From the loyal & gifted Ozark Hillbilly:
Been cold and rainy for over a week, then Friday we had an absolutely glorious day of sunshine to welcome all the things that were just waiting for a reason to pop.
The rains return today with a prediction of light snow for Easter Sunday. Sigh.
First three pics are magnolia blossoms in various stages.
Fourth pic is peonies just coming up.
Fifth of course is daffs.
Seems like I am the only one sending pics these days. My fellow jackals need to step up to the plate.
***********
Timely reminder from the Washington Post — “Winter-battered plants may look dead — but don’t give up on them yet”:
… It is the time of year when trees and shrubs look their most winter-battered and when the gardener is most eager to see everything lush and healthy.
This spring will be worse than most, especially for broadleaf evergreens. Evergreens need to be fully hydrated before the ground freezes to minimize wilting and leaf scorch when frigid temperatures and winds arrive. But plants in the Mid-Atlantic entered winter in near-drought conditions and then had to endure a prolonged freeze at the end of the year.
The result is already evident — a great deal of browning and scorching on such popular plants as azaleas, cherry laurels and camellias…
With woody plants that appear dead, there is a quick way to gauge their vitality: If you scrape the bark, either with your thumbnail or a blade, a green layer beneath suggests all is well. (If one branch tests brown, check others.) But even if it looks dead, give it a while before reaching for the shovel.
In the garden, false death comes in a number of forms, but the general advice is the same: Wait a few weeks and see what happens. By late May, you will know what is alive and what isn’t…
Here in New England, the “traditional” protective snowpack was spotty, and the recent series of nor’easters badly damaged a lot of trees. Full extent of the landscape damage won’t be evident until the worst of the fallen branches, and the detritus they’ve collected as storm followed storm, can be cleared away.
On a much smaller scale… back in mid-January, I ordered a bunch of “sale” plants, an impulse that has now been punished as such usually are. Friday I got a badly-packed Burpee box of blueberry and strawberry plants, in various stages from bare sticks to full bloom, a good month before they were expected. Today I’ll finish decanting the last of them into containers, because the ground here is still frozen iron-hard. Then I’ll go look for frost covers, because Monday morning is supposed to start with one last “coating to an inch or two” of snow… after which the temps will rise again, perhaps into the 70s by Wednesday, a/k/a the Full New England.
What’s going on in your garden (planning), this week?
raven
Great stuff! We’re in full throated bloom here, I don’t know if the azaleas will hold until next week at Augusta but I hope so.
hydrangea
azaleas and some other flowers.
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
rikyrah
The pictures are beautiful ?
satby
@ Ozark & @raven: I have a clump of tete-a-tete daffodils blooming next to the garage and that’s it. The rest have just started peeking up from the ground, and it’s 22° out right now, high only going to 35° today. Even our nice days still are running cooler than normal and our nights have been frosty but without snow to protect the plants a little. My tiny azaleas planted last year are still under their foam cones, so are my roses and other baby shrubs. I brought my tulips that I planted in planters back in last night. Spring is just taunting us around here by its absence.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?!
Happy Easter!
JPL
Good morning! Thanks for the pictures. I still have a lot of clean up to do, but that’s just a sign that spring is here.
Raven
@satby: we’ve had tons of rain and it’s really warming up during the day. Why ain’t I fishing???
satby
@Raven: sounds like you’re going to need to get going!
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Happy Easter, everyone. Rise and shine.
satby
We do have one sign of spring, it’s kitten season here. Our spay / neuter/ rescue group is already getting the calls about moms and babies. I’m going today to pick up a trap to see if I can catch a heavily pregnant female semi-feral before she drops her litter to bring to our “maternity ward” in the group president’s house. Otherwise, I need to try to figure out where she might have had her kittens so that we can try to rescue them too. I’m worried they’re in the garage of the abandoned house across the street, it’s full of debris and I won’t be able to get through most of it to capture her.
satby
@Baud: went to get coffee and it looks like I killed the thread ?
Happy Easter to you too!
WereBear
@satby: Good luck! This is where their intelligence works against them.
Our own feral, Mithrandir, is “blooming.” We turned Mithy upside down!
A reminder to everyone who can manage it: fostering kittens is a real need this time of year, and so wonderfully rewarding! There’s always the risk of a “failed foster” and you have to keep them, like my Tristan, but that’s all upside in my opinion :)
Gorgeous pics, Ozark Hillbilly!
OzarkHillbilly
NWS this morn:
Welcome to the Ozarks. If you don’t like the weather, stick around, it’ll change
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: honestly, I would rather have that than the dry, freezing cold we’ve mostly been getting. We got rain for a bit yesterday, but the gusty winds dried everything out as soon as it was over.
satby
@WereBear: yeah, I hope she’s still pregnant if I catch her. If she isn’t and I have to release her so the kittens don’t starve, I won’t have a second chance. They figure out the traps.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So yesterday, we went to Louisville Bockfest, a street fair that involved bock beer, local sourced sausages prepared using the different beers by each participating restaurant, and baby goat races. Live music was played, and a marvelous time was had by all.
Anyway, along the street is a well-known antique store; the countess wanted to go in, her 30 years of living here, she’d never gone there.
