Lemons turned to Lemonade? Well, Kinda'

There it was, the last weekend in APRIL and there was 9 inches of snow on the ground. We should have been out enjoying the spring in our backyard, but instead we had to have knee-high snowboots on in order to wade through all the darn stuff. So on Saturday afternoon Ole decided he wasn't going to let the snow get the best of him and he decided we were going to have a fire in the firepit in the backyard that night.

He hauled out the little snowblower, blew a path out to the firepit, blew out the surrounding concrete area, dumped all the snow off the chairs and loaded the pit with wood. Called some friends to come over - and we had a party.

He built a pretty big fire so we were all pretty warm. In fact it toasted our knees and some of us had to back up a bit.

So we took the lemons and turned them into lemonade and we didn't even use any "yellow snow." And goodness knows we've got plenty of that with two big shepherds running around here.

Lars and Lovely Daughter are flying the coop today - headed for Albuquerque, NM. Lars is quite a bowler and is involved in a high stakes tournament down there. They'll be gone for a week so Daisy and Beau will be spending the week at our house. Guess they're on vacation too because they'll get to sleep over here. Everyone's going on "vacation" except Ole and me (sniff, sniff). Big Brother lives about three hours from Albuquerque, so the kids will be renting a car and going to spend a few days with him when the tournament is over. Wish I was going too (sniff, sniff, wipes eyes with large hankie pulled from bosom of housedress). I haven't seen Big Brother for two years (blows nose hard with same hankie before stuffing it back into housedress). It would be easier to deal with staying home if there wasn't snow on the ground (sob).

Sympathy, people, I'm looking for sympathy here!!

Ole and Lena were ScandiHOOvian farmers who, unlike other ScandiHOOvians who farmed in northern Minnesota, farmed in the southern part of Minnesota, adjacent to the Iowa border. One day a surveyor came to Ole and Lena's farm to survey their property. After he finished, the surveyor met with Ole and Lena and said, "I surveyed your property, but I found a problem. All these years you thought your farm was in Minnesota, but my results show your farm is in Iowa." The surveyor looked at Ole and Lena for a response, but instead of them being upset, they looked pleased. "I thought you would be upset," said the surveyor. "Why do you both look so happy?" "Well," said Ole, "I'm so glad now. I didn't think we could stand another of those terrible Minnesota winters!"

Wormcicles

Drat!! and Damn!! and any other kind of profanity I can think of, okay?

We've had a huge flock of robins in our back yard that have been digging in the ground finding their lunch and eating what bugs have come alive in the warm temperatures lately. Occasionally you would see them manage to pull a worm out of the ground and then squabble over who was going to get to eat it. It started snowing yesterday afternoon, and it didn't take long before all the green grass was about covered. The robins remained, puffing themselves up to try to stay warm and continuing their hunt, but now for wormcicles pulled out through the snow instead of the green grass.

As of this morning I don't know what the poor birds will eat because we got 9 inches of snow overnight and it's still snowing. They were all sitting in the flowering crab tree this morning. Maybe they'll have to exist on the fermented crab apples that are still attached to the tree. I just hope they don't fall out of the branches down into the snow in a drunken stupor because they could get frostbite.

We met Bob & Carol down at the Watering Hole last night for supper. We had thought of going into the City just for a change, but by that time it was too nasty to go any farther than the Watering Hole. We were there for a total of about 90 minutes and when Carol went out to have a cigarette the visibility had become so bad it was time to go home. Fortunately it was still light out at that time, or we wouldn't have been able to see the driveway to turn and would have gone in the ditch. It was truly ugly out.

As of this afternoon all the interstates and major highways going all directions out of town are officially closed. The highway patrol isn't allowing any traffic out of town.

When will it end???

A Grand Funk - Again!

So far we've had a perfect spring melt. Warm thawing temperatures during the day and freezing at night. As of yesterday the fields were black, the ditches empty of snow with very little water standing in them with the only snow still visible accumulated in the trees around the farm sites. So the cabin fever that had been developing in my feeble little brain had mostly disappeared.

And then I woke up to THIS!!

Six inches of flippin' snow - heavy, wet snow. Will it never end?? How will the Easter Bunny ever manage to get through all of this stuff? He'll sink out of sight never to be found again.

So Ole is currently out blowing snow so that we can at least get in and out of our driveway. It's 10:30 and the snowplows haven't been out yet. There was just an announcement on the radio that they wouldn't be going out until the snow has stopped, which is forecast to happen around 4:00 this afternoon. Lovely Daughter and Lars left for work this morning with their 4-wheel drive engaged.

Oh, well, quitcher bitchin' - there's nothin' you can do about it anyway.

On to other things.

We have a new Super Walmart that has opened in our area. We had one previously, but it was waaay out on the west side of the city, (20+ miles) so I rarely went there. We had a regular old Walmart about 7 miles from my house, and that's the one I shopped at. Well, two weeks ago the old Walmart closed and the new Super Walmart opened so yesterday I made my first shopping soiree (neener) to the new store. I've done my grocery shopping for years at a local chain that's a bit more on the pricey side, but they have the best fresh produce and their own meat department where they do all their own cutting and packaging, besides cutting to order.

What I found was somewhat disconcerting - no - to be honest it made me downright angry. I was shopping for some Russet potatoes and was quite dismayed to find that they had all been packaged in Mexico. It was obvious that they had "been around" for quite some time as they were somewhat soft and wrinkled. Not nice and firm like a potato should be. What's going on here? I live in the middle of one of the largest potato producing areas of the United States and they expect me to eat potatoes shipped in from a foreign country? NOT!!! This prompted me to check more carefully on the other packaged produce - ALL OF IT had been packaged in Mexico, which also means that it had probably been grown in Mexico too. Who knows what kind of pesticides have been used on these items? I guess I certainly don't want to find out.

Then I went to find some tea biscuits - that was another exercise in futility and I left the store without them. Every package that was on the shelf had been squashed to the point that the biscuits looked like little pancakes. That's another thing about my local chain - they have their own bakery and are noted for their wonderful breads. They also make all their own deli selections - they don't ship it in in big tubs from some central warehouse.

What happened to Walmart's boast that they only sell American made products? Needless to say, I'll be doing my grocery shopping back at my pricey local chain where the food is fresh, they don't put the cleaning products in with the food items when they bag your groceries, they use paper bags that stand up instead of the plastic ones that allow your items to roll all over the back of the car on the trip home, and they carry your groceries out for you and put them neatly in your trunk or back seat. There's a reason my local chain is a bit higher priced, but I'm willing to pay for convenience.

And, oh yes, for those of you concerned about the use of paper bags by my grocery store. If you bring them back they issue you a nickel credit for each bag that is reusable. So they're not killing anymore trees than necessary.

So what are you having for Easter dinner/brunch? We're going to eat late afternoon and I'm making a turkey. We've had so much ham over the last month what with all the church ham dinners that have been around that I don't think I could swallow another piece. So turkey it is, with do ahead mashed potatoes, gravy, and all the other trimmings. We were going to go out for dinner on Sunday, but decided we'd miss the leftovers then. And besides, my back is finally better so I'm feeling up to cooking. It's not 100% yet, but almost.

And on that note I leave you with this:

Blame global warming!