Husband drives to Bismarck for work every Tuesday night, and returns home Wednesday night. He is usually pretty tired on both drives, and cranks up music on the radio to keep himself awake.
The other night he listened to the Sinatra station, and heard what he thought was one of the oddest duets he ever heard. It featured Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin singing What Now, My Love.
I have to agree with husband that this is quite weird. I can’t imagine what possessed the Queen of Soul to sing that with Ol’ Blue Eyes. Their styles are so different and not really compatible. Sort of like Ozzy Osbourne singing gospel music with Amy Grant.
What music keeps you awake when you drive? What are your favorite duets? What are some duets you wouldn’t want to hear?
YA and I can’t go anywhere without seeking out the closest zoo or animal park (or both). We were both actually surprised that there is a zoo in Honolulu. When we were deciding on a hotel, we had several places marked on a map and while we didn’t choose Waikiki due to its proximity to the zoo, it certainly didn’t hurt that it was walking distance from our hotel.
It was bigger than I was expecting considering its prime location right off the beach and had a bigger variety of animals that I was expecting as well. It was a quiet day when we were there so no jostling and every docent was all ours.
There were three giraffes and one zebra together in a large savannah-like enclosure. I asked the docent whey the two breeds were together; zebras have a reputation for not getting along with anybody else, including members of their own species and troop. The docent told me that the larger/older giraffe was named Squirt and the zebra was named Mr. Z. Apparently they had been housed together for many years until just recently when the two younger giraffes were introduced. Mr. Z has access to his own space and sleeping area at all time but he prefers to hang out with Squirt and even sleeps with him. The docent also told me that although Squirt seems to enjoy having the two younger giraffes arounds, he still prefers the company of his zebra pal. The zoo considers them a bonded pair.
I love hearing stories like this so it was great to have the docent all to myself for a bit. Of course, I got a rare YA photo that morning as well so it turned out to be a fabulous morning.
Do you have any “must dos” when you travel or when you have out of town visitors?
Guinevere is not a guard dog, despite her desire to be one. When I spend time downstairs, especially if I’m hanging out on the sofa, she feels the needs to watch out the windows and alert me to the existence of dangerous dogs walking by the house, mutant squirrels touching any of our trees or bushes and any other life-threatening happenings out front.
So it wasn’t a surprise when she reacted to some tree work going on across the street. It was fascinating; they had one of those big cherry pickers that had to anchored on both sides, two other big trucks on the street (which made the snow emergency a little tricky) and six guys that I could count, mostly up in the tree. For a bit I was thinking they were taking the tree down with all that equipment and all those workers but it wasn’t an elm and otherwise had appeared to be fine. After a couple of hours it was clear that they were just pruning and trimming. The project lost a little luster for me at that point.
But then I looked about a bit later and saw the strangest sight. They had dragged all the bigger branches away to the chipper and were cleaning up…. using rakes! Obviously rakes were the correct tool but you just don’t expect to see anyone raking during a snow emergency, the day after 10+ inches to snow. (I know the picture isn’t great… I wanted to make sure that you could see that it was actually a rake.)
How can you identify a dogwood tree? (All bad tree jokes and puns welcome!)
As you all know, YA and I travel pretty well together. For the most part we like to do the same things, we are usually on the same page where restaurants are concerned and we’re both flexible about things that pop up or that change.
When we were planning our Hawaii trip, she was really interested in a UTV tour on Oahu. It was on the other side of the mountain from Honolulu and took place on a big ranch where Hollywood likes to film. In particular Jurassic Park and Jurassic World had scenes filmed there. I’m not a big UTV fan. First off, I don’t care for the driving; usually it’s rough terrain and I end up going pretty slow. This either ticks off anybody in line behind me or ticks off the “sag” driver if I’m at the end. But I also don’t feel all that safe with anybody else driving either – due to the rough terrain. YA was pretty insistent so after getting her promise that she would drive the whole tour, I acquiesced.
It was a gorgeous day and although it was rainy on the mountain road, once we got past that, the sun was shining and it was nice and warm. The ranch owners are smart cookies. In the 70s, when beef production fell, they started dipping their toes into the tourist industry. But they never abandoned the cattle so when pandemic hit and tourism tanked, they stayed afloat on their beef business. Today the tourism is back and they run a slick show with all kinds of different activities.
The most fun part for me was that it was another of those days when YA lets me take pictures! The header photo is of us in front of the UTV. (The dino is thanks for a hand puppet – very clever.) Then she let me take a photo in her driving gear:
And then there was another treat… she was willing to pose with a dinosaur at another stop where they have a few Jurassic props.
