A Good Day

59°f/15°C, rain off and on all day. High of 62f. Chilly!

I cannot even describe how wet everything is around here. More rain, more localized flooding. I tam afraid we are getting numb to the constant distress of so many people impacted by all this water. Just such a mess for so many.

Here on our hill, my flowers are happy campers. They are loving all this rain! The herb garden, not so much. I am going to lose my rosemary and lavender, again. The sage has already succumbed but I have one plant in a planter that soldiers on. 

Deer have gotten into the veggie garden through a broken place in the fence, but there is little left in there since I did not plant a late garden.

Our neighbor Jeff stopped by this morning to make sure we had gotten the Chicken of the Woods he dropped off. He was out squirrel hunting, and I asked him about the mast. He said it is very spotty this year, which was my observation too. 

Later it occurred to me that this is a very country conversation; I doubt most urban/suburban dwellers even notice if the trees have many nuts in any given year. Yet it is a matter of concern for country people, because the wildlife depend on this important food source. A light mast year means the critters will be hungry and very likely in our gardens and yards looking for food, or they will starve.  This year we noted a large increase in the number of squirrels, for instance. If there are not enough nuts, there could be a massive die-off of these poor creatures. Deer also depend on acorns for survival. Usually around this time of year we hear hickory nuts and acorns falling, banging on the metal roofs. Not this year, at least not yet.

I also noticed that the trees are still a deep green, when usually we are seeing a lot of yellow by now. My guess is this is a good thing for the trees, as they continue to produce food for their roots for the winter. My blue lace hydrangea, which usually produces a half dozen blooms a year, has bloomed consistently all summer, and now has a dozen or more blooms. Note to self: give it plenty of water in future.

Since Jeff came by early today, we missed our appointment to get the van windshield replaced and had to reschedule for tomorrow. Worth it for a neighbor's visit! We went into town anyway; I restocked our Ripley booth while Larry got a haircut. While at the booth a young friend came by so I did a deep discount on a couple things for him. Then a couple from Oklahoma came in and I did the same for them. Sales are very slow right now as people are feeling the impact of gas and grocery prices, so it was nice to move a few things along.

When Larry pucked me up we went to Shari's, our usual lunch place. It's nice to walk in an see a half dozen friends already there. It was our friend Suzy's birthday, so Shari played a happy birthday video on her new big screen TV and we all sang happy birthday.  Shari gave Suzy her lunch for free, so the song and that sweet gesture made a nice birthday celebration.  While there we began planning the Halloween open mic. Costume contests, prizes and creepy food offerings were the topics, so if you have any easy, cheap snack ideas, pass them along! 

I talked to Sarah again today. She had her facial stitches out. Silly granny here had not considered that there would be facial stitches! She is doing very well, and will be moving to rehab today or tomorrow.  Her upbeat attitude is amazing. We chatted as I worked at my booth, and she sent me the funniest video. You know, if you have had any surgeries, that bowel movements are an important thing, right? Well, she had a friend bring her a fart machine and had people amazed at her gaseous emanations! I was stunned myself until she told me what she had done. I laughed til I cried. 

Then it was home to our happy dogs, and a quiet evening. All in all, a pretty nice day.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Tuesday in the Kitchen

58°f/14°C, cloudy all day after more rain overnight. Flooding continues in sime areas but water has receded in others. More rain expected tonight and tomorrow.

The cooler temperatures have made life so much more pleasant,  even if outdoors is still too wet to do much of anything. I had a day of kitchen work today so I was grateful not to have to sweat my way through the day!

On the agenda today: putting up the large Chicken of the Woods mushroom a neighbor brought over--a very nice gift. In the past I canned them,  but this time I decided to freeze some and dry some. 

This is the mushroom, cut apart a bit.

In process. I dried the strips, and sautéed the pieces. This was about a third of the mushroom. 

 

I filled this dehydrator tray with strips.  

The finished product.  It was fairly quick to dry them, and they came out so beautifully that I think I will do most of them this way in future.

