The Janowiec family came down to Whitewater for a pre-Christmas get together—one of Mimi's traditional roast beef Sunday dinners.
The weather more suited to a pre-holiday party, and Mimi was able to cook with the windows closed. But just as last Sunday, the office was a busy place with lots of typing, printing, envelope stuffing, and phone calls.
Not above freezing all day, which seems appropriate, for this time of year.
Mallards chilling in warm flood water.
And a few hints of ice, here and there.
A far cry from last year at this time, and an even farther cry from two years ago at this time. But a bright, chilly day, and Pax got a brush and a bath and a good long walk, so we enjoyed it.
Here in Whitewater we are now down to 9 hours of daylight (as we close in on the solstice) and that means 15 hours of darkness. Of course, it's worse in Kagawong—just 8.39 hours of light. But it's better in Rockport where the inhabitants bask in 10.22 hours of luxurious light almost every day.
Maddie was the soloist at today's preschool Christmas program, and she did a fine job—no stage fright, and right on pitch. The large crowd in attendance was impressed.
To borrow a title from Eric Sloane. Rain overnight and well into the morning.
Then a front roaring through, boiling up windrows of dramatic clouds and, eventually, the need for sunglasses.
But by afternoon flat gray skies once again. The temperature is dropping and the barometer rising, but there is really still no sign of winter.
A little sun this morning, but then the clouds moved in. Everything remains squishy, and there is more precipitation in the forecast. Whitewater Creek is high on its banks.
None of us went outside much at all today—Sue at the sewing table and me in the basement workshop. And Pax is still spooked about going outside. But he and I are working on his phobia. No gunfire on meterologically unpleasant weekdays, so we can walk, and we take alternative paths, and we stop now and then to relax and enjoy life. In this town here is always some kind of odd sound every so often, but we are learning to accept them and to move on.
Rain all day and much of last night. Even a flood warning. The big question for me is what this implies for Lakes Michigan and Huron. The past two years the Great Lakes have had record ice cover and water levels have risen as a result. This year there will be no ice cover, apparently. But, however, and on the other hand, will all the frequent precip events counteract the lack of ice?
A significant neighborhood ash now among the fallen.
Ice boat work (new rebuilt tandem trailer and Wombat redevelopment) is coming along well, if slowly. But this year slowly seems to be fine as there is no ice on the horizon.
Back to snacks. Char commented on a previous post:
Hello Sweet Sibs and Cousins,
Do you remember Lucy's dates, stuffed with cream cheese and a nut--a walnut, I think--then rolled in powdered sugar. They were a holiday staple, as I recall.
--Char
I for one am sure I do remember them, and as is well known, my memory is close to flawless. The memory I have is that of a young kid—and those stuffed dates were somewhat scary looking but tasted heavenly!
The Nies family came down to Whitewater for a pre-Christmas get together—one of Mimi's traditional roast beef Sunday dinners.
Ellie recovering from a bad head bonk.
High temperature in the mid 60s, and pouring with rain. But lots of fun indoors, especially "working" in the office. Ellie typed up and printed multiiple copies of a list of winter clothing. Maddie wrote words so small we needed a loupe to read them, and Becca, downstairs, cooked a full course meal on the play stove. And once they had my number, both older girls used the house phone to keep my cell ringing off the hook.
Some blogs are so darn good the system automatically posts them twice.
Over to Madison for climate rally organized by 350.org. Perhaps if it had been snowing rather than foggy, attendance would have been greater. There were more people at REI than on the Capitol steps, but we were glad to be part of the movement. And the news out of Paris is good!
Inside the Capitol, in the rotunda, a brass band was playing Christmas carols, which in my estimation was a bad idea; with the sound echoing around the marble dome and hallways we listeners were treated to at least eight bars at once, and each song went on quite a long time after the conductor waved the last beat.
As part of our outing we also visited Mount Horeb where Pax and I again walked past one of our favorite trees—a very old weeping beech.
A few posts back I mentioned a book that I failed to finish: H Is For Hawk. Nothing against the author (except perhaps a bit too much self-absorbed sentimentality). Anyway, here is a clip from an article of hers in the NY Times:
**********
Increasingly, knowing your surroundings, recognizing the species of animals and plants around you, means opening yourself to constant grief. Virulent tree diseases hit the headlines, but smaller, less visible disappearances happen all the time. The flycatchers that nested in my neighborhood 10 years ago have vanished; meadows in my hometown that were full of all kinds of life have become housing developments full of nothing but our own. People of a certain age tend to look back elegiacally at the things that have gone: the store you used as a kid that closed, the room that became a memory. But those small, personal disappearances, however poignant, are not the same as losing biodiversity. Brands are not butterflies. Changes to city skylines are not the same as acres of beetle-blasted trees: Though they are caught up in stories about ourselves, trees are not ever just about us. They support complex and interdependent communities of life, and as forests slowly become less diverse, the world loses more than simply trees. It has been suggested that the rise of Lyme disease in many parts of North America and Europe is in part because less-diverse forests favor the ticks that carry it.
