NEW: House Democrats draw the line: No bipartisan cooperation with Republicans who questioned the election https://t.co/nbw9zZfivG
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) March 14, 2021
More members of Congress and the Senate need to not only draw this line, but then proclaim it loudly. You want bipartisanship, don’t be a traitor to the constitution.
After a delayed start of about a day, the promised big, wet, snow has arrived. No idea what our final totals will be – they have predicted 12 to 48 inches. It’s all about how slowly it moves. I’d guess we’re at about 8 inches now with a full day of snowfall predicted.
I’ve shoveled twice now and will head out in an hour or so to do it again. When it’s this heavy and wet, I don’t like it to pile up too high before shoveling. As most winter storms here consist of champagne powder you can push away without much effort, spring snows remind us of what everyone else usually has to deal with in terms of snow. As it will be in the mid-60s by the end of the week, I’m going to put on another pot of coffee and enjoy.
I know you probably want duckling updates, but I’ve been dealing with first one Dane with tummy issues and now another (I swear my dogs are allergic to spring) so, while I have plenty of photos and video it may take me a day or two to get them together.
Hope everyone “sprung” forward.
Open thread
zhena gogolia
I mentioned in an earlier thread but don’t know if you saw it — you should put together a children’s book with pictures of the ducklings, dogs, and cat. It would be a best-seller! I’d buy it, and I have no kids (but I do have friends, some with very new ones . . . .)
JAFD
Requesting tips to make gift zucchini edible, please.
Thanks very much!
MattF
I’ve sprung forward and, as usual, was irked by my microwave’s demand for the date, month, and year.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I wondered how you were doing in the snow. That’s way too much of it for this late in the winter.
WereBear
What did I hear about permanent Daylight Savings Time?
Jeffro
LOVE
IT
Ken
@JAFD: Zucchini bread, which is basically carrot cake but baked in a loaf pan, and no frosting. Freezes well.
Ken
@MattF: That must be for all the times you put something in the microwave and program it to start on October 17, 2022.
Spanky
@WereBear: You heard that the idea is extremely stupid.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jeffro: My rep Sean Casten is mentioned in that article too. I was impressed by Ds severing ties with Rs they’ve been working with for years. That must have taken some determination.
Ken
Complaints, largely, if you’ve been reading the same sites as I have. I hadn’t realized that there were so many people who still use the phrase “God’s time”, or were so wedded to the “true” longitude of the sun.
It was interesting to learn that the Department of Transportation is in charge of the US time zones. Let us hope that Pete B. doesn’t abuse this awesome power.
Ken
Now that earmarks are a thing again, do you think the Democrats will use that against the seditionists? “Sorry, not taking requests for your district until you affirm the results of the 2020 election.”
Beautifulplumage
@Ken: ya gotta add chocolate chips to further hide the taste : (
eclare
@Ken: If we have to choose one, I would prefer Standard time. I live in the south, and the *last* thing I want in July and August is an extra hour of sunlight before it gets dark.
WTF is god’s time?
Roger Moore
@Ken:
Just so long as it keeps working on August 4th, 2026.
TaMara (HFG)
@Ken: I absolutely DO NOT understand this. No offense to anyone bothered by the bi-yearly time change, but don’t these people travel? I mean…I drive across NE and lose/gain an hour on a regular basis (and poor NE has two time zones – like a few other states).
Sigh…I’ll just go pour my judgemental self another cup of coffee.
Ken
@Beautifulplumage: The recipe I use is basically a spice cake, so the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, raisins, and walnuts hide the zucchini well.
OzarkHillbilly
@JAFD:Zucchini cakes!
Roger Moore
@TaMara (HFG):
Apparently, a lot of people care more about light in the evening than in the morning, so they like daylight saving time. I still think they’ll bitch and moan when the sun doesn’t come up until very late during the depths of winter. What they really want is for Congress to change the law so there’s more daylight in the winter, but it ain’t happening.
TaMara (HFG)
@Ken: Adding zucchini to any existing banana, spice, carrot, etc -cake, ups the moistness and you really can’t taste it after that, with luck.
Also – adding it to a good, spicy pasta sauce where it basically breaks down to mush, is a good way to use it, as it takes on the sauce flavor.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I apologize for my brain and the fact that the juxtaposition of those two clauses made me think, “OMG COUNT THE DUCKLINGS!!” Even though I’ve seen the pic of Bixby guarding the ducklings from the Enemy Cat.
Or to the things that the melting snow exposes in the grass. My little guy, a beagle mix, walks with his nose pressed almost continuously to the ground, and every once in a while he scarfs up something and eats it before I have a hope of getting it away from him or finding out what it is. And with the exposing of the ground, he’s got a couple of favorite spots he keeps returning to where he actually digs a little before trying to get his jaws on something.
I start to ask, “what could you possibly eating that you have to dig up?” but long experience as a parent and pet owner has taught me not to ask the questions for which you don’t want to know the answers.
