Look what I noticed this morning in my front yard! The maples have popped!
Such a welcome sight! And temperatures in the high 60’s today!
Now the next welcome sight I hope to see today is my name not on the list of reporting jurors for tomorrow!
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Addendum this afternoon: YES!!!!!!
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Superior Court of New Jersey/Passaic Vicinage
Jury Reporting Information
For Petit Jurors On
THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2012
JURORS DO NOT NEED TO REPORT FOR JURY DUTY ON
THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2012
YOUR SERVICE IS COMPLETE FOR 3 YEARS.
Neighborly crocus!
I struggled with what to call this entry. It’s a mishmash of stuff really. I’m sure you are wondering how it all goes together. Truth is; it doesn’t!
Alex continues to improve daily. Tomorrow I don’t think I am even going to give him the same amount of pain medications. Tonight I will start weaning him off and within a few days he will no longer need them. I don’t think he needs them now but I don’t want to stop him, shall we say, cold turkey.
I won’t be here tomorrow. I have to report to jury duty!*** Blech. I’ve never had to do this before and I am not looking forward to. Especially since I have to drive down to Paterson (not a pleasant place) to do it. I will no doubt spend the day in the selection room with a bunch of other potential jurors waiting around. I hope they see something in me that they don’t want in a juror and sent me packing. I am taking my iPad and a good book.
I am doubly not happy as the weather is truly glorious and will continue so during this week. Not a week I want to spend inside a stuffy courthouse!
Not in my yard but neighbor Luke’s. I love the striping.
My guest room do-over is now on hold until I know about this jury thing. Last week it was Alex; this week jury duty. Excuses, excuses. But really, I can’t move forward unless I am home. Very frustrating but I’m sure it will all sort itself out.
If you live in the U.S. and have been watching the news lately, you are familiar with the term “pink slime.” It’s a by-product of beef that has had the fat spun down out of it and ammonia added in to the whole (rather) digesting mix. This process is widely used (who knew?) in ground beef aka hamburger.
Now, I have to admit that one of my favorite meals is a really good hamburger. I might have to rethink that. When we make our trips back to Colorado/Wyoming for our cabin trips we are always struck by just how good the hamburger we buy at the grocery tastes. Like real beef.
With that in mind we set out to grind our own chuck yesterday. We bought a chuck roast at the Market Basket in Franklin Lakes (stomping grounds of the Real Housewives of New Jersey), unearthed the meat grinder and ground our own “hamburger.”
In the second photo please notice the dog (not in focus) in the background. You can just make out the blaze. It’s Alex.
The whole grinding process got attention. (Bella in front; Alex in back)
No pink slime here — guaranteed! The hamburgers were delicious! None of my photos came out and I think that was because I was so excited to eat it that I didn’t have the patience to get the shot right. You’ll just have to imagine in your mind’s eye how wonderful it looked and how good it tasted.
If you don’t hear from me for a few days you’ll know I’m being held captive at the Passaic County Courthouse!
***Actually as I am typing this entry I don’t know for certain that I will in fact have to report to Jury Duty tomorrow, but since my Juror number is 0004 I am guessing they won’t cut it off at Juror 0003. It’s a given I will have to show up.
If you’ve been checking back here to see if I’ve written anything this week you would have noticed that I didn’t. That’s because there is not much going on at the moment. It seems that all our energy for the past few months has gone into the Academy Awards trip, and now that it’s over with we are spent.
Winter passed us by this year although we did wake up to about an inch of wet slushy snow yesterday morning. Today there is a bitter wicked wind blowing outside so we are inside for the day. There is nothing I hate quite as much as the wind. If it’s not going to give me snow and true winter then it can just turn spring as quickly as it can. I’m done this year!
Since winter passed up by without nary a thought and spring has yet to arrive (although the witch hazel bush in my neighbor’s yard has popped, and another neighbor had one crocus up the other day, and my daffodils have broken ground) there is nothing to take photos of. Boring.
I saved another bird yesterday. Sam was sitting and staring out at the deck rather fixedly and when I looked out there was a poor little junco huddled in the coating of snow on the deck, shivering. I put on my gloves and went out and picked it up. Its poor little beak was opening and closing at an alarming rate and I could feel its little heart beating away. I held it for awhile and was not confident it was going to make it. Its little beady eyes were closed and its feathers were heaving up and down. It was raining at the time, so I really could not stand out there and hold it any longer. I went back inside and brought out a towel, wrapped the little junco in the towel and put it on top of the BBQ. I left the towel lightly draped on it so it would not weigh it down. I did other chores (splitting wood) for about fifteen minutes, then went to check on my little bird. When I opened the door I could still see the bird inside the towel. Damn, I thought. But the next second the bird was out of the towel and flying away! Off into the trees it went. Another soul saved. Makes me feel good inside.
Are you still reading? Bless you if you are. Pretty boring stuff.
In other news, the two amaryllis that I mentioned here that I thought were not going to bloom have fooled me again. They both have buds coming! Amazing! While the new one has yet another bud about to pop. I think amaryllis might just be the most wonderful flower bulb yet.
I hope to be as inspiring as my amaryllis in the week to come. At least I would like to think so. Here’s hoping.
What do you do with a photo of house finches all with their mouths open?
We had the first snow of the season that started in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday and ended after noon. It left behind about 7 inches of fluffy white snow in its wake. Finally! It was lovely to have nowhere to go and to just sit by the fire and watch the flakes softly falling.
The birds were very active and we both had great fun watching them and trying to capture them in photos.
female cardinal and junco
male house finch
male cardinal
The dogs enjoyed the snow too! Here are Alex and Hailey on the deck. If you look closely you can see Bella down in the yard.
Repeating patterns!
Our new little electric snow shovel (that acts like a snowblower) made cleaning off the deck an easy task. It worked like a charm!
Yesterday it did not get above freezing and cloudy so there was no melting going on. This morning it is already above freezing as I type and we are supposed to have temperatures in the 40’s with rain and fog. Easy come; easy go I guess. It was nice while it lasted!
leftover snow on our bathroom skylight
As Bella predicted, I am now going to bore you with the flip side of the photos that I took on our walk this weekend: not dogs!
The sun is so low in the sky this time of year. It helped to enhance the already somewhat creepy mood that hangs over Jungle Habitat where exotic animals used to roam.
With all our rain and moderate temperatures fungi still flourish. These were still soft and pliable, so they were new.
The moss likes the moisture too.
We have many kinds of parasitic vines here. They wrap around trees and take them prisoner. I find them eerie.
We might not have snow but at least for the past few days we’ve had colder temps that allow some frost.
And some ice to form in leaf-filled shallow puddles.