I was a resistor – my father is an antique hoarder, and my childhood memories from age 6 on include obsessive visits each and every day of every weekend to antique stores and auctions, poring over other people’s old used shit that they didn’t want anymore. He’s still doing it, by the way – one aging antique pusher refuses to die and continues misrepresenting values and era of manufacture to him while he continues to buy. The extent of the hoard (and while neat, organized, clean and tastefully presented, it IS a hoard) gives my anxiety as an only child. I certainly don’t want to be surrounded by it, and the thought of sorting through it and coming up with a way to get some value seems impossible. So you can understand my lack of enthusiasm.
As we went through the cornucopia items, several things leaped out at me:
1. Pricing has absolutely collapsed. The tags I saw on things that dad has of similar type is roughly the same or less than what I know he paid 20-30-40 years ago – and the dealer was offering a 20-40% sale to boot (this is consistent with my probate work, as well). I suspect a big part of this is related to the number of idiots who took up antique collecting as a hobby and wealth storehouse who’ve been dying off or going to assisted living, while their kids and grandkids having no interest in acquiring or surrounding themselves with the hoard.
2. There were some items which made me sad – shadow boxes of hobbies in particular. Once the hobbyist passes and those who knew the hobbyist best are also gone,who really wants that shadow box? Also sad – unfinished needlework.
3. People live and entertain differently now – you can buy entire sets of Lenox, Limoges, Nippon or other fine china for about 20% of the price of new purchases. This has been a shock to the countess, who has been trying to think of what to do about her mother’s three China sets as hr dad downsizes, and realizes that stuff – even well tended stuff – just doesn’t matter. She figures that if you want to hand it to a dealer on any basis other than consignment, you might get $200 for a set (incidentally, that’s what her dad said about pricing items in Hilton Head as a retirement community – rule of thumb is no more than 10%).
Lesson? Spend your money experiencing life and doing things, not buying stuff.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Or you can buy bitcoin.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Up. Down. Wet. Dry. Maybe something. Maybe not. It gets tiresome.
Friday was truly glorious. A clear blue cloudless sky with a brilliant electric sun giving just enough warmth to negate the northern winds with temps around 55. A day long celebration of spring. I needed it bad. Managed to work on several different projects and made good progress on each.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
Tulips…
WereBear
Amazing. No wonder older people are so confused and upset of late; everything they assumed has been turned upside down :)
Cermet
@OzarkHillbilly: Strange that your weather prediction is identical to ours even for the temp. Oh well, so much for a nice easter sunday weather wise. Still, glad many of the Jackals are up and enjoying BJ. My breakfast, being easter sunday which is based on sugar (one strange holiday) will be hot blueberry pie with real vanilla ice creme
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: . sound advice for any situation
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I think I’ll use our formal china for breakfast. It isn’t as if anybody is going to want or need it – and by my count, we’ve used it maybe 25-30 times.
satby
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: there’s a lot of older people selling antiques at the market, and they’re competing with Goodwill and Salvation Army shops at this point. It’s beautiful, quality stuff but the majority of the china and glassware can’t be washed in a dishwasher, which kills it’s value to younger people. And very few people do sit down dinner parties any more. I don’t have a hoard of antiques, just a few pieces inherited from my parents and grandparents. My sons will keep a couple each in memory of all of us but not want most of what I have either. It’s a shame not just for the lost value to people like your dad, but also because we lose a bit of the beauty these objects brought to every day life.
PAM Dirac
Yesterday was the first sunny, relatively warm (60) day in a while, so it was spent in the vineyard. Cleaning, mowing, and the start of pruning. About 40 vines done and 135 to go. We had a pretty cool March, so the vines still aren’t very close to bud break. After working most of the day getting the 2018 vintage started, retired to the porch with the better half to watch the sun set behind the mountain and enjoy wine from the 2017 vintage. Life is good. (As long as I don’t turn the television on. )
satby
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: do it! I use English bone china as my coffee cup every day, and I swear it makes the coffee taste better.
satby
@PAM Dirac: that sounds lovely. And life is much better lived than in front of the tube!
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Waffles never tasted better.
WereBear
I must admit, when we finally upgraded our ragtag selection of dollar store mismatched stuff to a set of simple Amazon basics, it felt good. And everything fit better in our cupboards :)
satby
@WereBear: Even the cafe in the market started letting “regular” vendors have a choice: take out your meal in a plate or in a styrofoam take out container. Same food, but it tastes like a meal served in a plate.
We deserve nicer things, everything doesn’t have to be cheap, fast, and disposable.
Baud
@satby:
Ok, so I guess I won’t use “cheap, fast, and disposable” as my 2020 campaign slogan.
NotMax
@Baud
Baud 2020 – affordable, efficient and dishwasher safe.
oldgold
Last night I felt compelled to go to the Blue Moon Cafe.
The food was very good, but l went home disappointed.
Baud
@NotMax: Don’t forget microwavable.
satby
@oldgold: I told your joke from yesterday to several people at the market, all of whom were suitably amused. Thanks for that!
Edited: god damn this “autocorrect” that substitutes words it thinks you want for what you actually type. I know I typed the right word because I go back, click on the word to correct, and what I typed comes right up.
Betty Cracker
The fabulous Joy Reid retweeted one of my tweets! Made my day! ?
