What I see

 G is all like this now:

And this:

And this:

But all I can see is this:

And this:

And this:

Auction treasures

Remember my previous infatuation with an online auction? Well, it happened again about a month ago.  I found an online auction in St. Peter about 45 minutes from us.  It was an auction from the estate of Beverly Gustafson, an elderly widow who had spent a lifetime of learning, traveling, collecting, teaching and raising a family.  The auction items painted the story of a rich life shared with her husband - boxes of sheet music, instruments and textiles from around the world, sheds of furniture waiting for repair, cedar chests full of fabric and linens, paintings and pottery galore.

I was originally interested in getting basic household items for G's new apartment.  And I was successful in that regard - silverware, plates, kitchen utensils, towels, etc.  But I also spotted something that piqued my personal interest - cookbooks.  I'm a sucker for old cookbooks.  And not only were there cookbooks, there was an old recipe box stuffed full of recipe cards and clippings.  I'm astounded some child or grandchild hadn't snatch the box up as a treasured memento of family suppers.  But their loss is my gain.

It's obvious this woman loved to cook.  And she was an adventurous cook - dishes from different regions, cultures, cooking styles.  She clipped recipes from magazines, newspapers and food wrappers.  She collected cards from friends and family members.  I spent a good hour going through them all, keeping the ones that looked promising and tossing the others.  The box itself is a little beat up, but with a bit of glue and TLC it should be right as rain.

Her cookbooks are a history in themselves.  She took copious notes of the dishes she tried, and the adjustments she made to the recipes.  She was big on flavor - her main critique for a bad recipe was that it was "bland."  She wasn't afraid to make changes, adding or subtracting amounts or ingredients.  And she dated most of her trials.  I found recipe dates going back to the 1960s.

I got a kick out of this cookbook title - "All This, And Rye Bread Too."  The lady on the cover seems very ... alert. 

After reading the introduction, I learned Evelyn was the Director of Food Service at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter for many years.  She was known for her boundless energy and enthusiasm, volunteerism, sharing her Swedish heritage, and of course good cooking. She was beloved by students and staff alike.  Her rye bread recipe was apparently world famous.  I share it with you here, at the risk of copyright infringement.  I've not tried it myself, yet.  But it must be good - Beverly seems to think so.

Some of the kitchen gadgets that we got threw us for a loop.  Neither Hubby nor I had ever heard of an "Ah So" for opening wine bottles.  And we didn't think we'd have any use for an Oregon Bean Spoon.  This decorative tray was intriguing, so I looked it up on the googles. 

It's a Streamline Adler Ware meat platter.  Apparently you put your sizzling roasts on the tray and the tree indentations catch the juices.  An interesting bit of culinary weirdness, but not something I see myself using.  

Overall, it was a successful auction haul.  Especially since I've gotten to know two very interesting ladies and fellow cookbook enthusiasts, Beverly and Evelyn, along the way.

Garden work and a bunny squatter

I had the day off today (after working seven in a row) and, eager to take advantage of the cool dry weather, hubby and I worked several hours in the garden.  It's shaping up nicely, and the new raised beds are providing an abundance of space.  Today I planted my peppers, cosmos and sunflowers.  All I have left to plant are cucumbers, zucchini and winter squash.  I have a bit of unclaimed space and I'm toying with either watermelon or cantaloupe.  I've had more success with watermelon, so I'll probably go that route.

A rosette of romaine

Almost everything is looking good thus far.  It usually is this early in the season - by mid-July weeds will have taken over.  The only iffy bits are my onions.  They are very short and spindly.  I have to decide whether to let them grow and hope for the best, or use the valuable space for something else.  It shouldn't be a hard decision, but I'm a soft touch and hate pulling out plants.  Thinning carrots is physically painful for me.  We'll see what happens.

While hoeing beds a few weeks ago I discovered a nest of young bunnies hidden under last year's straw.  We have a crop of buns nearly every year.  Again, a soft touch, I let them be for a few weeks until they're big enough to hop away on their own.  

