A partridge in a pear tree and a quick dance around the Tor!

With the cold snap finished (at least for now) it warmed up a bit and the snow has started.

I took this picture while standing on the lake. (It was close to -20 degrees.)

and then turned around and took this one:

It is really so pretty to watch the snow fall and it sparkles when the light hits it just right. I told my Mom that it is like watching glitter float through the air. It seems you can almost see the each individual flake when you look close enough.

We have finished the master bathroom paint (yippee) and we really like it. No longer looking like a crime scene it actually makes the room quite warm looking which was my intention. The kitchen is next. I am actually standing in the kitchen taking these photos so you can see the primered walls and unpainted trim that is next on the work agenda.

I have also been faithfully living up to my reputation as Egg Lady and have been baking etc ., so I have been keeping the neighbor’s chickens on their toes…

or I say.. I say... should I say on their bottoms.

Anyway, we are tucked in quite nicely and enjoying the holiday season even though we do miss the folks back home.

The little tree David cut for me… the one Delta left… has a bundle of presents underneath and we have also received many pretty cards updating us on friends and family. I can not wait for Christmas morning so that we can open them all!

I must admit that we have already opened a couple of presents. When they arrived we knew immediately one was Heidi’s wonderful Fruit Cake. Heidi is David’s brother Keith’s wife. (Phew that’s a mouthful.) Anyway, the fruit cake is amazing. I was never one for fruitcake but I had never tasted THIS one. It is truly fantastic and Heidi has sent us one every year for the past few years and I can not tell you how much we look forward to it! The rumor I heard was that she made close to 30 cakes this year!?!? Wow… thanks Heidi for all the hard work! As I work in the Post Office I noticed that three made it here to the U.P. So… well... David and I sure enjoyed all three! Just kidding! They made it to where they were supposed to go. Thanks again!

The other package we opened early was from Vashon Island… David’s brother Terry lives there with his wife Judith and their son Zach. The box had ‘perishable’ stamped on it so when I brought it home from the post office I wondered aloud to David what he thought it might be.

He said pears.

Oh…. I thought… Well that is very nice… some good pears would be a tasty treat. (I believe I may have mentioned the whole fresh fruit and vegetable issues here in the Midwest once or twice) I had once lived in Washington and mentioned just in an offhand manner that I was surprised it was not apples since Washington is famous for their apples and that I had not realized Washington was also noted for its pears... but that made sense I suppose being an orchard type fruit.

Then we opened the box.

First, David reached in and took out a BIG envelope full of flower seeds. Mystery seeds (I am guessing some sunflowers maybe) and I am so excited to get them into my garden and how fun to get to wait and see what they are until they come up. I love to garden and I told David how very thoughtful that was.

Second, David pulled out two Fran's chocolate bars…

We both are chocolate fiends and we both know all about Fran's chocolates. (You MUST try them when you find them by the way) David immediately clutched the bars close to his chest and said, "We will share these… Ok? "(a touch of panic setting into his eyes) Let me explain this chocolate hoarding behavior, of course it has nothing to do with shall we say... me eating it.

My explanation instead is this: When goodies come into the house you can immediately tell the birth order difference between us. He is he youngest of five so while I am sure he always got his share, sometimes he probably had to wait for the older kids to go first so he would get a bit anxious about the goodies disappearing before he got his turn. (I am also sure he probably had his turns with going first, and he never went without but that has not dissuaded his anxieties) In my immediate family I am the oldest of three girls... so of course, I am not at all convinced why I should not get to choose goodies first… and I was never stressed out that I will not get my turn.. oh yes.... I will get my turn.... Heh heh.

Anyway back to the Vashon box…

Third, David pulled the wrapping back a little further, reached in, and out comes a pear. Well, my mind at first told me it was a pear since that was what we were talking about… but wait a second…. ::Blink Blink:: This 'pear' was a lovely dark emerald greenish black color… and the skin was rather bumpy!

::Cue the heavenly music::

Criminy!!!!

It’s not a pear, it is an AVOCADO!
Not just one, but MANY avocados!

Forget this sharing business!!! I used some of my ex-DPO/oldest sister moves on David to knock him out of the way and dislodge the avocados from his hands just as quickly as he had grabbed the chocolate.