I am old enough to remember elms and the landscapes they made; people only a few years younger than me do not, and to them the elm-free fields are reassuringly normal. Are we now becoming inured to a new narrative of nature, in which ecosystem-level change in accelerated time scales is part of the background of everyday life? Children who are growing up watching glaciers retreat and sea ice vanishing, villages sinking, tundra wildfires raging and once-common trees disappearing — will they learn to regard constant disappearance as the ordinary way of the world? I hope it is not so. But perhaps when all the ash trees are gone and the landscape has become flatter and simpler and smaller, someone not yet born will tap on a screen, call up images and wonder at the lost glory of these exquisite, feathered trees.
Over to Madison for climate rally organized by 350.org. Perhaps if it had been snowing rather than foggy, attendance would have been greater. There were more people at REI than on the Capitol steps, but we were glad to be part of the movement. And the news out of Paris is good!
Inside the Capitol, in the rotunda, a brass band was playing Christmas carols, which in my estimation was a bad idea; with the sound echoing around the marble dome and hallways we listeners were treated to at least eight bars at once, and each song went on quite a long time after the conductor waved the last beat.
As part of our outing we also visited Mount Horeb where Pax and I again walked past one of our favorite trees—a very old weeping beech.
A few posts back I mentioned a book that I failed to finish: H Is For Hawk. Nothing against the author (except perhaps a bit too much self-absorbed sentimentality). Anyway, here is a clip from an article of hers in the NY Times:
**********
Increasingly, knowing your surroundings, recognizing the species of animals and plants around you, means opening yourself to constant grief. Virulent tree diseases hit the headlines, but smaller, less visible disappearances happen all the time. The flycatchers that nested in my neighborhood 10 years ago have vanished; meadows in my hometown that were full of all kinds of life have become housing developments full of nothing but our own. People of a certain age tend to look back elegiacally at the things that have gone: the store you used as a kid that closed, the room that became a memory. But those small, personal disappearances, however poignant, are not the same as losing biodiversity. Brands are not butterflies. Changes to city skylines are not the same as acres of beetle-blasted trees: Though they are caught up in stories about ourselves, trees are not ever just about us. They support complex and interdependent communities of life, and as forests slowly become less diverse, the world loses more than simply trees. It has been suggested that the rise of Lyme disease in many parts of North America and Europe is in part because less-diverse forests favor the ticks that carry it.
I am old enough to remember elms and the landscapes they made; people only a few years younger than me do not, and to them the elm-free fields are reassuringly normal. Are we now becoming inured to a new narrative of nature, in which ecosystem-level change in accelerated time scales is part of the background of everyday life? Children who are growing up watching glaciers retreat and sea ice vanishing, villages sinking, tundra wildfires raging and once-common trees disappearing — will they learn to regard constant disappearance as the ordinary way of the world? I hope it is not so. But perhaps when all the ash trees are gone and the landscape has become flatter and simpler and smaller, someone not yet born will tap on a screen, call up images and wonder at the lost glory of these exquisite, feathered trees.
Another memory gone wrong. Not Limburger but this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liederkranz_cheese
"Take me to your Liederkranz!"
-John
It all started with Sherman. While visiting Aunt Janet he and AJ went into a Farm and Fleet where Sherm came across some (overly spiced) parched corn. That brought back memories:
About 60 years ago, your Dad once came home with a snack he called "parched corn". In later years, I was able to get this (not very delicate) delicacy in the form of "Corn Nuts". I hadn't had any for some time, so this past weekend while I was visiting Aunt Janet, and we went to Mill's Fleet Farm to pick up some supplies, I found a version of this treasure seasoned with something called habanero powder. It turns out that (purely by empirical evidence) this powder is a very potent pepper. But, even though my mouth felt like it was stung with a hundred cactus spines, I could not stop eating this highly addictive crunchiness. So my questions to you are 1) have you inherited your father's taste for this snack, and 2) do you have a good source of supply (sans the extra flavorings)?
Sherm
Being rather weak on long-term memory myself, I sent out an APB to Nies family members for more information, and lots of info came flowing in. Brother John seems to have had the most authoritative:
Hi all, What lousy memories you all have!
Here is the lowdown on parched corn! It was always cooked by dad. It is Dried field corn, removed from the cob. Cooked in a dry frying pan until the corn "pops" or is parched. The addition of a bit of butter makes the salt stick. Corn nuts are deep fried soaked corn available in several flavored from Kraft Foods.The original process came from "Uncle Leon Wheeler."
--John
But, just as it seemed that the parched corn issue was settled, Sherm stirred thing up again:
"I just had another of my favorite snacks: herring fillets in wine sauce. And it occurred to me that the first time I ever had that was one New Year's Eve when your Dad passed out a traditional treat for the occasion, which included that very snack."
Sherm
All I can say to that is, "Of course."
