Yesterday was the first day of fall, and it was cool and cloudy, I noticed this week that the leaves were just starting to change color. The garden is finally slowing down. I am done canning tomatoes.
Fall has always been my favorite season. Not too hot, not too cold. (We won’t talk about the Ocober 5, 2005 snowstorm that shut the area down for three days and broke off hundreds of tree limbs.) I like the cooler nights.
Things at work always pick up in the fall, especially for those of us who work with children. Bad news at parent-teacher conferences means the phones start ringing at my agency from calls from frantic parents wanting help for their ornery children. Fall is a time of truth and reckoning for some of us.
What are your favorite things about fall? Any favorite fall songs or poems? Did your parents ever get bad news at parent-teacher conferences?
I’ve gotten to the point where if anybody is willing to give me a shot to keep me from getting some disease, lay it on me. So I found myself once again at the pharmacy yesterday getting this year’s flu shot. For many years I didn’t get the shot but then about 15 years ago I got the flu one winter and it was dreadful. Flu shot every year for me since then. I know it’s no guarantee but I’ll take all the help I can get.
When I sat down for my shot, the pharmacist asked me which arm I preferred. In thinking about it, I realized that the last few years, every shot but one has been in my left arm. I asked her if getting all my shots in the same arm would cause me to get a “Popeye” arm. She laughed out loud. And then assured me it wouldn’t happen. (I can’t stomach watching the Popeye cartoons anymore. They are so violent and Olive Oyl is such an irritating damsel in distress. Ick.)
Before I left the pharmacy, she said that I probably wouldn’t have any soreness in my arm but if I wanted to, I could do extra arm movements to help out. So once again I was doing the chicken dance in the car on the way home!
My local library (Washburn) has several little tables and displays at the entrance. There is a revolving bookcase for the Book Sale, a table with the library’s BookPage publication and other library information (and masks). Then there is my favorite display curated by the Washburn librarians which they change out every couple of weeks. There is always an easily discernable theme but they choose books from all genres: fiction, childrens, non-fiction, poetry. I love seeing what the librarians come up with and I often will pick a book from the display.
The beginning of September was all about bees and honey. I noticed The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King, which is a favorite of mine. Last week they put up a new theme – cats. All kinds of fun stuff and I couldn’t help but be drawn to Claws for Alarm, a cozy mystery that I assume includes a cat. You all know that I can’t keep away from silly titles so I scooped it up.
As soon as I got home I looked it up to see how far along in the series it sits – I usually like to start at the beginning but wasn’t sure I wanted to read a bunch of cozies to get to the cat story. That’s when I found out that “Claws for Alarm” isn’t nearly as original/funny as I thought it was. I found FOUR books with the same title – all of them fall into the cozy genre. These were easy to find so I’m guessing there may be more. I even found this:
So now that I’m not as impressed with a silly title as I was when I was standing in the library, I’m not sure if I’ll read it. Or maybe I’ll go off the deep end and read all four to see which is best!
What’s the last “unusual” title that you’ve picked up? Did you finish it?
On Friday night my BFF, Sara, and I went to see Arsenic & Old Lace at Theatre in the Round over on the West Bank. This was Sara’s birthday present from me….we decided a few years back to give each other experiences instead of things for our birthdays. She chose Arsenic from a list of plays showing this fall. I was looking forward to it; I’ve seen the 1944 A&O starring Cary Grant and Boris Karloff several times and was interested in how the play would measure up.
I haven’t been to Theatre in the Round for many years. Actually except for theatre that has been gifted to me, I’ve hardly been to any theatre in years. (Single parenthood kind of whoops the-evening-entertainment-that-costs-money craving out of you.) When I first moved to the Twin Cities, I did volunteer ushering there for a couple of plays but full-time work while my wasband was searching for a job wore me down and I needed my nights back.
The production on Friday was quite nice. The entire play takes places in the living/dining room of the Brewster sisters; no-nonsense set and props (like the sisters) without too much bric-a-brac to pull your attention away. Lighting was pretty straight forward (nothing fancy like I see in Ben’s photos) and the sound was very good. If the actors were mic’ed, I couldn’t tell; we were in the third row and didn’t have any trouble hearing all the dialogue.
Casting was superb! Not that easy when one of the actors needs to resemble Teddy Roosevelt and another absolutely has to look like Boris Karloff (there are repeated mentions of this in the script). I was a little worried that that these two would be weak links, hired for their looks, but they were both great. Jonathan (the Boris look-alike) was particularly good. Both Brewster sisters were excellent; Abby had a great way of waving her arms to punctuate her lines that was very effectives. And a shout-out to the young woman who played Officer Brophy; she really sparkled in her role.
