Archive for the ‘winter’ Tag
My Summer ending activities continue apace. The garden was composted a few days ago and has finally been tilled to await planting in the Spring. I‘m officially done with the garden which will happily require no more labor from me. These final photos will end the year once and for all as far as the garden is concerned.
These next two photos are the final surviving flowers on the property that haven’t been killed off by the cold nights. They won’t last much more than another week so enjoy them.
This sunflower looks a lot like I felt this morning as I rolled out of bed. Able to stand upright but just barely.
Now I can move forward with other projects and chores I’ve been given by my better-half. Her list never seems to end no matter how hard I try. My father warned me this would eventually happen but I wasn’t a believer until it was too late.
I was able to get around to working on my Dish Network Memorial table once again. I knew grouting a bunch of bottle caps would be difficult but it was more like a nightmare. The table was grouted and so was I. I had damn near as much white grout on me as was on the table. Thank god it’s done. I’ll let it dry for a few days and then seal the grout.
‘Step 1’
‘Step 2’
‘Step 3’
The table will be completed right on schedule for my better-half’s birthday celebration that’s coming up soon. She likes me a little and she likes beer a lot so she should love this table.
The weather has finally turned and Fall is here. The nights are consistently in the low forties requiring that we permanently turn on the heat for the Winter. Over the last two weeks I’ve been slowly bringing out my winter clothing and packing away the sandals, shorts, and beachwear. I actually look forward to Fall and the cooler temperatures even though the snow comes along with it.
‘Any good soup requires fresh veggies.’
As the garden and yard work are coming to an end it’s time to look over my Winter inventories. I’ve picked up a good supply of books and other reading material over the last two months which should carry me well into 2016. Add to that the Kindle books I intend to purchase and I’m good to go.
Everything that could be harvested from the garden has been canned, frozen, and dried. The garden will be officially over in three more days and I can put it out of my mind for a few months. My last cooking chore for Winter preparation was the making of a batch of my chicken and rice soup. This recipe I picked up from an old Korean women in 1968 and it’s remained one of my all-time favorites ever since.
‘Looks bad, tastes wonderful.’
It’s not terribly difficult to make and each batch is usually good for ten to twenty large bowls that can be frozen and used for months without any ill effects. Basically you take a large whole chicken and drop it into a gallon of salted water, bring it to a boil, cover it, and cook it until the chicken falls completely apart. Add your favorite spices and herbs as well to really get the flavor of the meat to a high level and cook it for a few additional minutes.
‘Even better than pulled pork.’
Fish out all the bones and cartilage, remove the chicken and shred it, and immediately return it in the pot. Add onions, carrots, leeks, or any other veggies you desire. Last but not least add two cups of either rice or barley. I prefer the barley flavor but as a compromise with my better-half this batch will contain rice.
‘The final product.’
This is comfort food of the first order and is always good for what ails ya. With all of the soups, chili, salsas, and breads stored away we can now sit back and enjoy the Winter (except for the snow of course).
‘This is written with my tongue lodged firmly in my cheek.’
Where did our Summer go? It seems like just a short time ago we were complaining about the heat and humidity and WHAM, all of a sudden we’re rolling into October and looking down the tunnel at that proverbial bright light approaching at seventy miles an hour. That light is the damn holiday season quietly sneaking up on us. It’s October for God’s sake. Doesn’t anyone care that it just too damn early to be worrying about the holidays. Stop the madness people.
I was in Lowe’s yesterday visiting my better-half who was tied up with a number of other employees doing their Christmas reset. Just shoot me now, please. What the hell are they thinking.
These retailers claim they start their seasonal BS early because of the huge demand for their holiday products. Honestly, when was the last time you ever heard anyone . . . that’s ANYONE say they were happy about seeing the Christmas season starting in early October. Never!! The truth of the matter is that the demand is created by the retailers themselves who lower their prices just enough to entice customers to the store. They can be so disingenuous at times it makes me crazy. It just goes to show you how stupid they think we the shopping public are. And sadly they’re right!
I refuse to be manipulated anymore. No early holiday nonsense for me, no Black Friday idiocy, and no paying attention to the thousands of emails that will be clogging my mailbox over the next ten weeks. I’m done with it.
I plan on spending exactly fifteen minutes on Christmas shopping this year and thank God for Amazon. A five minute walk-in at Toys R Us for two gift cards, a five minute walk-in at Home Depot for one gift card, and finally five minutes to order seven additional gift cards from Amazon. That leaves just a few gifts I need to purchase for my better-half which will be ordered on-line as well and shipped directly to our house.
