103 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-22-18”

  2. Hey you were first on my day, but the date says you were still in yesterday.
    so… I must be first for this day. I have been writing notes and resting, I haven’t even been out of the house, yet.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Toadstools?
    I was going to say, “It’s fall, y’all”. But it doesn’t arrive ’till 8:54 tonight.
    So? It’s still summer. And I haven’t had the heat on yet.

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  11. Those coyotes.

    Yes, how’s Kare this morning?

    I’ve been playing with the Sherwin Williams color snap app, trying out the 2 possible colors on my garage door (I quickly ruled out the third neutral color as it’s just not a pretty color, is meant for limited accents only, and it just looked muddy on a space as big as a garage door).

    I still like the brandywine option, the dark main color, as a way to blend everything and not have the garage door “stick out” — but the cream, the color I’m using for all the trim, also looks fine.

    Virtually everyone I ask says “cream.” (Color consultant on historic houses said Brandywine.)

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  12. Good lunch time for all in this part of the world.

    I dropped Bosley for a few days boarding. Her new food has made her chunky again. I need to go back to weight management food for her.

    DJ, I continue to be impressed with how you have moved forward on your house projects. The mix of making decisions along with dealing with a variety of workers and trying to meet a budget would probably overwhelm me. I know the saying of how do you eat an elephant with the answer being one chunk at a time. Thinking on that, at some point a person gets filled up. That poor elephant you have been chomping on is looking spare of parts!

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  13. DJ, the historic homes guy is saying Brandywine because they didn’t have automatic, metal garage doors then. The “garage” then would have had doors similar to barn doors and would have been painted the same color.
    The rest of us live in 2018 where we know it’s a garage door so we treat it like one. The important thing to do is choose the color combo YOU like best. All the photos you have sent to me look terrific. Trust yourself on this.

    Liked by 3 people

  14. Kare is less sore today. Just the right ribs which took a good slam against the seat belt. If I don’t move too much, I’m fine. Thanks for asking 🙂 Now we have to go see if it’s drivable and get our door opener and other stuff out of it if not. Ugh.

    Liked by 5 people

  15. Lunch is leftover, homemade chicken enchiladas. STOP! Lest you be too impressed with me, I did not make them. My friend M had a catering job last night for the Monarchs and Mojitos fundraiser. Monarch Butterflies are in jeopardy of becoming extinct. The reason? People are pulling up or killing all the milkweed in North America. It grows wild in places but now you can buy it to intentionally plant. A group here in Fairhope has done an award-winning documentary. The house where the function was held was spectacular. Me? I was hired help.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=milkweed&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS701US701&oq=milkweek&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.5017j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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  17. I got up this morning and decided to dress a tad bit warmer and go down to my pond. It was a great day to go! A bit overcast, and the great blue herons decided to show up in force. Generally I see one if I see any at all, though I have seen two and I saw three once, briefly (when they flew away).

    Today there were at least three, though generally I could only see two of them, or even one when the others would fly away for a while. But I got a couple (poor) photos of three birds, so three were close enough to get in one frame at least twice. They kept chasing each other and cursing at each other. In between them chasing each other and one or another leaving the pond for a while, one would stand in a deeper part of the pond, nice and close to the sidewalk, and fish. I had never seen them in that spot before, and it was close enough to allow me to zoom in for some closer shots (head and eye). But I also got shots several times of whichever one happened to be in that spot catching a fish. After a bird had a fish or two, it would fly toward the tree perch (and whichever heron was already there would leave) so it could sit and digest its meal. (Birds have a fairly quick digestive system so that they can eliminate waste soon after eating. Weight matters when you commute by air!)

    I was down there for two hours, and when I left there was still at least one bird there. (It had just chased a second one off the perch, and I don’t know if the second one stuck around.) One green heron did show up, too, but I didn’t see any ducks or turtles, just the great blue herons and the fish they were catching.

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  19. Kim, that’s my take as well — we’re more used to seeing the white garage doors because everyone’s now getting the steel (mostly white) doors. Same with the vinyl windows, all houses suddenly seem to have bright white trim.

    I did mockups of both colors and like them both! The house sits back far enough that I don’t think it would distract from the front of the house, but I still like the look of the brandywine/darker door that blends.

    Kare, glad you’re a little better. A co-worker broke two ribs recently playing soccer, though, and he put off going to the doctor until the pain kept getting worse (not that it mattered a lot, I suppose, as there’s nothing much they can do for broken ribs).

    Liked by 1 person

  25. You just want me to stop bugging you all about my endless color decisions. 🙂

    Kare, Mice crashed my car is kind of a funny story you’ll tell. Later. Ooh, maybe if all turns out well you can sell it as a Suburu commercial.

