Early Turkey...

 

Today is an early Thanksgiving celebration for my family, as it was one of the few days that the majority of them could get together. I have been elected, selected, drafted or whatever you want to call it for today's meal. Please say a little prayer for me, and on second thought maybe a bigger prayer for those who will partake of my holiday cooking.

I am happy to report that my turkey is not frozen this year and is ready to pop into the roasting contraption whenever I get the bird ready. Crossing fingers and yet another prayer that the roasting contraption still works as it's been a couple years since I last used it to cook a turkey in.

So much to do, so little time, and it's at moments like this that I find myself procrastinating even more. I should be busy chopping veggies, filling the pickle and olive dishes, slicing that jellied canned cranberry sauce that my mom and sister-in-law crave and refuse to eat any other kind. I should be looking at recipes, gauging how long the ham takes to cook, the turkey, the stuffing, etc. etc. I should be coordinating times and schedules, what goes in first, what should go in next, dig out table settings, tablecloth, pitchers, glasses, and all other sorts of paraphernalia.

Good grief, I should be cleaning, dusting and dusting and more dusting. I should be disturbing spiderwebs, scrubbing floors, shaking rugs, and doing a million other things...But I feel like procrastinating. I will get to it when I get to it, seems to be my motto today. I am wondering if it is some inner sort of rebellion that my subconscious has taken over and is refusing to get into the swing of things. I should be moving, I should be doing stuff, I should be checking the freezer for a carton of cool whip for pie.

I find myself instead logging on here, snooping around a bit and yet not saying much in the fear I won't be able to tear myself away in time for turkey. Turkey takes time, turkey is awfully demanding for a bird, and a dead bird at that.

(sigh) I guess I should go get busy, scatter some dust bunnies, plug in the roaster to make sure it works, go look for poultry seasoning, and maybe a vegetable peeler. I have one of those, somewhere.

Wishing all of you an early turkey day, an early Thanksgiving that makes us all reflect on what we are thankful for this year. Me, I am thankful for family, friends, here and otherwise. Thankful for the cat, most days. Thankful that I am still treading water and keeping afloat in a rotten economy.

I am also thankful that I have a pressed turkey roll in a little aluminum til foil pan as back up in case I blow the big bird in some way....I think the gravy is even included too.

Enjoy your day and continue those prayers for me in the kitchen today and take time to reflect on your own reasons for being thankful this year. One of those reasons being that you are safe from my culinary delights.

 

(pic above, for those who can't view the background on my page)

Garden Stuff 2011

 

Yesterday I was surprised to find a new 2011 spring garden catalog in my mailbox...(neener,neener Vero). With visions of turkey, gravy, stuffing, and pie clouding my thoughts, gardening for the next year was way back on the back burner. I couldn't help but thumb thru the catalog a bit to see their offering and I found my eye drawn to some plants I hadn't grown or heard of before.

PUMPKIN PEPPERS.... Looking a lot like miniature pumpkins but not really a pumpkin...or a pepper. But actually a member of the eggplant family, that is dried like a gourd. It sounded a lot like a plant with an identity crisis to me, which lead me to some googling. It was confusing a bit as there are actually peppers that are called pumpkin peppers that are hot. But the pumpkin peppers that I had seen listed in the catalog are more decorative and not really eaten. My interest was peaked though and I find myself seriously considering trying them next year. If you should google them to read more about them as well, type in "ornamental eggplant pumpkin on a stick" to find the variety mentioned rather than the hot peppers.

STUPICE TOMATO...A Czechoslovakian heirloom tomato that is suppose to be very early to mature. A small 3-4 oz. tomato that is sweet and tangy that you would associate with a beefsteak according to the catalog. After this past years tomato crop failure I am thinking this might be a contender for next year. I am not sure what Stupice stands for, the original breeder, a town, or province in Czechoslovakia but the name is close enough  to stupid which makes me think that even I might have success in growing the plant.

