The Sounds of Winter

We're finally getting our first real snow.  And yes the Christmas song that goes "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas....", was just that - a dream.  So, since the city was prepared for the weather, the main road has been salted; traffic sounds are muted to a slushy tire noise.  Occasionally a 4WD pickup engine will rev as it pulls away from a corner, spinning all 4 wheels.  The plow scrapes, and screeches past on the busy street; the side streets probably won't be plowed until some time tomorrow.  When spring arrives, we'll find out how many curbs were clipped and broken by the plows.

Ember will be loving the fresh batch of snow cones.  Of course, a dog eating snow makes very little noise.  That's the thing about snow, it muffles city noises.  Even car crashes are different.  There's no screeching of tires, just this gentle sliding sound, followed by an almighty crashing noise if something solid is in the way.  Of course if it is a nice soft, fluffy brand new snowbank, there is only a bit of a poof, and then the car is stuck.  Drive safely out there, and please allow extra braking distance and extra time to get to your destination in one piece.  Please keep the vehicles wheel side down.

As for me, I have lots of chores to do at home today.  And there will be plenty of shoveling and snow-blowing to do when it finally stops.

Pies

Quiche

(a great way to use Swiss chard containing:

frozen Swiss chard - squeezed dry and chopped

pork sausage - precooked

mushrooms - sautéed to remove excess moisture

ricotta cheese

Swiss cheese

eggs

cream or milk

nutmeg

black pepper

dash of cayenne)

Key lime

(basically lemon bar topping with extra eggs and key lime juice instead of lemon juice)

Merry Christmas

To All

And to all a good night.

Today Was Bath Day

Times Two

First Ember

Then Queen Tigger (We are not amused!)

With minimal collateral damage.
There are only a few claw holes in the shirt but none in me thankfully.
A lot of loose hair was washed out of Tigger.
Tomorrow will tell if enough was washed out.
I'm not looking forward to another hairball log from that cat.
And yes the floor in her hiding place needs a good scrubbing, and the futon frame needs dusting.

"Mom, let me go downstairs and comfort the cat, please."

"No, sorry Ember, the kitty is not in the mood for your enthusiastic comforting (wrestling), and besides all you will do is steal her food and get into her litter box."

Gee, This doesn't Look Like Rain

It looks more like snow.  Yes NOAA the snow started a bit earlier than you predicted.  It is the wet heavy snow that will leave the snowblower very clogged; you could even say constipated.  Now the next question, start shoveling tonight while there isn't so much of the stuff or procrastinate and do it tomorrow?

Just a Few Hours Left

until I can turn the phone ringer back on, the volume back up on the answering machine, and reset the answering machine to pick up after more than two rings.  I love having the freedom to vote.  I hate the barrage of phone calls at obscenely inconvenient times that precede elections.  I also hate what the uncertainty of elections does to mom & stepfather's investments.  Hopefully the stock market rebounds after the elections.  Secure lock down 24/7 assisted living does not come cheaply.

It Might Be Possible

to actually die of old age while waiting on hold with the billing department of the local newspaper.  Stepfather's subscription rate has jumped dramatically ($61 last month compared to $36 only 2 years ago), while at the same time the newspaper is offering a 6 month promotional offer of $13/month.  So is someone at the newspaper embezzling, or are they just robbing their current subscribers to pay the difference in price between actual operating costs and the promotional offer?  Of course getting a real person on the phone to discuss such matters seems to be impossible!

Someone finally answered the phone, and offered a very slight discount. The next option will be to cancel the Sunday paper.  He doesn't really read the Sunday comics, and it isn't like stepfather needs the coupons and advertising flyers to go shopping.  Letting him out of the building unsupervised would be very bad, especially with winter just around the corner.

Strange Times

Hubby had yesterday off work, so after running some errands we decided to go to the usual Chinese restaurant downtown for lunch.  Parking was available next to an Oldsmobile "Premier" mini van that had seen many better days and looked like it was being held together with hippie stickers.  After lunch we returned to find that it had managed to wander off, and in its place was sitting a Rolls Royce drop-head with coach doors.  What a way to name a gorgeous car, but in normal speak it would be called a convertible with suicide doors.  I really should take the camera with me on more occasions.