Yesterday while watering I had spooked the current clutch from their nest, and watched them bound away through the tall grass.  However, one of the young-ins stayed inside the raised bed, hunkering down in a corner and watching me.  I gave her a wide berth while I finished watering.  I hoped that she would leave on her own overnight, or that momma bunny would bring her to safety.

No such luck.  She was still in the bed this afternoon.  Hubby and I took pity and gave her some salad fixings (carrots, celery, lettuce) to munch on.  Hubby even stroked her head a bit with a gloved finger.  

If she's not out by Thursday, we'll have to evict her ourselves.  She's occupying prime cucumber real estate.  Don't feel too bad, our back yard is prime bunny habitat with a huge brush pile, tall grass and young shrubs.  We have a healthy population, hence the need to fence in our garden beds.

Strawberry promise

I harvested another full armload of asparagus today, which we had with supper.  There's enough leftover for tomorrow's supper as well.  O and E will be coming over for their weekly visit tomorrow evening, laundry in tow.  E has requested one of her favorites:  Cajun chicken pasta.  It's also one of G's favorites, so it gets made fairly frequently in our house.  It's a knock-off recipe from an old dish served at Red Lobster years ago.  They've got something similar on the menu these days, but I've heard it's not nearly as good.

 

Well-used and well-loved

Another quilt post

I went to a church garage sale a week or so ago, looking for things for G's first apartment.  He starts college in August and we've signed him up for a studio apartment close to campus.  Much cheaper than using the dorms.

I found a few things for him - mixing bowls, cake pan, hand mixer.  But my big score was a king-sized second-hand quilt in pristine condition for just $10.  It's not homemade, but it is pretty.  Our current bed quilt is about ten years old and is beginning to fall apart.  One of our cats has the icky habit of throwing-up on the bed, which means we've had to send the quilt through the washer every week or so.  Washing machines are rough on quilts.  And I'm not sure why, but hubby's side of the quilt is in much worse shape than mine.  I think he chews on it in the middle of the night.

The cats inspected the quilt as soon as I laid it out.  And then proceeded to lay on it for the rest of the day.

 I guess cats like quilts too.

Post-Covid crap

It was a long day at work today.  Long and busy.  May and June are the busiest months of the year for me.  A combination of getting everything (campgrounds, trails, waterlines, etc.) running in a short amount of time, plus hiring and training new and returning staff, plus monitoring budgets before the end of the fiscal year (June 30) spending as much as we have but not too much.  Throw in a couple of prescribed burns, acres and acres of invasive species control, a dozen project proposals and a potential boundary expansion and I've got a full plate.

Pasque flowers from early April.

Anyway, after work Hubby, G, B and I drove to Mankato and met O and E for supper.  After supper we took a quick trip to Fleet Farm looking for a flannel shirt and light jacket with zipper pockets for B.  After striking out at Fleet Farm for both items (seriously, no flannel shirts at Fleet Farm?) we headed back home, turning into the driveway just as the sun was setting.  

My comfortable cozy bed is calling to me, but I wanted to put together a quick post before changing into pajamas and settling down with my IPad to watch an episode of Russian Doll on Netflix.  I've got a few things to catch up on.

There was a long break in my blogging from last summer to this spring.  Like I've said before, sometimes I lose motivation to put words to screen, time goes by quickly and soon months have passed.  Truth be told nothing really remarkable happened over those months.  Perhaps the only major thing that happened was COVID hitting our household last fall.

Bloodroot from mid-April.

We think G brought it home from school (thanks NU High School for your lack of masks!) in mid-October.  He was sick for a day and a half, with the main symptoms of a headache and very dry mouth.  We didn't realize it was COVID until Hubby got sick a few days later and decided to test himself.  Hubby had only mild symptoms, as did B when he got it and I soon thereafter.  We all thought we had dodged a bullet.

