More than just coping with it all

 

This is a tiny bar of soap...maybe 1-1/2 inches across!

Helen sent me some meds that she picked up for me in Black Mountain, because I'm in insurance limbo with switching to Colorado healthcare from NC. She included this tiny little soap bar...especially for us people named Rogers (no relation to Rev. Fred Rogers however.)

Incidentally it triggered my interest enough to re-watch the movie with Tom Hanks in it, about Mr. Rogers. It's not like a biography, but an interesting fictionalized account of his encounters with a troubled writer.

Most of these are vitamins, but a couple are for blood pressure and heart and breathing stuff.

My screen wallpaper from the Dripolator in Black Mountain, just gives me a hug of nostalgia to see my friends Helen and Teresa as they were placing their orders.

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and then there's this...

A ritual for dealing with the wildfires.

A pagan blessing for the day...

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This week's loaf of homebaked bread. I didn't have a recipe, which is good because this loaf is forgettable...supposed to be cheese loaf, but can't taste it at all. But I usually toast my bread and then put something else on top of it, so it will have that flavor even if the cheese disappeared. Since the size of the loaf is so unwieldy I usually cut it in half, then slice off each half for half slices at a time. 

Musings of miscellaneous things

 

I like watercolors of cats... by Elena Wuest, The Tangerine Hour. This may not be a watercolor. I've added a YouTube at the bottom of this post of more of her art.

I love when the temperatures drop after midnight and I can open the windows.

"Caws for Concern" last Saturday was International Day of the Cat!

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The owners of this property have fenced off their garden area...but the deer enjoy the leaves on their trees, thus there aren't any lower than the reach of the hungry critters.

Sharing with Saturday's Critters

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Groceries (and gas) cost more in Durango than they did in Black Mountain NC. So rather than paying $7 for a loaf of mixed grain bread, I baked some. I found my dried buttermilk which was packed in a U-Haul truck had baked into a hard cake of something inedible, so I just used water instead. My bread was kind of thrown together without a recipe, but it is tasty.

I found some more Elena Wuest paintings on this YouTube. No more cats though! 

Something about cooking

 This week to show you a collection of old photos (and maybe a few that aren't so old) for Sepia Saturday, I'm looking for the food related photos. Mmm, if I can find any.

This little one is getting a drink, then will need changing to dryer clothes...while the wood stove is the heart of the kitchen for his mother. Don't you just know those two buckets have been carried from the source of their water! 

And before women had the gifts of freestanding wood fired stoves, this is the way they cooked. All these little "Dutch Ovens" are covered with live coals below and above, probably to bake some lovely bread. My son Tai and his wife use a Dutch Oven inside their gas oven in the kitchen to rise their sourdough bread... then formed into round loaves.

On a recent visit with them, I asked for blueberry pancakes, and Tai was most obliging.

Another breakfast was steel cut oatmeal with fresh and dried fruit liberally stirred in. I somehow didn't get photos of the wonderful evening meals...which they prepared together. 

I may have mentioned that I'm considering moving to southwest Colorado when an apartment comes available...the dry air is one inviting factor, while being near my son and his wife is also a big one. I'll have to be careful adjusting to the altitude however, which I faced during my short 9 day visit. My pulmonologist said a visit od 6 weeks would show how much I can acclimate to it, but I can't very well do that. So if it happens, we shall see.  Yesterday I was sick with coughing a lot, and even had a fever by late afternoon. Tylenol to the rescue, and today I feel pretty good.

A purchase of my favorite sweetener at the Tailgate Market last year attracted one of the creators of the very same thing.

A mother from Southeast Missouri in 1938. Fannie Lou Hammer's America. Another woman who had the galvanized bucket for water, as well as a wood fired stove.

From internet, "Cooking in 1900."  Some stoves were coal fired as well as wood. This ornate one doesn't have any clear designation, but there appears to be a hot water tank next to it. With all the pipes it's possible she had running water also. (But there's a familiar bucket in the pantry also!)

The crew which helped produce the TV cooking shows for Julia Child. Only thing missing? A bucket!

And to match the theme for Sepia Saturday more exactly, here we see fresh veggies at the Tailgate Market in Black Mountain.