Instead of driving straight home after lunch we stopped off at a local car dealership to play the all too serious game of stump the salesman.  Having just received our automotive insurance renewal, it hit me that our insurance company thinks our cars are pretty worthless if they are charging <$700 for six months of coverage on two cars - even with the you're getting older and you own a house discount.  Since we are heading into the season when bucks frequently commit suicide by playing in traffic chasing does, we decided that perhaps it is time to see what is available in used cars to replace the 2004 Honda Element and the 2005 Honda Civic.  So the  poor salesman had a look at the inventory, and sure enough they had a few cars with manual transmissions, very few cars.  They could sell me a Corvette, a Camaro, a Mustang, or a Subaru Impreza.  Our reply was that the first three weren't very good for winter driving and the Subaru was seriously overpriced.  The options for a replacement for the Element weren't much better.  If anything suiting our needs finds its way into their inventory, the salesman will email us - not holding our breaths there.

Finally we headed home to find a family in an old, rather worn looking SUV stopped in front of our house.  We helped them push it to the side street as they waited for a friend to come give them a tow.  The kids got a head start on Halloween candy, and as they were about to be pulled away by their friend, I asked the wife what she thought was wrong with the car.  To which she replied that she thought they were out of gas.  If only they'd told us right off, I'm sure the gas can in our garage would have had enough in it to get them to a gas station.

Getting There

I still have the ears, tail, and topknot to trim.

Although Ember rocks the ponytail,

it does interfere with sleeping upside down.

Ruff Day

at least for Ember it has been.

It started out really nice with an extra walk in the afternoon.

Little did she realize mom's ulterior motive was to get her insides as empty as possible for the activities that were to follow.

First a good brushing, then an ear cleaning, followed by a short break for mom's wrestling muscles to rest before the next activity.

If you guessed a bath, you were correct.

All dogs are different, Chloe once she was "all done" and released from the torture chamber that contains the evil bathtub would bolt from the room and run around the house shaking and celebrating her freedom.  Ember once she is told that the bath is "all done" will step from the bathroom momentarily and then turn around and walk right back in again and demand a hug.  I haven't quite decided if it is because she is grateful that she feels so much better when she is clean or if she is cold and wet and wants to share the experience with the person who bathed her.  After she dries, a haircut will follow, if not later tonight then tomorrow.

"But mom, not a haircut, I don't really need a haircut too, do I?"

Can you see out of your right eye at the moment?

Did you see any of the squirrels on your afternoon walk, or did you only notice them once you smelled them?

Sorry Ember, yes you do really need a haircut.

Sometimes, Seeing Light

can be a bad thing.

Especially when it is through the bottom of a favorite large, enamel, vented roasting pan.  Farewell to the large LISK vented roasting pan.  They don't make them like that anymore.

Mom bought it for me at a thrift store a long time ago, when she still had all her marbles.  It has served us well through roasting many thanksgiving turkeys, cooking pumpkins, baking lasagna with Swiss Chard, and just as a good parking place for tomatoes when a big bowl wasn't big enough.  It will be missed.

We do still have the small LISK roasting pan,

but as you can see it isn't quite big enough for a turkey and some vegetables, unless someone gets really creative about where the vegetables go.

A replacement large, vented roasting pan has been found.

It is even stainless steel so it is unlikely that it will rust through.  I like the classic enamel steel, but none of the ones today have the self basting concave lid and vents that the LISK had.

We'll have to see how the new stainless steel one works; the design is different because it has a domed lid, so that it won't be self-basting.  I don't understand why someone can't just make a new one with the same design as the LISK; the original patent must be expired by now.

Pumpkins Picked

Temperatures at night are dropping to freezing now.