MARCONI RED...An Italian pepper that reportedly is 3 inches across the shoulders and can grow a foot long. Described as exceptionally large and exceptionally sweet has me thinking I want and need to grow anything described as exceptional, not once but twice. I haven't ever grown a foot long pepper before, and just how it would taste any different I'm not sure. But I have a hankering now for marconi peppers which look suspiciously like banana peppers that are just red.

SUGAR BUNS... (sigh) Another disappointed in the garden this year was the sweet corn that was drowned out early in the spring season. For the past several years I have planted a bi-color, but now I am thinking I should switch back to an all yellow variety. Promises of an early sugar enhanced hybrid with a long harvest period sound so  promising. I find though that I am always in a bit of a quandary with those sugar enhanced corn varieties. Reports of needing a bit more soil warmth then the typical sweet corn varieties has me wavering on just when to plant. Plant too early and they sulk and rot in the soil. Plant too late and I end up with stunted knee high stalks that make we want to build a fence to cover my sweet corn shame. This time I am thinking sugar buns is a possibility and it has me lusting to slather it all in butter and salt. Listed beside my Sugar Buns are "Quickie" and "Stowell's evergreen" ....oh decisions, decisions...

KIWANO HORNED MELON...A native of Africa that supposedly has a taste similar to cucumbers, kiwi and banana combined. The real kicker for me though, it is listed as having "flesh quite interesting with a Jello-like consistency"... Well there ya go, you can now grow Jell-o. Who knew? Given the cucumber, kiwi, and banana flavor it is like growing your very own fruit salad, all that you need is a carton of cool whip and you are good to go...(heads up Mac, the flesh looks green too!).

I know it's just my first catalog and many more will start trickling in after the first of the year. So many new plants and discoveries to stumble across has me thinking that 2011 will be an exceptionally good year. The only problem will be trying to pare down my wish list of things to try along with my usual old stand bys, as well as flowers (annuals and perennials) trees, bushes, etc, etc.... I will though, have to make room for Jell-O...

(don't groan, you knew I had to say it!)

 

Tricks or Treats, or Both...

 

As usual, I am behind on my blogging and even though I had plans on writing a big Halloween blog with jokes and quizzes and as many bad puns as I could find, it never quite materialized. Today it is already mid-November and another holiday, Veteran's Day today. I scrapped all plans of my original Halloween blog but still felt like blogging on the past holiday. I guess it's better late than never, but it is changed a bit in it's original idea.

Halloween was a bust this year.

Nine little trick or treaters...wow, only nine. When I turned off my light late that night, I could only shake my head and wonder what had happened to all of the trick or treaters? What had happened to Halloween? Was it because it was on a Sunday? Was it because tomorrow was a school day? Was it because Halloween is no longer the holiday I remembered as a kid?

Of the nine trick or treaters that came knocking on my door, they all had something in common. No the costumes weren't the same, and come to think of it, they all didn't really yell trick or treat, some did. Some just knocked on the door and stood there with their arms outstretched with their little plastic pumpkin containers. All of the trick or treaters had arrived at my doorstep via their parent's cars. I was surprised to see all of their parents drive up to the front door as close as possible and wait with the engine running for them to walk back down the steps and then be whisked off in their vehicles to the next house. I tried to rationalize their reasons...maybe they thought it was too cold, maybe they are afraid of the dark, maybe they were all in a hurry. But I think the biggest reason was our advances in transportation and mobility have made us immobile.

I grumbled....and whined... Noooo, you aren't doing it right. You are messing up the holiday. Halloween is about dressing up in your costumes, homemade or boughten, and getting your big paper bag (okay I know they don't make those any more, but every kid has to have at least one trick or treating experience with a big grocery store paper bag) and your trusty flashlight. Then when it is completely dark outside you are allowed to shuffle along in your dragging costume in small groups, giggling and stumbling in the dark, and hitting all of the good places that hand out the best candy first....sometimes twice, if you think you can get away with it. Down the road you see other small groups of witches, ghosts, and pirates with their small beams of light. Sometimes there would be an extra tall shadow which meant an adult was tagging along. It took awhile, going from house to house, and even though at some houses you only got a stick of gum  or a lonely tootsie roll, you made sure you didn't miss a single dwelling with it's porch light on. This driving around stuff is for sissies.