Stick those gift cards in an envelope with a Christmas card and a short note and you’re DONE. No more stress, no more purchases of gifts that no one really wants or appreciates. Get your gift cards in the mail, buy what you want, and leave me alone. I never intend to spend more than an hour on Christmas preparations ever again.
I’m only asking Santa Clause for Amazon or Kindle gift cards this year since I’ve been very, very good. I’ve spent too many years getting clothing I hate and would never dare to wear, smiling and lying about how much I liked that fruit cake I received, and all of the required traveling around the countryside in terrible weather to visit people. I’m sorry folks, it’s nothing personal, but in my opinion if you’ve seen one Christmas tree you’ve seen them. So here is my collective seasons greetings for most of you in case I forget later.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
HAPPY HANUKKAH
HAPPY STUPID KWANSA
HAPPY SEINFELD FESTIVAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
HAPPY NEW YEAR
I’m exhausted already from just listing all of this foolishness. I wish I could just go find a cave and hibernate until February 15. It would make for one of the best holiday seasons ever if I could.
BAH HUMBUG
I always seem to be talking about Winter approaching these days and with good reason. Winter in Maine lasts at least six months but it certainly seems longer. Just two weeks ago I was sleeping under a ceiling fan for eight hours a night because it was so damn hot and humid in the house. At the time I thought that miserable hot weather would never let up. Let me tell you, it’s let up.
‘Ahhhh Memories’
As of last night I’m convinced Winter is much closer than I thought. The last few nights we’ve had temperatures in the low forties which are wreaking havoc on what remains of the garden. I was reminded early this morning when the cold air in the room jolted me awake. Last night was the first official #5 night for my electric blanket. Unless some sort of Indian Summer happens it could mean an early arrival of the season which includes an unwelcome amount of our favorite white stuff.
Fall is probably my second favorite season of the year after early Spring. I love the vivid colors of the foliage just like every other photographer on the planet. Maine is already known for it’s beautiful scenery along the coast and inland in the forests and around the many lakes. Throw in millions and millions of colorful leaves and it becomes for a short time an effing paradise.
My cameras and lenses are cleaned and ready. My snowblower’ been taken out of mothballs, gassed up, and ready to go. All that’s left for me to do is the unpacking of my unfashionable and ugly winter clothing. It’s almost impossible to look good wearing three layers of clothing, a hat, gloves, a scarf, and big clunky boots. . . and unfortunately I’m just talking about the women. The men look even worse as they let their beards grow out and suit up with their favorite snowmobiling outfit. There’s nothing better than hanging around an ice fishing hut with a few of your buddies telling tall tales about fishing, hunting, and sexual prowess and guzzling as much beer as you can drink.
The never-ending number of hunting seasons always irritates me a little. There are times when entering the woods around here to take pictures can be a life threatening situation. If you not wearing bright red or fluorescent green you could easily be mistaken for a moose, a turkey, or even a cow. It’s a little like Vietnam out there if you throw in a few cases of beer to make things interesting. Scary doesn’t even begin to cover it.
As you can see from my remarks, I’m neither a hunter nor a fisherman. I’ve never been all that crazy about killing helpless animals with high powered weaponry and high tech fishing paraphernalia. I prefer to do all of my shooting with a camera. I also hate the thought of eating wild game thanks to my father who insisted I try to eat a little of everything he ever shot. Yuck!
Time to Crank up the electric blanket and hunker down for another six months of snow, sleet, and ice. I only hope I don’t slip and fall this year and break any additional bones. Trust me, it’s happened before.
It’s 6 am and I’m barely awake and I don’t want to get up. I’m lying here looking out the bedroom window waiting to see if anything in the world is moving yet. It’s dead quiet with little or no observable breeze. There are no birds, no squirrels, and no fat ugly turkey running around the yard making a racket. It’s just too quiet for my liking. My better-half is still sleeping and that light snoring of hers (sarcasm) can’t be considered noise or so she constantly tells me.
I love the beginnings of Spring and the late days of Fall the most but these interim periods between seasons are the worst. The Spring transition is always slow in coming when we have nothing but gray skies, cold rain, intermittent sunshine, and a need to stay out of the shade. I can bask in those brief moments of warm sunshine on the deck but if I step into any shaded areas it’s like someone walking across my grave. A deep cold chill that hits you hard and stays with you way too long.
