A Rainy Day Quiz....(updated with answers)

A quiz for you on foliage and blossoms, can you name the plant? It's a fairly easy test so no googling, no textbooks, and no copying from your neighbor... The tests starts the moment you open this blog, so no you can't come back to it later after you have thought about it to give your answers...Begin...

                                         

 

**Bonus question for those not gardening inclined....

 If Sno has 12 apples, and Aka has 23 oranges,  and Zzee has 16 grapes, and Umbumbles comes along and eats the apples, the oranges, and the grapes...how long before he has a tummy ache?

let x represent his age

let y represent his weight

let z represent the circumference of his stomach

(extra points for showing your work and explaining your theory)...

 

ANSWERS:

Congrats everyone on your guesses, you did fantastic!....

The winner of the bonus question goes to Mac for his problem solving and explanation of his answer/theory...

I Dreamed A Dream....Of Chickens

I guess I should clarify my title of this blog in that it is NOT my dream to have chickens. I don't have pleasure thru poultry, I don't even have a clue about the feathered creatures, other than that they smell when wet (and when dry) , they peck, and make a good sandwich with a bit of mayo or miracle whip.

Earlier this week I had a chat with my mom and the subject of chickens came up, yet again. I say again in that she has been talking about raising chickens quite a bit lately. It hasn't helped that she got a free issue of Backyard Poultry in the mail and has been reliving a bit of her childhood in her memories of chickens. I have heard the stories before of how her mom raised a ton of chickens when she was a kid. They ate a lot of eggs and fried chicken and potatoes growing up and to this day some of her family members won't eat fried chicken hardly at all. She told me stories of how one year her mom ordered some leghorns (I think?) and they flew up into the trees when startled, that was the one and only year with those variety of birds. She has told me a couple of times how her younger brother, who was only a toddler at the time, was found sticking the baby chicks down the spout of a gas or kerosene can. The baby chicks fit just perfect and I guess he can be given credit for trying to stuff a chick in a round hole. The baby chicks didn't fare so well though and I am not sure how many were "stuffed" before he was found out.

Growing up we never had chickens, there really wasn't any place for them, and we were in the middle of town as well. But I have been around a chicken once or twice and they peck. So there has never been any amorous feelings on my part for chickens. I helped clean chickens once and was given the job of plucking and picking pin feathers, not another thing that ranks too highly on my chicken scale. But my mom continued on her ramblings of wanting chickens. I sighed, rolled my eyes a bit and started the protests... "Mom, chickens aren't cheap to raise, they won't save you any money"....."where are you going to put them?"..."Are you going to be willing to feed and water them daily in the middle of winter"...and a host of other thoughts in my head that I thought best not to mention out loud. I thought I had her talked out of it, I thought I was in the clear, there would be no chickens that I would have to worry about her taking care of. Finally all of this chicken talk would be put to rest...Well, until she said the one thing that made my little grinch-like heart grow two times smaller...

"But you have your flowers, you have your hobbies, why can't I have a hobby too?"

That kind of hit home. I don't know if it is because I have watched the Susan Boyle Youtube videos too much this week that MkChippy and Judy had both posted about in their blogs, but I could see a bit of my mom in that video. No she didn't have a dream of singing and being famous, she had a dream of chickens. So I swallowed my big sigh, and said okay we will go look at chickens, but you need to get things ready for them, you don't have anything for them.

I expected the trip we made to the local farm/feed store to be for just a few things, and I will be truthful in that I figured she would just do more looking than buying...

Ha! I couldn't have been more wrong. As I stood at one counter buying a few pepper plants, there stood my 70 year old mom, bravely clutching a bird feeder, a waterer, and a heat lamp with a look of childish anticipation and a bit of defiance in that upward set of her chin. When she came out with her purchases being followed by the salesman I asked her how many chickens she got, expecting her to say she got maybe 5-10, a dozen at the most, she proudly chirped she had gotten 25. Good grief, 25 chickens I exclaimed. Well, she explained, some of them will probably die. I mumbled under my breath, no, they will probably all live just to spite me.

