Tomorrow is election day. I'm hoping that after one last crescendo of screeching and running in circles, people will SHUT UP.
We took the patio chairs up to the barn attic today, and put the foam cover on the hatch.
Two loads of wash. Weather Underground says that I can hang the whites outside, but I'd better use lots and lots of pins.
While the blacks are in, I intend to walk to the Trailhouse. I got my chain all tangled up on Saturday, and I may need a new front derailleur. It happened when I was shifting up for the sprint through the village, so it wasn't far to walk home. I should have left the bike off at the Trailhouse then — I'd be two days quicker to get it back — but I thought I could untangle it myself once I had tools and a calm place to work.
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The mechanic had to pull the crank off to get the chain untangled. Did it immediately, and there was no charge!
He said that I need new sprockets, but I can't have any until the bike-part shortage eases off. And they might be hard to find then, because the bike is nearly fifty years old. Meanwhile, I need to feather my shifts onto the big ring.
I nailed it on "lots of pins" to hang up the clothes, but didn't think about "keep coming back in to put on another layer". It's a COLD wind.
The second load is in the living room on a rack.
I'd have liked to leave the whites in the sun while we have sun, but with the wind, I thought it wise to bring them in before my nap.
Emptying the rack before we Roomba the bedroom. The second load was nearly all Dave's, and the first load was nearly all mine.
I'm two days late wiping the gaskets and gasket seats of the refrigerators and the freezer. I had to use soda to get a stain off the freezer lid. (Since it's horizontal, I wipe it every time I wipe the gaskets.)
When I need a horizontal surface to work on and don't want to unfold a card table, the freezer is the only horizontal surface that doesn't have a bunch of stuff piled on it.
Even the eating table has five kinds of salt, two pepper mills, a paper towel dispenser, and on and on.
Since the freezer is next to the recycling bin, it's great for reading the mail. Also, Dave hung a really-brilliant light over it so he could see the bottoms of the bins.
I caught Dave reading election news. I'm going to wait until there is news to report.
Estimated grocery bill: $202.44, and there are items on Dave's Alexa list that he hasn't entered yet.
Sandwich thins still not available. I wonder whether something has happened at the Brown Berry bakery.
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So I logged in again and ordered two cans of petite diced tomatoes and two cans of mushroom stems and pieces.
It's a beautiful clear sunny warm day, perfect for a long ride.
I'm taking this opportunity to wash a bedspread that has been cluttering the laundry hamper ever since we took it off the love seat.
We have subscribed to a weekly newspaper. When the sample arrived, I thought "Epoch Times" was a special edition of "The Best of Times", the shopper the Times-Union puts out. I haven't seen "The Best of Times" lately, but "The Paper" shows up fairly often.
So now I need to resume using up the stack of pannier insulation profligately. Which is good, because it has been turning yellow. How can I know the insulation has been in the pannier too long if it's brown when I put it in?
I was halfway through re-insulating my pannier when Dave came home with the groceries. A nice symmetrical number: $220.20. That's over a week and a half, and we bought a lot of stock-up stuff, and a lot of fresh meat.
I put the ham hocks into the freezer, because I hadn't expected to get them on the first try. When I plan to boil them to mush, throwing them into the soup frozen doesn't make any difference. I thought I was ordering smoked ham hocks, but fresh ham will make a pleasant change of pace. I don't think I've ever made bean soup with uncured pork before.
Dave is going to pot roast the chuck tomorrow; I'll stuff the two poblanos that were substituted for the serano and the I-forget pepper that were ordered, and freeze them. They are very large poblanos, so I think I'll make eight ounces of hamburger into stuffing and serve one poblano per meal. Luckily, I ordered and got two cans of petite diced tomatoes. Those have proved perfect for supporting stuffed peppers in a skillet.
I'll serve another eight ounces of hamburger on Ukrainian bread tonight. After I make a pound into meatloaf, that won't leave much of the 2.67 pounds to patty and freeze.
Duh! I should make a pound and a half into meatloaf, and stuff four poblano halves with a third of it. That way I can have egg in the poblano stuffing, which will improve it considerably.
Since Dave is diabetic, I substitute chopped and grated vegetables, a tablespoon of Malt-O-Meal, and an extra egg for the bread cubes in my meat loaf.