I was easily able to put aside my Cary Grant memories and enjoy the play on its merits. It was very funny and a couple of times I laughed enough to cry. The woman behind me snorted a few times!
If you’re in the Twin Cities and up for a great night of theatre and comedy, I highly recommend it. I think it’s running for a few more weeks.
Tell me about a favorite theatre experience you’ve had!
YA and I had some Subway last week and we each got a bag of chips to accompany our feast. We’ve had chips plenty of times but last week was the first time I noticed that there is are lines of colored dots along the bottom of the bags. I checked other bags in my house and about half had dots similar to these, although they weren’t exactly the same colors.
Didn’t take me to long to research this. These dots (apparently sometimes squares) are called “Printer’s Color Blocks” and they are used as quality control markers for the ink used to print on the bag. If there is too little or too much of a particular color, it affects the colors on the dots and the printer (human or machine) and adjust as needed.
The reason that I didn’t see these color blocks on all my chips bags is that it’s completely voluntary. Some manufacturers don’t use them and some manufacturers trim off the numbers after printing.
According to online articles, the most common colors are the four major colors used in printing: black, magenta, yellow and cyan, although depending on the manufacturer (like my bag above) can use more if they want/need.
This was a much more pedestrian explanation than I was hoping for and has absolutely nothing to do with the food inside the bag. I was really looking forward to some secret code that I could learn and apply when shopping. Oh well; if it had, I’d be spending way too much time standing in the chip aisle at my local Cub!
Maybe the crops won’t be as bad as I feared. I was looking at the soybeans this past week and there are a fair number of pods higher up the plant. The plants are about knee high, and it looks like the weather will hold for a few weeks yet. We’re at 2845 growing degree units. 368 above normal for Rochester. Mind you, I’m not saying great crops, but not as bad as I thought. Ha, probably just be good enough not to trigger a payment from crop insurance, which is based on 70% of expected (average) yields. I did get a $700 credit on the premium for hail damage. So, I only owe $600 rather than $1300. Which is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp cornstalk.
I did plant some rye on Monday and more on Thursday evening. The rain predicted for Friday morning isn’t going to a mounted to much. We wait and see. I spotted a couple sandhill cranes while out planting on both days. They must like this field. It was interesting: On Monday I had gone around the field once, turned around at the end of the field and was coming back when I saw them in the middle of the field. Were they there on the first round? I was maybe 150’ from them and they didn’t pay me too much attention. But then as I came around the corner and got closer, they flew off. Sorry kids, you didn’t get much of a rest here. Thursday was the same thing; didn’t see them on the first pass and then there they were. I adjusted how I planted that field so they could hang out longer. When the time came and I had to go their way, they had flown off.
I was working at the college one day and I dropped a cable down a ventilation shaft. Course it wasn’t a plain old power cord, it was a special 4 pin data cable. I can see it down there and maybe with a long stick and a hook on the end, I’m thinking I can retrieve it. Stay tuned.
I’ve been scraping gravel from the machine shed approach.
Over the years I’ve added a lot of gravel to the road. Now with the cement pad being the same level as the shed interior, the driveway is 8” too high. I’ve mentioned before the water running in the shed door. So, I’ve been scraping. Man, it’s packed hard. Some rain would help that too. I’m not real good at being an excavator operator. And using the tractor loader isn’t ideal either, but it works. I can’t quite tell yet if there’s just dirt under there or still gravel. Dad must have had rock there when he built this shed in 1981. I may have to go an extra 4” deep and put gravel back on top. I’m using this rock to fill in some holes and the extra will go on the other end of the cement where it is more dirt.
Daughter likes to do her chores: whether it’s hauling out garbage, doing her laundry (I know, right??) collecting eggs, and last night she even threw out corn for the chickens and chicks. Mother-Clucker is down to 12, lost one. The kids are getting pretty independent, and mom is giving them their freedom too. It’s not unusual to see them running 20’ away from mom. They’re between robin and pigeon sized.
Ever had a cement pond at your house? How was that?
(Are you aware Irene Ryan ((Granny)) was a Tony nominated actress and has an acting scholarship in her name?)
I loved the Minnesota Zoo Monorail. It was part of the zoo experience for me; whenever we visited the zoo, we almost always hopped on a car and took a spin. We knew when the best time of day was to go (right around lunchtime) and which car was best (the first one right behind the driver/guide – it was the quiet car which most people avoided).
The monorail was “retired” in 2013 – a nicer sounding word than “abandoned”, but that’s how it felt to me. For the last 10 years the rail remained a sad reminder every time we went. When the zoo announced that they were going to put up a walking trail on the old rail, I was skeptical. And when the scuttlebutt was that they would charge extra unless you were zoo members, I was even more cynical.