This is likely also the last home picked bouquet that mom will get until spring.  The sunflowers are pretty, but a couple sheets of paper towel have to be put under the jar in her room to catch all the pollen that falls during the week.  I stopped taking real vases, because stepfather managed to misplace the last one.  It's in that building somewhere, but only God knows where because stepfather has forgotten.  In the scheme of things it isn't a big issue; the assisted living takes care of making sure he doesn't get lost, which is the important part.  No problem, I have a few canning jars that are acquiring the Not For Canning label as they have proven unable to hold a seal, one of the hazards of "inheriting" lots of jars.

It isn't the greatest harvest of pumpkins, but what can be expected when the pumpkins basically planted themselves this year, in the old compost pile location, on the north side of the garage - a less than ideal location.  I let them run amok just to see what would happen.

It makes a big difference here in WI where pumpkins are planted.  Last year I planted them at dad's house on the south side, next to the brick foundation, adjoining the neighbors blacktop driveway, translation full sun in the hottest spot of the garden. All those factors added together to make a huge harvest.  This is what last year's harvest looked like.  I actually had difficulty finding enough places to park them all while they finished ripening.

Next year's planting location will be determined by how many pumpkins I really want to have, and that will depend on how much pumpkin we manage to eat this winter.

Time to finish the repairs on the pellet stove.  The boiler works fine for heating the house, but feeding the roaring dragon in the basement gets expensive, and the BTU output of the boiler is overkill unless it gets really cold outside.

Well At Least

It isn't snowing.

We're still getting a bit tired of all this rain.  The air conditioners are actually running right now, mostly to reduce the humidity.

Of course when the sky does clear, the temperatures at night will drop like a rock.  Thursday night might be a bit too cold for the pumpkins, but it is still too far out to know for sure.  Those pumpkins are always a bit of a gamble, because the growing season here is so much shorter than in France where the Musquee de Provence variety originated.

Complaining about the rain hardly seems right when the gulf coast is getting ready for hurricane Michael.  Who thought it was a good idea to name a hurricane after an archangel?  Hopefully Michael isn't too wrathful.

On the maintenance front, it looks like the pellet stove needs a new "brain".  When we started it up this week it tripped the GFCI in the circuit, which tells us that the potentiometer that controls the stove temp might be leaking some current to places it should not.  (Replacing the worn outlets in the circuit didn't fix the problem, unfortunately.)  It is still preferable to buy a new circuit board than to pay almost twice as much for a replacement stove.  But the biggest argument against replacing it is that the sucker is cast iron, and we remember what it took to install it in the first place 13 years ago.  After this, there will only be two components that we haven't replaced, the ignitor and the vacuum/seal sensor.  The auger motor was first to go.  Then the combustion blower went.  Then the distribution blower went.  All in all it hasn't been too bad, considering we bought a floor demonstrator model for a $1000 discount.  I'm pretty sure we haven't spent all of that discount in replacement parts yet; that said we installed them ourselves eliminating labor charges.  Even with all the repairs, the pellet stove is still more reliable than some of the new high efficiency furnaces that have a bad habit of cracking heat exchangers every five years or so.  Thank God for the short cold snap to let us know that there was a problem.

Update:  maybe the ignitor is having problems too.  Time to do a manual start and see if removing the ignitor from the equation fixes the problem.

Warm Weather

came back for a day.  It was a beautiful warm, sunny day.

Too bad I was busy checking with the banks and re-paying some bills because the US Postal Service managed to misplace all the mail that was sent Sept. 2nd through Sept. 4th.  So USPS closed the sorting office in Oshkosh, because they could be more efficient in Milwaukee?  It appears that isn't working so well.

It should be interesting when/if USPS manages to deliver the original mail.  Thankfully it was only payment for three bills.  Obviously, our internet provider was feeling generous, because they hadn't shut down our connection, yet.

Tomorrow the temperatures will likely return to normal for this time of year (mid 50's).  Hopefully the rain will hold off so that we can get some outside chores done.

Brrr, Here we go again.

The weather forecast is calling for a high of 52 deg. F today.

Methinks they're very mistaken, because it is only 45.

