September 2005 Archives

Sept. 22, 2005, 6:23 PM EDT was the date of the Fall Equinox. As of 6:23, we were officially into fall. But that date was warm and sunny and still felt like summer. As a matter of fact, I hadn't seen ANY sign of fall as of the 22nd.

Today, fall came. When I got up this morning, it was in the forties. The house was unusually chilly because the furnace was not running. By two this afternoon we had barely managed to creep into the sixties. Definitely FALL weather.

As I dressed, I knew it was fall because the age old question came to mind. "What do I wear?" I ended up choosing a white turtleneck and jeans, and my sandals. When I was ready to go out, I added a red sweater jacket. I was fine. Since I was inside most of the morning my feet were warm, but the jacket was definitely overkill in the grocery store.

Fall is here. The geese are gathering, and trying out different leaders as they line up in wedges. I can imagine mom and pop goose honking encouragement to the juniors who will make their first migration south. I can (finally!) feel the difference in the air. The angle of the sun has changed, and the days are much shorter. Elegante Mother saw a chickadee the other day, and we should see the juncos and nuthatches soon.

I bought my first pumpkin, and the second set of mums. I have a spider hanging in the doorway, and a spicy candle burning on the counter in the kitchen. I'm thinking about buying an armful of cattails to make a decoration for the front entryway.

Yup, fall is my time of year.

Caitiff.

I've never heard this word. I've never heard anyone use it; I've never read it. What's more, I've never heard my MOTHER use this word (and, of course, Mother knows everything). It's new to me.

It made me think of Jamie Frasier, in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, but on reflection, while Jamie was miserable in prison, I think he had enough purpose in seeing to the care of his men that you couldn't say he was caitiff. Now, the MEN may have been caitiff.

You learn something every day.

(N.B. When I ran Spell Check, it made no comment about "caitiff.")

What to fix, what to fix? I'm caught in a no-man's land between the heat of summer and the cold of winter, and my meals reflect our confusion.

Last night I made stuffed green peppers. Tonight I made pasta e fagiole soup. Tomorrow we're grilling salmon.

I made the green peppers because it was chilly, and we have an abundance of green peppers available now. I cut the core out of the peppers and then cut them in half lengthwise. After blanching them for five minutes, I laid them on their sides and mounded the filling over them. It seems easier to do it this way, and you get a little more of the stuffing with each bite of pepper, always a good thing.

Today was warm and clear. I should have been out weeding, but I wanted to be available to the repairman, so I worked in the kitchen, making soup. Our evening has been chilly, so the warm soup wasn't so inappropriate.

Apples are coming into the Farmer's Market. I want to do apple butter, and apple crisp and apple pie. And then there's zucchini bread, carrot cake, and pumpkin bread. I found a jar of pumpkin butter in my cabinet, today. I think I'll have it with toast in the morning.

I Love Fall!

My youngest sister's daughters are involved in marching band. Since I used to be a band director, it's a pleasure to see my teenage relatives participate in band. The girls attend a school that takes its marching season pretty seriously, so they attend a contest almost every week during the fall.

I plan to pack Elegante Mother up, and head off to Indiana to see the girls at one of their competitions. It's a pleasure to get out into the farm land and travel where you don't see a car for ten or fifteen miles. The harvest will be underway, and we'll be able to tell the difference in the fields from the Friday we go east, to the Sunday when we return home. We'll be watching for geese gleaning the fields, and tractors pulling corn and beans to the local co-op.

I hope for crisp weather, clear blue skies, leaves changing colors, and the excitement of the competition. Fall is my time of the year!

I got the news today that my boat widowhood may come to an end during the middle of next week. Well....actually, the boat will be taken out of the water midweek. Then there will be weeks of maintenance on the boat. So, probably I'll get to see Dear Husband on a weekend some time in late November!

Still, it's always nice to know that the season is ending two weeks early. We'll have to party the day he brings her up the drive.

It's been one of those weeks...