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  26. Here in Saskatchewan a collision with wildlife means you don’t pay any deductible. I keep wondering if wildlife IN the car will do the same. I don’t really care how the mouse is – I just hope it’s dead. Husband just went to get our garage door opener and other items out of it and to see if it’s actually drivable. (I hope he remembers to check for dead mice!!)

    Liked by 1 person

  29. I use to buy a pastry that looked like the header fungus. It was crispy and pretty flat with swirls of cinnamon. I got them at a bakery counter. I have not had one in ages. I wish I could remember the name of them.

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  30. It just goes to show how quickly things can go wrong with distractions in the car. I know I would look automatically if the trap went off near my feet. Startling. And this is a reminder to me as we do have one in the car near my feet. Sorry you had to be the example, but thanks.

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  33. Well I missed that part of Kare wrecking the car due to a mouse….praying you are ok and the car will be not too much damaged. And girl if that was a Preble jumping mouse and you killed it you just might end up in jail….well at least if you lived here you would!! 😜

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  34. They’re “retiring” my alma mater’s mascot.

    LA Times: The university is retiring the Prospector Pete mascot, which has been criticized as representing the state’s history of racism and genocide against Native Americans.

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  37. Greetings.
    I am glad to hear Donna is making progress.
    Kare, sorry to hear of your accident. One of our Drs recommends buying a bag of cheap balloons and blowing 1 up each hour. Works just as well as an incentive spirometer, with much less cost.

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  38. We’re getting new neighbors on both sides. (The condo we bought is in a development that puts units in fourplexes, though they are set up very intelligently and the only shared walls are garages and kitchens, with a patio between where the other shared walls would be.) That means two out of three of the units have “turned over” in the last five months. The two residents moving out (a man and a woman) are moving into nursing homes; the remaining lady is elderly, too.

    So far it appears that both new neighbors are single (widowed? divorced?) men–rather unusual in a community where most of the residents are above 50 and probably half are above 80, if that is the case.

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  39. Next up: Getting the old weather vane from my childhood home fixed up and ready to mount on the top of the garage. It’s white, I want to repaint it black, but think I need to strip the existing white paint off it first. Some of the directional letters are bent, too, but seem to be “bendable” back into shape with some care. The metal seems thin but maybe that’s how they all are? Sentimental value primarily, but I really have always liked it, as did my mom (which is why I snagged it off the garage before selling her house). It also needs a mounting piece at the bottom .
    This is a project I think I’ll actually be able to do on my own. But first I need to take it to a local hardware store or two for some advice … And maybe I can buy the paint, too, SW is having another 40% off sale this weekend.

    Liked by 1 person

  41. We have a smallish clubhouse (indoors) in which they do a monthly coffee, exercise classes (weekly? not sure), and twice-monthly games. We have a small playground with a loveseat swing overlooking it for the parents or grandparents, a pool, and two tennis courts. And sidewalks throughout, and nice landscaping (plenty of trees, lightly rolling grounds). It is not a development for wealthy people, it just was intelligently designed. There are bigger condos around town, but this is the one that appealed to us. Also, I don’t know how many units there are in all, some two-story (families tend to live in those), and some ranch (seniors tend to live in those), but no two are exactly alike on the outside. Some are brick, some siding, some a mix, but they use different colors and slightly different decorative elements. The four in a unit are all the same (though some have garages and some have family rooms), but some units have small awnings over the windows, or windows of a different size than other units, or other individualized features. It all looks cohesive like a neighborhood, but unlike a lot of condo developments, there is enough variety that it is interesting. And it’s five minutes or not much more to just about anywhere we want to go, including church. After living out in the country, and having to drive 25 minutes to church and “into town” to do any shopping, it’s a blessing to be walking distance from some things and an easy drive from everything else. With a Prius, we’re getting a month on a tank of gas!

    Liked by 4 people

  42. Well, one of my snapchats sons tells me seventeen has been in Lewiston. Did you know that harboring a seventeen and under is illegal and you can lose your car if you transported said child?

    Liked by 3 people

  44. I had one molasses cookie yesterday. I ate half in the afternoon and then half with a glass of milk at bedtime. I couldn’t go to bed, I felt like I had a sugar hi. Just way too much sugar.

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  45. Re: Yesterday, about Jo and culturally appropriate wear: Ankle length skirts were appropriate in West Africa – as in PNG, it was the visibility of the thigh that was unacceptable and in the city, one might see tunics and trousers worn* – and so I wore the malang, the traditional ankle length wraparound skirt made from a single length of cloth. But in a high wind, which happened not infrequently as the winds blew down from the Sahara, if the wrap didn’t go far enough around due to lack of cloth, the skirts could be less than modest and I quickly learned that most fuller cut long skirts made in Western styles didn’t work well at all. Sitting on the ground (which was often the only place to sit) was also very difficult in the malang.

