Hodgepodge

The refrigerator saga carries on.

The old thing is struggling to keep cool so I've added bags of ice and some ice packs, which are helping. Even so, it's not a proper temperature in there. Last evening we had a dinner of chicken wings with eggplant, summer squash, fennel and green onion. All mixed into leftover wild rice. The whole thing worked surprisingly well together. I have a large container of turkey stock I'll turn into soup today. I don't think Mark's heart could take it if I had to throw out food!

It's another dreary day, it's also my laundry day. I guess I should get to it, my coffee is nearly gone, time to put on an act of productivity.

***I need to add, I've changed the comment function to pop-up. I wasn't able to comment on my own blog last night and have been having trouble commenting on others. This is what they have done and it worked. Any replies are at the bottom of comments, which isn't ideal. 

And....more

Asparagus and fennel soup for lunch on this dark and dreary day. 

I will be using eggplant, more fennel, spring onion and whatever else may strike me in a sauté this evening for dinner. I have a Misfits order coming tomorrow, ordered before the refrigerator problem so I want to get as many vegetable out of the refrigerator as I can before the new one arrives. The refrigerator section isn't cooling well as of today. I believe it's done after twenty years of running well.

If you haven't paired asparagus with fennel, it's quite good. I expanded on the flavor of fennel by adding tarragon toward the end.

Last post of the day. I promise.

Yesterday I ordered this refrigerator.

 

I got over my stubborn ways after a wise person (thank you, Lori) pointed out prices aren't likely to come down. My cynical self knew this somewhere inside, but was trying to avoid facing that sad fact.

I spent at least half of a day searching the internet for what I would like combined with what I am willing to pay. This was finally my pick. I had a bottom freezer in the mid 1980s and loved it. I am also partial to clean lines. I know I shouldn't let that influence me in a needed, utilitarian purchase, in which I have a limited amount I will spend, but I did. With that in mind, I am getting a smaller cubic foot appliance. I wanted counter depth which cut space and it is 5" less in width. I will adjust, it's only two people living here after all.

Delivery is scheduled for Friday. Hopefully there won't be any snags. Now I've made the decision I want it yesterday!

We had a Minnesota hurricane in the early morning hours. I can't recall anything like it, the wind was howling and pounding, the rain didn't know where to go. It was awesome and frightening at the same time. It rained all day today, anticlimactic after the show put on a few hours early.

We had a fine dinner of steelhead trout and Minnesota wild rice. Steelhead and walleye are my favorite fish. One is more affordable than the other.

It's relatively early but I feel exhausted. I think I will call it a night.

One Thing or Another

You know the saying, "when it rains, it pours". It's pouring. Last month my dishwasher stopped draining. It could be something as "simple" as a clog. That simple will be expensive and then may not be the problem. I decided not to roll the dice on a 12 year old appliance. So, I've been doing dishes by hand because appliances are  now even more expensive than they have been and I can wait. It makes a great dish drainer! This is rain.

What makes it pour? 

The freezer part of my side-by-side refrigerator isn't working properly and the gaskets and side wall got hot. I cleaned the coils, which didn't help. This appliance looks new but is 20 years old. I'm not going to have a service call on a 20 year old refrigerator. I have a chest freezer in the basement, thankfully. I made reference awhile ago to my tendency to food hoard. My freezers are both full, so it was quite the task to squeeze it all in one freezer. 

I am finding the positive. I don't need to hoard food in a freezer. I have multiples of meat, lots of it. Frozen vegetables by the bushel. There are four loaves of purchased bread, which we rarely use. I put a thermometer in the defunct freezer, if it is cold enough to refrigerate I'll use it as a refrigerator. I can go without the freezer part until autumn when I start freezing produce. Perhaps by that time appliance cost may come down. More to the point, I will be forced to use what I have instead of constantly adding more. I don't know where this came from, one thing I did not have in my life is hunger. 

As far as literally pouring, tonight and through the day tomorrow it is going to rain. Again.

I'll leave it with that.

Ho Hum

I follow a small handful of blogs. Of those, I am unable to reply on a couple. I'm prompted to sign in, when I click the prompt it goes right back to sign in. I'm sorry I can give no reply, I do keep trying. The other couple I have no issue with, so I really don't know what is wrong.

I braised a beef roast in creamy dark lager a few days ago and used it in a different way for last evening's dinner. Leftovers usually become a pasta dish, a casserole or gratin. It was better than it looks!

Mark was going to have dinner with his brother and sister-in-law tonight but his brother has a bad cold. It's something that has made an appearance again, the cold. There was a positive effect from masking and avoiding crowds, colds and flu barely happened. I think we may be longterm maskers, just to avoid that. Instead of dining in a nice restaurant he will be having leftover pizza. One of life's hardships.

We are going to have an all day rain tomorrow, like that is something new. I do have day lilies coming up, that's it. 

Well, that's about all there is. There's some task awaiting my attention....

