Spring Peepers

We had the first good couple of popup thunderstorms for the year this afternoon. Temperatures quickly climbed during the day to 67 degrees and there was enough humidity and heat for some thunder clouds to develop after work. The storms also brought out the spring peepers, the tiny chirping frogs that are going to breed this spring in the beaver pond. Yeah! Yet another sign that spring is getting closer. The popup storms sure do come through really quickly with a lot of rain, and then it's back to being sunny again. A nice soaking for all my plants and lawn. Andrew is a little pissed off that the bike battery he bought for his harley isn't fitting quite right. He figures now that he should have bought a harley battery specific for his bike model. So I made a little movie clip of the cats on the tower to cheer him up. He is at band practice right now, so hopefully he is getting all his anger out by banging those drums!

Nature Walk

First I cross over the stream - it is small now but with a big rain and run off this gets too big to jump. The deer also use this crossing point, you can see their tracks as well as my boot tracks in the mud.

Next I visit the beaver dam to check that it is ship shape, and it always is. I think he comes out each night to check on it and pat down the mud into a solid mass.

Then I follow the deer path along the now dry channel. I hope the water comes back so we can canoe this year.

There are always lots of killdeer tracks in the soft mud. I didn't know what type of bird was always screeching at me as I walked down the edge, so I googled tonight and discovered it is a killdeer. They nest on the ground and a parent will feign a broken wing to lure intruders away, but there are no nests yet. I think they are just scouting for territory.

In the garden, the first few daffodils have bloomed and there are lots more to follow. And one of my moss phlox volunteers has started blooming, so spring is not that far away now!

Cold Weather

Yesterday was very cold and windy and today it will be more of the same. I can't wait until summer when we will be sweating on the powerboat and going for dips in the lake. That seems so far away right now. But we have discovered a new summertime drink: the daiquiri. We made some yesterday and they were awesome. Very simple to make too. Make a simple syrup by combining 1/2 cup white sugar and 1/2 cup water in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Meanwhile juice about 4 limes to get 3/4 cup of fresh lime juice. In a pitcher combine 1/3 cup sugar syrup, 3/4 cup lime juice and 1 cup of dark rum (we used Captain Morgan spiced rum). Mix and pour over ice. This recipe makes 4 drinks. You can use the left over sugar syrup to individually sweeten each drink as necessary. Andrew likes his sweeter but I liked mine just how it was from the start. Very yummy. Andrew also purchased another bottle of wine. Since we were watching a double feature for movie night, he picked a Francis Ford Coppola pinot noir wine. It was alright I guess. I thought it tasted a little watery, but what do I know. We watched "Failure to Launch", a romantic comedy with Matthew McConaughey - it had some sailboats in it so Andrew didn't mind. Don't bother watching this one unless you are bored and it's on TV. The other movie was the old one "Payback" with Mel Gibson playing Porter, which we had both seen before.

Pub Night

Last night me, Andrew, Matt and Dave (2 of Andrew's band mates) went out to Backstreets to see "The Robbie Ducey Band" that Matt had heard about. They were pretty good - bluesy stuff, lots of Stevie Ray Vaughan, etc. Then we walked down the street to check out the 356 where Andrew plays alot, and heard "Retro Vertigo" playing an old "Simple Minds" song. It was funny seeing the 20 year olds dancing and partying to the 80's music. But we left as soon as they started playing "Reo Speedwagon" - that was just a little too much for us to handle. We got home around 2:00am and Andrew is still sleeping.

Happy Valentines

Yesterday we went out for a nice dinner at the 113 Chophouse and Grill, this is the same restaurant we took Mindy to at Christmas. It isn't too bad and we wanted to give them more business. Being a chophouse it is hard to eat vegetarian, so I had the grouper with wild mushrooms and risotto. Andrew had the venison chop with black truffle potatoes. Both dishes were very nice but very rich and filling. Mine even came with a flower on it! A few days ago we got a good rain storm which was just passing over when the sun was setting. This turned the air really orange so Andrew wanted me to get a photo since it was such a weird color. These photos are not retouched in anyway - it really was that orange.

Yet Another Soup

Yesterday morning the yard was temporarily invaded by a huge flock of grackles. I tried to get a movie but the moment I opened the kitchen door they flew up to the trees. In the movie you can hear the noise they make. Thankfully they don't roost overnight in our yard, they just seem to come through every now and then. We went grocery shopping and then got a load of mulch that I spread out while Andrew set up his drums in the bedroom. Then he got a good 2 hour practice in while the cats and I were outside doing yard work. Last night we made a really good lentil soup, I got the recipe from the Barefoot Contessa website at the Food Network. The soup called for a little wine at the end, and so Andrew got a nice bottle of Shiraz (purchased on Saturday of course because heaven forbid we should be able to buy alcohol on Sunday). He wants to start learning more about wines and so we are going to buy nice bottles when we need some for cooking and then he can drink the rest. I want to at least develop a taste for wine so I had a little too, but I am still liking beer much better. I think he should start his own blog on learning about wines - he could take photos of each bottle and write some notes on each, such as how it tastes, the price, what food goes with it, etc. It would be a nice record to look back on because I would think that with all the wines in the world it would be pretty easy to start confusing them, especially since at least in the beginning, a lot of them will taste quite similar.

