The word this week in the Midwest is rain and cold. It began raining on Sunday and continued on until Tuesday. We experienced over 4.7 inches of rainfall here at Pierce Street. The wind gusts on Sunday reached 30 mph and the temperatures ranged from highs of 45ºF to overnight lows of 33ºF. The rain, cold and wind made for a good time to be indoors. The sun finally came out on Thursday, but the high temps were still forecast to be in the upper 40’s to low 50’s. At least a little drying can occur.
Tuesday we went for our second Moderna vaccination,
The garage is full of all the furniture, both new and old, that will be transplanted back into the space. We are looking forward to completion and then the fun of hanging more art and photos, rearranging the space and then sitting to watch some TV. Next project on the horizon is an expansion of Abigail’s vegetable garden and installing railings on her newly built deck. Whatever retirement is, it is not sitting back and growing old, it is working, growing older faster and getting sore muscles to go with the stooped back. At least we are not COVID infected yet.
Wednesday morning, Mark led a Zoom meeting with the Josie Harper Hospice House Master Gardener group in planning for the coming spring and setting dates and ideas for the season. The group now numbers 26 active members and 17 of them were available to log in and join the meeting. Somewhat like wrangling cats, but all were able to log on and make some substantive contributions. It looks to be a busy Spring for them.
Deb broke out her Instant Pot this weekend and brewed up some chicken stock from her horde of roast chicken bones, all of which promptly went into the freezer. Next she popped some hamburger into the pot, followed by beans and spices and produced a huge batch of chili to offset the cold evenings on the weekend. Again, we dined on that for two nights and stashed the rest in the freezer for later consumption. Deb baked a beautiful and very tasty cherry pie this week. Her best crust ever and that is saying something as her crust is world famous, at least in this family. Mark baked up another pair of baguettes on Tuesday, which meant that we could enjoy a very French meal of baguettes and Brie with our wine as a dinner that night. This was in preparation for the annual St. Patrick’s Day feast.
Wednesday, the Instant Pot was again pressed into action with a corned beef brisket going in the pot with onions, broth and seasoning. It was pressurized and an hour later it was done, then carrots, potatoes and cabbage went in for 5 minutes, again under pressure. Abigail joined us and we had a proper St. Paddy’s day feast, accompanied by two fresh loaves of Tim Duggan’s Aunt Mary’s Irish Soda Bread and a couple of bottles of Guinness for Mark. We topped all of this off with the last of the cherry pie for dessert. Quite the meal and we were finished by 8:30! Abigail headed home and the two of us fell into a stupor in front of the TV screen.
We have been binge watching this past week an English comedy, The Detectorists, which is available to us on the Acorn Network. It is a hilarious, low key comedy about a group of metal detector enthusiasts in the fictional town of Danebury in rural Southeast England. It is written, directed and stars McKenzie Crook and includes as his wife, Rachel Stirling, and her mother, played by her real life mother, Diana Rigg. We are definitly enjoying this and would highly recommend it to fans of droll British comedy.
Thursday evening was a busy one - Deb held her Girls Drinks Nite via Zoom at 5:00. She finished at 6:15 and Mark had heated up Abigail’s turkey tetrazzini for dinner, we then logged on to a Zoom cocktail hour with our friends Karen and Dell in Phoenix. We learned that their pool is heating up nicely and the outside temperature is approaching 80ºF during the daytime. It doesn’t look like we will get south this spring as the season is slipping away and there are too many things pressing on our time. Oh well, there is still time so we will wait it out and hope for the best.
If you have finished your vaccination run, congratulations; if not then get to cracken! Keep those masks in place, wash your hands and stay socially distanced. Conditions are moving more and more towards normal, whatever that may be.