Friday, the drier stopped heating. We were able to get a repairman in on Monday, and had mountains of laundry waiting to be done. This morning, the plumber came and replaced a water heater, cleaned out the pipes from the air conditioner condenser, and re-connected everything in the basement. Of course, we'd had to wait to do laundry while he worked.

Before he left, I told him I wanted him to take a look at one of the air conditioners. The newer one makes quite a racket when it's running.

As....We are in flux at Arrrgh!!!

RedEagleSpirit1 has been feverishly redesigning my blog, at my request. It seems that she has been waiting years to change the look, and wondered when I would get around to requesting her help.

It's fun to see the changes from my stolid red and gray! I hope you enjoy the new look.

Verdant

The grounds have gone from being sere and brown to verdant, now that the rains have returned.

We have had a dreadful summer. I made a serious effort to water my gardens this year, and if next year should turn out to be the same, I am going to become an expert on installing watering systems. I'm going to have to ask my PT guru if hand watering of the pots along the sidewalk can be considered exercise!

Rain.....we've had rain, and may possibly have more rain this weekend. I'm not going to complain. Instead, you'll find me outside doing a rain dance!

I'm more than a little ticked with Dear Husband tonight. He has control of the TV remote, so he's usually the person who chooses what we watch.

You need to know that I love cutesy polar bear pictures. I think I may have temporarily cleaned out the supply in Alaska when we visited two years ago.

Tonight, he chose a science show about polar bears. I should have known better than to get caught up in it. OF COURSE, it showed a male polar bear hunting polar bear cubs as a food source. OF COURSE, it showed a baby polar bear dying of exhaustion.

I know this is the reality of polar bear life, but I don't need to be faced with it in my own home. I don't care for ANY of the shows that show animals being killed in their natural environment. I understand the situation. I can't do anything about it, so why would I want to watch it?

It must be a guy thing, because it certainly isn't my cup of tea.

I want the remote for the next week or two.

I was talking with a friend a week or so ago, and he made an off-hand comment about women and their secrets.

Whoa.....what was that?? I backed up and asked him just what he meant. I never really got a definitive answer. He feels that women keep secrets from men, and I personally think that we ALL have secrets, to some degree or other.

I had planned to tell you what the Seven Wonders of Chicago are, but Dear Husband threw out the paper before I could blog. I'd even set it aside so that it wouldn't go out with the other papers! He's just too conscientious about his garbage job.

Herons and Egrets

We’re fortunate to live in an area that has marshes, and the water has drawn a number of birds that you usually see along the Gulf Coast. We’ve been watching from our car windows as we drive by, wondering what kind of birds we were seeing.

One of my favorites is the one Elegante Mother has named the “Gray Ghost.” You have to know where to look to see him. He's a wader, a tall bird for this area. It’s likely that this bird is a Great Blue Heron. When it stands facing you, you might miss it. In profile, you’ll only get a quick glimpse. He frequently stands near dead branches in the water, so as to trick the fish into thinking it’s safe to come near.

I was driving out of our area at 6:00 in the morning for two months, and discovered that one of the big herons had a favorite spot that he had claimed as his turf. He was in the same spot each morning, standing still as a statue. The other day I caught him with his neck folded down, snoozing. This morning I was late, and he had gone. The sun was up too far, and gave him away to those he stalked.

The first of the birds to come to this area were probably Snowy Egrets. There is an area where the drainage changed, and a pond formed around the base of a small group of trees. The trees died, leaving bare branches sticking up out of the water. It made the perfect nesting area for the egrets, and we’d watch for them in the evening.

Then we saw gray birds similar in size to the egrets, and we think they may be mature Little Blue Herons.

This year, for the first time, we noticed a number of birds that had blotches of blue on the white, and I wondered if there were other types of birds making the area their summer home. Roger Tory Peterson, in “A Field Guide To the Birds East of the Rockies” explained that the Little Blue Herons are white when immature, and are pied with darker blotches as they mature.

I worry for my travelers. I know they will be returning to a habitat that has been contaminated, that will take years to return to a healthy environment. I hope we see them in the future.