The sun has made an appearance and it's 38 degrees F. Yippee!!! We are edging closer toward spring, by golly. The ice is still on the lakes in Northern Minnesota according to the morning news guy. At least we are ahead of that. This is an old photo, but it's what spring has looked like this year. To be fair, what it often looks like.

Onto my continuing saga of health woes and news; I have an appointment with a massage therapist next week. I'm looking forward to it and not. If you've not had deep tissue massage, the first day or two are a misery. It releases a lot of toxins and the body rebels. The first time I had it I was cursing her name. By day two I was singing the hallelujah chorus! I do know what to expect, which is good and not so good.

I'll leave you with another flower from my rose garden, which is no more. Smell the roses while they last.

Thoughts and Wanders

Miss Naughty Pants

My unusual little twerp decided to help me with laundry yesterday. I don't know for sure if it's a look of defiance or just Frieda. Which would make it one and the same!

Another daily weather report, it is 30 degrees at the outskirts of the Twin Cities, this 26th day of April. The weather guy said this morning all indications are we will have an above average hot summer. Again. It's becoming average for Minnesota to have heat and humidity not befitting a far northern state. What will happen is one day we will go to bed below freezing and the next we will wake up to 90 and tropical humidity. This has been the biggest reason why my outside space has started to deteriorate, I cannot take that kind of weather. I lived in Atlanta for a couple of years, it wasn't for me. But now it has become our norm.

I have stated a few times that I have become barely mobile over the last eighteen months or so. I've been through the medical loops and physical therapy. I've done the exercises, I use my pedal machine and treadmill. I'm not better. I am going to try deep tissue massage, I'm so tight. I have come to a conclusion that it is stress related. There is no medical problem with my hips or back, yet I cannot stand straight nor walk more than a few feet at a time. A friend who is a psychiatric nurse suggested I consider therapy but I don't really want to delve too deeply into that can of worms. He did himself and thinks I should. I'll try massage therapy first. I bought and then did not read the book "The Body Keeps Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. Another friend had a pile of books she'd purchased on her Instagram yesterday and that was one of them, which reminded me I have it. I should probably read it.

I hope we have some weather were I can tend and enjoy my flower beds. It is cathartic. In the meantime, I am using a lot of the wood Mark spent hours chopping and stacking, so there is that to enjoy. A nice evening fire with music and a glass of red wine.

Domani Amiche

Apruary

....As in January in April. I wasn't the clever one to come up with this, that pat-on-the-back belongs to a local news guy. It was 30 degrees this morning, we will reach the balmy heights of 36 degrees today. Alleluia, pass the parkas!

Mark got the vines off the arena fence yesterday. The entire south end collapsed when he took the vines off. The posts had rotted and the only thing holding them up were the vines. It looked like dominoes, coming down one after the other. This confirmed it truly is time to say goodbye to the outdoor arena. 

I bought purple sweet potatoes from Misfits last week. I had no idea they existed. I made fries for lunch in the air fryer and they were good. These are drier and slightly sweeter than the sweet potatoes I would call normal. I guess I'm not too old to learn something new. I got an order today and I have to say I get the best fennel I've ever bought from them. I love fennel. Can I say something about the air fryer? In 2020 I was about two thirds of the way through getting Kate's house ready to sell. I went there, toward the end, 6 days a week. It was a two hour forty minute round trip drive. I was in my kitchen, feeling worn out and had the tv on, Emeril Lagasse came on hawking his product. I picked up my phone, ordered it. Without any thought. Exhaustion impulse buying. I used to be impulsive but got over it years ago. Not this time. It is one of the most used items in my kitchen! Sometimes just doing it works. Well, at least this time it did.

Tonight I will makes linguine with fennel, asparagus, lots of garlic and shrimp for dinner. I have had two days of braising, a brisket and a shoulder roast. Time for something other than beef. I'll get into my freezer hoarding another time. It's real.

Tripod and Treadmill

 Jiggs knows the true and proper use of a treadmill: cat perch.

We had a kitten move into the barn during the winter of 2015, a pretty pastel tortie. Time slipped by and she became pregnant before we got her spayed, resulting in four kittens. Two male, two female. Jiggs is one of those cats. She formed a habit of disappearing for weeks at a time during the summer. The last time was 2018 and she was gone for a couple of months. I had decided she wouldn't be returning, and then she did. She came home thin, dragging her left front leg. There was no feeling below the knee joint. She was brought in as a full-time house cat and I wrapped her leg so it wouldn't be rubbed raw. I knew it would need amputation but she was in bad shape and needed to improve before I put her through that. In the mean time the leg contracted under her chest, which took away the dragging. She has use of her shoulder and gets around as if nothing is wrong. She's able to jump and run and tussle with Frieda. She has never looked back, once made to stay inside, as if she knew it's for her best interest. 

On another note, it's once again blowing gale force wind. The horses don't like it. I don't like it. This month has been one for the record books where wind is concerned. We may end up in Oz.