Daughter’s visit last week was an opportunity for us to finally celebrate a very belated Christmas. She got her father a 1000 piece puzzle of Birds of the Backyard, which we have been working on daily since he unwrapped it. We haven’t worked on a jigsaw puzzle since the kids were young.
The puzzle It is set up on the dining room table, and we will just eat and work around it until it is completed. The dog got a couple of pieces but only did minor damage to them.
We may have a lot of opportunity to work on the puzzle this week, as a snow storm is coming that the National Weather Service says could be a blizzard of historic proportions. Their models are showing wind speeds that are the strongest they have seen in 20 years.
Husband is traveling to Bismarck for work Sunday and Monday, and will return Monday before the storm hits on Tuesday. We are rarely bored, but a puzzle will be just the thing to help us pass the time if we are snowed in.
How do you like to pass the time when you can’t leave the house? What is your most memorable jigsaw puzzle?
Had my annual check-up yesterday. Nothing momentous and I was only gone from the house for about an hour and a half. When I got home, bearing Taco Bell, YA informed me that she had taken the handles off the refrigerator to wash them. Apparently when she wiped the handles down, she felt there was dirt in crevices that she couldn’t get to without removing them.
I’m torn. It’s nice to know she’s handy and can figure things out (apparently there was some YouTube assistance) but there’s also bewilderment that she would be driven to this task. I’ve looked closely at the handles and honestly, they look the same to me as they did this morning.
Daughter is coming home for a visit Friday through next Monday, the weather gods willing, and we are all excited. She hasn’t been home for two years. She is currently working six days a week at her agency job and her private therapy practice, and is exhausted. She begins her full time private practice in mid April.
Her plans are to vegetate on the sofa, crochet an afghan for us, and be pampered. We have the yarn. She doesn’t want to go any where, just be at home and have us cook for her.
We planned menus yesterday. There will be chicken enchiladas Friday, German roast pork braised in apple cider with butternut squash risotto Saturday, and pasta with mom’s red sauce and Calabrian meatballs and bruschetta on Sunday. Monday will be leftovers. Her dad has to make bacon and scrambled eggs for her. The bacon must be Cloverdale brand, thick-sliced, hickory-smoked variety, cooked just the way she likes it, meaning it is crisp in the middle and more chewy on the ends. She also wants homemade French bread. I already have two loaves in the freezer as well as the chicken, pork loin, meatballs, and red sauce. There is one remaining butternut from the garden. I think we are set.
What would you request if you could have someone cook for you for three days. When was the last time you were waited on hand and foot?
One of the most trying aspects of our Grandson’s two week stay has been managing his interactions with our dog. Kyrill is a terrier, therefore terribly intrusive and curious. Grandson doesn’t like the way the dog invades his space and hovers. The dog just wants to be a part of everything. He also seems to be anxious, and when he isn’t following Grandson he is sitting in my lap. I am never alone. That has been stressful.
I found that the best way of helping Grandson understand the dog’s behavior is to talk in what I imagine the dog’s voice would be, explaining my (the dog’s) motives and feelings. The dog’s voice is lower than my regular speaking voice, with some difficulty saying his L’s. Grandson is young enough to suspend reality and have conversations with the dog (me), explaining how he feels about the dog’s behavior. Sometimes Grandson will say something, and then tell me “Oma, I am talking to Kyrill”, letting me know I have to answer him in Kyrill’s voice and from Kyrill’s point of view. Like us, the dog has been glad for our Grandson’s stay, but, like us, also looking forward to having things back to normal.
Do you have a particular voice you use for your pets? What would your pets say to you if they could talk?What were your best and worst childhood pets?
My friend in Tucson (actually Green Valley) lives at the end of her cul de sac, right along a canyon. We had walked down a path into the canyon a bit and she pointed out javelina tracks. While I know what a javelina is, I’ve never actually seen one. And I certainly didn’t expect to be walking along a javelina pathway.
Then later that evening as we were sitting in her living room, I looked out the window to see a fairly large javelina walking right past the house, only about 20 feet from my chair. Fascinating. During my trip we actually spied javelinas several times – at the Desert Museum, more near the house and even a troop crossing the street near a park. They look like pigs but Arizonians are quick to tell you that they are peccaries and NOT pigs. I loved seeing them and spent some time looking up javelina facts during the trip.
On our last day, in the zoo gift shop, I found a small plush javelina toy that I thought was cute. My friend insisted that I actually needed a bigger plush toy. When I told her the small one was what I could justify (since clearly I don’t need to be dragging stuffed toys home at my age), she doubled down and said she wanted to purchase it for me. We argued a bit and I eventually gave up.
On the way home I made my first mistake – I gave the toy a name – Henrietta. The mistake meant that when I was packing, I felt funny about stuffing her into my squishable carry-on bag. How would she breathe? I really didn’t even pause before I set her into my purse. When my friend laughed and asked what folks would think, I told her that lots of people needed emotional support animals when they flew. Henrietta would be my emotional support javelina. (I am NOT suggesting that people who have emotional support animals don’t need them!)
