Old Photos

Following Eric's model, for any of you who still look at this blog, I have added some things to a couple of old posts. I am now a pro a Fickr, so I've enhanced two old posts with photographs of food to accompany past Thanksgiving posts or recipes. See if you can find them!

Also, completely out of date but because I can, I am adding here some photos of Eric's visit to Rhode Island last October (2008). We went to a wildlife refuge along the south shore (Ninigret, I think?), hiked around, looked at far away things through the telescopes, and ran around on the old runway.

Homemade Cheese

Last Christmas, Brian's mom got me a home cheesemaking kit. These photos show the first results for 30-minute stovetop mozzarella, which we tried last spring. This is also an experiment, as I am trying to figure out how to post photos from my flickr page. Bear with me...

Weekend Stuffs

This weekend has been productive.

• Went to the dump (Always a ball of fun)
• Picked up supplies at Home Depost
• Paid 30 cents for 4 screws
  
• Hung up a coat rack/shelf
• Drank at the Packy (4-6 on Saturdays is tasting time)
  
• Cleaned out the cat's box (Yuck)
  
• Watched the baseball game

We tried to hang up the coat rack on one wall, but the studs in the were not 16 inches apart. Well they were 32 inches apart at 4 feet up, but not 6 feet up. The wall is totally weird. We deiced to hang the coat rack on the other wall and it went up with little hassle. The 30 cents worth of screws were used to hang up the coat rack/shelf.

I was going to mow the lawn but it has been raining and it the temperature plummeted on Saturday. It was 60 on Friday, but it is 40 on Saturday. Not a good day to be outside.

We have been looking for Pre-emergent for the patio to prevent weeks, but all Home Despot sells is fertilizer/chemical stuff, not plain stuff to prevent weeds. We also got some black plastic to "cook" the seeds already in the patio so they don't sprout. I do not want to pull patio weeds again this year.

Sox win. Time for another beer.

Time for an update

Thanksgiving is coming. Like last year, we are sticking around Wakefield for the holiday weekend, but this year we are having two Thanksgivings.



Thanksgiving#1: On Thursday we are going over to Becky's house for the "official" big meal. We are making mashed potatoes, by special request (the potatoes I made 2 years ago must have been a big hit), and a couple of varieties of pie. We may walk away from this meal with a small quantity of leftovers, but the leftovers from last year's just-the-two-of-us Thanksgiving were so great that we need to do it again for ourselves. Brian, in particular, is apparently addicted to stuffing at this time of year. So,

Thanksgiving #2: I happened to be a lucky winner of the turkey lottery at Casey Farm. They raise organic, free-range, humanely treated, heritage turkeys on this local farm (in addition to much other delicious food), and this year we are getting one. Unlike commercial turkeys, these turkeys actually know how to have sex. On Friday, we will have a second Thanksgiving featuring this special bird and many of the big-hit recipes from last year's big meal. Stuffing included. And maybe I will finally make a pie from the nummy raspberries that have been in our freezer since summer.

Red, Red Raspberries

Mmm, Raspberries. Out in the garden are a collection of raspberry vines, plants, bushes, or something. Whatever, they are producing a bowl of raspberries a day right now. They will be producing for quite a while seeing how many little white berries are still on the bush. We are freezing them and saving for later pie making, well some of them. Mmmmm.

Mariner's Travels VIII

Wow, that path is totally confusing. The first leg of the cruise is finished and people will be exchanged for fuel (I think that is right, or maybe they will refuel and exchange some people. That still sounds weird, do you need a receipt to exchange a person ?) The second leg will have them doing some more dredging at Peggy Ridge, which is in the same general area. To get there they need to cross longitude 180, once again.

But first time was spent in Suva for the fuel and people exchange. They got off the boat but not for very long since they were anchored in the harbor for about 12 hours waiting for a berth. Instead of heading straight into town after "finding a parking spot" then hung out on the pier. It was too dark to go exploring the shops and sites. Maybe next time just before heading home.

Back to Sea. Our Mariner is now in charge of where to dredge. Her first attempt came up "mud and pumice :(". From the look of the sad face, it was not a good first attempt. She wants glass, the Mariners gold. Think glassy thoughts for her.

Mariner's Travels VII

A slight detour was taken to Samoa, previously Western Samoa, to tend to an engineer who needed medical attention. This is the large detour in the track. The ship ended up in Apia, Samoa but no one was let off the ship at all for a speeding trip back to the Lau Basin. From the docked ship it looked like a nice place to go on vacation.