ETA — This one:
oldgold
No atmosphere.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Share!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@WereBear:
When I was a kid, dad always yammered on about the value of antiques and how there’d always be a real market for them with increasing prices, blah, blah, blah.
Of course, we’re also talking about a guy who bought a terra cotta horse off his antique pusher on the representation that it was genuinely ancient Chinese for a price that was high but made no sense, given the representation.
Then there’s the silver serving somethings (Victorian, of course – so much of the hoard is Victorian, ugly, ostentatious, all curves). The antique pusher presented it with blue glass insert, which he claimed made them more valuable than normal. Something bugged me about the glass, so I took it out – they were cut down Noxzema jars that neatly fit perfectly, with paper towels folded in underneath to push the lip slightly over the edge. I showed that to the countess and my mother. Mom just shrugged. There were the “antique” Greek metal cups with hunt scenes given to us as a gift, with “Made in Greece” (in English) machine stamped into the bottom, the brass sized and shaped suspiciously like a small artillery shell casing. There are oil paintings that have been vaguely tracked to renowned artists and countless other items which have tags that track to complete bullshit. He’s got stuff in the attic, an the basement and in the closet – he’s spent something into the six figures on this stuff (I’ll never know the total, it will make me physically ill to think about).
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Woot!
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Words to live by. I do have to say that some things really were made better way back when. When we bought this place a friend gave me a 16″ electric fan of late 50s early 60s vintage, a real finger eater with metal blades and a grid a toddler can put their fist thru. Sat on a shelf for a couple years till one day I wondered if it still worked and plugged it in.
Damn, can that little fan move some air. Every now and again it’s a little sluggish on start up but if I give the blades a bit of a push it runs just fine. Hard to believe the brushes still have life left in them. I use it winter (to move the heat from the wood stove around) and summer. I’m gonna be truly sorry when it finally kicks the can.
oldgold
@satby:
It is a very old joke.
WereBear
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Sigh. It does something for your father, obviously; he wants to believe it’s real.
My mother once had storage units all over the East Coast, and my brother is slowly convincing her to let them go… she thought they were security, and realizing they aren’t is traumatic.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Betty Cracker: You are a twitter goddess!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@satby:
I can’t tell you the last time I went to something where people sat to a formal meal (and yes, I do know which fork to use a – I’m not a total heathen).
People have taken to entertaining friends in a casual, relaxed way, even for nice meals. I approve; anything else is putting on airs and uncomfortable, and leads to people refraining from telling dick jokes.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Does this mean Joy is following you? That’s even more impressive.
Aimai
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: so true! Its true of furniture and of china. I’m about to inherit dome and we haven’t given a dinner party in years.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
There were some things that were made better because replacement wasn’t so easily considered.
I had to admire the roll-top desks for functionality. They were pretty great workspaces and the compartments and slide outs were invaluable for the pre-computer (and really, pre-intercom and pre-desk telephone) era.
Aside from the weight, the difficulty getting those through doors and rolling feature on most of the tops being screwed, I could see real potential use for those in a lot of businesses.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yeah, we go way back — used to get in slap-fights with wingnuts in the comment sections of Florida newspapers when JR lived in FL. She’s retweeted me before, and it always blows up my timeline because she has such a massive following.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Woah! You have arrived.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: MSNBC needs to give you a show.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Aimai:
There’s a certain species of person here known as a river rat. They love their lives by the river, organizing everything around their relationship with the water and each other. In the lower socioeconomic substrata of river rat, there is a saying:
satby
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I don’t agree that it’s always putting on airs to use real plates instead of paper or plastic, even Ikea china is a nice upgrade without being snooty. I think it starts getting out of control when the individual salt cellars come out ?
Betty Cracker
Cooking question for y’all: Is it possible to reheat béarnaise sauce? I’m making some for the asparagus side dish I’m bringing to the in-law’s Easter dinner. I’d rather make it at home and transport it to their house (two hours away) rather than making it there and monopolizing a burner while my poor mother-in-law is trying to get everything she’s making done at the same time. But I’ve never tried to reheat that kind of sauce before…
JPL
@satby: Most china can go in the dishwasher, as long as you don’t stack it while hot. Silver can go in also, you just don’t want it next to the stainless. At this point, it’s better to use it. Now I would never put good crystal in the dishwasher.
Good luck with the cat.
Waratah
Thank you Ozark beautiful photos of the story of spring. I love seeing the plants first signs of life popping out of the ground. The sunlight on the daffodils is perfect, a photo that I would liked framed to look at daily.
We had a nice sunny day yesterday and dropped to thirty four degrees this morning with a high In the forty’s today, and still in drought.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: That’s it. I’m outa here, this place is becoming “cool” and that is one thing I swore I’d never be or be a part of. //
Chat Noir
Decorah (Iowa) eagles! Three eggs in the nest and one is starting to hatch.
satby
@JPL: I know anything without the gilded rims can go in the dishwasher. I put everything in the dishwasher, even lampshades. Huge dishwasher fan here, my bone china and Spode dishes haven’t got gilded rims. But the beautiful porcelain dinner sets my mom started collecting for each of us all are gilded and need to be handwashed. And that’s the stuff that dropped in value.
