Baboon Achievers, Food, gardening, Technology, Uncategorized

Slice-o-matic

32 Comments

Although I love cooking, I also love any gadget that makes it easier or quicker. So when I saw a strawberry huller online last week, I was intrigued.  Between the jam and the bags of  berries that I freeze every summer, I spend a lot of time over the sink hulling strawberries with a little sharp knife.  I searched around, discovered that the huller was carried at Bed Bath & Beyond and headed over there on my way down to Northfield to get strawberries. I faced the wall of kitchen gadgets and finally found it, a steal at $7.99 if it made the hulling process easier!  Here’s a quick look at how it works:

And it does work, however, not better than my little sharp knife. After all these years I’m pretty fast, transferring the hulled berry to a bowl while picking up the next strawberry with the hand holding the knife.  With the huller, I ended up having to add an extra step of pushing the button to “dump” the stem and sometimes having to pull twisted stem out of the berry.  After the first batch of jam, I went back to the knife.  It does make a very nice uniform hole if you want to fill the strawberries with something but for a big project, it’s not helpful.  Oh well.

This means that my cherry tomato slicer is still my favorite summertime gadget. I usually have tons of cherry tomatoes every year and the little slicer quickly and easily slices the little tomatoes into four bits.  Did I mention it’s fast?  And easy?  At this time of year I use it almost every day.

What’s your favorite summer gadget?

Family, Fifty Words, Nature, pets, Travel

Here Kitty, Kitty!

39 Comments

I mentioned to YA that I have a trip to Maui in a few months.  She told me I should “swing over” to Lana’i while I’m there to visit the Cat Sanctuary.

Lana’i isn’t that easy to “swing over” to but if it were just me, I’d head on over.

If money/space were no object, how many pets would YOU have?

 

 

Family, Food, Kids, Seasons

Strawberry Cheese Toast

24 Comments

You all know I love strawberries. My favorite picking place lost their pick-your-own field in a nasty early spring storm but I went down on Friday to Northfield and got two flats of pre-picked.  It was still cheaper than getting them at the grocery store and much tastier.

After 14 jars of jam, we’re scrambling to get them finished up before they get too mushy. Lots of strawberry shortcake and spinach strawberry salad.  Thinking back to a breakfast that YA ordered at the Highland Grill last January (ricotta and jam on toast), I came up with this recipe this morning:

Strawberry Cheese Toast (for 1)

1 slice whole wheat bread, toasted
2 slices of pepper jack cheese
4 T. strawberries, mashed up a bit
2 T. blueberries

Put slices of cheese on top of the toast. Spread mashed strawberries over the cheese and then sprinkle blueberries on top.

It was fabulous – I’m having it again tomorrow!

What’s one of your favorite summer recipes?

Business, Family, Kids, News, work

Bear Ballyhoo

49 Comments

I just don’t like meetings very much. If you have information to impart, just send me an email.   I’m particularly bad at brainstorming meetings – you know, where you write down all your outrageous idea on post-it notes, or on huge sheets of paper stuck up on the wall.  The moderator ALWAYS starts out with “every idea is valuable” and warns everyone not to bring up negatives.

This is hard for me. I’m a problem solver and when presented with a problem and possible solutions, my brain immediately starts working through each solution to see if it’s viable, if it could solve the problem.  Of course, most of the ideas that get thrown out at brainstorming meetings are ridiculous and can easily be ruled out as good solutions – but only if you’re allowed to rule them out.  As I’ve never been able to stop my mind from looking for the logistics in brainstorming meetings, I tend to sit quietly, taking notes.  Luckily my boss knows this about me and she rarely asked me to take part in these kinds of sessions.

But boy, Build-a-Bear could have used someone like me in the meeting where they decided to run a “Pay Your Age” promotion one day last week. If you brought in your child, you could get a bear for your child’s age… and even if you were getting the bear for yourself, the cap on the price was $29.  Here’s one of the many news stories from Thursday:

“Pay Your Age” could only have come up during a brainstorming meeting in which everybody had been exhorted to listen to all ideas fairly and not comment. It’s hard to imagine a lot of experienced business people not being able to think through the problems with this marketing ploy unless they were cowed into silence. How could they not know there would be an immediate and huge response to them basically giving the bears away?   How could they not figure out that a few employees in the stores would not be able to handle the crush of customers?  And how could they not think about the natural reactions of people with their kids standing in line for hours, being jostled by the strangers in front and behind them?

