Giggle

 Ok, so the mischief is thick with me.  Mid week we had a pile of snow followed by plummeting temperatures.  Saturday I got a call from my dad wondering if he could borrow my old car, because the battery that starts the engine on his fairly new Prius has died.  I had planned to stay inside yesterday and only venture out to supervise the dog Hunter when he had to go potty, but family trumps comfort.  So after getting my act together and dressing appropriately for the weather, I took the old 2005 Civic out for a spin to warm it up before going over to dad's house to switch drivers.  It has been a while since dad has driven a manual.  He has this game with the Prius to see how high he can get the mileage, which involves very slow gentle starts.  Needless to say he needed to wake up his clutch foot and adjust his throttle foot settings and give it the beans so he didn't kill off the engine when starting out.

I couldn't resist.  When he dropped me back home, I suggested that after the battery gets replaced on the Prius, he should drive it in sport mode during the winter to reduce the wear and tear on the gas engine battery and hopefully reduce the tendency of the car to shut down and restart the engine at stop signs and lights.  Toyota engineers really need to take winter weather into account when designing hybrid vehicles, and have an ambient temperature sensor which will keep the engine running if the weather is too cold for frequent shutdown/restart situations.  They should also warn their customers to replace the engine starting battery every 2 to 3 years, because at least dad's didn't make it to the usual 5 years that can be expected for a battery on a non-hybrid vehicle.

The irony is that dad's brand new car with its heated seats and all its bells and whistles is sitting in his garage connected to a battery charger in the hope that the battery has enough life left in it that he won't need to get it towed to the dealership on Monday, because it's still under warranty.  Meanwhile, he's driving my antique 20 year old car.

Thank you HONDA!

Dining Advice from Duke the Cat

 Play with a grasshopper until it has lost all its hoppyness.  Then remove the back legs before consuming the rest, because the legs are just too crunchy.

Self Serve?

 Ok, so Hunter is a fussy eater.  I fill his bowl with kibble in the morning and top it with a few small pieces of cheese and a veggie that if left until later won't get too disgusting.  Typically, he eats the people food toppings and leaves the kibble.  (It doesn't matter what kind of kibble; he dislikes them all equally.)  He tries to mooch people food all day and feigns starvation.  He has plenty of dog food; he's just too stubborn to eat it until I coat it with something yummy like cooked, chopped or ground meat for supper.  While the glut of tomatoes from dad's garden is ripening, some of the totes are resting on the floor.  Earlier today, he must have helped himself to a tomato, because we found a puddle of juice and seeds on the floor.  The rest of the big mama simply disappeared.  I've had to cover the top of the tote where he can reach to prevent him repeating his self serve habit again.  If he wants a tomato, he's going to have to beg for it.  I wonder how many he stole before and managed to eat and lick up the evidence.  One thing for sure, he's not going to be constipated tomorrow.

Reaping What Was Sown

Nope, not politics.  This is all about the garden.

An attempt was made by Duke to hatch a few tomatoes.

Since they were under a towel, he was unable to knock them off the counter, but his chubby behind did manage to pop some of the cherry tomatoes on which he sat.

One weekend's endeavors included marinara sauce, tomato juice, rhubarb juice, beans.  Also shown are the last 3 jars of jelly from the previous week's 4 batches made when berries were cleaned out of the freezer.  Turning the berries into canned jelly merely stalled the filling of the freezer and the inevitable need to switch to canning beans, rather than freezing them.

The next weekend saw the making of tomato soup kits,

canned tomatoes

and you guessed it more beans.

Thankfully the beans have slowed way down.  All the tomatoes were picked at my house and at dad's place.  The green ones are safely indoors away from cold nights, and are ripening at a pace that will require more canning around the middle of next week.  Dad started the summer with the comment, "I'll just plant a few tomatoes.  You can have what I am unable to eat."  Good intentions were swamped by the joy of watching things grow.  My cousin gave him three plants after the family reunion, and he came home and started an entire packet of Burpee Big Mama tomato seeds when the ones he had planted directly in the garden were eaten by rabbits.  About half of the seedlings went into his garden and the others were planted elsewhere where they didn't cause too much trouble.  When we finished picking his tomatoes, there were approximately a half bushel of ripening ones, and another 3 1/2 bushels of green ones.  My garden has hit the scraggly messy stage; the sunflowers are done blooming.  I will give the birds a few more days to strip all the sunflower seeds from the plants before cutting them down and composting the stalks.