It's not that I don't want my mom to have chickens, it's that I know my mom. When she retired a few years ago, she went nuts. She was bored. She started new projects, new hobbies and she never stuck with any of them too long. Stuff was started and then put back away. Thankfully she went back to work part-time. I think what is my biggest fear, is that being the nearest relative  living closest to her, I will somehow inherit the chickens. I really, really was hoping for the china or the silver tea set, but most likely it will go to one of my sister-in-laws and I will get a bunch of feathered, pooping poultry.

I don't have a clue about chickens, and I am starting to think my mom is a bit fuzzy on her chicken memories as well. All of my questions asked have been met with vague, "I can't remembers"...

For the sake of my mom and her dream, and for the welfare of the chickens, and most importantly for me....Please, ....please.... chicken people of the blog world, feel free to leave any advice on the rearing of the feathered creatures.

...And encase you are wondering, yes, I have already thought about the benefits of the chicken poop mulch. It's not exactly my dream, but I am willing to reap some of the rewards from it...

Marking On My Calendar...

I've been thinking, (it's a bit of a dangerous situation when I do much thinking), but today I did start to ponder about dates, calendars and more specifically birthdays.

As most of you on my blogging contact list know, I try to do a blog or birthday magazine spoof of people who have birthdays coming up. I got to wondering and worrying though that I might have missed some dates, missed some birthdays, or just plain missed the boat in some way.

I know that for this month of April, that Shags, Sooshovers, and Farrell have birthdays and I have been waiting a bit to lump all of those birthdays together for one magazine "issue". I guess what I need to know is if anyone else has a birthday this month? Also if you would be so kind as to let me know when is your birthday, don't worry age revealment (I think I just made up a new word) is not mandatory.

So....could you post for me when is your birthday, if yes you would like to be included in future editions, or if you would prefer not to be included. It's all up to you ...well, and my feeble imagination...

Inclusion won't guarantee you a gift though...or cake...but most of you already knew that part...

 

Fruit and Nuts

 

Ever eat a pine cone?

It's been a while since I have heard that catch phrase from the Grape Nuts cereal commercial from the early 70's. But on this rainy morning I found myself googling Euell Gibbons for a pic for a blog entry.

Euell, that is quite a name and if I would have thought of it at the time I would have googled the name it's self to see what in the world it means or stands for or if a couple of parents just had a wicked sense of humor in calling their child Euell. It's not a name you hear any more, and I am guessing it won't make a resurgence in popularity any time soon either.

It was an interesting read on Mr. Gibbons though and I never knew much about the man except from his commercials for Grape Nuts cereal and the spoofs you saw of them on the tv variety shows from my early childhood. It does have me curious to read some of his books now on edible wild plants, but I just can't really see myself scouring the roadside ditches for lunch. A quick snack of wild roots and tree bark just doesn't sound all that appealing. I've been spoiled in this modern day of convenience, and that really came to light this week when I had a potluck dinner to attend and the theme for the evening was .....vegetarian/vegan.

Now I don't have a problem with being vegetarian, in fact I even gave up red meat for about a year and a half while in a health kick a few years ago. I embraced Yoga, wheat germ, and said No to processed junk. I've changed a bit though and now I say yes to everything, well almost everything..

You would think making a vegetarian dish would be simple. But it proved a challenge as I poured over cookbooks and googled on the internet. Vegetarian wasn't too hard, but going totally vegan with no cheese, milk, butter, etc. was proving to be difficult. Cheese and I had bonded, going cheese-less was almost painful. I finally decided on lime honey fruit salad and granola. Easy dishes and something that didn't require anything too out of the ordinary, like tofu. Tofu just makes a person cringe, no matter how you try to say it...

I am happy to report that my dishes were given two thumbs up and everyone else skirted around the tofu as well. I will admit, as I sat there and ate carrot and cabbage wraps with Thai peanut sauce, baked sweet potatoes and onions, cooked cabbage, more cooked cabbage...(there appeared to be a cabbage theme that night) ...that I was missing the beef. If only those veggie wraps were beefy and cheesy burritos I inwardly moaned...with extra dollops of sour cream. It could be low fat or fat free just give me the sour cream my mind screamed.