Yesterday afternoon all the tomatoes were picked, because they don't do well being refrigerated in the great outdoors.  The low last night was around 36 deg. F.  The end of the tomatoes is in sight, because approximately two bushels are now sitting in totes to finish ripening, and the plants will be yanked out of the ground soon.  Picking, washing, and sorting those was a pain.

The rest of the garden will continue going to seed, and hopefully the pumpkins will mature a bit more before we get a serious frost.

It is time to face the facts, cut down the peonies, and fire up the pellet stove.  In just a few days we went from shorts weather to "where is my winter coat and gloves?"  The frogs and toads have disappeared.  On the plus side, the mosquitoes should be almost gone too.

Writer's Cramp?

from labeling all the jars, or perhaps just already tired and sore hands from using a paring knife so much?

Batch 1 of marinara sauce

Batch 2 of marinara sauce

Batch 2 all canned plus the tomato juice that was squeezed out of the tomatoes before making the sauce.

A short break to make another batch of apple sauce.

This week's batch of marinara sauce.

This one barely fit in the pot, and the big wooden spoon was barely long enough to stir it.

Oh, and no I am nowhere near running out of canning jars, lids-yes, jars-not so much.

Bye for now, because there are so many other chores that need to be caught-up-on.  Fall is falling.  The switch has been flipped.  A bunch of mosquitoes were washed away in the last rainstorm, but some are still hanging around.

What follows lots of rain?

An aerial invasion

The mosquitos are so bad right now that when hubby walked Ember this morning, they swarmed her poop.

Children's outdoor sporting events are also being canceled.

Cameras?!

Not all digital cameras are created equally.

A couple pictures are worth a thousand words.

 This one was taken with the old Sony CD Mavica;

the stats are 1200x1600, 838 KB, ISO 100, 6.4mm, 0ev, f11, 1/60.

The big thing is it actually captured the blue of morning glories, and the picture looks good.  It was quite expensive when we bought it, but it has worked for a very long time and deserves to be retired.

This one was taken with late father-in-law's Pentax Optio 555;

the stats are 1944x2592 (I might hav cropped it), 1.3 MB, ISO 64, 7.8mm, 0ev, f3.2, 1/60.  I have no idea what father-in-law paid for it, but I'm guessing it wasn't horribly expensive.  The most annoying thing about it is that when the battery is removed for charging, the clock resets to 2003.  Eventually, the one and only battery will stop holding a charge, and I doubt a replacement could be found easily and inexpensively.

The automatic focus, exposure, shutter speed, etc. was used on both pictures.  All I can say about the Pentax is it takes pictures, and they are usually in focus.  In automatic mode, it does not take good pictures that are true to the colors as seen with the eye.

I am looking to replace the old Sony with something that works well in automatic mode, with particular attention to true to life color sensors.  Internet searches usually cause headaches with unwanted advertising databases that cannot be deleted being left in the cookies folder.  This usually results in a great deal of frustration and a need for a full deletion of that particular user identity from my computer.  I hate advertisers.

Comments and suggestions would be helpful on a replacement camera, just brand and model please - no links.

Cider

So many apples, what shall be done with all of them?
Let's make some cider.

Some foods should not contain traces of protein.
Yes, if you look at nutritional information on commercial ciders, they do contain some protein from crushed bugs.  Preferring that my protein intake comes from cows, chickens, pigs, fish, seafood, and some plants, any infested apple parts get cut out before the apples get pulverized.  Put a movie, or two, or three in the DVD player.  The movie must be in English though, because subtitles and fast moving paring knives should never vie for attention at the same time.

Something with a really good sound track or snappy dialogue is a plus, because while paring apples, movies get heard more than seen.

The chopping process takes a little added water, but once the press starts draining it is possible to collect some cider to avoid getting watery tasting cider.  It seems to work best with very crisp apples.  Once they start getting more ripe/mealy they seem to be less juicy, and the mealiness tends to clog the press bag so that it becomes necessary to press, pull the bag out, squish the contents around and re-press at least two more times to get out all the cider.

Yes, I finally broke down and bought a cider press.