This week, on the evening news, the reporters were talking about the animals which had been evacuated from the Gulf area. A number of vets and shelters in the Chicago area have taken in the pets and are trying to find them temporary homes. Those who adopt these pets have to sign a contract which stipulates that they will return the pet to it’s owner, should the owner come forward. The shelters are taking pictures of the pets and are posting them on the Internet.

This same reporter announced that annually in Chicago 24,000 …..that’s TWENTY FOUR THOUSAND….. pets are euthanized. I’m simply appalled.

Four more weekends and the boat comes out of the water! YEA!!
Of course, then we have the emptying out of the boat, the scraping the hull, the winterizing of the boat……I probably won’t see Dear Husband until Christmas, or so.

Well, the raccoon door has been dismantled. Dear Husband went out one night this week about nine o’clock, and hammered a cover over their entrance. We thought one of the raccoons had been inside when the door was covered. I kept listening, and thought I heard one. The access to the attic in the garage was open, and the lights left on, to lure him out. Finally, DH went up into the attic and tried to see if he could see anyone scuttling around. Nope. He left the ladder in place, just in case one of them was hiding up there. I definitely don’t want a dead raccoon in my attic! This fall, DH will cut down the viburnum which grows at the front of the house. It was the raccoon’s ladder to the roof. It’s a stunningly beautiful plant, but it’s much too large for its location, and too large to transplant. Next up, new shingles

B.B. King is 80! In an interview, he said that he never sings when Lucille is playing, and she never plays when he sings. (Lucille is his guitar). It must be that conversation between the two of them that makes his music so fascinating.

Summer is over and the kids are back in school. I've lost my two summer helpers. I managed to get a picture of one of them watering the garden on his last visit. For a ten year old, he did a wonderful job watering this garden at the front door, and my herb garden. We were working one day and I asked him if he knew what plant he was watering, and he could name most of the culinary herbs.

I miss their company in the gardens.

Have you ever heard of this word? This is the first time I've seen it. It means a person who is learning the alphabet, a novice.

I wonder if Big Bird ever used abecedarian?

Last Monday was Labor Day. Half of Dear Husband's kids came to spend the afternoon with us, and I went off the deep end with preparations.

My extended family numbers somewhere between 40 and 50 people, and when I cook for them it takes me all day. I figured that Dear Husband's kids deserved the same effort.

Next year, when we do this again, remind me....NO GREEN! NO SALADS!!!

I swear, I had a brain spasm. I don't know what I was thinking! I was in the kitchen at seven, and the kids weren't coming until some time after two. There would be four additional adults at the table, and one granddaughter. I made enough to feed the entire neighborhood.

Last Sunday we were invited to visit my brother's home and gardens. He and his wife have been working for several years on their gardens. Originally the lot was a flat area that backed up to a railroad track. So, he trucked in some topsoil and they created a low berm that was edged with limestone.

Then they had a stone patio added to the back of the house with weathered wood rafters to support vines. There's a fountain, and a grill, and the sidewalk meanders around the sides of the house passing through arbors with beautiful roses.

The berm was difficult to mow, so they installed a fence, and then trucked in more loads of dirt to create a terraced garden. The blend of plants is beautiful. There are shrubs and trees, annuals, perennials, herbs, roses....everything. My sister-in-law chooses the plants; my brother does the dirty work. She and I strolled along the path, and I would either call out the name of the plant, or ask her what it was. She's a firm believer in mushroom compost, and you can tell it from the size of the plants. She has the biggest "Autumn Joy" seedum that I have ever seen!

I need to have them sign on to help with the renovation of my gardens! And while they are at it....I'd like a slate patio with a little brook bubbling through it on the west side of the house. We could trail a vine here...and one there...and RHODIES......we could plant rhododendrons! I can see the raccoons lounging back on the patio furniture, sipping tall drinks.