I moaned for my old Halloween. I longed for my old Halloween. I fear it's gone by the wayside, my old Halloween. The lure of candy isn't there, too commonplace in homes now. The idea of walking in the dark at night, too dangerous most parents will say now. Going to every home on the block a big no-no, because a sex offender lives at such and such address now. It was already hard enough that Halloween had to compete with Christmas on the store shelves now...

It makes me a bit sad that so much of every holiday that I know and celebrate keeps getting streamlined. Less about the process and more about the end product. It loses something in that abbreviated translation.

Haunted houses were big when I was a kid. I didn't even see one advertised this year. Too much work, too much effort, too scary? I don't know, I imagine most would think not scary enough with today's movies. I think most holidays, especially Halloween are about the experience. There is something about Halloween being bad, our last naughty hurrah, before we all have to be good because Santa will be watching.

I never was that bad though on Halloween. A few soaped windows was about the extent of being naughty. I didn't egg or toilet paper anyone's residence. I didn't play any practical jokes or cause my parents to worry that the police would be bringing me home with a stern lecture.

There was one Halloween that my twin brother and I and his girlfriend who was also a friend of mine were out driving around. For some reason we decided to drive way out in the country and soap a friend's windows. We snuck out there in the quiet darkness, parking my brothers car at the bottom of a very steep hill and climbed up that hill to keep from being heard on our mission. We giggled and soaped their car, their pick-up, their front door on their house, all the while they were in the living room watching tv. We would peek in a window to keep an eye on them and continue on our soaping spree. My brother spied a parked grain truck and he went to soap it's windows while us girls ran down the hill giggling all the way.

We hadn't brought a flashlight but there was enough of a moon to guide our steps. We hopped in the car and expected to see my brother coming shortly. As we chatted away we heard a big "thump" on the roof of the small car. We shrieked, we jumped, we had the bejeezus scared out of us. We expected the driver's door to open and my brother to hop in. He didn't. We quickly locked all the doors and peered into the darkness....nothing. We saw nothing. At that moment, every horror/slasher movie we had ever seen ran thru our minds... Two young girls, out in the middle of nowhere. Late at night, deserted country road....yep, we were goners. Any minute I expected to see that creepy hand that always crawls up the outside of the window to appear. We waited, our hearts beating out of our chests. Our eyes darting around the car, peering into the darkness.

Maybe he was hiding under the car, my brother. He was just waiting to jump out and scare us we thought. Soon we heard steps, the crunch of gravel as a figure running down the hill came closer. It was my brother finally. He yelled at us, "why do you have the door locked, unlock the door". We let him in and told him about the thump on the roof of the car. We thought it was him. He laughed and said there was a big cat back in the middle of the road, it must have followed us and jumped on the roof. We sighed with relief but still were a bit doubtful. We hadn't heard the cat jump off the car or seen it walk away. We kept the doors locked all the way home. Our night of trick or treating had the trick played on us. We were spooked by something that grew bigger in our imaginations. We learned that things really do go bump in the night...

Tricks..and treats included, how can you not love Halloween?

 

Garden Notes - Fall Wrap Up...

 

It's been awhile since I have blogged or written much of anything lately. The summer seemed to go by all too quickly and it's hard to believe it's already fall and winter is around the corner. With temps in the 40's at night though it is a very real reminder that the year is almost over for gardening. I have to admit that this year was a bit of a dismal year for veggie gardening. The perennials and flowers basked in all of the rain that seemed to fall for weeks and weeks. The veggies sulked though and some just down right gave up.

Peas and beans did well. Onions and potatoes started to rot. Squash, cukes, and zucchini were abundant. Corn and tomatoes refused to do much of anything. Peppers gave big promises with one big flush of fruits before spending the rest of the summer sitting by idly.

