It was a pleasant day today, here on Honeysuckle Hill. The daffodils are shooting up and the little white flowers of spring are showing up here and there. It was only in the high 40's and a tiny bit breezy most of the day, but tomorrow's supposed to be almost 70. Not as sunny as today though, I don't think.
The boyo came over today, after working out at his dad's farm for 6 or 7 hours putting up fences. They ran out of barbed wire. lol His shoulder is hurting him again and he needs to get his butt back to the chiropractor. He said he has an appointment. I fed him some leftover aglio y olio...and he was impressed. He loves garlic anyway... and said he'd never had it before. I told him it's a lot better fresh. He spent 2 hours detailing my car for me for a little extra cash. It's clean as a whistle now! woohoo!
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I made the rye bread today, and it turned out pretty good. Didn't raise as much as I'd hoped...but--I didn't make 2 small round loaves either, I used bread pans. The slices make a half slice of regular bread, but I'll tell you, it sure was tasty.
I made the Vegetarian Reubens for supper tonight, served on that home made bread. O. M. G. They were outrageous. I took a picture of the one on my plate, which was a little over cooked, because the Irishman gobbled his down while I was getting the camera. I made oven baked sweet potato fries to go with it, and those are ALWAYS good. The filling on the sandwiches is thin sliced red onion, sliced baby portabella mushrooms and baby spinach sauteed together in a tiny bit of olive oil (spinach goes in last). Then you put a scosh
more olive oil in the skillet and put the slices of bread in, with Swiss cheese on them. You spoon filling onto one half of the bread and sauerkraut on the other half. Before starting this, I made a small batch of Russian dressing. You take the sandwich slices out of the skillet once they are nicely grilled and put the Russian dressing on the filling side. Close 'em up and eat 'em up!
The sweet potato fries were easy too. I used one big sweet potato and it was more than we could eat. (Of course, it was about half the size of a football!!) I scrubbed it, dried it, cut the ends off and cut it into fries. I lined a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, put the slices on there. Drizzled them with olive oil and then seasoned them with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. Used my mitts to mix 'em up good and make sure there was oil on all the potatoes. Into the oven at 450 for about 30 minutes total. Stop halfway and turn them, over with a spatula. A little piece of heaven...
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Had a chat with a 2nd cousin of mine last night that I've never met. Another cousin who's been doing genealogy on my father's fathers side of the family has uncovered a whole passel of folks from down in southern Missouri. He came online chat and wanted to know how we were related. I told him our grandfathers were brothers. We had a nice chat...and my cousin and I are taking a trip down to meet them in a couple of weeks. How cool is that?? She also told me tonight that she has charted the arrival of the clan from England into New York, and from there to Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Oregon. I did not ever hear that we were from England. She said she's got a lot of stuff, and will bring it with her.
We have a strange family in a lot of respects. I told her that I always thought it was just us on the Morss side...nobody ever talked about any other relatives, and I looked and looked and never found anyone with the same last name, spelled like ours is. She said she was surprised that our 2nd cousin never knew his grandfather. I said that if his grandfather was anything like his brother-our grandfather- the family probably disowned him and walked away. She concurred.
My grandfather was a lazy no count drunk. My father hated him. My grandmother worked herself to death trying to keep her family fed and a roof over their heads. He got drunk and he went fishing, and that's all I ever remember him doing. And expected her to wait on him hand and foot. And sometimes she did and sometimes she didn't. lol She cleaned peoples houses and she took in ironing and she did whatever she could to earn a little money. She raised a kickass vegetable garden and could make magical meals out of nothing. Her sons helped her all they could...my dad left school in the 8th grade because he got a job and could make money for his mom. The boys all hunted and fished and made sure she had meat in the smokehouse and freezer. And they all loved her very much and did everything they could to protect her from him when he was drunk and mean.
My dad's sisters (the two younger ones) are in various stages of denial about what it was like when they were kids. The two older ones , both now deceased, had no such delusion about him.
Anyway. Life goes how it goes, I guess. We play the hand we get dealt...
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Well, this ordinary day is coming to an end. I'm ready to put my head on the pillow and drift off to dream land...
Namaste, y'all....