Obviously my observations are in hindsight, but I’m pretty sure if I’d been in that brainstorming meeting, my brain would have come up with a lot of reasons why this wouldn’t work – at least in the way it was rolled out. But would I have said anything or just taken a bunch of notes about how stupid meetings are?

So bears. Yea or nay?

gardening, holidays, Nature, Uncategorized

Country Mouse, City Mouse

45 Comments

Today’s post comes from Reneeinnd.

We had four inches of rain the week leading up to July 4. That probably doesn’t sound like much to most Baboons, but out here it is really something.  The rain came perfectly, an inch at a time every other day or so.  The weather on July 4 was also perfect. It was a comfortable 75 degrees with a slight wind, just enough to keep the biting insects off.  My best friend was visiting from the Cities, and we decided to take a hike in Theodore Roosevelt National Park,  just a 40 minute drive.

We have lived here for 30 years, and I have never seen as many wild flowers and berries as I did on our hike. The rain led to perfect conditions for plants to show off their petals.  There were the usual wild roses, clematis, tiny bell flowers, flea bane, and sunflowers.  We missed the flowering prickly pear cactus by a couple of days. They had all set fruit.  It was amazing to see less common  flowers,  especially ones that have a counterpart in our garden in town.

There were tons of wild Monarda.

Here is our city counterpart.

We also found wild lupine.

Our city lupine is currently spent , with nothing but leaves.

Cone flowers are showy natives.

The City ones are somewhat over the top.

We found lots of buffalo berries and this old fellow all alone, without a herd. He seems to be ancient.

We don’t have buffalo berries in town, but we have red currants.

Some of the wild flowers stay where they are, like the country mouse. Others make the leap to be like the city mouse.

What kind of mouse are you?

 

Baboon Achievers, Food, gardening, Uncategorized, work

Stay-cation

31 Comments

For the most part I’m not a fan of new words. I like the words we have and I always have to remind myself that we only have the words we have because at some point somebody made them up.

But every now and then a word comes along that I can embrace wholeheartedly. One of those words is “staycation” – a perfect way to say you are vacationing at home.

Today begins my first day of a nice, long staycation. Because  I’ve been with my company for quite some time, I have a generous number of vacation days and also because of my workload, I don’t get to use too many of them for a chunk of the year.  Now that my big program is out the door, I have to get cracking on these vacation days.  This means a week plus off now, the rest of the Mondays in the summer off and then the entire of State Fair off.

This week though is strictly for hanging out and working on some of the stuff that hasn’t been getting done the last few months – cleaning, straightening, cleaning, yardwork, cleaning. Did I mention cleaning?

On Day One I’m going to make strawberry jam and make some basil-infused oil. I know that doesn’t sound like cleaning, but I do have a mammoth list and it has cleaning projects for every day as well as some of the more fun stuff.

What new word can you embrace?

Baboon Achievers, Family, History, Kids, Stories, Travel, Uncategorized

Family Day

22 Comments

Twenty-three years ago today, a little bundle with a shaved head was put into my arms.

I was half-way around the world, in a hotel in Hufei, China and there were five other bundles being handed off to five other sets of arms at the same time. We spent 8 days in Hufei while all the last bits of paperwork were filled out, signed, stamped and copied (the copier only took one page at a time and after 45 minutes had to sit for a bit to cool down).  Then we headed off to Guangzhou where we had 2 more days of paperwork, but this time U.S. paperwork.

Then the group broke up; Baby and I flew to Hong Kong for an extra day, taking a long taxi drive to the Stanley Market to get a few trinkets, including a Chinese chop with her name carved into it. Then we said goodbye to China and took the long flights to get back to Minnesota.

Most of you know that we celebrate this day every year (usually by going to The Melting Pot). We used to call it “Gotcha Day” since that was when we “got” each other, but when Child was about 10 she announced that she preferred “Family Day”.   She said that “gotcha” made her feel like a package being picked up at the post office.  So now we have Family Day.  Some years we do cards, although never gifts.  I already have the best gift.