Next was canning the peaches that have been waiting a few days. No photos, but I ended up with 15 pints of sliced peaches and 5 quarts of peach syrup. I made the syrup using the water i had put the cut peaches in while I was peeling and cutting them up, added some pureed peaches, lemon juice and sugar. It's not really thick,  but quite tasty.

By then it was time to make dinner. I made a quick quiche, using a prepared pie crust, broccoli left over from last night, chopped tomatoes, and sautéed onions, peppers, and mushrooms, and grated cheddar. Then 4 eggs beaten with Greek yogurt, mayonnaise,  salt and pepper, poured over the veggies and cheese and baked for 25 minutes. Since I had another piecrust, I made some little tarts; these are raspberry. Then a quick salad and dinner was ready.

I have been amused by the news that no news outlets are covering the idiot-in-chief's White House blatherings since his little tantrum the other day. Good on them for sticking together! That news made me smile all day.

What I am not smiling about is the price of gas. We have had to put $100 worth in our van in the last week because of the long trips to Huntington and Ohio. The tank is still full, but good grief.  Our prices in our booths are still the same, yet our costs have certainly gone up. 

Our other income is fixed, so these gas and grocery prices are really hurting. I cannot imagine how it is for people who have to drive to work, who have no gardens, and have families to feed. We have not yet seen the big increases in electricity bills that others have, but I think it will happen soon.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Monday Mishmash

One of today's projects: getting this thing ready for our Halloween display window at the antique mall. 

My poor pup Pip does not like it at all and just barks and barks. Inspiration came from the nice velvet cloak, found at Goodwill for $3.99. I used the same mannequin frame as last year. I have dubbedd it Grimm, because i am not sure if it's male or female. The odd horsehead thingy beside it, got at auction for $1 because it has a repair,  I have decided is its Grimm's familiar. So these two things, a few pumpkins, some black gauzy fabric, a lamp, some little lights and I think that will be the window. I hope.

This was last year's mannequin:

We added a red wig later. She was quite a hit at the store. We named her Miranda. Her dress was also an auction find, also $1. 

I forgot to check the temperature this morning, but it's been in the 70's all day, with high humidity after another very stormy night and morning. More flooding, unfortunately,  this time getting into some homes and businesses. This was in Sandyville, not far from us, this morning:

Unfortunately,  it got worse before it finally receded. Here on our hill, water is just standing on top of the saturated ground. Larry had to spray for mosquitoes today, first time we have ever had any issue with them. Even our poor dogs don't want to go outside!

It has been an odd few days. Saturday I thought we had auction pickup, so off we went. Then about 10 miles from home I realized the pickup was Sunday! They never do that, always have it on Friday or Saturday. Since we were out and had no other plans, I said, "Let's go get a TV." We have been meaning to do that since Larry broke ours back in January, just never took the time. So off we went to Wally World and after some dithering I picked a 4e" Samsung---the size because of our limited space, the brand because it's the same as our phones and I thought that might make it easier to set up.

It turns out I was right. I unpacked and set it up all by myself in less than an hour. I was so pleased with myself, because last time my oldest son helped me and it took several hours and many headaches to get the thing working. I ween got the DVD player working. So that's one thing off the to-do list. 

Yesterday was taken up with picking up our wins at the auction; nothing too great this time except an exceptionally fine Ka-Bar military knife from World War II, 

and 150 antique Christmas and Valentine's day post cards. We had a late breakfast and took our time since there was still a lot of water on the roads. Nothing dangerous, but who wants to hydroplane?

I had planned to can some peaches on Sunday I had picked up Friday, so that had to be put off until today. And just as I was cleaning up from breakfast, the power went off. On to Plan B, pricing things for our booths.  I did a little work on planning the upcoming open mics, called our car insurance to get set up to replace our (very expensive) windshield, and then put Grimm together.  The electricity came back on around 6, and once again I sent up heartfelt thanks for those crews who get out there and slog through who knows what to do the repairs.

Speaking of the open mics, Corey Hager, who started them, just won a Song of the Year award in his category at the Josie Awards at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville! These awards are for independent artists; they had over 100,000 entries, and Corey was nominated in 2 categories, best new male vocalist and song of the year. You can hear his winning song here.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.