cheese dip to this page.
Supper tonight was left-over Duck ala Queen with zapped potatoes and fried asparagus. There's still enough for another meal. Hardly any gravy on it; I poured the butter in the asparagus skillet over it when I put the leftovers away.
I frittered away most of the morning answering a round-robin letter — which is particularly foolish because there is never any sign that this robin reaches the next person on the list. Either it's a bad address, or he throws it away with the junk mail.
When I went out to dump the garbage on the compost heap, I discovered that I'd frittered away a *glorious* day.
Dave is burning fallen branches and driftwood.
It's no surprise that my notes became more loquacious when I started carrying a bigger piece of paper. It *was* a surprise that I'm using bigger characters to write times in my little notebook — sometimes requiring two lines.
Yesterday was a lovely day for a long ride. Managed to stir up enthusiasm by coming up with a way to go east of the airport instead of going through Walmart — then made a wrong turn and went through Walmart anyway.
In my defense, the traffic on Husky Trail precludes giving close attention to road signs. But I should have suspected something when it seemed that *everybody* was headed for Airport Road. I didn't twig until I saw Walmart, and didn't want to brave the heavy traffic on 200 N a second time, so I kept going.
I bought frozen orange juice at Marsh, then when I got home, found a blade of ice shaped like an orange-juice can in my bag of half-melted ice cubes. The orange juice was still solid; the temperature in the freezer cases must be lower than I thought.
Now I'd better get off my seat and into the saddle before the Farmers Markets close.
All I bought at the Farmer's market was a "maple bar" cookie, which I ate on the way home.
Picked up a few more things at Marsh. I'd like to go again on Monday, but that's wash day, and I also have to walk to the bank. But there are three hours of daylight after six . . .
And I went in the evening, and spent $64.32.
Despite the 40% discount, that fit into my panniers with room to spare. Seems like a very short time ago that when I wanted walking-around money, I would write a ten-dollar check and stock my purse with the change from as many groceries as I could carry home.
(I did walk to the store in those days.)
The sale of Rhody to Silveus seems like a win-win for everybody. Once again there will be a big building south of the Auditorium. Judging by the size of the trees in the park that's there now, there aren't a lot of people who remember what once stood there.
It seems possible, perhaps even likely, that Silveus will restore Studebaker Spring.
When Rhodheaver Auditorium's name was changed to Heritage Room, I thought it ironic to call it "heritage" when Rhodheaver was such a large part of our heritage. After a while I remembered that the town was *founded* on changing names to attract tourists.
Despite the heat and, on the way back, the downright dangerous wind — after one stop, I like to never got mounted up again because I couldn't stand on one foot without getting blown over — I had a very nice thirty-mile ride today. But it will be at least a month before I can work up any enthusiasm for going to Spring Creek again, even though the Marathon at SR 5 & US 30 serves a tasty quarter pizza. I got scrambled-egg-and-sausage this time.
I stopped at Odd Fellows Cafe in Pierceton on the way back and had a cup of tomato soup. After eating their syrupy chili, I was braced for the worst, but it was *delicious*. It's about as close to Mom's breaded tomatoes as you can get with twenty-first century ingredients. They added subtle seasonings to tomato puree, dropped a bunch of large croutons in, and garnished with a pinch of dried leaf. (I think it was parsley.) That was it, and nothing more; if they put sugar in, I've been eating a lot more sweets than I think I have.
But yesterday I did pig out on some partly-melted peanut clusters that Dave bought at Big R. They weren't partly melted when he bought them; he left them in the car.
So I got up and ate another one. (They are solid now.)
This evening, Dave took JOYXP apart and cleaned it. I heard him say "Wow!" and went into the kitchen: he'd found a whole civilization of spiders. In the meanwhile, I found, among the slips of paper that had fallen under the tower stand, notes from a 2015 ride, a 2012 calendar, frequent-shopper cards from places in Voorheesville, and a credit slip from a used-book store that vanished long before we moved.
Also a snippet that fell out of Salenda Bailey's scrapbook when I scanned a couple of the pages.
I didn't do much today. We had tacos for supper for the third night in a row. There are four taco shells and four taco boats left, but we ate nearly all of the meat, so one way or the other I'm going to have to cook tomorrow evening.
I opened our last can of diced tomatoes, but there's enough left for another meal or two.