I still have fresh oregano, parsley, and scallions to put in, but the scallions are starting to look a bit frosted. Might be some mustard leaves if I search for them before sunset.
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It's Guy Fawks Day, and the jimson weed is probably dry enough to burn, but it looks a bit windy out there and it's going to be dark very soon.
A dead heat: Dave got the pot roast on the stove about the same time I put the stuffed poblanos into the freezer.
We managed to stay out of each other's way, for the most part. I worked at the counter and he worked at the table.
I noticed that the poblanos are hot just in time to refrain from putting hot sauce into the stuffing. My previous poblanos were about the hotness of bell peppers. They were also much smaller and thinner-walled, and tasted very green.
I mixed up the meatloaf and weighed it. I had previously weighed the bowl and written it down. It was two pounds (six of the eight extra ounces were egg), so I put twelve ounces of mix on the scale and put the remainder into a plastic bag in a loaf pan a bit smaller than the one I plan to bake it in. When it was molded to shape, I put a clothespin on the bag and lifted it from the pan onto something flat in the freezer.
I mixed in curry powder and chili powder, and divided the twelve ounces into four poblano halves. Just as I finished, I remembered that I mix canned corned-beef hash into my pepper stuffing. I could have dumped it back into the bowl, but I didn't. I can put potatoes halves under the sauce beside the peppers when I bake them, or bake some veggies in another skillet.
In today's editorial, somebody is quoted as saying "I can't imagine . . . ever seeing another ticket that is two white men." I'm very sad to agree with him — because the battle for equality won't be won until there is a ticket with two white men on it and nobody notices.
Went for a short ride today. I returned the library book that Linda had brought me, then worked out on the courthouse steps. While climbing steps, I noticed a food truck, so I bought a bisonburger and came home the shortest way. Dave had already eaten chili, but he ate his half of the bisonburger. Could have used some suet ground with the meat, but it was good.
And I'd gotten home fast enough that we didn't have to re-heat it. It helped that I had recently rebuilt the insulation on my pannier. (And the sandwich came in a foam clamshell.)
I threw out my Capitaland Nautilus T-shirt today. It was full of holes, and it was polyester, but I regretted having to put it into the landfill.
But unlike many things in the dustbin of history, I *could* do Nautilus again; the machines are designed to strain only what you want to strain. But I hope I never need to. When I quit, it was because I was organizing my entire life around getting to the gym.
On the other hand, it's been really nice to be able to lift my left arm all these years — once Nautilus freed it up, it stayed free. I *do* do a little maintenance on it every day. (Pauses to wave arms around.)
I looked out the window and said "I'm going to do what the preacher told me, and stay home." It has quit raining now, but it's still blowing the doormats away, and it's getting colder.
I went on another short ride yesterday. I looked at the foundations of the old-folks home going up on Market Street across from Fribley Field. I parked my bike and walked over to the mysterious three-story concrete-block tower, but didn't learn anything except that it has a concrete floor a few feet below ground level. I presume it's pilings from there to the bedrock, since that area used to be a swamp. There are three holes on the north side, as if they planned to put in very large windows, but I saw no provision for putting in floors. And if they did, you'd have to use a ladder to get from one to the next; a staircase that completely filled the building would be narrow and steep.
Perhaps it's an elevator shaft for something to be built later?
Then I rode to the court house and climbed each of the three flights of steps three times. At least once on each flight, I paused at the top to admire the view. After that, I walked down Lake Street to the scene of Thursday's house fire. From the outside, I couldn't see any damage except smoked windows, but the fire chief guestimated fifty thousand dollars of damage, and two people were taken to the hospital for "minor smoke inhalation".
After that, there was nothing to do but come straight home. Despite a late start, I arrived in plenty of time for lunch.
While waiting for the washing machine, I'm shopping at Martin's, and reading e-mail while waiting for pages to load. While hunting for ground beef I found "Martin's meat loaf, 4.99/lb, approximately one pound per pound".
"Approximately"?
But I'm much taken by the entry for Idahoan Original Mashed Potatoes — instead of a picture of the package, it shows a list of the ingredients. I hope that that is the start of a trend.