Before you could blink an eye, into the bowl a few of the luckiest avocados went and after MAYBE 5 minutes…

Voila’!
CHRISTMAS ROCK-N-ROLLEE GUACAMOLE!!

These lovely fruits lasted a whole three days… All of them were perfect and ready to eat. We ate them smashed, sliced, and cubed and enjoyed every last cool creamy bite. What a wonderful gift Terry, Judith, and Zach! Thank you very very much!

Well, David just took off with Delta on the snowmobile to ride around on this northern side of the lake. Kinda scary to me. I am sitting here next to the fire with Cosmo the Magnificent thinking of everyone back home and how I miss you all. Really.

So... please everyone have a safe and happy holiday and an even better New Year!

and so as not to disappoint my dirt worshiping, heathen, tree hugging, hippy, Redwood Tree Sitting, Druid friends from Northern California out there... (and apparently not just in California)... us folks in the U.P. did not forget you!

Happy Winter Solstice!

There is always time for a quick bonfire, a burning of the Yule Log, and the obligatory dance around the Tor to celebrate the shortest day of the year!
(Yes folks, I realize it was on the 21st, a few days ago)

You wonder what my Christmas - Winter Solstice wish is?

Can't we all just get along?

* May There Be Peace On Earth *

Coo coo catchoo...

We eat a lot of eggs… really. We buy our eggs from some folks here in town. We have ,at a minimum, two eggs every morning and then if I bake anything or if any recipe calls for them we can go through a dozen fast.

When we were staying at Jerry’s house I was the head chef and bottle washer and since it was me cooking I made a big breakfast every morning. That made us go through the eggs even faster. With three of us that was six eggs a morning or 1/2 dozen a day for those of you who know how to count eggs. If possible we would get 4-5 dozen at a time. The folks we got eh eggs from wondered what in the heck we did with all the eggs. Even though I am sure they love their chickens and their own eggs, they must not have been big breakfast eaters. Or maybe they are *gasp* cereal eaters, not that I am opposed to a good bowl of Captain Crunch or Count Chocula now and then.



but I would much rather see this in front of me in the morning...

Look at the avocado. Just ignore that weeping sound.

Anyway, the eggs we get are real eggs right out of free ranging yooper chickens. The prices range from $2 to $2.50 a dozen. (Go look at the eggs in your local co-op and tell me that is not a deal!) We have two connections for these eggs and as it turns out they are father/son of each other. The son and his family lived a bit closer to us while we were at Jerry’s so at first we went there for our eggs. However, it seemed that when we got eggs from the son we learned the hard way that he mostly leaves his egg collection up to his young teenage sons. Now, young teenaged sons frequently are busy with other things and have their minds elsewhere… so every once in awhile when we would get the eggs there, the eggs had been out in the yard for a few days longer than necessary.

You see when free ranging real chicken eggs have been sitting around awhile.. or shall I say being sat upon for awhile... what happens is that you crack them into your pan or bowl and they are a bit closer to a chick than a yolk than most people prefer. So instead we have started getting them from the father… who is actually the Grandfather of those same young teen boys. This has been a pretty good change as I have yet to have eyes staring back out of me from a puddle of yellow in the frying pan.

Hah. That was gross and a bit of an exaggeration …
sorta…
but you will think about it the next time you crack an egg… I guarantee!

David was helping his Dad out over by the hotel on main street the other day and one of the teen boys was lending a hand as well. They were working away on something and the boy glanced down the road and says to David , “oh geez… there is that egg lady! She comes to our house like every day and gets a whole bunch of eggs!” David chuckled to himself and thought he was going to get a bit of local gossip. He thought, "well I am going to have to check this out and see who this lady is." He looked down the road to see what car the boy was referring to and well… it was me.

David laughed and said “um… Oh… ya know who that is? That's my wife.” They laughed and the boy was kind of embarrassed but not as embarrassed as I was later when David told me the story.

I AM THE EGGLADY... Coo coo catchoo!

Anyway, this particular family I have been talking about has been in this area for a long time. They are one of those families here that you realize is related and intermarried with many other families here in town. The men are all hunters. In fact, one of those teenage boys I mentioned, while he is a slow egg gatherer he is quick enough to have actually gotten his first bear this year and was the talk of the town.

