A blustery day!

6.V.07 - MoM

I almost got blown away, today. I knew it was a little blustery but didn't give it much thought, except to put my deck tomato plant in a corner near the sunroom so it would be a little protected. Later, I decided to go out to take some pictures of my fantastic blooming bulbs. I took my crutch and got into the side yard when I realized that the gusts were much stronger than I thought. It was a little hard to keep my balance and the branches were creaking. I didn't want one to fall on me but then I saw that one of the front deck chairs had blown into the flowerbed. It was still wiggling and ready to take off again. Since I knew my bedroom door was unlocked, I decided to go ahead and try to rescue the chair instead of returning to the patio. It was spooky, but I managed to snag the chair with one hand while steadying myself with the crutch and somehow made it up the one stone step to the deck. I was able to anchor both chairs under the built in bench and get in the house. The wind was so strong it wasn't easy to keep the screen door under control. I'm not sure I would try it again.

According to the booklet that goes with my AgroGarden, it was time to "prune" my 3 tomato plants. With their very detailed instructions and pictures, I think I took care of them okay. There are blooms ready to open so it will soon be time to hand pollinate them. The lettuce is coming along really well, too. The first day I saw this in a catalog, I decided it was going to be a me to me Christmas present. I told Sandy on the phone that I had found my present and I wasn't going to tell her. She surprised me and said she could guess what it was! She knows me too well.

As usual, especially on Sunday, the morning was devoted to the paper and the TV section crossword and falling asleep in my chair with the computer on my lap. In the early afternoon, after my Boost, I decided I could not live with the mess left from the magazines. Besides, Sandy had said that perhaps Charlie might be early in the week, so I now have it back under control. However, I could not carry a couple of sacks of recycle mags and a large trash bag of stuff, so it is at the ready when he does come by. It is nice to have the living room back to normal. I really love the renovated room -- it is so large and calm with such an expanse of glass. It is a constant battle, however, to keep the area around my chair and "office" neat.

I had the food from my rotiss chick and our Mex lunch in Woodbury on Friday, but wasn't sure I was going to eat Sandy's salad with beef or my beans and enchilada. It turned out that I opened her salad first and the greens looked so fresh and good and the beef was chewable with my lousy teeth, that I made that my dinner. Now, after I do some more on the letter I started copying from last night, it's off to bed.

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I need to do to the copy of the letters first as I used to, as it is a little hard to read as it gets darker. The older computer ink has a tendency to fade. This is a continuation of a letter to Sandy and Bob of 30.I.86.

Since Christmas we have continued to have some big and little snows every few days -- enough to keep the snow fresh and pilling up. The weather has been wonderful for me this winter. We have about 4 feet on the ground now. Today, however, we are having "Fohn" and in the mid-40s F. I am sure that our neighbors have not shared my enthusiasm for all the snow we have had. About the time they got their driveways cleared not only would we have another snow, but the snow plow would come by and they had to shovel out yet again. A couple of them have piles in their yards over 10 feet high from shoveling off their parking place for their guests. Since the front loader came along this week and loaded snow into big trucks from the piles along the street, we have sidewalks again and our street is 2 lanes again for the first time in several weeks. The mountains are so beautiful, as were the yards, trees and houses. We had even more total snow than our first winter in Switzerland. It was respectable even by River Falls standards, little or no drifting -- just deep. Our coldest temperature was about 5° F. One night it registered 32 F in my room so I had to crack the radiator to keep the water moving. Had a hard time sleeping a couple of nights when there was a little wind and the snow was blowing in my window, so had to sleep with it closed.

I had to do our first "dessert" evening a few weeks ago. You know hoe I hate to make desserts and I am not particularly fond of eating them. I would much rather spend hours making cocktail snack things for a good "Happy Hour." This was for Herr Wontroba and his wife. A few days before they were to come here I had tried to make an apple pie. I could not resist green apples labeled "Osterreich Granny Smith." The crust was a disaster. The flour is different and I was trying their equivalent to Crisco for the first time. It could not be rolled into one piece so I just pressed pieces into the pan for the bottom and picked up pieces a little larger than a silver dollar to put all over the top DoD was so impressed with the good flavor that he insisted the rest was going to be the dessert for them. I reheated it a little and quickly covered the mess before they could see it with some ice cream and it was very okay. They considered it apple strudel and had never heard of eating ice cream with it. Then when I offered a little cheddar cheese with it that was quite a shocking idea. SOP for hot drinks here is serving tea bags or instant coffee and having a fancy thermos of hot water on the table. Give me a good cocktail party any day! I never have felt that I could make a good piecrust, but I have begun to work on it. Using your recipe, lard and butter and the instructions with my mixer, I finally turned out a very acceptable pie even better than when I tried to cut in the shortening by hand. The secret is to dump in all the water at once, they say a little at a time makes it like "India rubber." Of course, I have read all the stuff about the flour, weather, etc., changing the amount of water needed but so far has seemed to work out well.