    *Except for female students wearing their Arabic school uniforms (there were both ‘English’ and ‘Arabic’ type schools), the only girls/women I saw wearing the hijab – most married women wore the traditional West African turban while unmarried girls went bareheaded – were those who wore western-style trousers and shirts, which were considered immodest in the culture.

    Liked by 1 person

  46. I wrote this a few hours ago and see I never posted it, so pardon me if the conversation has moved on. 🙂 Janice, there are tons of different versions of that treat. In Phoenix we used to buy one called Indian fried bread, and Roscuro has referred to one as a beaver tail. I don’t know if different ethnic groups independently came up with the same idea, or if it is more or less the same recipe in all renditions.

    The Indian fried bread was sold at a shop called Fun Foods in a mall less than a mile from my house. And they had multiple options of what you could have them put on it: powdered sugar (one of my favorites), cinnamon, or honey, or for a more substantial version, refried beans with peppers and cheese and maybe some other things. Refried beans (without the other stuff, just refried beans) was my alternate choice.

    When my mom was in the hospital for heart surgery, I had her husband go there with me–and I was really glad I did, because when Mom died perhaps three years later, I discovered Fun Foods was no longer there. Since I hadn’t eaten there in years, probably 10 or 15 years, I was glad I had one last opportunity, and that I was able to eat there with Pop.

    Liked by 2 people

  47. Cheryl/Janice, there is bannock, the pan cooked or baked bread that First Nations, Inuit, Metis, French traders, and Scottish settlers made, which has many variations, or the frybread of the Navajo, which is similar to bannock.

    Liked by 1 person

  48. I remember camping as a child and my mom making fry bread. It was wonderful with honey on top. How do you make it? Is it regular bread dough? or something simpler?

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  51. Chas, we couldn’t keep a box of Kleenex in our garage up north. The mice would enter (our garage was holey) and take out tissues for nesting, and you’d find shredded ones on top. Once we had some peanut butter crackers for a snack, and my husband said just leave the last package in there. Next time we went to go somewhere, I saw crumbs, and I picked up the package. They had eaten the edges of one cracker (a circle around the edge).

    Liked by 1 person

  53. Mice will also get under your car and chew electrical lines….and they will get in the engine area and chew away! We were warned upon moving to this forest. Paul went hiking down in Silverton/Durango this summer and as he was sleeping in the back of the truck, he heard gnawing under his truck. Something was trying to chew on under parts of the truck. He took out his flash light and turned it on ultra bright leaving it on throughout the night… that sent whatever it was on it’s way! 🐭

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  56. Congratulations on the new Adorable, Michelle. He’s gorgeous.

    This time of year the mice are starting to find ways to get in to warmer places to overwinter. The reason we have a cat is to keep the mouse population down so they don’t get in the vehicles. Zeke has apparently been slacking.

    Porcupines also chew vehicle undersides because of the road salt.

    Liked by 1 person

  60. Try the dryer sheets in the engine to discourage the mice.

    Fry bread is just regular bread dough stretched very thin. It is wonderful with butter, cinnamon and sugar. I have made it, but most festivals and fairs around here have a food truck or booth with it. It is one of our favorite things to get, but we have to share a piece as we have gotten older and our metabolism has slowed down.

    Elephant ears are, basically, cinnamon rolls flattened out and then baked with some extra cinnamon and sugar. I have one grandson who usually picks whatever is the biggest from the bakery counter. This is one of those things. Square inches can be deceiving with the different shapes. 😀

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  62. What I had from the pastry counter was more like the many thin layers of puff pastry so it was a really different texture than regular bread dough flattened out. There was a pastry counter in the downtown department store where I worked. I don’t usually go to pastry or bakery shops these days.

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  63. I finished the book. Very satisfying, encouraging, and interesting. Thanks, Michelle. But what took so long to write it? It only took a couple of days to read it!

    Liked by 2 people

  66. I took the weather vane down to our local family-run hardware store yesterday and they gave me some good tips on how to fix it all up. It’s apparently made of tin, paper thin in some places like the directional letters that are all twisted and bent, but that also makes it easy to manipulate back into shape. The horse’s tail also is a bit twisted.

    So they suggested lying those on a flat surface and then GENTLY hammering them down until they’re flat and straight (if one breaks I’ll have another issue, but that shouldn’t be impossible to do and hopefully none will actually break off); then use Windex and wet/dry sandpaper to go over all of it; then use rust treatment primer followed by the black paint.

    Then I need to figure out which mount to buy and make sure it’s all stored where it won’t get messed up again — I figure the guys can maybe mount it on the garage at the end of this project before they leave.

    Speaking of which, they’re getting a nice long weekend break. Main guy texted last night saying he still didn’t feel well but would try to come today anyway. I told him not to come if he didn’t feel well, we could regroup on Monday. (Ah, he just texted and said he felt a little better but would like to return tomorrow, not today. Oh well)

    His sidekick, meanwhile, failed to show up on Saturday, he’s apparently not overly reliable. I’d already told my neighbors their garage wall would maybe get painted by him yesterday (as that was the plan — my north garage wall is on their side of the property and behind their gate/fence line for some reason that I’m probably dates back decades before any of us were around). But they’re used to these guys being pretty hit and miss.