Michael Cain
@Dorothy A. Winsor: March is typically Colorado’s snowiest month. And in recent years, April almost as good/bad.
Ken
Solar time (though it ignores the equation of time). IIRC, it was used when time zones were introduced; people wanted their courthouse clock to read 12:00 at noon, dammit, not when the railroad said it was 12:00 in Des Moines. It then made a comeback when daylight savings was introduced.
Roger Moore
@Michael Cain:
Yep. Colorado is unusual in that the heaviest snows are usually in the fall and spring. Winter is simply too dry to snow much.
Kristine
Illinois gets hit with Winter again tomorrow, although the amount of expected snow has been all over the place. At least the predictions are headed down–they started at 5+ inches, and are now down to an inch or two in my neck of the woods. Could even wind up with just a dusting. It won’t hang around long anyway given the rise is temps over the course of the week. It’ll just make a mess.
It’s been so mild here. Daffs are popping up. Grass is greening and my mini-roses near the house are putting out leaves.
Baud
@Ken:
I fear he will let us down by refusing to make it permanently nighttime in red states.
Kristine
In other news, best thing I’ve seen on Twitter so far today.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ken:
Time zones were introduced in 1883. How do these people feel about indoor plumbing and electric lights?
jnfr
Here in Westminster (CO) we’re at about 8″ too and still coming down. And it’s windy! I went out to brush off the satellite dish and rushed right back in. It took my breath away.
Cameron
@JAFD: https://muybuenocookbook.com/calabacitas-con-elote-zucchini-with-corn/
MattF
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: The issue, IMO, is the concept of the International Date Line. Where do you think those ‘extra’ hours go?
eclare
@Cameron: That sounds wonderful! Bookmarked for summer.
TaMara (HFG)
@Kristine: That was hilarious!
Off to shovel…again.
Beautifulplumage
@Ken: I’m skeptical but won’t plan on investigating; zucchini is the blech for me.
Amir Khalid
@Ken:
Or if he does decide to abuse it, at least let his abuses be creative and hilarious. ?
Soapdish
I am definitely #TeamDaylightSavingTimeAllTheTime.
Ken
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I really don’t understand their objections, at least not the ones based on there being One True Time. I’m much more sympathetic to the arguments about where the daylight hours fall.
My one ask is that if Congress does this, they give the programmers enough lead time to update the software. Tax season just became a nightmare for all involved.
trollhattan
@JAFD:
trollhattan
@Kristine:
JRT’s haven’t changed a bit, have they? Hilarious!
Ken
Which has become positively fractal over the last couple decades…
pat
I like to think about what sort of “time” and “distance” space aliens will be using, since all of our measurements of “light years” are based on OUR movements around OUR sun.
Hmm..
Ken
@trollhattan:
4. Find recipes using zucchini flowers, to get rid of them before the fruits form.
(Trivia: botanically, zucchini are berries. Any jam recipes out there?)
Benno
@JAFD:
You can make all kinds of south Asian sweets using zucchini. Search for English recipes for lauki ka halwa or lauki ka barfi
You can also make latkes and hide any residual zucchini awfulness with applesauce or sour cream
M31
Italians say here’s the only possible use (beside deepfry the flowers):
slice thin, fry in olive oil till brown, put on pasta with a lot of parmesan
it’s very very good
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: Put Casten in charge. The shenanigans alone would be worth violating our ethics.
debbie
Finally! Along with Joe condemning the b.s. that is trickle down, all Dems are loudly condemning these GQP lies!
debbie
@JAFD:
Seconded whoever said zucchini bread. I make a couple of loaves in the spring, slice them, and freeze them. They keep well all through the summer. I use my mother’s recipe, which may be a bit sweeter than other recipes, but no one’s ever turned down a slice!
Starboard Tack
@Ken:
Squash blossom quesadillas are a great, quick lunch. They’re the one time I like wheat flour tortillas over corn. (Home made corn, of course.)
Getting on to 10″ of snow in central Denver at 10:30 DST. And it’s almost slush.
StringOnAStick
Our close friends in the Denver area had their 14 year old converted feral collapse last night, and lost him as they were in the way to the vet ER; fortunately the snow hadn’t started yet. The vet said it was likely a heart attack given how much he’d slowed down over the prior 6 months. Today they are working on their grief with lots of physically demanding snow shoveling.
I fed that kitty many times over the years before we moved last fall. I could never get close to him; to anyone but his two people he was still completely feral. I’m feeling quite sad over his death, of my heart kitty 6 years ago and for wearbear’s Owlyn.
Wag
I just shoveled off the daughter’s trampoline, and agree 100% that spring snow is much more difficult than the usual fluff
Wag
@Soapdish:
Agreed
mrmoshpotato
So precise! ?
Also, damn!