The squash have already been harvested, but the pumpkins are still plugging along, ripening ever so slowly.  That's the hazard of planting a variety that grows better in the south of France.  Wisconsin just doesn't really have a 110-120 day growing season.  They'll have to be picked soon before we get a hard frost, then allowed to finish ripening in the house.  Aside from a few cold nights in the high 30's and low 40's that prompted picking all the tomatoes, the weather has been remarkably warm for a Wisconsin fall.  Saturday the temperature is supposed to get up to 72, but then it will return to more normal levels.

Hunter is sniffing the pumpkin.  He's a weird dog.  Unlike Chloe and Ember, he likes a lot of vegetables.  He gladly eats cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, beets, turnips, squash, pumpkin, and apples.  He can be quite a pest begging for produce as it is prepared for freezing or canning.  He's always demanding his "cut".  If he could talk, he'd have an Italian accent and want to be called Don Hunter.  There must be something about carrots though, just like Chloe and Ember, he won't touch them.

Please, Please

 Build some pipelines, so that there isn't more of this.

Derailment and spill

When Will

Canada run out of things that burn?  This is getting really old.  For the better part of the last week there have been air quality advisories.

To top it off, one local municipality nearby still allows burning of trash and brush.  Yesterday evening someone was burning some nasty stuff.  They probably figured everyone would blame the wildfire smoke from Canada.  Last time I checked, Canada's wilderness is not made of plastic. 

Seriously

 Would it be possible for those running Canada's government to stop hugging trees for a while and manage their land properly so it doesn't burst into flames every summer?  This is getting old, and I'm sure Canadian citizens are also quite tired of having their land mismanaged and burned extra crispy on an annual basis.  It is quite annoying when the summer weather here in Wisconsin shifts to cooler, slightly more comfortable temperatures only to have air quality advisories from all the smoke drifting south from Canada.

It Would Appear

 that our dog Hunter is suffering from a post anti-anxiety medication hangover.  The medication kept him from having a case of frantic panic during all the Independence Day fireworks yesterday, but it only took the edge off a bit.  He still spent most of the evening following me around the house and looking at me with the request in his eyes of "Mom, please make them stop."  To which I had to remind myself that trying to stop all the jerks in the neighborhood from setting off large fireworks illegally would not be worth the jail time.  Most of the noise was done by a bit after midnight, so Hunter got his supper and a potty break outside.  After all it would be cruel to stuff him with food while he was too afraid to set foot outside the door, and the inevitable accident would be traumatic to him and my home's floors.

There are still a few folks who have been rationing their fireworks supply, like the idiot that set one off at 8:30 this morning across the street from my house.  Maybe someone else caught him and taught him the error of his ways.  Tonight's predicted thunderstorms should limit the random, unscheduled fireworks, which means the folks will probably be saving them for tomorrow night, oh joy.

I hope those who celebrated Independence Day enjoyed themselves.  I just wish that folks could be a little more considerate of pets that are afraid of loud noises and confine the loud fireworks to places suited to them instead of everywhere, all at once.

On the Lam

 Some animals escaped from the zoo.  At least it wasn't lions.

Zoo escapees

A Small Fringe Benefit

 If I hadn't been outside today shoveling *#$%! snow, I would not have seen the bald eagle flying through the neighborhood.  It is a wonderful sight.  The ice on the lakes is unsafe for fishermen but still hasn't broken up enough to give the eagles lots of open water for fishing.  As a result, they're bunched up on the rivers.  With the upper Fox River running through the valley, it makes the area a hot spot for eagle watching until ice out.  More melting is in the forecast for tomorrow.

The big question for next week is will I need a snowblower, a snow shovel (because wet snow clogs the snowblower), or a lawnmower?  Ahh spring, ain't it grand.

Here's an Idea

 So, since the word "snow" is a four letter word, wouldn't it be funny if every time it was said on television or radio it was bleeped like it was a swear word?