Yes, I remember the herring on New Years Eve. I hated it! I hated the smell! But, we all had to take one bite on a cracker for good luck through the next year. I also did not like Dad's stinky cheese! --Trin
Fortunately, John came through again, with the article below. But, before we get there, I have to say that pickled herring is right near the top of the essential foods list for me, and (I'm pretty sure) for John as well. But it has to come from Ma Baensch!
So, check out Ma Baensch. I posted a photo of the shop about a year ago which I snapped on the way home from a meeting at UWM.
Now——— I'm starting to hope Sherm doesn't bring up Connie's fudge or Granny's Dundee cake. And I agree with Trin that Limburger cheese should never be brought into the house.
The long stretch of calm has given way to gusts from the southwest at over 40. At Bywater Lane tonight. Will and I took a short bike ride (first time for me on a bike in eight weeks) to the trail leading down a steep ravine to the lakeshore, where the wind was muted by the high bluff to weather. On the way home we nearly got blown off the road.
A good adventure. After dinner Katy and I had a thumb-wrestling contest for which she made elaborate charts to record the scores.
Here at this latitude we are down to just a few minutes more than 9 hours of daylight. Added to that, the chilly, miasmic fog that has been clinging to everything the past week or so makes for dingy days. This afternoon, however, the sun broke through and we had a beautiful April afternoon.
Time for a change. The glass is dropping slowly, so perhaps we can have some wind, snow, or ice. We need bad weather to stop the shooting. Pax tried to be brave on our walk today but found it hard. How there can be anything left to kill when sporadic shooting occurs within hearing distance of central Whitewater from sunrise to sundown on a Wednesday in December?
...Title of a current best-selling book, which I bought but quit somewhere around chapter three.
Anyway, our hawk is back. Considering all the avian activity in the neighborhood it was only a matter of time. When Hawk is here nobody else is. Following his departure things are quiet for about half an hour, but eventually normalcy returns and we carry on.
Pax has come very close to reducing he number of squirrels around the feeder, and today he got a mouse, but he is still suffering from PTSD and was reluctant to do our usual prairie walk. You might think that with all his anexity he would have a little empthy.?
***********
Moving up the ladder and into current events:
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire
Dim, damp, chilly. but not at all wintery.
Squirrel nut zippers.
Clearly, the walnut (Juglans) is a good friend to squirrels. As are bird feeders. This season the feeder has been slammed, which I don't quite understand, since the weather has been mild and any snow quickly melted away. The back yard, and the surrounding neighborhood have been very birdy places.
I have discovered that safflower is unpalatable. One bird-seed mix I put in the feeder incuded safflower as a component, and it has been universally rejected. The jays, with a flick of the head, fling it far from the feeder, where it lies on the ground, untouched by sparrows, finches, cardinals, nuthatches, doves, juncos, and chickadees. Even the squirrels turn up thier noses. Even the squirrels.
Online shopping (or attempted shoppping) plus some lower level workshopping.
Fog this morning, and another difficult walk with Pax. Hardly out of the driveway he heard distant gunfire and wanted to go back. I decided we would walk anyway, which was probably a bad idea. I thought it might be good to try to tough it out, with occasional stops for calm encouragement, but no. It seemed that as soon as we got our minds off gunshots and onto smelling good stuff, another distant volley would knock us back to terror. So, it is looking like weekend walks during November and December are going to have to be eliminated. Training Pax to ignore gunfire is right up there wih training him to fly. Is it genetics or past traumatic experience? I think both. And while Pax will never learn to love shooting, I have learned that forcing the issue during the endless hunting season here in Wisconsin is not a good idea.
******
I would also like to suggest that if you like to hunt you should use your teeth, a knife, a spear, or a draw bow. Shooting is unsportsmanlike, and really annoys some dogs.
(Borrowiing from, and somewhat debasing, Henry Reed)
Today we had the moving of iceboat parts, specifically runners and plank from one location to another. Fortunately, we were able to stop for lunch at our favorite restaurant in Whitefish Bay. Considering the weather, we were glad nobody asked us what we were doing.
Christmas classics?
********************
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel, Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have the naming of parts.
No need for a coat while waking today. Pax and I to Walworth and Lou's shop to retireve the problematic iceboat plank that has to go back to the builder because he chocks are too small for our standard Sarns iceboat runners. No little irony here: a 60 degree day on December 4 and we're talking iceboat. Ice? Did you say ice?
Actually, Bob and Lou are attending a regatta this weekend on Lake Christina, near Alexandria, MN. They have ice, but it is thin and wet.
Here's the two-up iceboat trailer Bob and Lou are rebuilding for #10 and #165.
Tonight, for dinner, it's Great Lakes yellow perch (from Canada) and butternut squash from the back yard.
Saturated, even to the point where the sump pump has reactivated itself, which seldom happens as the house sits rather high, and the land slopes away on three-and-a-half sides.
The creek, while not flooding, is high in its banks and running strong.
We were able to walk the prairie today without gunshots (rare anywhere in the country these days) so Pax was fine, but the low spots were not only damp but deep, and Sue had to wade through ice water in tennis shoes.
I hope deliberations are going well in Paris.