Anyhoo, that was quite a build up but hang on because I am not done quite yet. Another thing you should know is that yoopers are yoopers and they are not at all embarrassed about any choice of dress they may have... or much else for that matter.

They dress and live in a style that is for the most part, strictly utilitarian and that suits me fine. However, at any time of the day, you may be driving along or stopping to visit a neighbor and he/she may be in their underwear… long or short… robe, pajamas, whatever. No one seems to be embarrassed, no one rushes to cover up. Heck, you can be driving along down the road and look over towards a house and in the picture window might be the man of the house, standing in full view from the road, in his tightie whities and cup of coffee in hand. He won't hide... he'll just wave and take another sip of coffee.

So, I go to get my precious eggs and the fella was (at least) in his sweatpants... no shirt, no shoes, whiskers and white hair all wild in the wind, and he was smoking like a chimney stack. (I should mention another thing that seems to run in this family is that as they get a little older their hearing is not what is used to be. So this was a rather noisy encounter. ) He waives me in, hollers that he has a couple dozen eggs for me, and wants to show me his recent kills. So, I follow him into the house chatting loudly. As I walk through the door, immediately on my right is a fresh coyote pelt… not quite this fresh...

but fresh enough because being rather observant I noted it still had red blood on its ears and not dried brown blood. Then I quickly scanned the room and saw there were various stuffed animals of one kind or another all around the room. A bit like Norman Bates’ waiting room at the hotel…


yes... THAT hotel. Anyway, there was a badger up on top of a file cabinet, a set of weasels with their white winter coats forever frozen in a mock play scene on top of a bookcase… birds of various kinds… and of course the obligatory deer heads on the wall. I should mention that this fellow really does have quite a reputation as a good trapper and has taught his grandsons as well (the bear hunting teen mentioned earlier). Well, we got to talking about the weasels… apparently he trapped one the other day. He told me that out in the wild, and during the right time you can trap weasels when they are wearing their white winter coats.

However, he said the one he just got was still brown. It was going after his chickens.


I know I know.. they are cute but they really are quite ferocious
and I WILL fight them for the eggs.

He pointed to the two white weasels up on the bookcase while he was talking at which time I turned my head again to look at them. While my head was turned he moved to the freezer, pulled out a bag, and before I really had a chance to think about it slid a frozen brown weaselsicle out of the bag directly into my hands.

Oh dear.

I played it off, looked the weaselsicle over real good... let him know I was pretty impressed with both his weasel and the coyote... and asked a few questions about the dens we keep finding. From my description he thinks they may be badgers. I believe I will take his word for it.

I like this next picture.

P.S.
This has turned out to be a long post. Look what I found when I looked out the window this morning:


Actually, I lie. I found it much earlier than this morning. I was up around midnight and even though there was no moon you could look out our windows and see the snow in the trees, and a silhouette of deer feeding down at the molasses block we have by the woodpile. I watched them for a few minutes before I went back to bed.

Labor Day and Avocado deprivation

I don't know who said you are not supposed to work on Labor Day weekend... that never really seems to apply very much around here. Not to worry though, we did get some brats going on the grill along with some home made ice cream with handfuls of wild blueberries poured on top! You are probably not feeling so sorry for us now!

David and Doug finished the ceiling and got the fans on.

They look fantastic! This photo is at a strange angle because I am standing in the living room looking towards the loft window. The larger fan is centered over the living room and that smaller one with the light will be over the bed in the bedroom loft. The trim around the fans and seams of the wood between living room and loft will come later. That will define the space between loft and living room a little bit. They discussed the stairs awhile, we made some changes, and then the guys moved on to trimming out the windows and the doors.

There is even a door on the bathroom now!

Wowee what a great idea! A door on the bathroom! That is kinda handy!

Here is the missing picture of the toilet. :)

Also below is the tile in the guest shower downstairs...
waiting for grout and shower head.

There was a little excitement though... for David anyway. He was working on the house (as usual) and so were the new neighbors over at the log cabin a couple lots away. The family owned the old cabin that stood there and are now putting up a new vacation home.