The Treetop Trail turned about to be free for everybody, not just members (we’ll see how long that lasts) and is built over the original rail. It’s lovely, especially all the places where it overlooks water; there is actually quite a few bodies of water at the zoo. On a cool day like we had on Sunday, it’s a beautiful hike – about a mile and a half – took us about half an hour (I was very slow as my feet hadn’t quite forgiven me yet for the State Fair). There isn’t much shade or cover so it might be a little less fun on a really hot day. Like the monorail, seeing any animals was a little hit and miss, although there was at least constant narration on the monorail. YA can’t always be counted on for scintillating conversation. The trail is about 8 feet across so we didn’t encounter to many pedestrian traffic jams. For those of us with a little acrophobia, the center feels safe and there are lots of spots that aren’t too terrifyingly high.
My final assessment is that the Treetop Trail is nice. If we can’t have the monorail, I suppose the elevated trail will do. I doubt that it will become a perennial favorite for me and it will be interesting to see how well maintained it is during the winter months (if it’s even open during the winter months). But I will recommend it at least once for anybody visiting the zoo.
I read with interest last week the news story of a company that wants to resurrect the wooly mammoth, perhaps in ND. A fairly intact wooly mammoth tusk with all sorts of usable DNA was found in a coal mine here in the state. The company wants to use it to recreate the mammoth.
What is quite surprising to me is that the ND government is paying this company $3,000,000 to consider locating the company to ND. This a pretty fiscally conservative state, and the public reaction to the Department of Commerce spending money on this venture hasn’t been exactly supportive.
The local climate is more conducive to mammoth well-being than Texas, where the company is located. I wonder what you do with a wooly mammoth once you have de-extincted it? Let it wander around the Badlands here? Can it be fenced in at all? Raise it for meat? Have mammoth rodeos? The company thinks they can have a viable mammoth by 2028. I am glad that I will be living in Minnesota by then. I would hate waking up to find a mammoth in my yard eating the tomatoes.
What would you do with a woolly mammoth ? What would you like to see de-extincted?
Some of you have expressed curiosity about my summer kitchen. When the weather gets too warm, I do everything I can here to stave off using the A/C. This summer, though, it’s been used more than usual.
There is a small stand on the patio, just outside the back door, and next to it a former potting table/cart (on wheels) that a neighbor left out on the boulevard when they moved.
You can see from the photos some of the appliances and their homes. The toaster oven, when I bring it out for baking, stays on the stand to the left. There’s a large ceramic tile on top of the potting cart surface.
I do most of my prep work in the kitchen, and then bring the food out to cook outside. The flaw in this system is that in “high summer”, the back patio is not in shade except in early morning, and late afternoon. In the sun on a hot day it’s just too hot to be out there at all – I need to rig up an awning of some kind. So this works best in early and late summer, like later this week when temps will be low 80s.
We tried several chilled soups this summer, one of them being this one:
Chilled Cantaloupe Mint Soup
1/2 Medium cantaloupe, cut into chunks and pureed in blender with several mint leaves
Add and mix well:
1-1/2 Tbsp honey (less if you used sweetened yogurt)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 – 8 oz container plain yogurt (or sweetened yogurt and reduce the honey)
1/4 cup buttermilk , or 1/4 cup fruity white wine
Cover and chill 1 -2 hours before serving.
Garnish with fresh mint leaves, and float some blueberries if you have them.
Serves 2
What experiences have you had with outdoor cooking?
Have any good non-heated recipes to share?
Pretty sure I’ve mentioned that I’m reading biographies of the English monarchs in order. It’s been awhile since anything got added to the list and when I clicked on the tab of my spreadsheet, I realized why. Richard II is up next. I suppose there might be a few more controversial English kings than this one but it would be a close race. I don’t know all that much about Richard II but I do know that his death ended the reign of his line and that victors always write/rewrite history. So when I went looking for a biography, I tried to find something more recent and hopefully balanced.
I did watch the series “The Hollow Crown” a ways back but never read the book so when I found Within the Hollow Crown I thought I’d give it a shot. After two pages it went back to the library. I’d prefer to have a more straight-forward biography without the author writing whole swaths of what they believe the historical figure is thinking. If I had known this book was historical fiction, I wouldn’t have checked it out. Just not my cup of tea.
Now I’m back to a hunt for a balanced biography… or even if I can’t find one that doesn’t absolutely vilify Richard II, I’d at least like one that doesn’t try to fill in the mental gaps!
If you start a book, do you feel compelled to finish it? What was the last book you abandoned?
Trail Baboon 