Jeff
Spring progresses very slowly this year in Philadelphia. Last year at this time the gallardia I had planted in the prior fall in the planters on the porch were flowering. This year they have hardly started to grow. The crocus, species daffodils, regular daffodils are up. The tulips are starting to bud. It is to snow tonight late into Monday morning.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@satby:
As a saltaholic, I’m OK with individual salt cellars with a nice fleur de sel (I like the crunch). They don’t have to be fancy….
satby
@Betty Cracker: I have. Make it just shy of fully thick, then the reheating will finish it off without getting too thick.
Jeff
@Betty Cracker:
According to google: To reheat leftover Béarnaise you will need to pull out the double boiler (if you do not have one, a glass bowl on top of a large pot works great). Over a medium simmer, in your double boiler, add the leftover sauce and a splash of tarragon vinegar. Give it a few moments to start melting and once it has, whisk! Whisk!
JPL
@satby: A few years ago when my son married, they registered for plain white bone china, and use it everyday. The DIL did want holiday china, which I collected for her, against the sons wishes. He did let me know what additional pieces they might need though. lol
I assume my china will someday be at goodwill.
debbie
The magnolias here are about to burst open, just in time for snow tonight. The last few years have been lousy for magnolias weather-wise, from an ice storm killing the buds straight out or sudden freezes ruining the blooms. On the other hand, the forsythia seem undeterred.
Beautiful photos, OH. When I was younger, fall was my favorite season, but now it’s spring by a mile.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Congrats!
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
All the ones I’ve seen are easily taken apart into 4-6 much more transportable parts. I have made several pieces of office furniture for my wife (most recently a stand up desk) maybe some day I will design and build my own dream desk (not a roll top, I like looking out the windows over my desk) with a drafting table and everything.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…. Who am I kidding? I’ll just keep fixing/modifying/adding on to the old particle board piece of shit I use now
satby
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: aha! See, we all have our own ideas about putting on airs. But niw I may have to puck up those crystal salt cellars the old couple next to me in the market are selling. I just ordered 2 lbs of black salt, and they would look gorgeous with that.
Darn it ?
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
There’s an antique/thrift shop here that when I walk through, I swear I feel the spirits of the items’ previous owners. I had to stop going there.
satby
@JPL: my goal is to see what my sons think they’ll want and unload the rest before they’re stuck with it. Other than my few inheritance pieces, the rest of my antiques and vintage stuff is from Goodwill or other resale stores. No heartbreak if it goes back.
satby
@Betty Cracker: yay for the tweet and the retweet!
WereBear
@debbie: I’m the same way in used bookstores: oh, that is such a good book, I must rescue it.
It’s just like with cats, actually :)
satby
@debbie: one of the saddest things ever was when a family would be in such a hurry to dump the possessions of an older relative that they wouldn’t even take the family photos out of the frames.
So we would, and have to throw them away.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Gently, with a double boiler. And whisking.
GregB
Good morning.
satby
@GregB: Good morning!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
My dream desk is a standing desk. The things which lead me to believe tha it will never happen are twofold:
1. I’m cheap, and don’t see myself going to the expense replacing a perfectly good heavy and attractive desk with drawers that slide like a dream; and
2. I’m lazy, and hate the thought of shopping for a desk, arranging the transport and removal of the existing desk and dealing with the removal of the stuff in the drawers.
JPL
Google maps has a where’s Waldo game in honor of Easter.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The majority of my first 45 years were lived as a gypsy. Every place I ever lived was just a place to keep my stuff while I was busy living my life. When I inevitably moved again in search of a cheaper storage/sleeping solution everything had to fit into one, at most 2, pick up loads. Everything I had was subjected to the same test:
Have I used this in the past year?
Am I going to use this in the next year?
If the answer was no to both questions, with a few sentimental exceptions, out it went (I still have that old cigar box).
WereBear
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I have a laptop, a lap desk, a pillow under it for squishy comfort, and I’m done. Couch, bed with pillows against the headboard, whatever. But then, I am totally digital…
Baud
@JPL: Waldo is the reason for the season.
germy
@WereBear: I used to have a lap desk I loved. One day the cat fell in love with it, and after some deft claw action, made the billion tiny beads spill out of the cushion.
Van Buren
@JPL: I would never put a cat in the dishwasher.
MomSense
Ozark, I’m envious of your spring blooms. The snow is mostly melted except for those patches of snow that are mostly sand and salt.
I’m going to yank out the last of my pathetic roses this spring. They just haven’t survived the winters well. I’m not sure what to replace them with because I really loved the season long reds and dark pinks they added to my largest perennial bed.
I’m going to have to go to all the farm stands and see if they have plants and shrubs for sale out back. Those are much hardier than what I can find at the nursery.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Epicurious says:
Nothing about reheating.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@debbie:
Yeah, some of the needlework and shadowboxes hit me like that.
The Simp in the Suit
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: A powered rising desk is sure great if you can afford it. I got one as a combination Christmas/birthday/New Year’s Day/Arbor Day/Nothing-for-you-the-rest-of-the-year present (they’re expensive).
It’s life-changing if you’re old and have accumulated back and leg problems.