It also works well for making rhubarb juice, and if used without the bag it is very useful for removing juice and seeds from tomatoes when making marinara sauce.  It also reduces the chance of developing carpal tunnel or a repetitive stress injury from squeezing juice out of tomatoes by hand.

This is one batch.

This is three batches.

So far 9 gallons have been made.  Four are in the freezer.  The rest have been consumed by hubby, friends, neighbors, and relatives.  The cook gets a taste, but has to watch out because cider has lots of carbs.

Beans, Beans, Beans, Beans

BEANS!

Shown is a grand mixture of purple pole beans, McCasian pole beans, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, Blue Lake Pole Beans, and Dragon's Tongue bush beans.  Of course after planting all those varieties in close proximity over the years and saving seeds from one year to the next, some cross pollinating may have occurred.  I have noticed that a few of the purple beans have more traces of green in them, and that some of the purple pole beans have a round and very meaty cross-section compared to the more typical flat shape.

Some were shared with friends and neighbors.

 The purple parts turn green when they are cooked.

 One - two gallon bag

 Another two gallon bag

I'm glad dad is back from his summer adventures;

he can pick his garden now.

That said, after he has picked and eaten his fill, I anticipate a call from him asking me if I want some more beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  Best guess, he'll be calling in about a week.

Until I give up and let the beans go to seed or we have a frost, there will be no escape from them.

Twenty-three

five gallon buckets were filled with apples before that blasted tree was finally empty!  Sorry, I have griped about this before; the nursery that sold me the tree still has lots of "splaining" to do.  That tree is a dwarf in the same sense that Andre the Giant was a dwarf.

Maybe it would have been a dwarf tree if someone had planted it in Kansas, but not in Wisconsin.  This state just grows trees, really, really well.

Maybe because of the late snowstorm in April, the cortland tree blossomed very strangely this spring.  By the time the blossoms on the top of the tree opened, the ones on the bottom branches were already starting to loose their petals.  Although this tendency is common as sap rising in the tree makes it to the lower branches first, the effect was much more pronounced this year.  So when the apples started ripening (way earlier than desired), they ripened first at the bottom of the tree, and then the process continued to the top of the tree.  The first apples picked were the smallest.  The reasons for this could be that they didn't have as much time to ripen and were also robbed of sunlight by the higher branches in the tree.

Sorry, there is no "group picture" of all the apples.  Out of necessity, a bunch of them have already been processed.  So far they have been turned into five gallons of cider and two pies.  The race continues to get them all fixed before they go bad.  This is no small feat considering that approximately 80% of the apples have blemishes, some of which are indications that critters are living inside and are trying to eat their way out.  That is the big down-side of not spraying the trees.  Right now I am wising that the winesap tree would have lived and the cortland died instead; the winesap apples kept way better.

  And of course the rest of the garden has been going strong as well.  Those pictures will be saved for another day.

The Crack of Dawn

doesn't get seen much by hubby and myself due to his work schedule.  This morning however was the exception due to the tapping of dog claws and whining.  Even Tigger the cat joined in by climbing into bed and irritating me.  If Tigger could have spoken, it probably would have been something like this, "Hey serving human, wake up and take this dog outside.  She has horrible farts, and will explode soon."

The warning was heeded.

On the second walk, because two bags were insufficient to collect the deposits, some early morning pictures were taken - enjoy.

Morning glories really take the morning thing seriously and are usually closed by mid morning.  Late father-in-law's camera works ok, but doesn't get the colors quite right.  The flowers should be much more blue!  Any suggestions on a new camera to replace the old Sony Mavica, which is having issues.  I shouldn't complain too much, it has been working hard since 2002, and deserves to be retired.

Back to the reason for the walk.  I'm guessing Ember has been catching up on licking things since Thursday, when her stitches were removed.  All that licking sometimes causes tummy troubles, hence the "splod-ey" dog.  If she continues to have trouble, the vet will be called.

Here is a montage of her valiant attempts at finding a comfortable position while wearing the cone of shame.  And yes, we were laughing at her, poor thing.

This recuperating is hard work.  Time for another nap.