I spent some time this past week working on getting our computer working again, so hopefully we won't have anymore problems. While I was back in the office working on that I kept hearing this odd "bumping" noise. I finally got to a point in my computer repair efforts where I could investigate the noise, and it soon became evident what was causing it. A robin was perched on the fence outside the office and he was flying up against the window. We actually had a robin do this last year, in the same spot, so I wonder if it's the same robin? I believe that birds exhibit this strange behavior because they can see their reflection in the window, so they "attack" the reflection thinking it is another bird. I put the window blind down so he wouldn't be reflected in the glass, and he stopped his attack. This tactic had worked last year so I figured it would again. Some time afterwards I was in the den watching TV and I saw a robin fly onto our back porch and bump up against the sliding glass door! There is no way he could have seen his reflection from outside the porch, so I have concluded that he is just a crazy robin. He then perched on top of our little freezer out there, and I said to him, "You are flirting with danger, Mr. Robin, because the back porch is Summer Girl territory!" He must have heard me because he flew off and I haven't seen him since. Below is a very short video of him flying up against the window. Don't blink your eyes or you'll miss it!
SNOW PICTURES
Since I have posted so many pictures of the snow from the vantage point of our front porch, I decided it was time to post a picture with a different view point, so here is one I took from out of the truck window on 02/08/17. You can barely see our little Union Jack flag peeking out above the snow.
Snowed In
We have had some rain and much warmer temperatures lately, so here is a shot of this same view from today (02/22/17).
The Thaw Has Begun
We are glad to see the snow starting to go. Although it did snow Tuesday of this week, it was a very wet snow and didn't stick. Now we can actually see the ground in some places. Of course, now it is just like trying to walk in a swamp, it's so squishy.
PEPPERS
One of my projects this past week was to grind up my peppers that have been drying since October. I had so many peppers and I really didn't want to make just pickled jalapeno slices, so I put some out on a cookie sheet and left them there for about 5 months. It is so dry here that I figured it was worth a try. Here is what they looked like after drying:
Dried Peppers
Ground Peppers
We had an extra coffee bean grinder, so I used that to grind them up into a powder. My outfit for doing this was a pair of purple kitchen gloves and a respirator mask (that smelled like paint). You certainly don't want to get any of that powder on your hands or up your nose! I looked just like a mad scientist, too bad Linda was at work or else I'd have a picture to post. I mixed up some of the ground peppers into a Buffalo Spice Rub blend, but I haven't tried it out yet. There are some chicken wings on the menu for this weekend, so I will report back next week on how it tasted.
That's about all the news from here for this week, so check us out again next week to see what's happening in the Northwest!
This past week I have really had a frustrating time with my computer. It acted up for several days and I wound up having to reboot it several times just to get it to do anything. One day I could not get it to respond at all. So when I checked on it Saturday morning and it seemed to be working, Linda & I spent the rest of the weekend putting all of the pictures and videos from the last 6 years onto discs. I finally finished with the project on Monday. So, my advice to everyone is to back up your pictures and videos (and anything else you wouldn't want to lose) just in case this ever happens to you.
WEATHER REPORT
It seems as if the snow may have finally come to an end, at least for the time being. Linda checked on the snow accumulation statistics for this winter, and here is how it stands as of now:
December snow total: 7.4"
January snow total: 19.1"
February snow total: 11.3"
Winter total so far: 37.8"
The high temperatures have actually gone into the mid-to-high 30's and low 40's for the past week, so a lot of the snow has melted and we can actually see the ground in some places. But, who knows how long it will last. I am sure we haven't seen the last of the snow yet.
Picture taken January 9th
Picture taken February 13th
RECIPE
Someone suggested that I might want to include a recipe on the blog since I love cooking, so I am putting one in this week. My newest cooking endeavor that I really enjoy is baking. I never was much of a baker before because it can be an all-day-long thing and I didn't really have the time for it when I was working. But now that I do have the time, I try to bake something every week. Linda & I both enjoy a great loaf of bread, so I have concentrated my efforts in making homemade bread, with some pretty tasty results. My problem with putting a recipe on the blog is that I get so caught up in what I'm doing that I forget to take pictures, and I know that nowadays it is all about the pictures...if there isn't a picture, then it didn't happen. I made a fabulous focaccia the other day, but I didn't get any pictures of it. We like it so much that I am sure I will be making that again soon, and I promise I will try to get some pictures then so I can include that recipe in a future blog. Here is the recipe below for a pretty basic homemade pasta that I made.
