Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Well, the beets are on the stove and shortly we'll have pickled beets going into jars.  Debbie is preparing to make vast quantities of green tomato pasta sauce.  I have no idea what that's going to taste like, but we're going to find out!  She's also reserving some for fried green tomatoes.  Later she'll be making several quarts of jalapeno jelly.  In a few days, when the bell peppers get ripe, she's going to make stuffed peppers that we can freeze.  Tim's vegetables set off an explosion in the kitchen!

Yesterday afternoon I had a bit of a surprise when I walked through the front door and into our kitchen.  The back door (from the kitchen to our back yard) was wide open, and frigid air was pouring in.  Miki and Race were over by our peninsula counter, looking up.  When I looked there, I saw a bit gray-and-white cat, looking scared.  I moved toward it, and it darted out through the back door and took off like a shot.  When I went to the back door to see where it went, I spotted a skunk – about 8' from the open door, and moving toward it.  Yikes!  I tried waving my hands and stepping toward the skunk.  Usually that doesn't work with skunks; they're arrogant assholes that are most likely reincarnated Democrats.  This time, though, it worked – the skunk took off to the northwest, like the cat.  Sheesh.  We think the dogs may have opened the back door (which has a lever handle) because they were excited about the skunk.  We're just lucky they didn't go out to investigate it – and even luckier the darned thing didn't come into the kitchen.  Wouldn't that have been fun!  No, wait a minute ... the complete opposite of that.

Then later we were driving around looking for Booker (a poor little abused puppy that Tim's granddaughter Randi is trying to rehabilitate).  He'd gotten loose and run away the night before, and hasn't been seen since.  We stopped at our neighbor's house (Alan and Nikki L.) to ask if they'd seen it, and they told us they'd lost a dog they were dog-sitting.  After hearing the description, we realized it was little Rocky Road!  It turns out that Nikki's sister is the family that Emberly gave Rocky to, and Nikki was dog-sitting for her sister while she was in California!  So we got Nikki in touch with Emberly, and hopefully Nikki got Rocky back.