Schlemazel
Meh, we got 2 inches oh heavy, wet snow yesterday & it is currently 10 above. Lovely pictures of spring just make it worse! Winter battered may just give up. :)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m thinking that for basement, closet and storage items, a 5 year rule would clean us out nicely. The garage is different – tools and maintenance items are not like clothes and furniture, and the moment you get rid of that tile cutter or miter box, you’ll need it.
raven
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Ever seem my skelatonized redfish skull? It’s in a shadowbox on the mantle.
germy
@MomSense:
Bee Balm?
MomSense
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
What about one of those varidesk conversion gizmos for your laptop or desktop? I have an older model one that doesn’t move so I keep a second monitor on it.
Now I want to splurge on an adjustable motion stool.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I feel the spirits of lost dreams in abandoned houses, it’s why I like going into them. Yeah it’s a little bit sad but nothing lasts forever and new life springs forth from the bones of the old.
Schlemazel
@JPL:
Well, he is not a saviour but he does reappear . . .
Schlemazel
@Betty Cracker:
I would reheat it gently over hot water. If you don’t have a double boiler set up you could use two nesting bowls, put very hot water in the bottom one & set the sauce bowl in it )don’t use glass obviously. Unless you are serving the asparagus cold then it would be OK to have cold sauce.
debbie
.
rikyrah
Kevonstage made it to the Food Network
https://youtu.be/CfgkQi2gx5M
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
I ind abandoned houses kind of sad for that reason. OTOH we enjoy old cemeteries, there are stories there carved in stones
MomSense
@germy:
I do have bee balm in that bed and in my pollinator garden. It’s a little tall and leggy for the spots I need to fill. I’d like to find something that is a rounder shape.
JPL
@debbie: Huh?
JMG
We use our china , silver and crystal three times a year, Thanksgiving, Christmas and today. Three times a year washing dishes instead of using the dishwasher isn’t too much of a strain. They are lovely things, so it’s good to use them every so, just to look at them. Roast lamb, new potatoes and asparagus today. We’ll pretend it’s spring and wake up to snow tomorrow. Every March and April in New England I wonder why the Pilgrims couldn’t have landed at Hilton Head instead of Provincetown, then Plymouth.
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
The original video on Mac and cheese
https://youtu.be/MbX0cbhxdzA
WereBear
@germy: oy! They know all the weaknesses…
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Things changed for me (a lot) when I had to take my sons in. I had less than 2 weeks to find an apartment and fill it with furniture (at the time my only furniture was a twin sized futon). With the help of friends who had shit they hadn’t used in a decade or more I managed it. (took a few days to find a fridge, Family Services were big on that item) In the years following I acquired a wife, a homestead, and a whole lot of shit.
People look at me now and say “What happened? You’re sooo…. Domesticated!”
debbie
@JPL:
They got me. April Fool am I.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: I love cemeteries. Especially old abandoned family plots. They are restful places.
WaterGirl
Happy easterEaster! We seem to have some sun today – maybe it’s an Easter miracle?
Did I miss Betty’s butter lamb?
satby
@Schlemazel: @OzarkHillbilly: I do too. It feels like a walk through history. When I stop to read a stone, I try to leave a pebble behind, in the Jewish tradition of marking that a visitor was there.
satby
@WaterGirl: last night’s Baa-Baa Mofo thread. Happy Easter to you!
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Two threads down.
Immanentize
@debbie:
It’s been said that April 1 is the worst day on the intertubes. Maybe Easter will tone that down…
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
The older the better, it is interesting to see how styles have changed.
One thing that really hit me was in New England. There would be a headstone for “John Smith” and then next to it would be one “Wife of John Smith”. Often times there might be 2,3 4 additional “Wife of John Smith”. Women really were just property
Schlemazel
@satby:
Thats cool and I have I never heard of it as a tradition.
ixnay
@satby: Hello -as some here know, I am a veterinarian, and pretty much all I do is spay/neuter at a local shelter. Not only shelter animals but owned ones also. Just fyi, I guess. Keep up the good work.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Haha!
Immanentize
My Mom moved to an apartment in a transitional facility last year (yea!). She has always been super pragmatic, not a pack rat. But she had a full collection 10 place settings of beautiful Lennox bone China with gold rims and a simple gold wheat pattern in the middle. Matching Crystal and silverware as well. It was collected from my parents wedding in 1952 until the 70s. A piece at a time, practically. I had no need for it having gone in for Russel Wright pottery. She practically had to pay my brother to take it, which he did, finally. And he has a daughter, now 29. No interest whatsoever.
JPL
@WaterGirl: How’s the hobbling going?
satby
@Schlemazel: My cousin married a Jewish girl, so my extended Irish family has learned new traditions.
satby
@ixnay: we couldn’t do it without vets like you who help make it possible. Wish me luck, because I’m really worried she had them already. And that garage is impassable (for a human) with junk.
rikyrah
Uh huh ?
About the DOJ
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/979461431644033024?s=19
debbie
@Immanentize:
My mother guilted me into taking her wedding china, some godawful 1950s gray and brown pinecone pattern. I had to get rid of what I had because the space in my apartment was so limited. I waited a decent interval after she died (like 5 minutes) to box it up for Goodwill.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I like that.