VOR
US Daylight Savings is a PITA for working internationally. Other countries also observe DST, but their dates for “Spring Forward, Fall Back” are different. The US changed today, the second Sunday of March, but european countries like France and Germany don’t change until the last Sunday in March. I’m on US Central time and yesterday I was 6 hours behind London, today I am 5 hours behind, and in two weeks I’ll go back to being 6 hours behind. As I said, PITA for trying to find acceptable times for international conference calls. Same issue happens in the fall, when the rest of the world switches back at a different date than the US. Wikipedia claims the candy industry was a supporter of the change because it increased candy sales for Halloween.
lahke
You can substitute zucchini for cucumbers in most picked recipes and get pretty good results.
Starboard Tack
@mrmoshpotato:
Along the Front Range, the depth depends on the elevation. Just over 12″ in Central Denver, east of the river, at 12:45 DST, gusting to blizzard conditions.
lahke
@lahke:
Sorry, that’s pickle recipes. What i get for not checking before hitting post.
Geminid
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Before he became a Congressman, Sean Casten had a business career in the clean energy/energy efficiency field. He will likely be a contributor to climate change initiatives that the House Democrats will put out later this Spring.
Casten and fellow Chicago area Representative Lauren Underwood are members of the talented Democratic class of 2018.
ColoradoGuy
Pretty much a blizzard here in Erie (east of Boulder, west of I-25). Hard to say how much since there are drifts everywhere. Maybe a foot as of 12:55PM local time. Not a good time to do any driving, near-whiteout conditions.
Miss Bianca
Your photos capture what it looks like outside here, TaMara, up in the central mountains. I think we’re not supposed to get as much as, say, Colorado Springs, but we’ve probably got about 8 inches out there now. I’m in a partial food coma from pancakes and bacon, even this third cup of coffee isn’t likely to keep me from a snooze on the sofa. All I’m doing today while the wind and snow are howling is keeping the fire stoked, and getting a fish chowder going for supper (potatoes are soaking even as I type!)
Joey Maloney
I think we should go back to ecclesiastical time, where there’s 12 hours every day between sunrise and sunset, no matter how far apart they are.
Starboard Tack
@Miss Bianca:
Fish chowder sounds excellent. I’m going out to shovel a bit to keep ahead of the storm, then make chicken noodle soup with lots of garlic, even though I’m feeling quite well.
billcinsd
@Ken: My mom used to make a really good zucchini-based jam. Also she used zucchini in salsa. I also like steamed zucchini
jnfr
We’ve accumulated several more inches so far, and it’s still windy and still coming down.
https://twitter.com/jnfr/status/1371178943877890053
Miss Bianca
@Starboard Tack: Chicken noodle soup with lots of garlic sounds yummy, too! Keeps you healthy *and* keeps the vampires from biting! : )
Starboard Tack
@Miss Bianca:
Maybe also Republicans. (Is that redundant?)
Mo Salad
As long as we have school days starting early like 7:30 am for high school and whatnot, yearlong daylight savings time condemns schoolkids to six months of walking to school, commuting, or waiting for the bus in the dark. The kids need the safety provided by that daylight then more than we need it at 5:30 pm.
NotMax
@JAFD
There is nothing — I repeat for emphasis, nothing — that makes it palatable. Horrible, vile stuff. It’s the sole regularly found foodstuff this individual adamantly refuses to grant ingress to the mouth.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Roger Moore: fun fact: the date given in the original serialized first published in 1950 was the year “1985.”
Orwell’s “1984” had been published only two years before.
Starboard Tack
Just finished the first round of snow shoveling. It’s colder than when it started snowing yesterday so the snow isn’t slushy but it is heavy. Measured a half dozen places in the front and back lawns and it’s between 9″ and 14″. If it slacks off in the next few hours, then maybe another 3″ to 4″. I hope it’s snowing really hard around the reservoirs.
It was nice. The sound of the snow and the wind in the trees reminded me of going sledding with my Dad and my brother. Sometimes Dad lay down on the sled, and one of us would lie on his back, and the other pushed us over the edge of the hill. The best part was falling off half way down and rollling the rest of the way, laughing. I still remember how he smelled.
Starboard Tack
Time for cocoa with peppermint schnapps. I forgot to buy whipped cream least week, but, oh, well.
MomSense
@Starboard Tack:
????
TriassicSand
“I know you probably want duckling updates…”
The ducklings are great, but I want to see video of ducks shoveling snow directed by Bixby barking orders. This is what happens when your critters become entertainment…expectations grow.
TriassicSands
@Kristine:
Is that a Jack Russell? If so, what did they expect?
eachother
Set my garden sundial to daylight savings time.
Ramalama
@JAFD: Mollie Katzen has a terrific recipe for zucchini pizza crust. Listed in a bunch of websites that aren’t hers but this one looks like the one I’ve used from her excellent Moosewood Cookbook (I think it was that one).