Designer Marshmallows

On Thursday we discovered the beer fridge was empty - the horror, the horror. So we went and got some Bitburgers, which we first drank in Saarbrucken, Germany back in September 2002 when Andrew had a conference there. One of the first phrases we learned was "Bitte ein Bit" which means "Please bring me a Bitburger". Another phrase was "Milchekaffe bitte" which means "Coffee with milk, please". We had a really fun trip and have some great memories about Germany, including almost missing the plane ride back home. In that strange way that the world works, Andrew's brother now lives right by Saarbrucken after moving there from New York. Yesterday Andrew did some housework and then we went shopping up to Greenville. Andrew needs some new "conference clothes" since he'll be going to quite a few this year and his wardrobe needs a little refreshing. We split up for about 2 hours to go shopping, since Andrew doesn't like looking at home-type stuff and I like to look at just about everything. The mall was packed but there were several good sales on so I got myself lots of new tops and a new pair of runners. I got some makeup too - Mindy says I need to start wearing some makeup so I am trying but it is hard to do it on a consistent basis. I had $15 worth of coupons for Waldenbooks (my visa card gives me money back to by books), so I got a great deal on 3 books - the store was running a buy 2 get one free, so for $15 I got $45 worth of books. I think $15 is a lot for one paperback book, but $5 is reasonable. "All the King's Men" is a Pulitzer prize winner, "In Cold Blood" is that one by Truman Capote, and "A Good Year" is just a light 'beach' read which as a movie bombed at the box office. I also went to Williams-Sonoma of course, just to browse, and ended up getting 2 new asian wok sauces - they had samples to taste and the Kung Pao and Chili Garlic were excellent. So now we can cook up a really quick stir fry if we are running late or just lazy. The lady behind me in the checkout said "You aren't getting any of those marshmallows?" to which I replied "What marshmallows?". The store had these $18 designer chocolate marshmallows on for $1.99 since they were about to expire and everyone was buying them up. I don't really like marshmallows (I don't like the texture) but I bought one box for Andrew and he says they taste great - I tried one but for me it was just alright. Maybe in a cup of hot chocolate they'd be good. I can't believe anyone would pay $18 dollars for 18 marshmallows. I am not sure what is in store for today. Andrew is still sleeping and it is pretty cold outside and not much wind is forecast, so sailing would be chilly.

Iceburg

We figured out why the garage was flooding. It turns out there was a ton of snow packed into the underside of the truck from that morning Andrew drove the truck to the gym. Each day it would drip drip drip as it melted and flood the garage floor. There was enough water that it spread to the walls where normally water comes in so that is what threw us off. Andrew finally got under the truck to take a look and sure enough he found snow and so he chipped it out. So that is great news - I didn't think we'd had enough precipitation to cause flooding, normally that only happens when we get a tropical storm pass over in the summer. Last night I made another new soup and it is a keeper: a leek and artichoke soup with mascarpone cheese. I got this one from the Everyday Italian web site on the Food Network. The mascarpone cheese is very nice and I will try to find more recipes that use it. It is creamy and a little sweet, kinda like cream cheese but much smoother. Soup sure is an easy meal to make and and easy one to clean up, basically just one pot, a cutting board and a few knives. Also in this cold snap we've been having it is nice to have hot soup and bread for dinner.

Just for Char

Here you go, hope you get your internet fixed up soon...cheers!

Snow Cats

Two posts in one day, what a treat for my dear readers. I took some footage of the cats and their first snow encounter but it wasn't that exciting really. However, for the really really bored tonight I present Harley and Sidney. The skid marks on the stair landing in the first movie are from Harley almost wiping it as she quickly learned that snow is at times quite slippery - I wish I'd had the camera rolling for that, Andrew said it looked pretty funny. Last night we watched 'The Illusionist' - actually it wasn't that bad and even though I knew the twist that was coming it was still nice to see it played out. This weekend has in store for me a ton of work. I never take home work work with me but this time it can't be avoided. I'd rather be working in the yard or watching movies or reading (I'm currently reading 'In a Sunburned Country' by Bill Bryson, about his trip to Australia, he's quite a good writer, this is my first time reading one of his books and I think I'll be getting more). Then if I get a lot done I will be free on Sunday to make Andrew some bean dip and watch the Superbowl. I hope the commercials are good this year!

Snow Day

Yesterday morning we awoke at 6:00am to find 4" of snow on the ground and more still coming down. Very exciting. The forecast the night before had said our area would be in the freezing rain section, but overnight the cold air moved much further south and so we got nice fluffy snow instead. What a relief since this meant we wouldn't be losing power. Ice storms are very nasty and very destructive to tree limbs. Andrew drove off in the truck to do his normal workout and I did mine at home. By 7:30 the university announced it was closed all day and so everyone got the day off!! Yeah I love snow days just as much as a little kid. Around lunch time we tried to take the cats on a walk but they did not like the snow at all. This is the first time the cats have seen snow and it must have been very strange to them. Harley hated the feel of it under her paws. Sidney was a little braver and walked off down the brick path towards the forest, but then we found her hiding under our deck trying to stay dry. So we ended up putting them both back in the house and going for a walk by ourselves. Our garage is flooding again due to the run off which is such a drag. We get out the push broom and push the water out the garage doors and that handles most of it. I guess we need to add more caulking around the perimeter, but perhaps something more serious needs to be done to fix things.
The greenhouse is doing great and I have 100% germination of all the seeds I planted a few weeks ago. I will need to do some thinning in a few weeks. I was worried that the temperatures were going down too low at night for my little heater to handle. So far the heater is keeping things above freezing all but one night where my thermometer measured 27 degrees. We will have lots of herbs this summer provided I can successfully bring these seedlings on through maturity - should be fun!