The Fall changeover is similar when you’re sitting on the deck enjoying a warm and sunny Indian Summer day where it’s nice and warm but you can just feel that little bit of Winter in the air. It comes slowly with those giant folds of gray clouds edged in black that slowly roll over the horizon. All of a sudden one morning you’re on the deck and you walk into a patch of shade and that same coldness you felt in the Spring grabs you just for a second. Then everyday you can see the plants slowly browning, the cold dew on everything in the mornings, with the full knowledge that snow is coming soon. After that you have nothing to look forward to but seven months of a cold and depressing Winter, snow shoveling, black ice, and the occasional slip and fall to bruise your butt and your ego.
Maybe in another few weeks I’ll be able to pull myself out of this winter/spring funk I’ve gotten into. I go through this every year and there’s really nothing I can do but deal with it. I’ll wait patiently for that first really sunny day when I can visit the beach and not feel the need to take my windbreaker "just in case". That may finally convince me that Winter is truly gone.
All that being said, the next few weeks will be hell. I have absolutely no patience for this never-ending waiting around for Mother Nature to stop screwing with us.
APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY FLOWERS, I hope!
With a major warming trend gripping Maine I was swept away with a huge dose of Spring Fever this week. I moved my grill from storage, cleaned it up, and cooked my first feast for 2015. I spent some quality time on the deck reading one of my favorite books with my favorite lazy cat. Life was slowly improving and I began to throw off those Winter doldrums.
I decided that since a great deal of the snow had disappeared I’d take a trip to the coast to look around a little. I worked my way up the coast to the inlet where the great Scarborough Marsh empties into the Atlantic Ocean. This inlet is populated by a large number of lobster boats and their owners and is the area where you can buy the freshest lobsters in town. There was a lot of activity in the harbor with the boats being cleaned and readied for the warmer weather.
As you can see by these photos it was a gray day but slowly showing some signs of Spring. I should have known better than to get my hopes up because the weather in Maine is nothing if not fickle.
I awoke yesterday prepared to face the day and to begin the cleanup of my yard and garden. How stupid am I? I walked to my bedroom window, looked out, and saw an overnight deposit of four inches of snow. WTF!
Now I’m once again depressed and irritated. While listening to the radio today I heard about the Freezing Rain Alert for tomorrow where high winds, sleet, and power outages are expected. What did we ever do to deserve this I wonder?
I think it’s time for me to sit quietly, sip a glass of my favorite brandy, and relax so my head doesn’t explode.
Sixty plus degrees. That’s all I have to say about yesterday. I’m just about over this stupid virus that’s been kicking my ass for the last two weeks. Combine that with the warm weather yesterday and guess what you get. The largest most contagious case of Spring Fever ever experienced. I guess the longer and more oppressive the winter the more intense is that first burst of Spring Fever. Man I’ve got it bad.
I spent a good part of the day yesterday just wandering around the yard in a T-shirt with no gloves, no hat, and no parka. As I slowly strolled between the remaining piles of snow I could see that blessed light at the end of the tunnel and no, it isn’t a train coming toward me it’s Summer.
I couldn’t stop myself from going with the feelings and actually started cleaning up the winter debris strewn about the yard. I picked up tree branches and pine cones of which there were thousands. I’ve never seen so many freaking pine cones in my life and they will certainly require an major investment of my time to pick them all up. That should tell you just how bad my Spring Fever really is that I’m actually looking forward to doing it. I find that a little disturbing to say the least.
I then decided to get my riding mower out of mothballs and ready for use this summer. I filled it with gas, checked the oil, and reconnected the battery. I was just standing there enjoying the warm air when I was overcome with love for that stupid tractor. I hate to admit this but I found some rags, soap, and car wax, and went a little crazy. That tractor got a hot bath and a good scrubbing, was dried off, and waxed to a high sheen. How sad is my life?
I need to pace myself a little better or I’m going to lose my mind. I actually found myself drawn to the seed packet display at Walmart a few days ago. They were silently calling to me to buy, buy, buy. I maintained what little control I had left and just “Said No” and walked away. Unfortunately my better-half is worse that I am when it comes to Spring garden purchasing. We both need some sort of twelve step program to help us through the next two months and to keep us from overspending like we do every blessed year.
I just received a giant package in the mail today and had to help the mail carrier bring the box into the house. It’s the new part I ordered a week ago for my sweetheart, the mower. Now she’ll be even prettier than usual as I cruise around the yard making the neighbors oh so jealous.
Eat your hearts out people, if freaking Spring Time.