Our free veggies (fruit and bread) from Bounty and Soul, which is brought to different locations on different days in the valley. Those blueberries are organic locally grown, and were frozen immediately...as well as the bread. I'm so fortunate to live where this is available for anyone who wishes to wait in line. At one pick-up place they just give out a box of edibles, but that's wasteful as many things aren't what the person wants, or will eat.

It's always fun to share with other photographers on Sepia Saturday...some of which will be on the suggested meme, and others will be enjoyable as they've gone in another direction!!

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Today's quote:

Sometimes during our spiritual growth, we can feel as if we are going backward — rest assured you are not.

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An old photo from my family files:

My sister Mary Miller fixing something delicious in the 80s.

Cleaning up the balcony

  

An empty pot, made in 2009...don't know what I'll plant in it.

I swear these orchid blooms are just dead flowers sitting on that stem...they opened last winter, and I put them outside with all the other plants when it got warm enough!

Our balconies are really really tiny...so it's just a good place to put a few plants...if I remember to water them, since most are under an overhang.

Letting in the cool morning air (until 9 am)

All the rest of the landscape crew is missing for the last 2 weeks. Here one of the two white guys has dumped and spread the rest of the mulch. I wonder if the Hispanic guys are hiding from ICE. These times are scary.

Barry Bernstein, pottery, 1949

Bounty and Soul brings a lot of fresh produce and day old bread, and even eggs, to distribute to the senior residents here once a week. I only want bread at this point. I've enough veggies that I should be cooking them up. Anyway, I love this sourdough, which had expired a few days before I received it, and it went into the freezer.  

The sources of day old groceries may remain, but the grants for Bounty and Soul, and Mana Food Bank are expiring June 30. That pays for the guys who deliver, and the gas in their trucks. Many volunteers keep things working, but I don't know if they'll still be in existence after the end of this month. Elders are known as being food insecure. Just look at what I had for dinner the other night...no don't!

At our local grocery, I got 4 chocolate croissants that were only $2.98 rather than double that usually. And then I had coffee with friends and paid about $5 for one croissant there! It's helping the economy I figure. I get the chocolate, and a decaf Americano to drink with it!

I received this lovely bracelet last Christmas but lost the details about it. I think someone may have identified the black stones as lava rock (as they have a bit of rough finish, as well as are very light.) Good energy anyway. Seri said it is restful and energizing and absorbs negative energy.

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Another piece of art which I haven't found a good place to post.

Today's quote:

We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

Paulo Coelho

Our political situation certainly is giving us many unexpected events. I'm not pleased, most of the time. I've always believed that people power is so much more reasonable than political powers. That's supposedly what the Congress does.

A Pancake Breakfast

I ran out of raisin bread to make into toast today. And I haven't gotten energized enough to make real yeast bread yet. So a quick pop of stuff into the blender, then onto the good old big iron skillet...and voila, a baker's dozen of these golden goodies. Of course topped with real butter and Vermont maple syrup...yum yum. I don't even use a recipe any more...since I've got so many short cuts from recipes that I've followed. I used to use Bisquick to make pancakes, or biscuits.  Now I do it from scratch, with far less oil in the batter, so I don't feel guilty about letting butter melt all over them.

I was going to make Snickerdoodles this afternoon, but sometime or another I took out my recipe card from the little book, where sleeves of lots of my old recipes are filed. And no Snickerdoodle card was in there.  That's a recipe I would need the card to follow. When I took it out, I was talking about how my recipe includes using orange extract. And now I can't find it anywhere.

I froze the rest of the pancakes, which makes them easy to nuke or toast up when I feel like having them again.

Now to something sweet. I've got the brownie recipe from Fannie Farmer...but I don't want that much chocolate to eat. I think I'd prefer the old "vanilla cookies," or maybe "refrigerator cookies." The peanut butter ones would be nice too, but I don't know that I want to give a half cup of my precious peanut butter to a batch.  See how we think in times of watching what staples are on hand and likely to be replenished? Well, I do anyway.

I'm also wanting to make up a nice batch of soup. Don't have too many veggies, but a few that will be nice when added to the stock that I've got in the cupboard.

So far I have not been sick for the last week...after my 5 day fever that never got worse. My blood pressure is somewhat high, so I am going to call the doc Monday to see if there's another option for treating it. You don't need the details.