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Dogs and Weather
Winifred Welles
I’d like a different dog
For every kind of weather –
A narrow greyhound for a fog,
A wolfhound strange and white,
With a tail like a silver feather
To run with in the night,
When snow is still, and winter stars are bright.
In the fall I’d like to see
In answer to my whistle,
A golden spaniel look at me.
But best of all for rain
A terrier, hairy as a thistle,
To trot with fine disdain
Beside me down the soaked, sweet-smelling lane.
So, this is my first time attempting to join a blog carnival of any kind. I thought I’d join in on Rocks in My Dryer’s “What Works For Me Wednesday” with a holiday theme.
This year, Nik and I are trying to do all of our shopping locally and by buying only handmade items. We’ve made a list, and buying handmade combined with making some of our own gifts, should complete our gift needs!
Here are a few of my current favorite sites:
1. The Littlest Bean: She sells adorable pins, clips, and other jewelry made from felt and other fabric. And she’s from Baltimore!
2. JennyJen42: Jen works at Nik’s high school and I’m in love with her felt bird ornaments and bags.
3. Biggs and Featherbelle: They sell all kinds of body products and are from Baltimore too!
4. Sew, Mama, Sew: This is an online fabric company. They sell all kinds of great fabric, not found at JoAnn’s. I ordered some fabric from them recently and it came quickly and was just what I’d ordered. Their blog is fabulous. They’re currently running a great series of blog posts about handmade gifts to make for grandparents, teachers, babies, pet lovers, you name it.
So, we’re supporting local business and finding great presents in the meantime. Works for me!
Happy Birthday Drew! 
(I think? I didn’t know it was your birthday!)
There was an Old Man in a Boat
by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man in a boat,
Who said, “I’m afloat! I’m afloat!”
When they said, “No you ain’t”
He was ready to faint,
That unhappy old man in a boat
Nik and I are always looking for recommendations for good books to read. Nik particularly enjoys good non-fiction while I tend towards the fictional side, although I enjoy non-fiction too. So, here’s what I’m proposing. Join Goodreads. Put on your recommendations. Add the books that you want to read. And then tell me that you’ve joined so I can add you to my list and read your recommendations. Here’s my bookshelf if you want to read mine. It’s a good place to keep track of good books that you’ve heard about and want to read. Let’s help each other read good books!
Nik is so wonderful. Without me asking him to do it, he just now took it upon himself to catalog and organize the whole chest freezer. That’s been on my list to do for at least 3 weeks. It’s basically full, and we don’t even have our lamb yet. So I guess we’d better get eating! Nik, having the computer science logical mind that he does, also made a very complete and useful list of everything that’s in the freezer and where. So here are some of our current stats:
15 quarts of green beans
4 quarts of raspberries
3 quarts of blackberries
6 gallons of broccoli
5 quarts of corn
9 quarts of summer squash
and the list goes on! We’d better start eating!
I’ll put up the comprehensive list once I get the pictures uploaded. It’s pretty impressive if I do say so myself. Bring on the winter!
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Please take the 10 minutes to listen to McCain’s concession speech. Here’s a link of one of the YouTube videos of it. It is so gracious and thoughtful; I was impressed.
And on a funny note, here’s The Onion’s take on Obama’s win. (The Onion is fictional, in case you haven’t heard of it.) (Fair warning – The Onion isn’t the cleanest website around – there’s certainly questionable content there. But this one is funny!)
A miracle.
There are no piles of paper that I need to put away.
Anywhere in the office.
This has never happened before.
At least not since I moved in, on June 23, 2007.
That’s not to say that they won’t start again.
But for now, I’m going to savor the bare expanses of desk, rug, sofa, and file cabinet.
Does your dining room table look like this? (That would be 5 pounds of green tomatoes, along with a huge bok choy, 2 1/2 pounds of chard, and eggplants if you’re curious.)
Then make this!
Here’s the link to Farmgirl Susan’s Green Tomato Relish. It’s very good, easy to make, uses up a lot of green tomatoes (2 pounds per batch), and is fun to have for the winter. Nik and I made it yesterday. We made a double batch and got 6 pints along with a little for eating yesterday. It’s quite vinegar-y and I think I must admit that it reminds me a smidge of Mom’s pickles that she made from sliced cucumbers zucchini when we were young. I remember despising those with a passion, really despising them. So I think either I have a bad memory and this doesn’t taste like those did – or my tastes have matured! Anyway, it takes a bit of time to chop all the stuff but then you just let it cook for an hour, put it into jars and process it for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath. Very easy and very good!
My only comment on the recipe is that she says not to use supermarket apple cider vinegar. I didn’t have anything else and didn’t have time to search out what she recommended. So I just used my Heinz apple cider vinegar that I had already. I’m assuming that it will be fine, if not as ideal. I also used Winesap apples. And she says that the cumin is optional but we definitely used it and it tastes great.
P.S. The more things I have in the freezer/canned, the more I feel the desire to can and freeze. I think I understand the squirrel’s drive to bury every last acorn he can find before winter comes.
Salmon and Souvlaki 