New Idea: to compensate for getting thirteen 48-item pages of frozen meals, cat food, chips, etc., I simply click on everything that really is potatoes. Then I can go to the shopping list (which is more organized than the search results) and select my bag of potatoes.
I wonder what "chester potatoes" are? They come from the deli, so I'm pretty sure I don't want them.
Oops, the washing machine just clicked,
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The clothes on racks dried fast. It will be time to get the humidifier out soon.
I DuckDucked "chester potatoes". I got Martin's Deli. Some of the near misses suggest that it might be potatoes duchesse.
A couple of decades ago I noticed a trend to decorate buildings with structures that looked as though someone had started to build a porch or awning, then abandoned the job as soon as the framework was up. Eventually I learned that these were called "pergolas", taking the name of structures intended to have vines trained over the top to provide cool shade.
I just read an ad for a startling new idea: the "dry pergola" — it has a roof!
Nothing new under the sun.
I wonder what they would call a pergola with vines trained over it.
Lovely day, so I dropped off a tin box and a beer glass at Goodwill. Stout headwind all the way back.
I made two loaves of multi-grain bread on Wednesday, because I had a cannister labeled "corn" and couldn't remember whether it was corn meal or corn-bread mix. I also put in a little oat flour and a lot of wheat germ. I chickened out of adding buckwheat, but I did put in some vital wheat gluten.
I sprinkled the top with rolled oats because multi-grain bread always has oats stuck to it. Then I realized that that is also a good way to keep the plastic wrap from sticking to the dough when the loaf rises.
Dave thinks the bread will be a good substitute for biscuits with canned sausage gravy tomorrow morning.
When I do it again, I'll put all the dough in one pan; they came out rather flat.
I'll also soak some flax seeds and quinona in half the water the night before; multi-grain bread is supposed to have specks in it. I might put in some slivered almonds too.
Linda brought me a bunch of stuff from Aldi this morning; I'm planning to bake the chicken tomorrow, and might make a full-bore Thanksgiving dinner out of it, since it's much larger than the chickens I've been buying from Martin's. I do have stuffing mix and cranberries in the freezer.
No pie. Neither of us is allowed. Besides, I've forgotten how to make pie crust. I never was particularly good at it.
The bread did make good biscuits. I prefer gravy made with real sausage, but Dave likes canned gravy, and it isn't bad. Not to mention that *he* cooks it!
I have the chicken ready to put into the oven. Pepper, salt, a quarter of an onion in the neck cavity, an apple in the guts cavity, and two mini-potatoes and four slices of carrot tucked around the edges.
I'm rendering out two lumps of fat to make gravy, and simmering half a gizzard in a pint of water to which I intend to add my last tub of Knorr chicken stock. That should be enough broth for both the dressing and the gravy.
The package said some giblets might be missing, but half a gizzard seems a bit skimpy. The package suggested discarding the giblets, so I suppose the packers didn't want to waste them.
Now I need a suitable container for left-over chicken fat. A quarter-pint canning jar is probably best.
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I don't think there is going to be any left-over chicken fat.
The chicken is in the oven. The ingredients for the dressing, gravy, and corn are laid out.
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I didn't do anything with the cranberries, and that was wise. We are both stuffed even though we hardly made a dent in the six-pound chicken. I ate both wings and half a drumstick; Dave ate the other half of the drumstick and several slices of breast.
Plus lots and lots of nibbles.
I should have put the dressing beside the chicken instead of on the shelf under it; it was too brown on the bottom. Which didn't stop me from peeling off the crunchy crust and planning to have the rest of it for my bedtime snack.
Every piece of cast iron is clean and on its hook or in the oven. Except for the seldom-used items in the bottom of the pantry cupboard; those are all dusty. (And there are also a couple of iron kettles in the garage. I should give those to someone more energetic.)
I put away the chicken and the broth that cooked out of it separately. I should have also put the vegetables in a separate container; they will be hard to find after the broth gels.
Been a long time since I ate chicken that good.
There wasn't any left-over chicken fat, and I don't think I'll find more than speckles on the broth after it chills.
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I just scored ten at HexaVirus! I'd best quit on that note and go to bed.
