Another strange weather week in the Midwest. Sunny but blustery days, with overnight temperatures dropping into below freezing range most nights. As much as we love getting the flowers out and uncovering our plantings around the garden, we have resisted and are now glad we have. We even had a light dusting of snow on Tuesday morning.
A big birthday shoutout to first-born son Edwin Busk Covert III on completing his 48th year! Only a few years away from a milestone birthday (of course that means Mark too will be celebrating a milestone that same year, owing to their 25 year age difference!) Ed celebrated by an attempt to dine in every upscale taco joint in LA for his birthday, courtesy of Meg’s planning and knowledge of Ed’s culinary loves. Good job Meg!
Abigail has been having some food adventures. She has become a real grillmaster,
We finished up the lower level library (Mark is forbidden using the term Man Cave) and have spent a small amount of time watching TV, reading and admiring our work. Wednesday evening Deb hosted her weekly Girl’s Drink Night at the house, so the invitees were invited down to ooh and aah then banned to the upper level while Mark cracked a bottle of red wine and proceeded to watch his favorite PBS Newshour show on his own, accompanied by a box of wheat thins and a stack of Swiss cheese squares. It was like a banishment to heaven, although probably not too good for his arteries.
Wednesday morning Mark traveled to his Master Gardener site, got the team working in 30ºF weather and then promptly returned home after an hour due to cold fingers with no appropriate gloves. The crew stayed behind long enough to finish a small amount of clean-up and plant the 24 elderberry bushes that arrived from the Nebraska Resources District; bare root twigs that should make it just fine in our climate. Although the berries are poisonous to humans in their raw state, they make excellent jellies and wine when properly cooked; that assumes the birds and critters don’t get to them first. It will probably be 2022 before we see any fruit from these twigs.
Thursday morning Deb did actual travel agent work, booking some cruises and cleaning up some details. Mark mowed the lawns and in the evening we dined at Lee and Howie Needelman’s home, inside and unmasked, as we have all been fully vaccinated. A joy to see them in person and the Asian cuisine was excellent as always. We learned of Howie’s experience with his AmEx card account due to the massive hacking of UNMC information of last year. Evidently he was buying things all over the country and applying for multiple new AmEx card accounts; a harrowing story. The most intriguing was that the thieves would remotely set up call forwarding on their home phone number in order to confirm information from the card companies when they would call to confirm purchases!
Friday morning we are leaving on our first road trip in over a year, driving to Fairmont Minnesota to help celebrate Deb’s uncle Bud’s (Roger’s younger brother) 90th birthday. Bud (or Gil, as his family calls him) still lives by himself (with his little dog, Sarah) and is fairly independent. We also will see Deb’s cousin Diane and hopefully Diane’s brother Dan. Following our day/evening in Fairmont, we are running up to the Minneapolis area for an outing at the IKEA store and then some time with our good friend April Dillon, returning on Sunday. Weather forecast is good, but a chance of snow on Sunday in Minnesota. We are looking to a great trip and will properly note it our next weekly report.
Darcy and Maria, along with their dogs Norman and Weenie, will be staying at the house and looking after Sushi. We are hoping Sushi’s health holds until we return. We hope you are now vaccinated and urge you to stay masked whenever appropriate, maintain proper distancing and get outside to enjoy the spring weather in your part of the world. Keep washing your hands and stay safe.
