Stormy weaaaaatherrrr

 This is where we are at the moment

Rain coming in all directions, trees whipping back and forth.

So when the weather gets wild, the wild make soup.

Here's the stock simmering

And a sheet of cauliflower, onions, red and white, and garlic, ready to roast before adding in to make a spicy, creamy  curried soup.

There will be home made curry powder, salt, added turmeric, curry leaves, cumin and a  black pepper mix which includes cinnamon.

Meanwhile the visiting orchid, whose owner may or may not be back tomorrow, storm will probably change that, took her weekly brief dunk and drain.

Working backwards, yesterday I noticed a couple of birds checking the empty feeder, and since I'm out of suet blocks but want to encourage them to nest close by, I made a home version.

The peanut butter has been here for ages, just in case anyone suddenly wants some or I get so desperate I even eat it myself, and I crushed a few walnuts.

Spread on both sides of a bit of plastic canvas, enclosed it in a feeder for the dining pleasure of wrens and maybe woodpeckers.

And of course, you knew this all along, see who found it first

Well, I don't regret the peanut butter, but I wish the birds had a look in. The chief squirrel is a smart guy. I saw him checking the window in case I was about to run out and shout at him, before leaping up to the feeder.

And yesterday, after a lovely knitting group, complete with great idea sharing,  the Misfits box arrived, and you've already seen the next steps for some of the food.

I really like Turkish dried apricots, and now figs. They're a lot juicier than the American style, which I think is because they dry then pit, and the other method is pit then dry, which I think makes them leathery.

Anyway my breakfast is often a half wholewheat pita, stuffed with either apricots or, today, figs. Easy to assemble with half open eyes. 

The apples are my new favorite, Envy. They're small, crisp and sweet and very good. I don't like tart apples at all except for cooking.  Pink Lady, and all the ones with crisp in the name, all give me pains in the face when I bite in, ew. But Fuji, Gala and now Envy, are definitely for eating raw.

This is the end of your morning ag report.

The Downton Abbey movie was so fun, I'm planning to go Wednesday afternoons to catch other movies. 

This month the theme is country houses, and next week is The Remains of the Day. I've seen all the May offerings before but they're good enough to see again. And I'm promised snacks! Personal service.

Fight on! I donated yesterday to my NJ gotv group to enable another volunteer to pick up where I left off when my printer broke down. 

Someone else can now be helped finance the printing and mailing of registration applications for mail in voting, and be in touch with registered voters who haven't been voting in NJ districts. I directed mine to young POC. 

There are no funds for this, so volunteers have to finance it themselves. I can do it up to a point, but my budget's small, living as I do on a modest fixed income. Doing me bit! My little light.

Photo by AC

Remember Ukraine.

Thoughts too deep for blogging, ty Bill, and birdfeeders

Many thoughts today, about extroverts and introverts, current discussions online, with many participants unaware of the meanings. The Bill in the title above is Wordsworth, but you knew that.

And the successful DNS attack on the empire of the criminal enterprise formerly known as FB. Right after a major expose on national TV last evening by a whistleblower. 

But it's too much for the laborious one-finger typing which is how I do my blogging on a phone with a tiny screen.

More important in the existential sense is the ladybug that rode home with me in the car and is now flying free, reminding me that I may as well put out the bird feeders.

 The front one is settled into the Russian sage, so it feels safe to birds not used to a feeder right there. See the suet block hanging in there?

And the back one has an extra added basket I set up for birds who like suet but are not too adept with the no perch feeder.

They're used to feeding here. So are the squirrels. Very few squirrels around this year, though. Chipmunks put in their first excitable appearance yesterday. As long as they stay outdoors, it's fine.

Back to my book. 

How a dead battery caused chocolate bark

 When my neighbor moved my car for the snowplow, he commented when he brought back the keys that it was a hard start.  I thought probably because I hadn't driven it in a couple of days, and the very cold nights didn't help.  However, having had 20 years of driving a Honda Civic which literally never failed to start, ever, I had no experience in this issue. Then this morning I thought I'd just pop out and run the car for a few minutes to keep the battery working, too icy to drive about.  And found it was dead as a doornail. Oh.  

Appealed to the neighbors, since the other option was a two or more hour wait for AAA. And neighbor J. said, no, no, don't bother, I'll fix it.  Just lift the lid, I mean the hood.  Which I did, having found out how to do that, never did it before up to now.  Managed that, and she came out with a gadget I'd never heard of but now need, a portable battery jumper.  No need to use a second vehicle, I've been living in the dark ages.  She attached it, started the car in about two seconds, and said you don't drive this enough.  You need to do that.  Quite right.  I let it run for a few minutes, then did a little trip around the development before bringing it back.

Other neighbor says he agrees with me I need to have one of these clever things, and he will get hold of one for me, since he knows all about them, and I'm baffled by the hundreds of models and sizes and specs.  

So, since I'd hauled them out on a freezing Saturday when they'd probably just as soon not, and they were very obliging, as always, I thought, this is a destination for that bark I still haven't made.  So I added it to the agenda for the afternoon.

 

Two layers, dark then white, and I swirled it about with the spatula to make interesting shapes. You'll notice this is rather a small amount of bark, compared to the acres I made last time.  They seem to be putting fewer chocolate chips in those bags, or something. At least they seem to decrease as they sit in the fridge.  It's a mystery.

 And, after I'd had a good time hitting the bark to break it up, it joined the baked goods, which I decided would be blueberry hot biscuits.

Speaking of food happening, I put the feeder I used to have on the patio, which was now in the way of the forthcoming fence, out front.  I moved it once because birds didn't come, and I thought it was too near the window.  Birds didn't come.  I put a lot more plants on the kitchen windowsill, so as to give them a sense of not being overlooked. Birds didn't come.  Last night because it was very cold, I closed the kitchen curtains.

 A Carolina wren scouted the joint, didn't eat, but evidently went to put out the word, because today a little bunch of juncoes, then a couple of finches, showed up and have evidently accepted that this top of the line suet block is in fact food.  It's exactly the same food they've been getting here for years.  Then later the wren showed up back on the patio, and was evidently searching for the food in the "right" place. 

Boud vs Squirrels Round 36,578

So tired of obese squirrels swiping all the food, including ripping down and carrying away the feeder. I secure them with hinged split rings so they can't open the cage and carry off the suet. They just take the whole container.

Finally figured out an idea. Repurposed breadboard with hole already drilled, good because drill needs to be recharged. Well, found, and then recharged, but moving right along. First plan was to staple the cage to the board, which ran into a hitch when the heavy duty stapler went MIA. Soooooo duct tape ahoy.

Stay tuned. We'll see if the birds accept this strange new thing. There was a wonderful mass of birds yesterday before the squirrels half inched (rhyming slang for pinched) the feeder. All at once, red bellied woodpecker, Downy woodpecker, chickadees, mourning doves, Carolina wrens, tufted titmice, white throated sparrow bullying the juncoes, bluejays, white and redbreasted nuthatches.. Even saw a flicker at the feeder, very unusual, since they prefer tree stumps rich in insects.

I got carried away and hung a second feeder out front, to see from the kitchen window. No breadboard though.