HOMEMADE PASTA
Yields 4-5 servings
Ingredients for the pasta:
2 cups white flour
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of milk
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1. Combine flour, eggs, salt, milk, & butter in a large bowl. Knead together ingredients by hand until dough forms, 5-10 minutes.
2. When dough has formed it should be a smooth ball, and not sticky. If it is sticky, add a little more flour and knead some more.
3. Cut off a small piece of the dough ball, flour your hands, and roll it out under your palms on a floured surface into a long, pencil shape about 1/4" thick. Cut dough into 1/2" pieces and lay out on a plate, and try to keep the pieces separate so they don't stick together.
4. Bring a medium sized pot of water to a rolling boil, then quickly drop each piece separately into the boiling water. After all pieces are in, boil for 2 minutes.
5. Strain your boiled pasta in a colander. Place into pan with sauce or recipe you are making so it can soak up flavors.
After the pasta was done and drained, I combined it in with a stir-fry of some vegetables (mushrooms, carrots, onion, etc.) and let it all meld for a few minutes. It was pretty tasty!
Well, I was working on my blog post on Tuesday and I accidentally posted it before I was done, so it's going up a day early this week. Since today is February 14th, I want to take the opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day, and remember, what the world needs now is LOVE.
Is the snow ever going to end? We can't believe how much it has snowed this year. We haven't seen the ground since December 8th, which was our first snow of the season. It snows, then it melts a little bit, then snows again. Linda is about to wear herself out shoveling the driveway (see picture below). It's only clear for a day or two, then it snows again. This year is one for the record books, at least as far as we are concerned.
The result of Linda's snow shoveling
As I am typing this (Wednesday morning), it has been snowing all morning and is supposed to continue through most of the day. Here is a picture I took of our back yard looking from off the back porch, a couple of days ago. Our flamingos, Fanti & Mingo, are still freezing their butts off! In a few months, the area behind the little white picket fence will be alive with fresh vegetable plants and I, for one, cannot wait!
Back yard view
UPDATE ON SUMMER GIRL
Since a previous post introduced you to our kitty, Summer Girl, I thought I would post an update on how her transition into being a part-time indoor kitty is going. She comes into the house every morning when Linda gets up and has a bite to eat. Then she goes down the hall to the bedroom and wakes me up. So much for sleeping in now. She even jumps up on the bed and, after a bit of meowing, settles down and is quite for a while. However, I can't go back to sleep then, so I usually get up around 6:00 or 6:30. I guess that is long enough to sleep anyway, and there is always the option of a nap in the afternoon. She also likes to come in and sit on our laps at night while we are watching TV.
Summer Girl and an old lady who wandered in
One of her favorite things to do is to get under the footrest of my recliner where my throw is draped because it is a dark hiding place. I call this her "Bat Cave" since she is very much like the Dark Knight. She is so dark that when you look at her, all you see is a black blob. Sometimes you can see her eyes, but most of the time she is like a black hole that sucks in all the light. She pretty much stays in the den with us now and so far has behaved herself, although she still wants to go in and out a lot. Of course, when she does go out she doesn't go far because of all the snow. It isn't very easy for a cat to walk in 12" of snow, but she does it from time to time, and shows up on the back porch with snow all over her back!
SUPER BOWL LI
Speaking of record books, I was disappointed in the outcome of the Super
Bowl. Although I didn't have a horse in that race (sadly, our Seahawks didn't
make it this year), I really wanted the Atlanta Falcons to get their
first ever Super Bowl win. But that was not to be. However, it was a
good game and we both thoroughly enjoyed the half-time show by Lady
Gaga. The commercials were definitely better than they were last year, as there were some pretty stupid ones then. At least some of the ones from this year made you stop and think for a minute.
COMPUTER PROBLEMS
There's nothing that can really stress you out quite like having computer problems. Yesterday, as I was trying to work on my blog, my computer just decided to freeze up, or so I thought. I tried everything I knew to fix the problem, googling this and googling that until I finally gave up and just left it alone for a while. Turns out it was installing Windows updates, but you would think they could have a screen pop up and say something like "sorry, but your computer isn't going to do what you want it to for a while so it can install updates." But no, nothing came up to tell me what was going on. So, today I turn it on and start working on my blog again and BOOM, my virus protection just disappears! I thought it was connected to what happened yesterday, so here I go, trying all the little tricks again. Finally I just let it be, and later I came back in to see a screen up telling me my virus protection program had installed all of it's updates. Thanks for the forewarning (not)! From now on when this infernal machine decides to stop working, I'm going to just walk away and let it fix itself.