However, about four weeks after that I fell ill again.  What I thought was just a cold turned into something much worse.  High fever, swollen throat, wheezing and rales, horrible sinus pressure.  I lost my voice and popped an eardrum.  My blood oxygen levels dropped and my digestive system took a holiday.  Doctors put me on albuterol nebulizers and oral prednisone.  I was bed- and couch-bound for several weeks, concentrating mainly on taking one breath after another.  It was terrible, the sickest I've ever been.  As an added bonus my blood sugar levels shot through the roof, putting me squarely in Diabetes territory where I hadn't been before.

The docs never tested me for COVID with the second sickness, so it's possible I became reinfected with the new Omicron variant in December.  It's more likely, however, that I was/am one of the many many people dealing with post-COVID complications.  I've just read that 75% of people dealing with post-COVID crap had very mild illnesses to begin with. 

Hepaticas, also from mid-April.

Fast forward four months and I'm mostly better now, but I find myself a little slower on the uptake than before.  Making more stupid mistakes in my paperwork, taking longer to think of the right word when talking, losing track of what I'm doing in the middle of doing it.  It could just be old age, early Alzheimers, or general ineptitude, or it could be the covids.  Hard to say.  

My blood sugar levels have retreated, but I'm still in the pre-Diabetes range, so the docs want me on metformin for a few more months.  I'm doing better with my diet, but comfort food is just so, well, comforting.  And I do really like the comforts, both with food and with my comfortable cozy bed, to which I'm heading shortly.  Gotta get the sleep for another long, busy day of work tomorrow.

Quilt fix

I went to a quilt show last month, held by a local quilt guild.  I love quilts.  Especially the old fashioned patchwork quilts made with flour sack patterns.  If I had oodles of time (and significantly more skill) I'd spend a chunk of it quilting.  I've got quilts from my great-grandmother and my mother, and I treasure them highly.  I'd like to think of my kids and grandkids treasuring something that I'd made.

Here's a few of my faves from the show: (click on the photos to zoom)

Now I just need to get oodles of time to do all the things I want to do.

New beds

Because I just wasn't busy/crazy enough, I decided that I needed more raised beds.  It was easy for me to make this decision, because: a) you can never have enough garden space; b) even if you have too much garden space it isn't enough; and c) I'm not the one actually building the new beds.

Cardboard covered with straw covered with dirt.

So my husband, ever gracious, is building me six more raised beds.  Which will bring our total to 18.  I think maybe, just maybe, that may be enough.  Besides, four of our old beds are starting to fall apart, so we'll need to spend time & money (holy cow lumber is expensive!) fixing those next spring.

Today I made the first harvest of the year - chives and asparagus.  Most of the chives will be chopped and frozen.  The asparagus will be grilled and eaten with supper tonight along with pork chops and rice, one of my mother's favorite recipes.

Pond life

Yesterday while at the park I walked out to the old irrigation pond.  This pond was created back in 2007 when the golf course was redesigned.  They dug a 15' hole in the ground, lined it with clay, and filled it with river water.  A wet well with a couple of large pumps was attached at one end for supplying water for the irrigation lines.  A pump down by the river pushed water up the hill to fill the pond when it got low. 

When the course closed in 2017, all the pumps were shut off.  We all wondered if the pond would hold water on its own, and if/how the pond would change now that water wasn't constantly cycling in and out of it on a daily basis.

I'm no expert, but in my mind the pond has done very well.  Cattails and willows along the edge, insects buzzing around, blackbirds and kingfishers and ducks in and over the water.  The loud hum of frogs singing in the shallows.

I could have looked and listened all day.

If I had millions and millions of dollars I'd buy thousands of acres of cropland.  Then I'd dig hundreds of holes and make a hundred ponds just like this one.  Ponds to hold the rainwater on the ground, instead of being flushed into the nearest river by the ever-increasing lattice-work of agricultural drain tile and drainage ditches.  

Farmers like to say they're the stewards of the land, but most of the time that's a bunch of crap.