It's enough to make a gardener want to throw in the towel. Each year seems to be a crap shoot and you are never sure what your odds are going to be or how mother nature is going to throw the dice. I have to admit that my heart wasn't into it as much as it was earlier in the year. Between the constant rain and heat and humidity, and having relatives visit for 7-8 weeks, I didn't feel like doing a whole heck of a lot. Spring had me going gangbusters and then things kinda just had to look after themselves for awhile.

August came though and with it some cooler temps that continued into September that had me feeling like I was being dealt a good hand for once. I seemed to get more accomplished lately than I had for the whole summer. New flower beds made, plants shuffled, and even some new purchases made. The above pic is a variegated euonymus that I googled for to show you one of the plants I just put in last week. It was an impulse purchase and I needed a plant for a difficult spot. I hope that it will flourish there despite not having the best of locations. I did like the brightness of the yellow and green leaves and already having some of the more common variegated green and white euonymus, I knew it would - or should, be easy to grow.

A few garden catalogs are still trickling in this fall and has me thinking I need to plant more trees.  A new bulb catalog arrived yesterday that has me thinking tulips, a new catalog of peonies has me thinking (and googling) for peonies....yes I have a bad case of me see - me want.. A typical response for me when any gardening catalog arrives that is usually reserved for spring. Fall seems to be my new spring this year and I am taking advantage of it and it's possibilities, and I hope that you are too...

Links for some of you die hard gardeners:

http://www.paeon.de/0site.html (a fantastic site to view almost any peony variety available)

http://www.bridgewoodgardens.com/ (hosta site, because we can never have enough hostas)

http://www.ensata.com/HTML/PlantPages/siberian_index.htm (try something new like siberian iris)

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/calendar/gardening/ (gardening by the moon, check your planting dates)

 

 

 

Computer Question....

The image above is what I see a lot of times when someone posts a video. Many times if some one has posted something from Youtube, I ask them for the link as well. Does anyone have a clue how I can get the videos to show without using a different computer? I am using windows 7...

Road Warrior

 

What frustrates us about driving? That suggestion was mentioned to me today when commenting about blogs and topics. Of course my mind can immediately think of lots of things as I am sure you can also come up with several things off of the top of your own head. Most things that frustrate me when driving are other drivers, traffic, weather, car problems, road work, etc. etc. I guess I should have asked the fellow blogger for more clarification on that subject.

Just the act of driving can be a pain in the butt. I get lost easily. I get turned around, can't figure which way is north or south and never realize I am going the wrong way til having to travel even more miles out of my way to find an exit or place to be able to turn around. Detours can make me hyperventilate, or feel like it some days...

Add to that factor is usually a ton of roadwork. Seeing those little orange cones can send me into a groaning dispair. One road gets repaired or widened, or torn up and replaced, resurfaced, repainted, or some other project that lasts for months and months. Once it is completed, those orange cones migrate to another nearby section, never really ever leaving, just being shuffled about and herded onto another area.

Vehicles themselves. I know I am going to come off sounding like such a girl complaining about spare tires that seem to go flat in the trunk when you ever get around to needing one. Lug nuts put on too tight that requires you trying to hop up and down on the lugwrench without a whole lot of success. Seat belts that were invented by a guy just to deter women from considering driving. Seriously, they should come with some sort of optional boob protection attachment. Vehicles are suppose to be some sort of extension of ourselves. Color choices, model choices, a reflection of our personalities. Personally I have never rushed out to buy a new vehicle off the lot. I have never chosen exactly what I wanted or spied or lusted for. The purse strings rule any and all vehicle purchases, which I guess in a way is an extension of my frugality. Those days stretch back to my very first vehicle which was neither new or shiny and tended to use almost as much oil as gas most weeks. New plugs and points were replaced often with the oil clogging them up quickly.

When you are young though, you are happy to just have any mode of transportation, and I guess that can be held true even now as I age. We just like to be mobile, or have the opportunity to be mobile if we choose to be. Some days I think it would be so easy to give up driving. Public transport, if available in my rural area would be my mode of transportation. No more pumping gas, scheduled vehicle repairs, insurance, car payments, scraping frost, snow and ice off windshields. My garage could house new things, like more garden tools, more storage, more things I think I need but can never find after putting out there...