The waiting is finally over and we welcomed a new family member yesterday. A 10.4 pound little boy with mother and son doing fine. I think now my better-half and I can finally get our lives back to something close to normal again.
Between babysitting grandson #1, trips to care for their cats and dogs, and then visits to the hospital, we’re both exhausted. We managed a decent nights sleep last night and are feeling much better today as is the mother. Since the birth required a C-section our little mother won’t be released until sometime Monday and I see another visit to the hospital in our immediate future today. We’ll try to keep her company for a few hours and to spend more time with grandson #2.
The better-half as always is already preparing for her numerous shopping forays to insure the little guy has everything he may possibly need and then some. That should keep her busy for a few years. My only contribution to the little mother was the can of Guinness I managed to smuggle into the hospital. After nine months of no beer I had a feeling it was high on her list of priorities.
We should all have an interesting summer with the new addition to the family group and we’ll need all of our remaining energy to keep up with grandson #1 who’s growing like a weed. The sibling rivalry took no more than two minutes to arrive when he was taken to visit his new little brother. It’s going to get more interesting as time goes on and they’re in for many years of fun competition with each other.
I normally don’t have photographs of family members on this blog but in this case I’ll make an exception. He ‘s too young to tell me not to and I’m too old to care anyway. This one picture is worth a thousand words.
I had a feeling when I woke up this morning that this day would be more than a little strange. It was another late night of reading for me and I was awakened at 6:00 am for no apparent reason. The better-half was gone off to work, the cat was missing in action, and the bed looked like twenty people had been in it. Blankets thrown around on the bed and on the floor with pillows everywhere. Don’t even ask! I’ve got a thing for pillows and I love having a lot of them on the bed. Not for decoration but to crawl into and curl up with.
I felt like I had hangover but I hadn’t had anything to drink for days. I had things to do but I couldn’t seem to get my ass off that bed and get moving. A coffee helped but not all that much. One of my main tasks for the day was to do a little food shopping because dinner was on me tonight and I wanted it to be just perfect. It took forever for me to get dressed but I managed, then I set the house alarm, jumped in my car, and pulled out of the driveway.
I live approximately five miles from the closest supermarket and it requires that I drive through a few neighborhoods and across two main roads to get there. Easy enough right? I drove for a mile and noticed something strange happening. I hadn’t seen a single car, person, animal, or another human being since leaving the house. The further I drove the more bizarre it became and I was starting to have flashbacks of the the movie “Legend” with Will Smith. Another mile and still nothing. I stopped at an intersection with a main road that normally requires me to wait for an opening in traffic before pulling out. I didn’t see a single vehicle in either direction. The only living things I saw as I made the turn onto that highway were two large black crows sitting in a tree nearby and they seemed to be watching me.
I’m not a believer in the occult or any of that nonsense but this entire drive really creeped me out. The first living person I finally saw was in the parking lot of the supermarket and it was a rather obese man eating a donut as he walked to his car. The entire drive felt like a really weird dream. I kept thinking to myself that all of a sudden I’d awaken and still be at home in my bed. But I wasn’t.
I finished my shopping and returned home and observed a normal amount of traffic and a few folks walking around. As I pulled into my driveway I looked up and there were two large black crows sitting in a tree right next to my house. I sure hope it was just a weird coincidence and that there aren’t any more strange occurrences today. I want my surprise meal for the better-half tonight to go as planned.
It’s the Twilight Zone all over again or at least it felt that way. If she arrives home from work tonight eating a big fat donut then I may have to rethink my somewhat shaky belief system.
More light snow through the night last night but we’re expecting warmer temperatures today. As we drove through the surrounding towns this morning it became fairly obvious that Spring has officially sprung. It seems as if every maple tree in Maine is in the process of being tapped for their sap. It’s one of the best indicators that Winter is on it’s way out finally. These first two photos are examples of the old time way of tapping.
‘Old School – Low Tech’
Many of the local farming families have been doing this since just after the Pilgrims landed and like doing it the tried and true way of their predecessors. Others have succumbed to the more modern ways and now use multiple plastic tubes from multiple trees that flow into a central container. Take a look.
‘New School – High Tech’
The results are the same but there’s something really comforting about seeing it done the old way. You can almost picture the pilgrims and their ancestors tapping trees in these same areas in the mid 1600’s. History is just too cool.
As we made our way home I snapped this final picture of what looks to be a very lonely horse. He’s just hanging around and watching the world go by. I think he’ll be just as happy as the rest of us to see Spring arrive.
everyuselessthing.com 