Wow....where do I start? I didn't realize I had been away so long, but my last post was September 4th, a week ago. So much has happened. Like most of you, we've been following the news from New Orleans. The pictures are horrifying, the breakdown of services frightening. This is an issue that will have impact not just on those along the Gulf Coast, but the entire nation for years to come. I was touched to learn that survivors of the tsunami had offered us help.

I know we're all unhappy about the rise in gas prices. It seems to me there is a simple way that the state of Illinois could give it's citizens a break, and I don't understand why it hasn't already been enacted.

The American Petroleum Industry gathered information in January on the gas rate per gallon in each state, and what additional taxes are levied on each gallon of gas. Illinois charges 19 cents per gallon, PLUS 6.25% sales tax AND a .3% tax for the underground storage tank fund.

It would be simple to pass a bill that changed the structure from a percentage of the sale to a specific amount per gallon.

At 6.25% per gallon, this is the tax you pay, depending on the cost of gas:

$1.75 gal. = 11 cents
$2.00 gal. = 12.5 cents
$2.50 gal. = 15.6 cents
$3.00 gal. = 18.75 cents

Rather than pointing the finger at the oil industry and crying "Gouging!" perhaps the state needs to consider an amendment that would give us a bit of relief. I'm sure that they figure there will be less driving, therefore there will be less gas sold, and less tax gathered. I know they want to keep their coffers filled.

But, cutting back six or seven (or more) cents per gallon would certainly help those who have to travel to work, and might encourage the rest of us to travel a bit more.

The Federal rate is 18.4 cents per gallon, a straight rate. I think Illinois should go to the straight rate as well.....and definitely one that is twelve cents or less per gallon!

I wanted you to see the ornamental grass that grows at the corner of the house. It's been there for years, and is the most modest of plants until about the third week of August, and then it just explodes, covering the sidewalk and anything near it.

We had a little visitor who was hiding in it. It never occurred to me that it might provide a highway for small animals who need cover as they travel through the area. I'll have to watch to see if Ed sits and watches the grass.

This is a dreadful picture, but I'm dying to share this with you. The ladies who do my machine quilting returned the batik quilt last month. I laid the quilt on the floor of my foyer on a sunny morning, and hoped there would be enough light with a flash to be able to get a picture. I can see that we will have to take it outside to get true colors, and the full size for you. The quilt is approximately 104 x 80 inches. The quilt is not bound yet. I need to make a run on the quilt shop to buy black fabric for the binding. (I know....tough duty! *G*)

My brother and his wife were visiting this week, and my mother encouraged me to show them the quilt. I told them that I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but that it was a quilt I needed to make. I was astounded when my brother said that he had a wall in his house that would be the perfect spot for it if I cared to give it up. That really gave me a pause. I'm not ready to let it go, but it would be quite an honor to have my brother show my work. If I gave it to him it would be with the caveat that it had to stay within our family if he tired of it.

This is a closeup of the quilting. The ladies found a variegated thread that had all the colors of the quilt, for the quilting in the black triangles. The batik is quilted in gold to bring out the designs in each block. The strips are quilted in threads that are close to their color.

Yesterday, I went to the front door to see if Ed, the master of the house, who assumes that we exist to see to his every need, was lounging on the sidewalk, waiting to be let in for his afternoon snack.

Ed wasn't there, but we had a tiny possum visitor. This little guy peered around the edge of a pot of lavender and watched to see if I was going to invite him in. After a bit, he backed up and tottered off into the ornamental grass growing at the corner of the house. He was about four, or perhaps five inches long, and had soft, fuzzy baby fur, and that heart-shaped face that possums have

I hope that Ed didn't find him. I'm not sure what this little guy was doing out at 2:00 in the afternoon. I know his mother is nocturnal. Of course, it's crossed my mind that his mother has been hit by a car, but I hope that this one is just curious and went sightseeing while Mom snoozed.

I won't put out water or food for him. It would draw him to the front area of the house where Ed would be sure to catch him. I know that most of you don't want to have possums sharing your habitat, but we're used to all sorts of wildlife passing through our grove.

I'll keep an eye out for him and try to get a picture if I can.