You guessed it; it is snowing again.  By this time of the year, "snow" really has become a swear word, especially if you listen to the mutterings of all the people shoveling it.

Snow Globe

 It has been snowing all day, it started in the wee hours of the morning.  The winds are much lower today and the result is that the snow drifts down gently and makes the world look like the inside of a snow globe.  It is really pretty, especially after dark, but is next to impossible to get pictures that capture the full sensory effect.  Traffic is at a bare minimum, and all the sounds of the city are muffled.

Yesterday afternoon and evening were spent catching up on shopping.  Too bad it seemed like everybody else was doing the exact same thing.  The wind on Thursday combined with the forecasted storm for today, opening day of sturgeon spearing today, and the Super Bowl on Sunday worked together to turn Fleet Farm, Sam's Club, and Woodman's grocery store into the happening places to be on Friday night.  A hot time was had on the town last night by many people waiting in line at the store checkouts, maybe not so much.

Today is being spent doing various cooking projects and waiting for the snow to stop.  Oh, and of course, washing more dishes, because multiple cooking projects trash a kitchen in no time flat.  The city will probably take at least one more pass plowing the street in front of the house.  They haven't even started on the side streets yet.  Unfortunately the snow will get less and less pretty the longer it takes me to clear it.  Also the cacophony of plows and snowblowers tend to detract from the beautiful quietness that existed while the snow fell.

Blustery Day, Blustery Night

 Nope, this isn't a political discussion.

It is a commentary on the weather, winds gusting to 50 MPH.  I avoided doing some shopping in a nearby city today, because I didn't want to play tag with semi-tractors tacking sideways in crosswinds on the highway.  The trash and recycling bins have been stowed in the garage so that they don't blow away.  Thankfully, most of the other stuff in the yard is frozen down.  Hopefully the siding and the roof stay fully attached.  It is always interesting to see what has blown into the yard the day after heavy winds.  Tomorrow morning could be interesting.  At least it isn't snowing too.

Unfortunately the power did go out for about an hour.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the power company fixed the issue.  We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for supper.  The candles and flashlights worked fine, but I still haven't found the bottle of kerosene for the lanterns.  Murphys law will likely apply.  It will go on the shopping list, get purchased, and then I'll find the bottle we already have - somewhere between the basement and the 2nd floor.

Hopefully, the power won't go out again, fingers crossed.  It's supposed to get down to 8 deg. Fahrenheit tonight.  Just in case we lose power (and heat) again before the winds die down, I restarted the pellet stove and kicked in the boiler to get the house nice and warm.  A generator that can run on diesel, (specifically #1 home heating oil, since we already have a big tank of the stuff) is looking more and more important, but the price is what has always held us back.

Stay warm everybody.

Happy New Year!

Wishing all of you a Happy New Year!

I'm still here.  The year was busy, and there wasn't much time for blogging, sorry.

Mom died during the summer after living with increasing generalized dementia for 14 years.  All of you, take you daily aspirin, if you're not allergic.  Clogging arteries to the brain can really reduce brain power.  It was a long haul.  I am glad that she is at peace, and we will hopefully meet again in heaven, where she will not be limited by a broken body and mind.

As executor of her estate, my address was used as her official address in probate court documents, which has led to annoyances.  It astounds me how stupid people are.  The sheer quantity of letters and phone calls that go something like "We would like to offer our sincere condolences."  Followed in the next breath by, "We would like to buy her house at....." is astounding.  The only sincere emotion they can offer is their greed.  If they had bothered to check property records to find that mother did not own the house at ....., they would have saved themselves postage, a phone bill, my disdain, and unfiltered insults (over the phone) as I explain how stupid and greedy they are.  And when they fail to understand that, explain in very simple terms that no, the house (my house) is not for sale, because I'm still using it!  I swear the last one that called must have been stoned, he was so stupid.

The year also had bright spots.  We fostered two kittens.  Duke the cat found them highly entertaining.  We adopted a senior poodle mix with anxiety issues.  Even medicated, he puts up a struggle when it comes to ear cleaning and haircuts; it's an adventure.  A good amount of rain in the summer made the garden grow well.  The pantry and freezer are well stocked.  I thank God for providing the bounty.  Maybe I'll get around to posting some pictures later.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!