When asked about what is most  frustrating though, most people will mention other drivers. I myself learned how to drive on the back roads of Nebraska. Rock and dirt roads were my first miles logged, well until it started raining, and one really shouldn't be on a dirt road in the rain. But back to what frustrates me with other drivers, so many things when I think about it.

People who wait til you are almost upon them before they decide that yes,... yes they have time to turn in front of you.

People who pass your vehicle and force you to brake because they really aren't going any faster than you, but still want to be ahead of you. I think this is some kind of syndrome myself. I have known people who feel the need to pass anyone ahead of them, speeding up til they catch them and then slowing down upon passing them. This is almost always a given on rainy or snowy days, ..just expect it.

People who use the turning lane for passing is a big peeve of mine. Or people who upon seeing two lanes merge into one, suddenly zoom ahead on the outer shoulder space to get in front. It can be just you and that other person on the road and they still feel compelled to do this.

People who tailgate, people who don't use blinkers, people who slow down and speed up and never keep the speed at an even keel.

People who cut you off, refuse to let you merge, become lane hogs.

People who rubberneck. Now this is a big thing in Nebraska, and 9 times out of 10 it is a farmer ahead of you who is checking out his neighbor's corn or bean fields along side the road. They usually are found in pick-up trucks, but can also be found on numerous pieces of farm machinery, which is another frustration. Combines and tractors are not built for speed and long lines of cars quickly form behind them when traveling on the roadways. Just trying to pass an over sized combine can be a feat in it's self. Weaving your car to the edge of the yellow line or just past, in order to see around the monstrosity. You will find yourself quickly ducking back in your lane a time or two before being able to find a clear lane ahead.

I guess a lot of things annoy or frustrate me, and I should count myself lucky in that I don't live in a bigger area with more traffic, more lanes, more noise and congestion. I couldn't be one of those people who commute to work an hour or more each way every day. I would go nuts. I think that is the problem with most of us. We are in a hurry. Time is short. Days aren't long enough. We want to go from point A to point B in the shortest, fastest way possible. Most times when we arrive at that final destination we aren't rushing around so much then...

Road rage, I think there is a little bit inside of all of us. Whether we admit or not, there is always a bit of annoyance at something or someone when on the road. Sometimes I wonder if our world is too mobile. Yet, I can't think of not being able to take off at a moment's notice when the notion takes me...

Road trip anyone?

 

 

Colin's Cast...

 

It was hard to know what to put as a title for this blog entry. I considered "cast of characters", "supporting cast", "cast-atrophic blogger", all sorts of word play for this blog but just ending up calling this entry "Colin's Cast". It is after all a pic of his cast, posted on his own blog one day awhile back showing us the after affects of being caught up in the moment of picture taking.

I want to say first of all, this was not my brilliant idea, but actually the brainchild of fellow friend and blogger Sharon. She sent me a small note asking if I could work some magic in my graphics program and have all of his friends sign his cast. I said okey dokey and it was with a lot of quiet back and forth e-mailing that signatures were sent to me or okay given for me to sign the cast for them. I had plans of posting this blog last week during Sharon's proclamation of it being 'Colin Appreciation Week', but the best laid plans go awry. Mainly it was the fault of Colin/MkChippy himself that hovered around Des/Sleepy Lady so much she finally threw up her hands and said sign it for me Vic. So I did, plus an added little message from her, which she really didn't say, but I couldn't resist adding,lol. I did mention to her that I might include a  bit of a note of well wishes from her and she good naturedly agreed.

(WARNING MKCHIPPY: Be on the look out for an excessively long honey do list when your arm is cast-less)lol

Seriously we all wish you a speedy recovery as we know how hard it must be with one fingered typing and not being able to comment or blog or post as much as you would like due to the inconvenience. If we could all sign your cast in person, we most assuredly would, so this will have to suffice as the next best thing. Get well soon!