Wild Leeks or Ramps

Word of the Day

Submiss - To click a "submit" button that fails to function properly.

I woke up to overcast skies and temperatures in the low 40's. As the grey skies continued and the temperatures only rose to the 50's, I decided to build a fire in my fireplace to drive off the chill (I've turned off my furnace and am reluctant to turn it back on) and chase away the gloom. Beautiful and cheery fire. Of course, it never stops there. As I went to the garage to gather a few more logs to add to the fire, I skinned my knee on a collection of junk that was blocking my way to the woodpile. Of course, said collection of junk was my own fault but it still made me a bit angry...at myself. I'm am a hoarder. I collect stuff that I think I might use at some unspecified time in the future and that stuff just sits in boxes, baskets, bags, or whatever in an unorganized mess. So...I spent a bit of time this morning, sorting, organizing, throwing things away and thinking about what has to be done to make the garage a more pleasant place to enter and use. Some of this stuff needs to be donated. I have to recognize my problem (hoarding) and donate those items that I'll probably never use to someone who will find a better use for it than having it sit in my garage. This project is going to take some time...more time than I cared to give it in just one morning when my original plan was to grab a couple of logs from the woodpile. I'll work on it more in the coming days.

Meanwhile, with these cool temperatures, I decided to make some homemade soup for lunch. I made some Potato, Bacon & Ramp Soup. I'd dug the ramps with Tammy when she was here and they needed using. Plus, I had some heavy cream that had gone sour that I didn't want to waste and I had some chicken broth that #1 Son and #1 DIL had brought over for me to use. The potatoes were starting to stare at me. And after Sarge, Tammy, Little Jon, #1 Son and #1 DIL all left, it turns out that they'd left me with two started gallons of milk in the fridge that needed using. So...with some bacon that I thawed out (I always buy and freeze bacon when it's on sale), I had all the ingredients for a delicious soup. It tasted wonderful for lunch today. And, best of all, I talked to Sis and she made some pea soup. We're going to do a trade. I'm going to give her some of my soup and she's going to give me some of her soup. A win, win situation. This way no-one gets tired of any one pot of soup before it goes bad or has to be frozen.

I'm going to have to treat my plants again with cayenne. The evil squirrels have attacked my planters again. They dug up my window box planters that were just starting to sprout with lettuce and dug around in my two Earthboxes that had sprouting pole beans in them. I'm getting so tired of this. I talk a good game about killing the little buggers but I think I'll just dig the Havaheart trap out from the garage and bait it with half a hamburger bun, spread with peanut butter and dipped in bird seed. I'll be going to the city tomorrow and if I catch a squirrel, I'll release him/her MILES away from The Lake and my deck.

HTP and I signed a logging contract with the forester. He's going to come in to delineate property lines, mark the trees to be taken, and take a look at a plan HTP drew up for where we'd like to see possible driveways punched into the property to serve future (pretty vague and distant at this point)developement of part of our property.

Random Quote of the Day

And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see.
Cause everybody on the island
Was saying: Look at me! Look at me!

Laurie Anderson, Language Is A Virus