Anyway, here is Henrietta going through Security, getting settled on the plane and then at home on my bed.
I will admit this to you all; I’ve had Henrietta for cuddling every night since I got back from Tuscson. I’ve thought about bringing some of my other stuffed toys down from the attic so they can take turns but I’m afraid Henrietta’s feelings will be hurt!
Any strange stuffed toys in your past (or present)?
We are starting our second, and unexpected, week of caring for our grandson. A snow storm and terrible road conditions have made our planned rendezvous with Son and Dil impossible today, and it looks like the weather is going to be awful all week. We may not get him back to his parents until Saturday.
Yesterday Husband, Grandson, and dog had a wonderful time playing in the snow drifts, feeding the birds, and tearing around in the backyard. The dog came in the house with a mass of golf ball-sized snow clumps sticking to his beard, skirt, armpits, furnishings, and legs. I had to put him in a warm bath to melt them. He had a great time out there, though. Grandson loved watching the birds flock at the feeder.
Husband is exhausted from clearing snow. He says that North Dakota words to live by are “Don’t run out of whiskey in a blizzard”. His small stash of hooch is holding up just fine, but we really need spring to come.
What are your words to live by? Any opinions about whiskey?
We started off this week with rain on Monday. Rain on a snow packed gravel road just makes ice, so there was a lot of phone calls between the township officials. Most of the residents know the county, whom we contract for snow removal and road maintenance, is working on it, but they will sometimes send a note just to make sure we know a certain road is an ice rink. And a few roads are more trouble than others. We all managed and in a few hours they were better.
When I was moving snow last week, I forgot to make a path from the back door of the chicken coop over to the building with the feed. I did that in the rain Monday morning because the chickens needed more feed. And I then went up the driveway and tried to scrape off some ice. I sanded the corners and had to take a moment to be grateful, again, for the things I can do this year that I was not doing a year or six months ago. I picked up and threw a bag of feed on my shoulder and I carried buckets of corn. A year ago, I had the shoulder surgery and couldn’t do any of that. I walked through the snow and I spread out sand; six months ago I was barely able to walk or keep my balance and I certainly would not have been walking on an uneven surface.
Chickens are doing really well, we’re getting somewhere between 18 and 24 eggs per day. Thanks to Tim, I was able to move a few dozen and someone at the college took a few dozen. I think I moved 16 dozen eggs one day.
We still have the two ducks. Plus, some wild ones that come in for corn.
It’s very interesting to us, the pheasants are not afraid of the vehicles; the tractor or the gator or a car and they will just stand there and watch us go by. But I step out of the house 75 yards away and they flee.
I’m not sure if you can consider an inch of snow being ‘March coming in like a lion’, it’s March, it’s going to do whatever it does. There are basketball tournaments and they used to say there was always a snowstorm during tournaments. That doesn’t prove so true anymore, so we’ll just see what it is. But the snow is melting. Even after that freezing rain on Monday, by Monday afternoon a lot of ice had melted on the road. We talk about our long driveway, but most of the time it’s just the first 300 yards from the house that’s a problem. Those are the two corners going uphill to get out of our yard. If you can get around those two corners you can probably make it. The rest of the road is still curvy and uphill, but it’s open and in the sun, and doesn’t usually drift too bad, knock-on wood, famous last words, your mileage may vary, certain weather conditions apply.
When I was a kid, I had a rail sled. Technically, I still have it, it’s hanging in the garage.
When I was a kid I used a rail sled. At some point when I was a kid dad re- did a lot of the driveway so it wouldn’t drift so bad. But prior to that, there was these two corners that had banks on the sides. I would take this rail sled up above the second corner and get a run at it and I could make both corners, come around below the house and ride that sled all the way down to the barn. It was like a luge run! That was the coolest thing ever. My brother talks about it too. But if the road got too slippery, well then we couldn’t get out with the car. (rear wheel drive you know back then) and dad spread manure on the road and that kind of messed up the luge run. Seriously, manure. Why buy salt, we have this and it’s free and it needs to be spread every day anyway. Once it started to melt in the spring mom complained a bit.
Manure spreader designs changed over the years. They used to have multiple beaters in the back and you got a nice even spread. Then they went to a single beater design, and you got a lot more clumps. Designs changed again to go to vertical beaters or side discharge and of course the whole way of farming has changed enough that it all had to change with it. Manure is a good fertilizer and there’s a lot of value to it and it’s taking very seriously nowadays. There’s a lot of recordkeeping involved, and there are only certain conditions under which it can be applied. I’m not up on all the rules anymore, but I’m not sure I would be allowed to surface spread in the winter on a hillside. Runoff and erosion, you know, the farmers take that seriously too.
KTCA, Twin Cities Public Television, used to show “Matinee at the Bijou“ at noon on weekdays and sometimes at lunch when dad and I were in the house we’d watch the movie. I remember seeing a black and white Army movie, all I can remember is this bit: a man jumps out of the back of the army truck and lands in a puddle, and he says to the driver “You couldn’t find a dry spot?” and the driver says, “Man. This is a dry spot!” No idea what movie it was. I’ve tried looking for that quote without luck. Why do I remember that?? It had to be 40 years ago. Anyone know the movie?
