Wednesday, September 23, 2015
2016 presidential election resource...
2016 presidential election resource... I hope this page keeps working through the election! It's a breakdown of the current odds from Betfair, a large British betting company. Since the government shut down the U.S.-based sites, the polls have been our best source of information – and they, of course, are notoriously biased and inaccurate. The betting markets are far better, and even though these markets are British, historically they've been more accurate than U.S. polls...
Afternoon in Paradise...
Afternoon in Paradise... This morning I found out that the trees we've ordered will be here next Tuesday. Those trees include three fairly large weeping willows, five quite large paper birches, six lilacs, and 25 sumacs in five gallon pots. That means we need some holes dug :) This afternoon I dug the holes for the three willows, four feet across and two feet deep. Tomorrow I'll tackle the birches.
The big, beautiful field of alfalfa east of us is being mowed today (first three photos below). Two machines – the same two I posted photos of a few days ago – were making quick work of it. When I took the two photos of the mower in action, I was surprised to see that the driver was a young woman, perhaps 19 or 20 years old. When she saw me taking photos, I got a big smile and a friendly wave. I really shouldn't be surprised to see that, as it's quite normal here for the girls and women on farms to do the much of the same work as the men. The only areas that seem to be “male only” are those that genuinely need the muscles, such as moving hand line around. Anyway, she was whipping that monster machine around like an expert!
The last photo is something you should all be jealous of. It's two tomatoes from my neighbor's (Tim D.) garden, cleaned and chopped, and a nice dollop of Duke's mayonnaise. That's some mighty fine eating, let me tell you!
The big, beautiful field of alfalfa east of us is being mowed today (first three photos below). Two machines – the same two I posted photos of a few days ago – were making quick work of it. When I took the two photos of the mower in action, I was surprised to see that the driver was a young woman, perhaps 19 or 20 years old. When she saw me taking photos, I got a big smile and a friendly wave. I really shouldn't be surprised to see that, as it's quite normal here for the girls and women on farms to do the much of the same work as the men. The only areas that seem to be “male only” are those that genuinely need the muscles, such as moving hand line around. Anyway, she was whipping that monster machine around like an expert!
The last photo is something you should all be jealous of. It's two tomatoes from my neighbor's (Tim D.) garden, cleaned and chopped, and a nice dollop of Duke's mayonnaise. That's some mighty fine eating, let me tell you!
Morning in Paradise...
Morning in Paradise... Well, I had a nice photo from our morning walk to share, but my iPhone's battery chose this moment to croak. I can't even connect to my computer! There's a chore for me today: take my phone into the service outfit in Logan. Oh, well...
Yesterday afternoon, as planned, we headed out for dinner at Maddox. Debbie tried the turkey steak, and I had chopped lamb. Both of those were prepared basically like a hamburger patty, and both were very good. We'd have them again. But the star of the dinner was our dessert. Even though we were fairly full, we decided to try their pie. We've never had it, and several people have told us that it was good. They lied. It was way beyond good! We had a peach pie that was 95% peaches – fresh, with very little sugar added – and 5% pastry. It was topped with their homemade vanilla ice cream, but the truth is I barely noticed the ice cream. Those peaches were fantastic! That was one of the best pieces of peach pie I've ever had.
Then we went for a drive up toward Hardware Ranch. We were a bit early in the day for wildlife (we thought), but the sun was still well up so we'd thought we'd see the fall color nicely. Well, we certainly did see lots of beautiful fall color, especially in the upper half of the canyon. But we also saw quite a bit of wildlife. Lots of deer, a coyote (not far east of the dam), two beavers working away on their dams (right near hardware ranch itself), two kingfishers (gorgeous birds!), an osprey eating a small fish on top of a utility pole, and a close-up view of a dusky grouse (at right, not my photo). The latter we finally identified last night. The first time we saw some of these birds, we thought they were ptarmigan in summer plumage – but that made no sense, as they're way out of ptarmigan territory. Reading about them we discovered they have a very odd diet: the “needles” of fir trees and pine trees. Yuck!
When we got home, there was a buck in our front yard. We've seen this one before, nearly every day for the past few days. It's instantly identifiable, as one of his front legs is badly injured (looks like something wrong with his knee, from the way he limps). We think he's hiding out in the trees near our irrigation canal, then hobbling the short distance to our alfalfa field to chow down. He's going to have a tough time this winter, though there's a good chance that someone here will shoot him for the meat before then...
Yesterday afternoon, as planned, we headed out for dinner at Maddox. Debbie tried the turkey steak, and I had chopped lamb. Both of those were prepared basically like a hamburger patty, and both were very good. We'd have them again. But the star of the dinner was our dessert. Even though we were fairly full, we decided to try their pie. We've never had it, and several people have told us that it was good. They lied. It was way beyond good! We had a peach pie that was 95% peaches – fresh, with very little sugar added – and 5% pastry. It was topped with their homemade vanilla ice cream, but the truth is I barely noticed the ice cream. Those peaches were fantastic! That was one of the best pieces of peach pie I've ever had.
When we got home, there was a buck in our front yard. We've seen this one before, nearly every day for the past few days. It's instantly identifiable, as one of his front legs is badly injured (looks like something wrong with his knee, from the way he limps). We think he's hiding out in the trees near our irrigation canal, then hobbling the short distance to our alfalfa field to chow down. He's going to have a tough time this winter, though there's a good chance that someone here will shoot him for the meat before then...