I am spoiled...Spoiled by all of those things that aren't good for me, but that we crave. I like my veggies but like most of us do, we considered them a side dish and not the main source of our meals. It's like an automatic switch in our heads, that being told we can't have something, we automatically crave it. I don't eat that much meat, but once told I couldn't have it, the moaning started.

I survived though and it wasn't all that painful,.... (well except from the gas and bloating from all of that cabbage)...

Thanks Euell for trying to get us to go back to our roots and eat our veggies. I can't always promise that they won't have cheese sauce on them though...

 

Recipe for Granola:

4 cups old fashioned oats

2 cups shredded coconut

2 cups slivered almonds

1/2 cup canola oil

1/3 cup honey

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 and 1/2 cups (1pkg) dried cranberries

Mix the nuts, oats, and coconut in a large zip-lock bag. Mix the oil, honey, and cinnamon together and pour on the oat mixture, seal bag and shake til the mixture is thoroughly combined. Spread out mixture on a large sheet pan and bake in a 325 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until lightly brown all over. Stir the mixture while cooking several times to even browning and prevent burning. Remove from oven and continue to frequently stir while cooling to prevent it from clumping and sticking to the sheet pan, Add dried cranberries, mix well, and store in a tightly covered container.

 

Honey and Lime Glazed Fruit Salad 

 1 - 20 ounce can pineapple chunks, in juice, drained, (reserve juice)

 2 - 11 ounce cans mandarin oranges, drained

 2 large bananas, sliced

 2 kiwi fruit, peeled, halved and sliced

 2 cups quartered fresh strawberries

 1 and 1/2 cups green seedless grapes

 1 and 1/2 cups red seedless grapes

 1/2 teaspoon grated lime peel

 Juice of one large lime, (approx. 4 tablespoons lime juice)

 2 tablespoons honey

 Drain pineapple; reserve 1/2 cup juice.

Combine fruit in bowl. Stir together reserved pineapple juice, lime peel, lime juice and honey. Pour over salad; toss to coat. Makes a very large salad and can be cut in half.

 

Call Me Elmer

Arghhhhhhhh!

Sorry, I just had to get that out. It's been one of those weeks in that no matter how hard I try to get ahead or stay on top of things, I keep finding myself and all my efforts slipping backwards. I do one project only to find out I need to redo it again and then again...again. It's beyond frustrating and I have run the gamut of emotions this week. Maybe I am having mood swings, going thru menopause, or just becoming a crabby, cranky person that I swore I would never become as I grew older.

I am not sure on who or what to blame all my frustrations on, but this week I am blaming the animal kingdom...yep the whole kingdom. It started with the squirrels. In the past we have had an amicable existence. They do their thing, and I do mine. They are overstepping their bounds lately as they continue to wreck havoc on my new tulip bed. At first I thought it was the neighborhood cats and dogs, doing the digging to get to the bone meal I used when making the flower bed. I went out periodically and scattered pepper and more pepper, black, red, crushed, whatever pepper I had on hand and it seemed to work for awhile. But more holes keep appearing. Now I would think by now they would have had their fill of the numerous walnuts they have been gathering all winter and replanting in my freshly turned veggie garden bed, but noooo...it seems variety is truly the spice of life, and pepper not so much.

Darn squirrels...

The cat..(big exasperated sigh). Gee just where to begin with that creature that has gone from being a roommate to thinking she is the landlord. She has developed a couple of really annoying habits, one of which is biting. The little ankle biter is becoming just that, and braver she gets each day. If she feels she is ignored she will first warn you with a small high pitched meow while at my feet. Then she will lay her ears back, meow again louder and then reach over and nip, and nip again til she has my attention. Spoiled? Yeah, I think beyond the point of living up to her name of Stink Pot.

Darn cat...

