Musings

Today’s milestone* is white bean soup, the beginning of winter eats. Mostly I use white beans or split peas, rarely black beans or a bean mixture. I almost always add barley and wild rice, making the soup into a complete protein food. Love assortments of amino acids!

This particular version is augmented with carrots and garlic (out of onions) and seasoned with fresh sage and thyme from my herb garden, plus a few pieces of ham and a splash of worchestershire sauce.

Through the winter, we almost always have leftover soup around, which makes for easy lunches, and a lowered grocery bill.

* This milestone is related to turning on the heat, mentioned yesterday by the Marquis, as a seasonal marker.

Posted at 1:16 PM | 4 Comments »

Lunar changes mark autumnal shifts, accompanied by the obvious modifications in leaf colors. The road beckons….

Posted at 8:01 PM | 1 Comment »

Old two-room school enduring the precip, Luce County, Michigan.

Although it’s a drippy day, it’s relatively warm and we’ve been having a grand time. We went to town and bought a sheet of blue foam insulation to finish up the well house project (replacing the loose insulation that’s coated with dried you don’t want to know), since last year’s partial installation came through the winter without problems. We also bought Breyer’s natural vanilla ice cream for tonight’s modest celebration of one more tick on the personal odometer of life.

Posted at 2:47 PM | 4 Comments »

Chapel Lake, view west across south end.

Today’s adventure was a loop walk around Chapel Lake, in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The breeze was offshore and we could hear the wind in the canopy as we walked through the mostly maple woods. We saw two little snakes (snakelets?; possibly hatched this year?; one probably garter/garden; other unknown), no fur bearers, only a few other hiker/walkers, no campers, many chipmunks. Notable plant species include Doll’s Eyes and moosewood (no time to find links). We also saw Chapel Rock.

Posted at 7:29 PM | 2 Comments »

Archive photo, New York state, January 2003 (borrowed footwear; my down coat).

Yes, today is the first day that I’ve considered digging up a sweater—just in time, eh?, as fall* begins just before noon….

Soon we’ll be making snow angels?

* In honor of the seasonal change, I scraped my wooden cutting board, so it’s ready for another year (or so).

Posted at 10:05 AM | 2 Comments »

Archive photo, mid-December 2006.

Our weather has yet to bring the promise of fall, and the dessication of the grasses. Our vegetation looks like very late summer, but still like summer. I’ve seen a few hints of autumnal change, but only a few.

Around here, it’s like there was no Ike.

Posted at 5:23 PM | 1 Comment »

A wicked afternoon storm came through yesterday, filling the gutters and sending a few vagrant streamlets into the house around the old dormers until the patch-crew arrived (thanks, Guys). Can you guess how glad we are that we will be getting a *Real Roof tomorrow? I know it’s true ’cause the supplies arrived this morning.

Posted at 12:05 PM | 2 Comments »

The framing guys crack me up. There’s a singer (which might have annoyed me before I lived in Mexico), a quiet guy (the balance?), and the third guy, who seems quite normal.

This is the view from the framed in dormer looking up at the top of the roof. It doesn’t show how complicated the angles are on the back side, where lots of roof planes meet.

The second most exciting thing about what this photo shows, after the framing, is the tar paper, which means we have a much more durable roof than a flapping tarp provides—especially for summer southern pop-up afternoon rainstorms. The ones yesterday missed us to the north. There’s a cell to the south right now. Next? Who knows?

The Sheetrock™ you see straight ahead is in the interior stairwell (now with zipwalls top and bottom). You’re not supposed to see into the stairwell from here!

After the framers leave, we’ll be praying for sheetrock (well worth the read).

Posted at 1:45 PM | Comments Off on I love framing

Elected and hopeful officials and local businesses comprised most of the Curtis parade, as near as I could tell. I saw two bands: Newberry High’s marching band (in matching t-shirts), and these folks from downstate….

Here’s a gem of a passage from Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Links, originally published in 1923 (this from a 1959 paperback edition I found stashed on a shelf in the cottage, page 54)….

“You do not play the golf, M. Poirot?” inquired Bex.

“I? Never! What a game!” He became excited. “Figure to yourself, each hole is of a different length. The obstacles, they are not arranged mathematically. Even the greens are frequently up one side! There is only one thing—how do you call them?—tee boxes! They, at least, are symmetrical.”

Take that, Tiger!

In the meantime, it’s breezy and sunny and did I mention breezy? The grass is sufficiently vanquished, the gas tank is refilled, and most of our food has been consumed. Guess what this means about tomorrow?

Posted at 7:55 PM | 1 Comment »

I’m not even going to comment on the willpower it took not to nab this ’mater.

Our neighbors are out of town, and I went over this morning to check how their veggies were doing. Sadly, in combo with the lack of rain, the bright sun has hammered them—all the leaves were terribly limp. So, I took the dishwater over (remember, watering restrictions and drought in these parts). It wasn’t much. I am happier now, since we one of those summer-afternoon pop-up storms nailed us this afternoon, delivering some blessed precip (not much, but we’ll take whatever arrives!).

The beautiful rain had another impact, however. The Blue Tarp is showing its age, and JCB spread a plastic dust cloth on the dining room floor to catch the drips….

Posted at 6:08 PM | 2 Comments »