There is bindweed in the garden. So far, all young enough that I've been getting the roots. I wonder where all those seeds came from.
The volunteer mustard is doing very well — I hope tonight's rain is substantial. Only a 24% chance.
I bought a parsley plant today, and planted it as soon as I got home. I used one of the tablespoons I dug up a few years ago as a trowel.
I spent an hour hanging out in the library, then pottered around town for three or four hours. I stopped by Marsh; there are still carts and shelves in the store; some of the carts have mysterious notes that I presume are code for "dispose of this cart in a particular way", but I couldn't interpret the abbreviations. Couldn't see much because of the bright sun on the windows. I had a belated lunch at the Peking, which is now the only live store in the building.
On the way home, I like to never got across the railroad. Then when I got home, the first thing I heard on the scanner was the maintenance people telling the railroad dispatcher that a bunch of signals were back in normal operation. Market Street was the only one I caught and remembered. I didn't hear Pope Street, which is where I managed to walk around the repair work — after waiting for three or four big orange machines to pass. Then once I got to the other side, I found a fire hydrant giving every passing car a free shower, and the street about six inches deep. Took quite a while to drain after the flush was finished; when it got down to an inch or two, I mounted up on McClellan Street, turned right, and rode through the stream. I saw another hydrant being flushed one street over before I made it to Lowery's. I didn't go to see whether it was the same guy doing the flushing.
First thing I heard this morning is that Argonne is going to be closed all day so the railroad can work on the viaduct. I wasn't planning to use McKinley today anyway, but this means that a lot of motorists will learn that it exists.
It's such a beautiful day that I ought to be outside doing *something*. Pulling the thistles out of the lily-of-the-valley bed somehow doesn't appeal.
But I did it. Looks much better now. Yesterday I went to Aldi for milk; since I was driving, I stopped by Big R and bought three bags of cat litter and two cans of King Oscar Kipper Snacks. I forgot to buy bagels.
At Aldi, I thought I was buying two bags of frozen peas, but when I got home, one of them was baby brussels sprouts.
I stocked up on frozen foods, since we were still depleted from having drawn them down before cleaning the freezer. Now there's enough stuff that I can't remember what-all is in there. The baskets still look neat, but the flour-and-starch bins are a mess. And I'm having trouble finding a level spot to freeze carry-in containers for Sunday.
I spent this morning making potato salad; I had no idea how much time I spend making dressing for potato salad. This time I bought four huge potatoes and cooked them one at a time — and when the last potato had been stirred in, I was still chopping up seasonings.
When I poured the melted ice out of the potato-salad server, I wondered how the water had gotten salad dressing in it, but didn't investigate. If I had, I'd have put the salad container back into the empty ice container instead of putting them into the cooler separately.
When we got home, there was potato salad on everything. Fortunately, everything was in sealed containers. I traced the mess to a large crack in the bottom of the potato-salad container.
This left the mystery of how the container got cracked. It had probably been the ice container many times, but when freezing ice breaks a container, you notice right away. Finally I remembered that on our way out of Warsaw this morning, Dave had confidently driven over a newly-repaired railroad crossing, which jarred us and rattled everything in the trunk. The ice was still hard, then, and had a little peak in the middle. Mystery solved.
We split a chicken wing for supper. I wish that I'd taken more than two; they are very good.
We have gotten tired of asparagus, so I blanched what was in the house, froze it on waxed paper on a cookie sheet, and bagged it.
Production has slowed, presumably due to the flooding. It bounced back the last time this happened — but not from the second submersion the same spring.
I'm planning to ride to North Manchester tomorrow, because I need the exercise and I haven't been there in years. I don't expect to see a reason to come back.
I intend to come back by way of Oswego.
Almost forgot to make sure there would be ice for my cooler. I wonder what else I've neglected?
I rode to Owen's today. At breakfast time, I impulsively plunked a chunk of corned beef into a pot of corned-beef broth — and then remembered that we haven't any cabbage. I always put the cabbage in late in the cooking anyway.
We buried an enormous fish in the garden, in the row where I plan to plant carrots. I didn't dig the hole deep enough or long enough, but the fish was pretty well on the way to composting already, and the soil is well stocked with biota.
The last time I went by Marsh, I got a good enough look at the notes on some of the carts to read the scrawl: "keep all carts".
No clue yet as to what will happen to the building.