@Schlemazel: The Williams graveyard down in Shannon Co is one that I used to visit on a semi regular basis. About a dozen different names in it so I figure it was for a settlement. The only Williams there is actually outside the fence. I have read that disgraced family members would be buried at the family plot but never in it. Interesting that this lone individual who apparently disgraced his community would give his name to the plot.
There is the grave of a much loved wife from the 1860s who died when she was just 16. The poem on the stone is heartbreaking as her husband was quite obviously bereft at the loss of the love of his life, a “dart to the heart”. I have pictures of the stone but the full poem is only revealed thru a rubbing. I wrote it down and it is somewhere around this place, if I knew where I’d pass it on.
Schlemazel
@satby:
I have mentioned here that I had Jewish neighbors growing up. I learned several traditions and a little bit of Yiddish. At the time that was very exotic in heavily Catholic St. Paul. It was being raised Protestant in that environment that drew me to the jewish neighbors, we both got bad mouthed for our religion. While my into into Judaism was pretty informal and not very deep I am still surprised when I learn new things
satby
@rikyrah: that thread is a cesspool of stupid.
Elizabelle
Good morning,
jackalsbunnies.Happy April 1st too.
NotMax
FYI.
This is a different Maine company than the one which has made the eggs for many years. Perhaps payback for last year’s publicized admonition?
debbie
@satby:
Every damn thread on Twitter is a cesspool anymore.
bemused
PZ Myers is wondering where the Christian jokers are today. Usually he gets the annual “April Fools Day is atheists favorite holiday” joke in comments.
NotMax
Comment limbo-ized. Please to liberate.
ThresherK
Nice stuff and a bit jealous that there’s actuall botany to photograph.
All we have here are a few assorted colors of tree buds, less than M&M-sized (oh, hey, is it Easter? I didn’t notice), and the willows are greening up.
The pollen will come. Soon, we’ll be able to shut off the humidifier.
Baud
Hmmm (Reuters)
MomSense
@ixnay:
I wish there were some kind of feline oral contraception we could add to cat food for the feral cats we are trying to trap. It could prevent so many kittens while we try to capture the adults to spay and neuter them. I know it’s not possible but it would be so helpful.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@raven:
OK, that’s supercool, and more of a piece of art. Nice!
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Yeah. They’re trying deer contraception of some form; why not for cats and dogs?
germy
@OzarkHillbilly:
(wikipedia)
I’m familiar with the monument because the writer Robert Benchley was fond of it and used to take friends there for quiet reflection after a late night about town.
WaterGirl
@satby: @debbie: I like to think I could have guessed that if my bleary eyes and dirty glasses hadn’t read that thread title as bee-bee – mofos!
Thank you both and happy Easter!
Betty, I would have to go back and look at the 2016
centerfoldto be sure, but I think this is your best one yet. I kind of have a crush on her – she’s so adorable! well done, as always!Baud
@Elizabelle: More people will be upset if there are side effects for cats and dogs.
oldgold
The things I learn here.
The financially challenged are eating off of gold rimmed bone China they buy at Goodwill.
The more prosperous are eating reheated béarnaise sauce off of paper plates.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Chat Noir: Oh the eagle cam is back! My local library runs that on a big screen in the children’s area.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Oh my gosh, I was laughing out loud, not to mention that I agree with everything he said. You can make what you want, but you can’t call that abomination mac & cheese.
I love this guy, and I’m saving this line that for future use “You’re entitled to your opinion, but I”m gonna fight you on it.” (or something close to that)
@MomSense: I only clicked because of your “ha!” so thank you for that!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
I love a nice old cemetery, and can while away hours wandering and reading stones. I enjoy imagining both the momentous things and the not-so-momentous events that impacted their lives.
The ones who saw the greatest change were those born in the 1860s and 70s who lived into the late 1940s to early 1950s. They went from horses, whale lamps and chamber pots to radio, TV, cars, jets and H Bombs.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Still hobbling along, better now that I have the knee scooter. Still house-bound since I have a non-weight bearing cast, but thrilled that the orthopedist told me on Wednesday that the ends of the break are lined up perfectly and she can see from the x-ray that I have started healing. I am over the moon with that news!
I am getting out today with 2 friends for Easter Brunch at a local restaurant. That will be my first public foray with the scooter – and of course I have to be driven there and helped in and out of the vehicle. Still, I am hoping it will be fun and normalizing.
I made meatloaf and homemade soup this weekend – friends had to pull all the ingredients on the counter for me, but at least I was able to make it myself!
Tucker is back home, and Henry and I see the vet in 9 days for his 6-week x-ray and check-up at the vet. So another outing for me, besides the orthopedist visits!
Schlemazel
I found what I think is the perfectly evil Easter/April Fools comic:
https://tribunecontentagency.com/article/brewster-rockit-comic-strip-20180401csbre-s-jpg/
Raoul
It snowed two inches here yesterday. Saw a clever meme this morning about just hiding plain, white boiled eggs in the yard today :)
Anyway, Happy Easter to those who celebrate. And Happy April Fool’s. My partner is preaching today at his UU congregation, and they are featuring a kazoo rendition of “Easter Parade” and he is talking about the theological and social value of humor. In a very respectful way, of course. A lutheran pastor friend of ours posted a sillier meme featuring Jesus, so it isn’t just UUs noticing.