The neighbor's dog, another bone of contention and maybe there wouldn't be much contention if it had a bone. I like my neighbor, I like his dog, I don't like my neighbor's dog destroying all my hard work though. Last fall I did a lot of digging and rearranging and made new flower beds all around a small shed. On the north side, a new bed of hostas, east and west side of the shed, a bed of daylilies, orange coneflowers, and my new (and expensive!) tall bearded iris. On the south side, climbing roses. Each side of the shed now has gaping holes that were dug to try and tunnel underneath the shed to get to a nest of rabbits, (yes another member of the animal species that has me fuming) I've gone out twice to replace the dirt, replant the flowers and with crossed fingers, I hope that things will survive. But each day that I go out there to view my efforts, I find new gaping holes, AND damaged siding from the dogs digging. It's a mess, just a huge ongoing mess that only promises to get worse unless something more drastic is done.

I talked to my neighbor about it the other day and he mentioned putting electric fencing around the building to get the dog to stop digging. I just kinda gave him an odd stare and mumbled, "I will probably be the one who will get zapped more than the dog". But my neighbor has a odd sense of humor so maybe he was thinking of that all along?

Darn rabbits, ...darn neighbor,... darn neighbor's dog...

I am beginning to have a huge empathy for Elmer Fudd. I know,... I really, really know and feel his frustration. It IS all the rabbit's fault, it really is!....

Along with the squirrels, the cat's, and the dogs...

Shhhhh....be vewy, vewy quiet...

I am going hunting....

(Now where did I put that darn squirt gun?)

Plaid, Mister Rogers, and Forward Thinking...

 

Earlier this week as I was looking over my blog page, I came upon the realization that I really haven't blogged a whole lot lately. I have done a few graphics of the birthday magazine spoofs, but other than that there hasn't been a whole lot of substance in my blogging. I haven't really had much exciting going on lately to blog about but my life has never been all that exciting and earth shattering,... but I did use to blog more. So this week I thought, I need to write a blog about something. I read blogs posted by others in hopes of getting some kind of inspiration and I did have a few ideas that lead me to do some googling, but I never actually got around to taking one of those ideas and running with it.

Over at Zzee's blog page, I came across one of the pics she had posted of her wearing a pair of plaid pants as a child. I left a comment about we should bring back plaid, which got me to thinking and googling for plaid. Let's face it, plaid has fallen out of style, well unless you are Scottish and wear kilts, you really don't see a whole lot of plaid gracing the runways of Milan. I still googled in hopes of doing a graphic of me in a kewl set of plaid pedal pushers or some other kind of retro plaid concoction but I soon gave up all plans of plaid. I just couldn't top that cute pic of Zzee in her high plaid pants.

I left a comment on Sueshoovrs guest book, singing the theme song from Mister Roger's. Asking her wouldn't she please be my neighbor. I kind of garbled the theme song as I couldn't quite remember the lyrics, which sent me back to googling for the theme song. One thing lead to another and I was soon downloading pics of Mister Roger's and his nifty cardigan, thinking I would do a spoof on Mister Roger's neighborhood over here on the blog pages. That sounded like an awful lot of work and I grew tired of that thought quickly. But while googling one of the puppets from that show, Lady Elaine Fairchild, I thought what a remarkable resemblance she had towards Bret Somers (from the Match Game TV Show). Staring at that puppet it made me wonder just what or who was the basis for that puppet. Let's face it, that puppet is just down right creepy, and with it's garish red cheeks and nose, it looks more like a derelict wino found in a back lit alley way. It's just such a huge contrast to the quiet mild mannered Mister Rogers in his tennis shoes and sensible cardigan, that I wondered if it wasn't some kind of subliminal message being sent over the airwaves.

That got me to thinking about conspiracy theories. I thought about posting a blog of outlandish theories of conspiracy that I could ask each blogger to come up with and post. Whether politically inspired or otherwise, I thought it could be fun to see just how outrageous each of you could be and still have the theory have a glimmer of a possibility. I even had an idea for my own conspiracy theory of how McCain threw the presidential election with his choice of bad running mates on purpose and the reasoning behind it. But I bypassed that blog choice as well.