Honestly if I could figure out how the stars align for the few times she allows photos, I’d be in heaven!
Have you watched the Jurassic franchise? Did you like any of them?
The first Farm Report of 2023 comes to us from Ben.
I’m happy to report my 1940’s radio station is back on XM radio, thank goodness.
We seem to have picked up some extra ducks; there’s 14 now. And there’s more either female or younger pheasants coming in for chicken corn. I sure wish Steve was here to clarify those things for me. One day I watched our dog Bailey walk right past a pheasant and neither one paid any attention to the other. I understand Bailey ignoring the pheasant, I’m surprised the pheasant ignored Bailey.
I am finally driving again. I park my car over in the old machine shed and there’s a lot of sparrows in there. A night or two isn’t bad. But I parked for two weeks, I had bought a tarp and some cheap bungee cords back in January when I knew I was having shoulder surgery, but the car actually sat out that whole time. This time, when we got it out, it was evident I should’ve had a bigger tarp. The hood, front windshield, and most of the roof was OK, the back window and sides were pretty disgusting. And they were really cheap bungee cords, there’s no stretch left in them. The tarp will still be good… once it’s cleaned off.
I’m back in the tractor! There was a minor mishap trying to move snow one day. It was wet and heavy, and we were trying to go the other direction and, well, one thing led to another, and pretty soon we were in the fence. I told Kelly, I’ve run into a lot of things, broken some fences, dented some steel siding, and broke some stuff; that’s just how you learn. Didn’t damage anything on the tractor, and the fence can be fixed. A few days later trying to cut down the snowbanks, I snagged the fence a couple more times with the blade. Just loosened the fence a little bit. There’s a bit of a learning curve to this that I’m still getting back. I move a lot of sod before the ground freezes. (For the record, Kelly hardly picked up any sod. Somehow, I’m still picking up sod.) And I may have re-arranged our fire pit a little bit. Oops.
We have some pretty good banks on the sides of the road.
That’s the issue with using a blade and not a blower. If I’m up to it, one of these days I’ll hook the blower up and use that to cut the banks down. Unless they melt first. On the township level we have the county Highway Department clear our snow. After the first couple snows and the county trucks clearing the roads, we get some complaints about road rock being thrown into people’s yards. Well, that’s pretty hard to avoid on these first snowfalls. The next complaint is about the snow – or the plow- hitting mailboxes. To avoid those mishaps, a few years ago the county replaced all the mailboxes on county roads with swiveling pipe stands. When the plow or heavy snow hits the mailbox, it swivels out of the way. Seems like a good plan. Except when there’s mail in the box. Then it’s like ‘Crack-the-whip’ and the door pops open and the mail sails off into the ditch. I stood on the edge of the road looking at the open mailboxes (both ours and our neighbors) and looked at the mail down there by the pine tree and thought, “maybe, I can get down there.” Nope, one step into the deep snow and I knew my knew knee wasn’t up to it. Kelly had to go rescue it. And it turned out it was all our neighbors mail.
It was 2 1/2 weeks before I put real pants on again, and three weeks to the day before I wore real shoes again. I’m doing stairs, and I can just barely get the left foot up on my right knee to put my socks on! Making progress!
Movies this week have been Monty Python and the Holy Grail, (because it showed up on Netflix so how could I not?) So many quotable lines! The one I use on daughter often is when trying to wake her up in the mornings. I tell her I’ll come back and “…taunt you a second a-time-a!”
And Ferris Buellers Day Off. And The Big Lebowski. I saw part of The English Patient on TV one night. Thumbs up or down for that one? I remember liking the book.
I got the book ‘Wild Pork and Watercress’ by Barry Crump for Christmas; read that in 2 days. Saw the movie adaptation last summer, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and liked that. Then the book. As usual, the book was better.
Kelly’s car had more miles last year. Probably from driving me around all summer. My car and truck had less miles of course, and all the tractors had less hours. I didn’t do my own fertilizer last year so that accounted for some less. And I only had half as much straw to bale as usual, so that was less hours. The big tractor, doing the heavy tillage, had 37 hours. My other one, the one I use for planting, baling, blowing snow, and mowing, that one had 113 hours. The gator, being our first full year with it, had 468 hours and 455 miles. Since that was my main mode of transportation for a couple months, it did add up.
Speaking of airplanes and deserts, (The English Patient), Anyone seen ‘The Little Prince’ at the Guthrie? How is it?
Did you play Dodge Ball in School? What was the most terrifying playground equipments?