Sunday night, we had Saturday's left-overs with peas instead of corn. Tonight we had chef salad with chicken. I put in mustard leaves, onion leaves, and two sprigs of parsley from the garden.
Dave made room in the garage for the car today, and brought in two of the three benches and stacked them as shelves behind my bike. He's already put a battery and its charger on the bottom bench, and I've put my cycling gloves on the top bench. We plan to leave the third bench on the porch all winter.
The DNR newsmail came today. They are having a Black Friday special; among other things, you can get 30% off room rent at the state park inns from New Year through April.
It's deer season, but they are still making only token efforts to reduce the number of deer. And the feral swans that are crowding out the native swans aren't even mentioned.
Muzzleloaders no longer have to be loaded from the muzzle. Say what?
Today's rain is coming down in big fluffy flakes. They were falling almost as fast as raindrops and melting when they hit when I first saw them, but we have some accumulation now.
Dave cleared a space for the car in the garage yesterday, but didn't park inside. Oops!
He's at Dr. Knight's office right now. I hope he remembered to put a push broom into the car.
First thing this morning, I rode to the animal shelter to drop off a carton of expensive but inedible cat food. The last time I tried to feed it to Al, I thought he might like it better crushed, so I pressed it with the table knife I'd cut the cube out of the can with — and the knife bounced. So I put the remainder of the can into a saucepan with a can of water, brought it to a boil, beat it vigorously, and poured it back into the can. (What wouldn't fit, I poured into a serving dish, where Al ignored it.)
When this soup was chilled, I could still slice it! Al also ignored the slice, so I set the can out beside the compost heap, where *something* ate it.
I haven't measured the distance, but it took me only twenty-seven minutes to ride back, and I don't ride very fast. I left home at 11:31 and got back at 12:37. The trip out was a bit longer: when eastbound, I hate the part of Wooster Road that Google Maps lights up as particularly suitable for cycling, so I by-passed it on Pierceton. It isn't bad coming back, but I definitely wouldn't mark it as better than the part of Wooster on the east side of 250 E.
When I cooked a feast on Saturday, I thought that our Thanksgiving dinner would be left-over chicken with left-over dressing and gravy, but we picked up our Martin's order yesterday, so I'm serving fresh hamburger on an asiago bagel. The "bagel" is a very fat bun, so I think I'll cut it into four slices.
I forgot that jalapeños are very cheap when I asked Linda to buy me a couple. The smallest bag was seven for fifty-nine cents. But jalapeños keep very well.
I put a quarter of a pepper into the sauce I cooked the stuffed poblano in tonight, and minced another quarter into a batch of pimento cheese. Pimentos not being available anywhere, I used mini-sweet peppers.
This poblano was less tough than the first one, but still not very good. It was a bit too large for the skillet, but after it thawed, I could squish it in. I sliced the last two tiny yellow potatoes and tucked them under the poplanos, and cut one of the shallots from our latest Martin's order in half and put it on top of the sauce. I haven't opened the bag of red potatoes yet.
Today Dave took the sounder off the doorbell and put back the old bell. It's more of a clatter than a ring, but I can hear it.
(Note: Dave is the deaf one in this family — that ringer was *feeble*.)
I sliced the last bit of the last farmer's market onion onto my egg sandwich this morning, and the last quarter of the last turnip is on the relish plate. There's still a small sweet potato.
I figured out how to secure the old globe to my bicycle, and took it to Goodwill this morning. It was such a short trip that I went down every side road on the way back, of which there were surprisingly few. On one of these side trips I was amused to see a disposable roasting pan with a turkey carcass in it beside a trash can. I was less amused when I got closer and saw that there was enough meat to make turkey ala king for a large family still on the bones — and that was just what I could see on top; I don't think they turned the turkey over to get at the yummy meat on the back.
On another side trip, I learned that there is a well-beaten footpath down to the railroad at the end of Frazier. And I could see a clear path from the railroad into parking lots on Detroit.
I came past the old-folks home going up on Market Street. A lot of first-floor framing is up, but there is still no clue as to what the tower is for.