Do you have a family tradition that needs re-naming?

Food, home, Stories, Technology

Oven Graveyard

49 Comments

My range/oven is dead. After never giving me a minute’s grief in 27 years, it has given up the ghost. The technician came today; two of the three needed parts are no longer made. I can send the board to be “rebuilt” but it’s only a 50/50 chance that it can be fixed and I’ll be without my oven for at least a month.

Got any good appliance shopping advice?

 

Art, Stories

Stamping Heaven

33 Comments

Even though it was Saturday, I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep. I had directions to Canterbury Downs already printed out, a fully charged phone for photos and a huge wad of one dollar bills.  That’s right – time for my favorite stamp show!

I don’t really need to go to a stamp show. Let’s face it, I already own more stamps and paper and ribbons and ink pads than any normal person needs.  All the companies represented at the stamp show have websites (and you know I have them all bookmarked).  But there’s something about being at a convention full of your hobby/passion, surrounded by folks just like you, who understand your desire to see the stamps and paper up close and in person.  And who get all your stamping jokes.

The Early Bird line (for those who purchased their tickets ahead of time online) queued up pretty early. I showed up 20 minutes before opening and was about 40th in line. They actually counted down the last 10 seconds on the sound system before opening; for those of you thinking it, yes I did yell along with the others during the countdown.

My Motto
Waiting!
Make n Take

This is the stamping show that’s I like best; there are several of my favorite companies there and almost every booth does a “make `n take” (unlike that other not-as-good show that was in town last month). I had my dollar bills in my pocket so I was ready whenever there was a free chair to make a sample; most make `n takes are $1 but a few are $2.  I spent about 5 hours at the show, made 12 cards, chatted with folks either at tables or in line.  I even met the designer who made a 6 x 6 calendar template especially for me back in February!  Didn’t win a door prize (no surprise there) and blew my budget (no surprise there either) but had a glorious time.

What kind of mud does your pig like?

Art, Family, Media, News, Uncategorized

Life Imitates Art?

24 Comments

Many babooners will remember in Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree from the late 1960s. One detail that always tickled me was that The Police located them after finding one of their names on an envelope at the bottom of the pile of garbage they’ve thrown over a cliff.

Well, laugh all we want:  I found this recently in the Police Blotter from the Winona Post (our twice-weekly rag also called “The Shopper”):

  • At 6:21 p.m. deputies received a report of garbage dumped illegally on McArthur Ravine Road. Deputies located a shipping address in the trash, and made multiple attempts to reach M___ A___ of Plainview, MN, without success. M. A. was mailed a citation for illegal dumping.”

Husband and I have been reading the Police Blotter lately, mainly for comic relief from the grim and alarming news that we encounter elsewhere. Here are some gems (italics are my own reactions):

  • At 10:07 a.m. an adult male moved furniture from a vehicle and dumped it on his lawn…  (More shades of Alice’s Restaurant)
  • At 3 p.m. an adult male reported that the key to the trunk of his vehicle had been stolen from his keyring inside the vehicle, parked on the 650 block of W. Sarnia St.  (Remind me to not leave my keyring IN the car…)
  • At 8:46 a.m. officers received a report from an adult female that her car had been scratched on the hood and door while parked near County Road 12.  (Must have been a slow day.)
  • At 7:30 p.m. deputies received a report of the theft of a goat from an adult female in Altura. The woman reported that one juvenile presented the goat to another juvenile, and when the two ended a relationship, the first juvenile requested the return of the goat, but the second party would not comply. Deputies recommended that the parties involved resolve the matter civilly. (If this solution works, maybe we can do away with courts, jails, etc.)

And my personal favorite:

  • At 5:03 p.m. an adult male on the 200 block of E. Garvin Heights Road reported that 40 goats with pink spots were in a field near his home.  The reporting party believed the goats had been fired on with a paintball pistol. (I am speechless; for the entire story: )

Anything fun or interesting in your paper’s Police Blotter report?

When have you noticed that life imitates art?