Old:

New:

They came up from Chicago (they being the husband, wife, college age son, and younger daughter) to do a little work on the house and probably just check it out as they have not seen it since the construction started. Anyway, while applying some stain to the logs the owner fell off his ladder! David was working away and here comes the little girl running up the hill yelling that her Daddy fell off the ladder. David ran down to help the man. Turns out the man broke two ribs... in two places! He has been in the hospital for two nights now. He fell off the ladder onto deck joists (there is no decking down yet). He was very lucky, he could have broken his back just as easily. The family has been carrying on with the staining but how awful for them!

This weekend was the annual Fly In here in Sidnaw. I suppose the best way to explain it is that it is like a poker run... sort of... for private planes along a string of small airports with Sidnaw as one of the stops. That is my understanding anyway. So, several private planes land at our airport along with their camping gear and the party begins! There are craft booths, and people can pay between $30-$50 to ride in a helicopter, an ultra light, or some parasail scooter kinda ultralight thing.

Kids who were at least 8 got to ride in the ultralight for free! There is also a fund raising Soup and Sandwich feed and rummage sale at the church to benefit the Historical Society. This is the second year we have been to the Soup and Sandwich feed. For $4 you get a choice of 5 home made soups, a choice of 5 types of sandwiches, a choice of home made desert, and a drink. I picked Jane Wyatt's (nee: Kennedy) Corn Chowder again... it is absolutely the best I have had. No kidding. I wish they would do it more often! Its a great fundraiser and is very popular.

After the doings in town, we had a barbecue dinner at Jerry's.

I am wearing that darn knee brace so I did not get to prep in my normal hostess type fashion. Joy had to do most of it. Much thanks to her! The party goers were the normal crowd... David, Me, Jerry, Joy, Dick, Richard, and then you toss in Terry and the new neighbors (Lori and Lon and their family) who are re-doing the old hotel in town and plan to retire there as full time residents.

Here is Terry fishing a golf ball out of the creek with Lon's help.

Here is the hotel again. You may remember it from my tour of Sidnaw.
The hotel will take a lot of work but it has great character and a very pretty setting.

They (Lori and Lon) were originally friends of Joy, Dick, and Richard and are VERY nice folks. Seems like a lot of people end up moving here after visiting friends who live here.

There was actually a lot of Hershey's around this weekend...
and I think Keith and Heidi are coming next week...

It has actually been very nice getting to meet the family members.
Hmm... notice any familial similarities?
Terry is the oldest of the five kids... David is the youngest.

As mentioned above at the party we enjoyed grilled brats etc. AND... as I have already mentioned I usually try to make some kind of veggie dish but was unable to this time. Fortunately for my palate the new neighbors, Lori and Lon came through with a broccoli dish.

I must say one thing about veggies though... I miss avocados.

I know I know... according to some scientist somewhere they are not a veggie but a fruit.

What-ev-er.

I don't really care... I just know I miss them. I mean... just LOOK at this:

Oooo man.

I can actually remember the first time I ever tasted one. We lived on South Grant Street and I must have been pretty young. I remember biting it and then leaning over onto the chair seat and spitting it back out... bright green foam... right onto the seat. Yuck. I also remember the distance between my mouth and that chair seat was not very far so I was still a little kid... anyway.... I hated them.

Oh how I have changed.

I had not realized how much David and I enjoyed them, until we did not really have access to them anymore. When I would go to the co-op in Ukiah I would always get one or two... Even in the middle of the stark Northern California winter (cough cough) I could usually find one that was delicious. If they actually made it to the dinner table we were lucky.

They don't have avocados in Michigan.

Well, they have them but no one seems to know what they are because they sit on their styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic on the grocery shelves until they spoil. I am not quite sure yet why grocery stores up here tray some of their veggies like that. I probably don't really want to know. However, even the avocados not imprisoned in plastic by the time I get to them they are wrinkled, black, and squishy. Rotten. The tragedy of it all!

As I was looking around the internet for photos of the lovely avocado to post here, I found a few other people who love them even more than I do. I have included a haiku and a poem celebrating love for the creamy green treat.

People are interesting.

I suppose I could have taken the safety screening off of my search engine and found even more disturbing things about avocados but I decided against that. What I might have found could have scarred me for life...



Here are the odes to the avocado I found. The haiku first and then the poem:

Well, geez... I dunno about all that.
I just know I could use a good guacamole once in awhile.

Or as my niece used to say when she was little bitty... Rocknrollee.
You could tell she was an Elvis fan from the beginning.
I think it's in the genes.