At my first chance, I crossed from Market to Jefferson, which runs right beside the railroad at that point. At one of the intersections there is a sign warning engineers not to block the grade crossing. It says "clear crossing area". Every single time I see that sign, I read it as "deer-crossing area".
I wonder how they can tell when the back of the train has cleared the crossing. Perhaps there is a camera in the transponder.
A woman who drove up while I was unloading the globe at Goodwill was gobsmacked with awe that I'd come on a bicycle. Telling her that I'd come only five miles just made it worse.
I left at 10:48 and was home at 12:43.
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Way cool! I was fiddling around on the Martin's website and accidentally stumbled onto a way to view the products sorted into categories! I'm looking at frozen breakfasts right now. [We later learned that only a few categories are available; none of them include A+D ointment, for example.] [Still later, I learned that "Health and Beauty" is a sub-category of "Pantry".]
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I wanted some chicken broth to put into my bedtime snack, and found enough chicken fat to fill a quarter-pint canning jar. And the lovely cream-white fat cleanly broke away from the thoroughly-jelled broth.
I think I'll use some of the fat to make a thin white sauce tomorrow night, simmer red-lentil penne pasta in it, and add some sharp cheddar.
Red-lentil penne pasta is nothing to write home about, unless you are deathly allergic to real pasta, but it's edible in a rich sauce.
I decided to have it for lunch instead. I don't know yet whether I'm having macaroni in cheese sauce or cream soup with macaroni. I put in a small chunk of chicken fat, a tablespoon of flour, a cup of milk, a large chunk of jellied stock, and a handful of red-lentil penne pasta.
I think "penne" means "quill".
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I added seasonings and cheese, turned the fire off, went away for a few minutes to let my soup cool down to serving temperature, and returned to find that I *hadn't* turned the fire off, the soup was boiling merrily, and the cheese had curdled.
Tasted all right. Red-lentil pasta is still nothing to write home about.
Dave pulled up a disused grounding rod today because he wants to run the mower in the fern bed. When he began, he thought that it would be a hard job because he'd driven a six-foot rod into the ground until only a foot or two stuck out, but he was wrong.
He had driven in an *eight*-foot rod.
He has no idea how he managed to do it, save that a post driver was involved.
Getting it out involved main strength, awkwardness, the railroad iron, a clamp, a piece of log, and a pipe wrench. Once it got loose, we took turns twisting and pulling. The last couple of feet, pulling alone sufficed.
I was planning to make chicken salad and bake bread today, but a leak in the toilet forced Dave to turn off the water, and that makes hand washing decidedly awkward. The plumber will be here this afternoon or tomorrow, depending on how his other jobs go.
Yes, I did fill a half-gallon measuring bowl and a pitcher before he turned the water off, but we aren't set up for using water out of pitchers to wash in.
I got the pitcher from the back of the cupboard over the stove, which made me realize that the particle-board shelf is dangerously deteriorated, and taking everything out of the cupboard made me realize that I should get rid of three of the four pitchers.
So if you remember one of Evelyn's pitchers fondly, call or e-mail and I'll set it out on the porch for you.
One is clear glass with pink, white, and blue enamel stripes that look something like fringed rugs. This is the one that looks most like Evelyn to me.
One is clear glass, almost cylindrical, with low relief inverted flutes on the outside; makes me think of ice water served in in an old-time restaurant.
One is blue ceramic, molded to look like a keg.
One is yellow glass with diamond-shaped raised spots on the outside.
There are also two measuring beakers; one holds two pints, the other is marked "Kodak" and holds either 16 oz. or 500cc. I suspect that that one would need to be cleaned VERY thoroughly before being used for food.
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By good luck the plumber got here about the time I was due for a nap (so we had zapped pot pies for supper when I finally woke up), and all the toilet needed was a new valve, which he had in his truck.
The mower died, but started right up after Dave towed it back to the house with the truck and he and I pushed it into the garage. But it had been running funny, so the repairman will pick it up tomorrow anyway.
Repairwise, it has been a busy day.
Dave ordered a piece of shelving for the cupboard over the stove, then I remembered that there is a surplus particle-board shelf among the pieces of plywood I use for sewing. (I've no idea how I got custody of it.) He tried to cancel the order, but even though it had been only a few minutes, the Web site said that it had been shipped.