He also is noting that 1954 was the last Easter-April Fool’s combo. Only 11 years till the next, though!
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: There is a cemetery near me, filled with the graves and tombs of the founders of our town. A few years ago we took a walking tour with a historian who told stories about the various inhabitants. Some of the stones are so ancient, the inscriptions are nearly illegible.
It gave me an eerie feeling that no matter how important one is in life; whatever one’s achievements or wealth or status, in the end we all turn to dust.
I was also struck by the progress that happened all around the little cemetery. The biggest tomb, an achingly beautiful stone construction, is just a few feet away from a busy street full of cars, and next to a sandwich shop’s parking lot and a CVS drugstore.
EDIT: My grandmother was born in 1877, and lived to see the first moon landing on TV.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Progress. Sorry to hear of your break. Just not enough going on in the WG household. Glad that Henry continues to improve and that Tucker is reunited.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: My grandfather was born in 1876. Emigrated to the US from Slovenia in 1900. Died in 1968. I often wondered at the things he had seen and lived thru.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle:
Ha! I didn’t even mention that my car crapped out and left us stranded at the orthopedic clinic after my appointment Wednesday. $475 and a new starter later, my car is back home and ready to take me to the Easter brunch.
But yes, life is complicated at the moment! Still, grateful that the break is going as good as it possibly can be.
HeleninEire
@Betty Cracker: Love your Twitter avitar, Betty. My Facebook avitar is Patsy Stone from Ab Fab. Because of course it is.
ixnay
@satby: Do you know an agile and animal-friendly 10-year-old?
Schlemazel
@germy:
Generation thinking changes my perspective on time. I have a great-grandfather that fought with an NY unit in the ACW. He died before I was born but my grandfather who fought in WWI saw the moon landing & the birth of all his great-grandkids. Viewed this way, those events were not that far away.
@OzarkHillbilly: seconded.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Schlemazel:
We went here yesterday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunderland_Point
Truth be told I was lost and actually looking for Snatchems http://www.snatchems.co.uk/
We didn’t get out and visit Sambo’s Grave because it was wet and windy as hell and I wasn’t sure about the next tide time but I have seen it in the past and always remember the little trinkets and painted stones that children leave there. The tide had obviously been in earlier as the road was like a mud bog and very slick. My poor little yellow car now looks like I had been four-wheeling through the marsh. We used to go out there a lot as children and pick buckets of wild Samphire on the salt marshes to take home for Mum to pickle. Funny how it is now a gourmet ingredient.
satby
@oldgold: true! But at least the china ends up being cheaper than paper plates too ?
ixnay
@MomSense: Such an oral contraceptive has occasionally come up. Do not know what the problems have been, except lack of support from vets and maybe long-term issues.
satby
@ixnay:
Even if I did, once their parents saw that garbage filled garage, they wouldn’t be allowed into it.
Edit, seriously, the shit p and junk is over my head high. I’m 5’2″ .
ixnay
@Baud: But if we are talking feral colonies … .
raven
@WaterGirl: It’s Mel’s birthday.
ixnay
@Schlemazel: For real old, check out Highgate in England. Although there are lots of abandoned cemeteries in England.
Schlemazel
@Litlebritdifrnt:
OMG! I did not know there really was a Sambo. The wiki page is interesting. Thanks!
In all the searching for new food experiences going back to the old, ‘poor peoples food’ is a hot trend. Organ meats, scavenged plants and similar are much in vogue & will price poor people out of them.
Schlemazel
@ixnay:
Perspective! Here on the tundra something 200 years old is ancient, in New England 400 years, in Europe those hardly move the needle.
Given the condition of headstones here I wonder how much can be seen of those a century or more older.
ixnay
@satby: Well, phooey. I got nothin. You know far more than I here.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
“I hope tall people step on your fingers!” That video was so funny.
ixnay
@Schlemazel: Highgate is actually not that old: one of the first for-profit cemetaries. Victorian maybe?
satby
@ixnay: I don’t really. Just hoping for luck.
I’m pretty sure a raccoon had discovered my feral heated house and food o in my shed, because the food is always gone and the water bowl looks like it’s been used by a grubby animal to wash up in before drinking. I’ll probably end up trapping baby raccoons instead. Not my goal.
Schlemazel
@ixnay:
That would be interesting.
In New England you can see eras. Black slate with skulls and grim reapers at one time then hour glasses. Greek scenes were a thing for a period and angles for another.
frosty
@OzarkHillbilly:
We’ve got an Emerson window fan that sounds just like yours. My father-in-law used in the 60s, maybe the 50s, to ventilate his furniture store. It’s on its third job as a whole house fan now, not quite as successful as the first two because of all the stairs and doorways the air has to move through in this house.
I don’t think it will ever fail.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemazel: If I recall correctly, in many of the really old New England burying grounds (the ones from the winged-skulls era), the headstones have actually been moved–the graveyard used to cover a much larger area, but that’s precious real estate now.
O. Felix Culpa
Just dropping in before tending to garden work to say beautiful pix, OH! And happy 1st of April to jackals everywhere!
frosty
@OzarkHillbilly:
My family moved two weeks after I graduated from high school and my brother and I used a more brutal version of the same approach: “Have I used this in the last 30 days?”