I'm glad I got to finally finish my blog and get it posted so all of you know what is happening in the big city of Yakima. Or, at least what is happening around our house, because we can't go anywhere for all the snow. I promise when the weather gets better that I will post some pictures from around Yakima and not just our yard. That's all for now, hope you enjoyed this week's blog and be sure to tune in next week.
I mentioned in a previous post that I was joining the 2017 Reading Challenge on the Goodreads website (Goodreads). I didn't join it in 2016 and I wish I had because I would like to know exactly how many books I read last year. It's too late for last year, but for this year I have put down on my challenge that I will read 30 books in 2017. I am already 10% along toward my goal because I have read the first three books in "The Breakers" series by Edward W. Robertson. Right now I am reading the 12th book in the "Chief Inspector Armand Gamache" mystery series, A Great Reckoning, by Louise Penny. I read all the other books in this series last year except for the one previous to this one, and the only reason I haven't read that one yet is because our local library does not currently have the e-book available, and I didn't want to wait.
I like to read books on my iPad because this works out very well for me. If I want to stay up late reading, I don't need to have a light on and I can just put my iPad on the table and roll over when I want to go to sleep. Plus, I like the way an e-book works, showing the number of pages I have read versus the total pages in the book, as I like to see how I'm progressing. Also, I can adjust the brightness of the screen or make the font bigger if I want. Once I have finished reading a book, I enter it into my Goodreads account and I can even leave a review and rate the book for the benefit of other readers. It is a handy way to keep track of what you are reading, and I find that doing the challenge actually makes me read more than I probably would otherwise. So, if you are a avid reader I suggest you check out Goodreads. If you have an iPad or another type of e-reader (or even a smart phone), you should visit your local library's website to see if you can get set up to check out free e-books from the library. Believe me, it is the easiest thing in the world to do and you will have countless books available to you for free. If there is a book that I want to read but the library does not have it, I can recommend they purchase it. I have done this several times and our library has purchased almost all of the books I have recommended. Sometimes I have to wait for a book if someone else has it checked out, but I can get on the waiting list and the library will notify me when it becomes available. Our local library even has movies and audio books that I can check out. I am not sure if this is how all libraries work, but if you are interested it would be worth looking into.
Another thing you can check out if you like to read is the Little Free Library website. This is a very smart concept to encourage reading. A Little Free Library consists of a box set out at the curb in front of a house, into which the homeowner has put some books to give away. If your city has any Little Free Libraries, you just go to where they are located and see if they have any books you want, and if they do, you can take them. If you have any books you do not want, you can leave them there for others to take. The website will explain all about how it works and also has a map to locate the sites in your city. Be forewarned, though, that not all Little Free Libraries will show up on this map because for some reason it isn't very current. We have found some in Yakima that are not on the map, ans also some show up on the map but are no longer in the location indicated. But once you know what to look for, you can usually spot them around town. Also, word of mouth is a good way to find out about them, so using social media to ask your friends would probably help.
SKY WATCHING
One of our favorite things to do at night around here is to go out and watch the International Space Station (also known as the ISS) go over. Now I admit, this may not be very exciting to some, but we just love spotting it. There is a website, Spot The Station, that you can go to and enter your city to see when it will go over. You can also sign up to get an email alert on any day when the station is going over your location. Tuesday night (January 30th) we went out to watch it go over around 6:45pm. There was also a planetary conjunction that night between Venus, Mars and the Moon. It was a bit cloudy in Yakima, but the sliver of the moon was visible between the clouds, with Venus out in the clear beside it. We were not sure if we could see Mars or not, so we can't officially count that one. But as we stood on our driveway looking up at the sky, the Space Station suddenly popped into view right between the Moon and Venus! It was really quite something to see, and we kept watching as the Space Station moved across the sky. If you have never seen the ISS, I strongly urge you to check it out because you will not believe how fast it moves. Considering that it goes around the earth approximately every 90 minutes, you know it has to be moving out!
Also, we got a bit of sky watching in on Tuesday morning as well. Here was the view from our front porch.
The reason most of our videos show almost the same view right now is because it is very hard to walk on top of about a foot of snow and ice accumulation. So we tend to take videos from the safety of the front porch. The snow started sometime Monday night and went until about 10:00 on Tuesday morning. I would say we got another 2-3 inches on top of all the other snow we've had since before Christmas, so it is really piling up now. I believe this is the most snow we have seen since we moved out here in 2007.
That closes the book on January 2017. Here's hoping that February is a little less snowy. I hope to see you all back here next Wednesday, so until then, keep reading and sky watching!