Our dog’s toy arsenal has been quite limited because of his post-surgery cone, and he has had to adapt to continue to have fun. Some toys just don’t work with a cone. I am happy to report the horrid cone comes off today. We and he are heartily sick of it.
One toy that has proven a continued delight for him is the large, orange tennis ball in the header photo. I placed a smaller red ball next to it so you could see the size difference. The orange ball is about 7 inches in diameter. He plays with it in several ways. He loves to peel the orange cover off it. That orange cover is glued on really tightly, and I am amazed at the strength of his jaws and teeth. He also likes to slam the ball on the floor while holding the fabric scrap in his mouth, then shaking it violently. He rolls the ball and chases it all around living room. We like it because it is too large to roll under the furniture. He barks and whines for us to retrieve smaller balls. He also likes to have us hold the ball while he tugs and tugs the fabric scrap. A ball lasts about a week.
What have been your pets’ favorite toys? What were your favorite toys as a child.What toys would you buy for a child these days?
The cabinet guys come on Monday so I’ve been slowly but surely emptying the kitchen and breakfast room so they can do their work. In the breakfast room, along the windowsill, I found one of those temporary hooks filled with face masks. Various designs, although a preponderance of black. This kind of “put up a hook and hang stuff of it” is right up YA’s alley so the only surprise was that I hadn’t noticed it earlier. This is in addition to various other places we have masks, including a little pocket of them in my car.
Then later the same day, an Amazon package got delivered and YA came up stairs with two boxes of covid tests (I almost typed COVID-19 because that was the protocol at my job but now I don’t have to, do I?) When I asked YA why she got them she said “we’re running out”. There was a lot of testing around here when YA had covid in July and then we were seriously exposed the end of August, and then the first weeks of December to make sure my cold was really a cold.
In the last two weeks I’ve been to the theatre and to a concert. The concert required a mask and the theatre recommended (and I complied). YA and I mask on planes.
The new normal feels like it has snuck up on us, although considering we’re 3 years in, it’s kind of a silly way to think. But if you stop to think about it, most new normal do sneak up on you. I could never have imagined today’s technology and medical advances when I was a kid.
Anything you never thought you would ever get used but eventually did?
Yesterday while it was still snowing, my neighbor to the north got his snowblower out and worked on his driveway. A couple of hours later YA headed out with a shovel to do the steps and back sidewalk. Across the street my neighbors were struggling to get their snowblower going. One neighbor to the south was out doing her steps as well.
Me? I’m sitting inside in sweatpants and fat socks, watching tv and sipping my beverage. For some reason I have always been and “wait until it’s over” kind of person. I would rather do 8” once than 4” twice.
And this works out rather well for me most of the time. For example, as I type this, my other neighbor to the south is currently doing OUR driveway (for which he will be rewarded generously with homemade cookies). My neighbor to the north did our front sidewalk when he was out (cookies for him as well). So by the time this ends and I finally venture out, I’ll have less to deal with!
I’m not hugely adventuresome when it comes to food. Once I find something I like, I tend to stick to it. Almond Butter Granola Waffle at Black Coffee & Waffle. Vegetarian Reuben at Pub 42. Blueberry Pancake at Lowbrow. Quattro Formaggio at Punch. It’s not that I’m afraid to try something new, it’s just that I can’t imagine not having my favorite in that moment. There are a few things I’ll always try: tiramisu, sticky toffee pudding, anything made with macadamia nuts.
Although Hawaii is not the actual birthplace of the macadamia nut (and isn’t even the world’s largest producer of the nut), the 50th state has certainly taken the macadamia to heart. I will say that every time I’ve traveled to Hawaii – I work hard to make it worth their while. And the restaurants on Oahu and Maui did not disappoint this trip.
I learned to love macadamia nuts for breakfast years ago. I was breakfasting with clients and the hotel sales person when I discovered coconut syrup on the waffle bar, along with chopped macadamia nuts. Can we say “heavenly”? I know in this global economy I can easily get nuts and syrup but I never get around to it so I was really looking forward to loading up on fat bombs (what a friend dubbed macadamia nuts long ago).
Our very first morning in Oahu, we hiked about 15 blocks to Eggs `n Things:
We had a great table out on the balcony, looking over a pretty park and they served me the Fresh Fruit Rainbow Pancake. With macadamia nuts. The photo is in the header above. It was delicious and outrageous – how can anybody eat that much in one sitting? Well, I showed them how it was done. It was a good things we had a lot of walking to do that day.
We went to a different breakfast spot every day of our trip and I found pancakes with macadamia nuts every time – but only found coconut syrup once. Aaaah well, the vicissitudes of travel!
Trail Baboon 