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  68. Listened to a sermon that I had already downloaded this morning, and played my playlist of sacred music, which includes, among other beautiful music, performances of some of the best of Charles Wesley’s hymns and Vaughan Williams’ rendition of the Anglican Morning, Communion, and Evening Services. It is good to have a day of rest. Between being in the clinic, online coursework, and homework, my weekdays and Saturdays are crammed full.

    Liked by 2 people

  69. It’s snowing here today. Much too early for snow. I’m missing church yet again because husband is working and needs our one vehicle 😦 This is getting ridiculous. I haven’t been in a service since Junel!! Granted, I did attend a camp chapel at least once a week during the summer, but it’s not the same.

    Liked by 1 person

  70. Kare, my sympathies about the car, and very glad you are OK. I am missing church too.

    About the snow, I do hate to rub it in 😉 , but you are getting more snow down there than there is up here! Oh, it snowed once, but it didn’t stay. There is snow on the mountain tops, but not in the hamlet. There are several small rivulets and streams that run and trickle drown through the hamlet into the fjord that are already covered in ice, though the streams still run below the ice; but they come from a glacier that lies behind the mountains, so they are already ice cold. The glacier is where the water supply for the hamlet comes, so I have been drinking and washing in glacier water.

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  71. Oooh, I envy your glacier water. That was our water supply when we lived in a Warden Station in Glacier National Park (the Canadian one, not the American NP). It was so good and refreshing and tasty. The station was closed when an avalanche took out the water collection system 😦

    Yes, it has been unusually cold this September. It’s supposed to warm up again, but I’m not sure if that will happen.

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  74. 73 and sunny in LA, with a brisk cool breeze coming in the open windows.

    After the house is painted, I still have a few things on my “list,” mainly pricing awnings for the south windows (to protect those newly painted wood windows from water and sun and hopefully keep my house a tad cooler); and buying a little furniture set for the front porch. Kim has me looking at Equipage barrel chairs from Mexico (I noticed just yesterday that some neighbors around the corner from me have them on their Spanish front porch). They’re also apparently quite trendy, who knew?

    “This barrel chair with roots in Mexico is making appearances everywhere from the rooftop of LA’s popular Ace Hotel to chic dining rooms in homes around the country. Crafted from tanned pigskin and Mexican cedar strips, Equipale furniture is made by hand with all natural materials. The seating blends rustic details with an organic shape, making it cozy seating for just about any space in the home. Traditionally made, Equipale chairs are perfect for the great outdoors. … ”

    https://www.thespruce.com/equipale-chairs-furniture-trend-3954555

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  75. I need to run away and hide out at Dj’s. I could keep the animals company, make sure they don’t escape the yard and make sure the painters keep working.

    Liked by 3 people

  76. And I need to find affordable Mexican chairs, maybe across the border … I think there are warehouses in San Deigo, too, though. Maybe i can score some deals there to avoid the south-of-the-border gunfire.

    Seriously, Tijuana used to be a great spot for shopping — I still have a straw seat chair, desk and wrought iron baker’s rack I bought there in my college days. Paid a pittance but they’ve lasted all this time and I still love them.

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  81. Mumsee’s comment on Michelle’s book was funny. I will attest that the final version was very different from the earlier one. The beginning was totally different and a nice and logical place to begin.

    Liked by 4 people

  84. Fry bread may be sourdough some place. It is not where I live. My MIL made it with her own or frozen dough. I have made it. It is regularly sold and is not sourdough. I make sourdough bread and items and have never tasted any around here that is sourdough.

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  91. I went down to the pond early this evening. I have learned in the past that (in general) if you want to see birds and possibly mammals, the earlier the better; insects (dragonflies and butterflies) are an afternoon pursuit. So when I got home, I told my husband, “For birds, go in the morning; for insects, go in the afternoon; for turtles, go in the evening. They were singing and dancing, and you just wouldn’t believe it!”

    He said, “You’re right, I wouldn’t believe it.”

    How’s that for skepticism in the truthfulness of one’s spouse?

    The turtles really were out and about, though, including two or three very close to me. I realized that the reason the herons were so active and so feisty yesterday morning was that the pond hasn’t had enough rain over the last week or so, and parts of it have dried up. That sends the fish into the deeper part–but it isn’t too deep (now) for the great blue herons, and so they see it as a lovely seafood buffet, and one worth fighting over.

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  94. Thanks for the recipe, Roscuro. I may have to try that sometime. Probably when with my grandchildren. Camping would be best. I wonder what it would be like if you fried it without the oil?

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