The only things I’ve missed have been my HO minitanks and the Duncan Satellite yoyo. And wow, did the kids in the neighborhood have fun going through everything we set out for the trash collectors.
Doug R
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Get your camera and make your own “Antiques Sideshow”. Might make some money off youtube, may even find a couple of buyers to help cut your losses.
Anybody want about 20-25 Bradford exchange plates?
Immanentize
@frosty:
HO minitanks. Damn. Hours of bad weather basement imaginary battles….
laura
@Betty Cracker: put it in a thermos!
Seriously. I do this at the holidays and breakfast parties. Make it, and have some piping hot water warm the thermos first.
It beats reheating and risking breaking the sauce.
Also, ikea has great smallish thermos’.
J R in WV
The weather had been odd here in WV. Swinging between spring like sunny days sandwiched between cold rainy days. Which means stuff is getting enough water to be growing. Only the huge fields of daffodils are in bloom, so far, and a few hyacinths that were planted with tulips that the deer ate the first time they drifted by after the tulips came up.
A real sing of spring here is the amphibian eggs in the shallow catchment pond between the front door and the rock cliff exposed when we excavated to start building the house back in 1991. There are nearly a dozen softball sized goobers of eggs. It’s a shame because the membrane under the water sprang a leak and we need to drain it, remove all the moss covered rocks around the edge, and excavate a better shaped place, lay a new lining, and replace the mossy stones.
This will eliminate another year of reproduction, but the pond will be dry as soon as spring rains end anyway. And tearing it out is the only way to recreate a hospitable environment for the forest floor amphibians that rely in such little wet places to reproduce. We get 4 or 5 species of frogs and at least as many salamanders, up to the very large spotted tiger salamanders, which are the size of a banana, and pretty shy.
So far we haven’t seen any blue herons perched outside the front door, friends with a tiny koi pond down in NC had their population nearly wiped out by a big Blue Heron one spring. They added several hiding places at first, and then did a tight net over the whole thing, which saved their fish from being lunch.
My dogtooth violets are up out in front of one giant moss covered boulder, no blooms yet, I’ll send some in when they happen, probably another couple of weeks. And out back the bluebells are up and thick, but no blooms there yet either. I have a bed of swamp iris, bright yellow blooms, in another wetland we created beside the driveway, the deer took the greenery down to the ground over the winter, but they’re springing up, and I expect they will bloom in later spring.
The Spiderwort is coming up, they bloom with little balls of blue and gold, and shut tightly at dusk every day. But they’re more of a late spring early summer bloomer.
We have an old family cemetery on the other ridge, there’s no road to it, so I expect they moved tombstones to it across the old oil field roads, using big 4×4 trucks, back in the day. The last burial there was before we bought the farm in 1977 or ’78. Most of the graves have just a stone, which was never carved, but just a marker that someone was placed there with love. The first settlers in here were poor subsistence farmers who grew all they had, and if the rain missed, or a frost came late or early, times would be very hard.
There are lots of tiny family plots through the woods all around here, and most graves are barely marked by old sandstone rocks, which are inclined to erode away pretty rapidly. Plus all those old families moved to town the first real job they got after roads were built to town, so no one is left to recall who’s family those old plots belong to. But the flowers planted still come up in the spring… Some that have roads to or past the old plots still get visited around Memorial day, a picnic with the old folks long passed away.
cosima
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: There are regular auctions at a place about 1-1/2 hrs north of here that I’ve gone to in the past. I was almost exclusively looking to add to my china sets (Spode Blue Italian being the one we use every day, and tons of it at auctions). There was one auction that broke my heart. When I was raking through ‘miscellaneous’ boxes that were going there was a box that had a lot of very random things that I didn’t want, and a most amazing family photo album. Someone had lived a very interesting life in Africa or India (cannot recall exactly now) — so many photos of a youngish couple (mid 30s), their very young children, white-garbed servants, monkeys on the lawn, photos of exotic animals & people in an amazing lush place — all black & white, probably 40s, maybe 1950s at the latest. Why did the family not take it? I realise that companies are paid to basically box up a house and send it to auction, but why the personal photo albums? Why not set them aside and give them to a solicitor or some family member? I decided to buy it and use the internet to try to track the family down if nobody purchased the ‘miscellaneous’ box, but it was purchased, and I can only hope that whoever did so went to the bother of finding a good home for the photo album with a bit of detective work.
I’m with you on antiques — much as I love to see them re-homed, most of it has an aura of sadness. There is a place about 10 minutes from here, Tower Antiques (probably on the internet), it is astonishing. You would have to have a proper castle or manor house for the pieces, because they are enormous. How will they ever sell them? And the old paintings from the same. What a strange line of work, selling those things on — niche items does not even begin to cover it.
On the gardening front, I started some seedlings in an attempt to repopulate my now-dead honesty plants. I ordered heaps of new plants to try to put together an interesting border along the fence in the back, as well as some flowers for the front. Including daffs that will be planted in the fall. A friend gifted me with a stargazer lily today, not sure if it will survive my care. And we have been getting snow off & on over the past couple of days, expecting more, so the gardening situation is dismal. Spring — hah!