These blogs. Some days I just start typing and I don’t know when to stop. Don’t ask me about stage lighting. I forget to breathe when you get me going on stage lighting.
I took the header photo last week before the snow. Daughter, dogs, and I took a ride in the gator and stopped for this photo. The dogs run halfway, then we load them in the back, and they ride the rest of the way home. Humphrey is not a jumper; I need to find a snow drift or bank so he can get in there.
The news this week is all about the snowstorm.
I spent some time getting things ready: put the gator in the shed, filled the tractor with diesel fuel, made sure the chickens had plenty of food and water. And filled the corn feeder and wall feeder so I wouldn’t have to do it during the snow. At one of the theaters, I hauled out garbage because I knew it would be easier before the snow than after.
An East wind snowstorm is always a problem. There were some deep drifts.
I didn’t hook the blower up at first because I wondered how bad it would really be. It didn’t take many steps to decide I needed the blower– there was no way I could have done it with the blade. Took a few hours, but got it done. Same as the rest of you, different equipment but we’ve all moved snow before.
The guy who drives the road grader for the county, and plows roads for our township, is on a beach in the Dominican Republic this week. Not a bad deal for him. The guy who drives the big county truck with a wing blade on each side to plow roads, he retired a month ago. Kudos to all those truck drivers filling in and keeping the roads clear.
I’ve spent a few days working on lights for a show this week. I’m climbing ladders again! Left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg… just like the old days! It’s pretty cool. Honestly, I feel 20 years younger! And fun to be back in the saddle so to speak. Also redoing some storage rooms and an assortment of odd jobs around the theater. Busy busy busy.
I’m trying to get book work done. I meet my accountant for taxes on March 17th. Twenty years ago, I was always behind on book work, too. The snow days were good for getting book work done.
I go to a business and there’s this pillar that isn’t square to the room. I hate it.
It’s square to the entire building, but not the lobby. It makes me crazy.
One other thing I did last week was move the tank that we use to raise the baby chicks. It normally sits behind the chicken coop, and it can get buried in snow. Last week it was out of the snow and I moved it to a trailer so when I need it this spring, it won’t be frozen down and buried.
If I’m thinking baby chicks, spring must be coming.
Starting Sunday, it will be a wild ride at our house. Our son and his wife are flying to Savannah, GA so our son can attend the American Counseling Association conference and they can both have a much deserved vacation. Our grandson, who will be 5 in April, was going to spend the week with his maternal grandparents in Mankato. They are a lovely retired couple, both educators, some years older than me and Husband. We are Oma and Opa. They are Grandma and Papa.
Last weekend Papa fell and broke his upper arm bone. It is painful. He and Grandma are disappointed that their combined health issues make it impossible for them to look after our grandson, so we agreed to take him for the week. Son will drive him to Fargo from Brookings, SD on Sunday, I will pick him up in Fargo on Sunday and drive back here with him.
Opa and I plan to tag team child care next week in terms of work. I will work mornings. Opa will watch Grandson, and then we will switch, and Opa will work afternoons and I will watch Grandson. Opa loves to swim and will take him to the swimming pools at our local recreation center. We also have story time at the local library, lots of books in our home, and Oma’s play therapy room at work where any 4 year old would think he was in heaven. We will have to integrate Grandson and our spoiled dog. I expect to be exhausted, but happy, by the end of the week.
Imagine an almost 5 year old boy was coming to stay with you for a week. What would you do with him? What are you favorite grandparent memories?
Ever since we defrosted our freezers several weeks ago and were able to see what frozen leftovers we had, Husband and I have been making a point of eating those leftovers and trying not to put any leftovers from new dishes in the freezers. Every night during the week we say to each other “we’re not cooking or baking this weekend, are we.”
Then Saturday rolls around, and our resolve crumbles. This weekend, “not cooking” resulted in an Italian Pie of Greens and two loaves of Leinsamen Mischbrot, a German sourdough bread made of several kinds of flours and flaxseed. The previous weekend, “not cooking” resulted in a cod and mussel stew with harissa, chicken tortellini soup, and four loaves of French bread. We tell ourselves that since the Swiss chard for the pie and the makings for the stew and the soup were already in the freezers, that it is good to have homemade bread on hand, and that none of the newly prepared main dishes went in the freezer as leftovers, we are kind of, sort of, sticking to our plan. There are noticeably fewer containers now in the Lutheran freezer where all the leftovers go.
Husband informs me that we are now eating the last loaf of rye bread from the freezer. Beatrice Ojakangas, the Duluth cookbook author, said that her father would complain to her mother that “there isn’t anything to eat in this house” if he couldn’t find any rye bread in the kitchen. Husband loves rye bread, but insists that he isn’t going to bake for a while. I notice, though, that there is rye sourdough starter in the fridge, and we just got some rye chops we had ordered, so I can guess what we are “not baking” next weekend.
When is your resolve the weakest? What is your favorite bread to make or eat? How do you deal with leftovers?
Trail Baboon 