I read a blog posted by Strongwilledwoman on paying it forward. The premise was you were suppose to make five things for the first five people that responded to your blog and agreed to post the blog on their page so that it created a domino affect. My first thought was I have to actually make something? What in the world could I make that people would want? A picture, a card, a bookmark perhaps? (I will forget about the baking part as the last person I sent something homemade to, thought I had plans to slowly poison them to death. As far as I know they did survive but they have been awfully quiet lately....hmmm, making a note to check up on them encase it was a very, very slow poisonous reaction). But I still thought on the blog and if I posted it, who would respond and what if I didn't know them? Should or could I still send them something? Or what if they were some wierdo? Which then made me think I was losing all perspective of the original premise of paying it forward. I am still thinking on it and who knows the mood might strike me to post it and pay it forward later. But then I feel guilty that if I have to actually sit and think about it, does it lessen the whole experience? I think it might...

Which got me to thinking.... that I do a lot of thinking. I blame it on my early childhood and sitting in the classroom and being bored, I daydreamed a lot. Something I still do. You would think that with all of that thinking I would be smarter than I am. But perhaps it's the thinking I do that isn't the right kind of thinking that is the real culprit. My mind is always thinking, so much so, that I am usually lost in thought with my head down as I travel from spot to spot that I tend to miss a lot that is going on around me while I am thinking. So I think I need to do less thinking or at least more thinking of the right kind of thinking...I think.

I still don't have much of an idea for a blog today, but just a blog of randomness of my thoughts this week, and what almost was a blog or could have been a blog or perhaps might be a blog in some near future.

I'll keep thinking til I think of something...

Shoes...and Stuff....

I'm too sexy for my blog....

A bit of wishful thinking on my part, I will admit.

But today does have my mind swirling and turning with so many thoughts on different things, that it is hard to just pick and choose one idea and run with it. So this will be a bit of a hodge-podgey blog that I hope in the end makes some sort of sense.... But if it doesn't, I know you will just chalk it up to that just "being Vic"...A bit too old to be considered funky, a bit too young to be considered eccentric, which leaves me somewhere in the middle of just being weird, (sigh).

This past week-end we saw several birthdays in blog-land, one of which was for my good blog friend Sleepy Lady, aka Des. Several fellow bloggers tried to come up with an avatar of something about Des, or something that represented Des, or just something she could relate to for her birthday. So not knowing anything of F1 racing which she is fond of, I chose a pair of sassy red shoes with a british flag background. I think maybe I should have blogged about it to perhaps warn all of you, as I think the shoes scared you, perplexed you, or had all of you thinking I was entering into another personality disorder you weren't aware that I had.

Let's face it, (or more importantly, for me to face it)...sassy red stilettos aren't me. As much as I would like to think I could pull off such a pair of shoes, I just can't. On here or in "real" life either way I would be leaning precariously near a wall or some support hoping to catch myself for when I stumbled, pitched forward, or got that nose bleed from the high altitude....(thanks Misty for the hanky)...The shoes did have several of you scratching your heads though, which got me to thinking about how shoes are more than just an accessory and how they say a lot about you. I am not a big collector of shoes. I like shoes, even love some pairs of shoes, but over half of my shoe wardrobe consists of sneakers and practical shoes. There aren't too many high heeled pairs of shoes that I own or have ever owned. I could go out and buy new shoes, but in my heart of hearts I know they would languish in the bottom of my closet. As much as I would like to think I could be sexy in some new shoes, the shoes would be wearing me instead of me wearing them...if ya know what I mean.

Shoes...who would think they say so much, on here and in our everyday lives. It does make me want to clean out the closet and reassess my shoe collection, along with a few other things...

Totally unrelated to shoes and off topic.....Robins... they are back today in flocks, it finally feels like spring is  truly on it's way...

More off topic stuff... I finally decided and this year I am planning on growing Red Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter, and Giant Belgium heirloom tomatoes. I am growing them from seed so crossing my finger the cat doesn't sit in the seed trays again this year...

Speaking of the cat, she has gotten a bit on the pudgy side. When she sits in the recliner rocker and washes her tummy, she sets the rocker in motion. I giggle and mumble under my breath, boy you have gotten a big backside this winter kitty. But then I get a worried look that pets are suppose to take after their owners and that maybe I need to get a full length mirror...

....or maybe not...

Happy hump day... and if you are bored and think you have nothing to blog about, go check out your closet....

 And if you find nothing that interests you in there today, feel free to pass around and wear those sassy red shoes today. I am claiming it as "too sexy for my blog day", today...