Too Much Turkey

          It's been a quiet week in the Luby household this past week despite the fact that we had Thanksgiving thrown into the mix.

           Well, now that the week has come and gone, now that the week is done, it seems like it was kinda quiet. That just shows you how much we forget — and how quickly we forget it! But here's the truth...

          Thanksgiving week started out with me transferring my 13.13-pound for-the-two-of-us turkey from the freezer into the refrigerator for the thawing process. Then I made my beloved Aunt B's pumpkin roll recipe to give as gifts to our neighbors for their Thanksgiving feasts.

          "When you make mine," Momma said, "I'd like you to make it less sweet."

          So I Googled it. Some people make things less sweet by reducing the amount of sugar in a recipe. Someone else said vanilla makes sugar sweeter so try using lemon extract instead. I ran both these past Momma.

          "I don't think lemon would go well in this recipe," she said. "And if you take out some of the sugar, you'll reduce your volume. How about just using mashed potatoes?"

          And what comes up on my FaceBook feed? A candy recipe that uses mashed potato, sugar, and peanut butter.

        What sounded kinda gross when Momma first said it now makes perfect sense. The mashed potato is mild and easily overpowered by the sugar, and in this case, the peanut butter. I bet it will work in the pumpkin roll as well.

         I got busy and made some mashed potatoes, which wasn't hard since I use Hungry Jack. 

            Then I made the filling for Momma's pumpkin roll. I reduced the powdered sugar by 1/4 cup and added 1/4 cup plain mashed potatoes (I didn't add butter or salt and pepper to them). 

          "Taste this," I demanded of Mike as I handed him a beater with a generous dab of filling left on it. Mike took it and went to work.

          "Well?"

          "It's fine," he said between licks.

          "You can't even taste the potato, can you?"

          "No, but I detect a little difference in the texture — but it's not bad."

          Once the pumpkin roll had chilled for a while, I got it out and sliced the ends off.

          "Why'd you do that, Peg?" you wonder.

          For two reasons. The ends are ugly and I wanted to taste it.

          You know what? It was less sweet but still pretty good. I decided to go ahead and slice the pumpkin roll into 12 slices and individually wrap them to make it easier on my sister. I was slicing away when I got a niggle. What if she doesn't want it sliced?

           I texted Patti. "Should I wrap Momma's pumpkin roll in slices for you?"

          "No, I'll slice it," she answered.

          Uh-oh, was my first thought but then decided it was fine. I'd just make another pumpkin roll. It's not a big deal, not for me anyway. They're easy to make. Besides, I'd have reduced sugar pumpkin roll for the neighbors to take for a test drive.

          When Steph Robinson stopped to pick up her pumpkin roll, I gave her a piece. "It's less sweet but it's good."

          The Kipp girls were home for Thanksgiving and stopped by with their mom and dad to visit before heading home on Saturday.

          "It's good," Miss Rosie said, "But I think I'd still go for the regular stuff."

          "I like the other stuff better," Lamar said.

          "But he likes really sweet," Marla jumped in.

          I looked at Lamar and gave him one of those you-and-me things where you point back and forth making a connection. I seldom find things too sweet too.

          "Since we just came from having the regular stuff at Mom and Dad's house," Jenn said, "I can tell this is less sweet, but it's still good."

          "I don't normally like stuff that's too sweet," Marla said, "but the cream cheese filings don't seem too sweet to me. I think the cream cheese cuts the sweetness. But this is good too."

          I reported back to Momma on our Saturday afternoon chat. "Everyone says it's good."

          "I have the impression that you took some of the filling out and added the potatoes."

          "No. I reduced the sugar by 1/4 cup and added 1/4 cup potatoes so I have the same amount of filling. I thought that's what you told me to do."

          "No. What I want you to do is make it just like you normally do and add the mashed potatoes. It'll give you a little more volume but it'll be fine."

          I'm glad we got that straight before I actually made her's.

          And you know I've been working on making rosaries for Momma too. I drilled more seeds than I thought I'd need just so I'd have plenty to choose from.

          "Wait a minute, Peg, just wait a minute," you say.

          What?

          "Last time, you said if you don't put the seeds in the vice tight enough that they'll slip out. My question is, why don't you make the vice tighter?"

          Good question. If I make it too tight, the seeds will crack as soon as I start to drill them. I lose some that way. So it's kind of a balancing act.

          I've got a bunch of seeds drilled and I went looking for the stuff to make the rosaries with. Beads. I need beads as separators. Momma likes the square ones and got me a bunch the last time I made rosaries for her. I wonder if there's enough. I dumped them out and counted them. 94. 

         There're 94 beads. Maybe I've got more someplace else, and I went on the hunt. I looked high, and I looked low. I looked in the drawers, and I looked in boxes. I looked on the shelves, and I looked in tubs under the workbench. I moved things, and I moved more things. You'd have to see my shop to understand that. It's a mess right now. My shelves are glass and the brackets are mounted on slat board. The moisture and time have caused them to sag and one shelf slid to the floor, dumping everything off along the way and shattering into a million pieces on the floor. What a mess. So, as a precaution, I've unloaded all the other shelves and there's stuff everywhere. Hence the move things and move things some more statement. Someday I'll get the shelves back up and organize my shop again.

          I looked every place! And I looked everyplace twice. And I went out the next day and repeated the process a third time. Who knows, sometimes I find stuff that way.

          Finally, I called Momma. "How many beads do I need for each rosary?"

          "Let me see... mumble-mumble-mumble ..." In my mind's eye, I could see her counting the sections on her rosary which is never far from her hand. "Fourteen. Fourteen times three," she finished.

          I drew a picture of the problem in my head... three times four is twelve, in my mind I wrote the two and carried the one. Three times one is three, add the one I carried... "42 and I've only got 94 beads. I don't think I have enough."

          "We could use just two for each section."

          I happened to be in my shop when I called her because I was making the rounds yet again, making a half-hearted last-ditch search in all the same places again. I wandered over to my drill press, talking as I went, looked up, and what do I see?

          "Beads?" you guess.

          Yup. Beads. Right there, front and center, so to speak.

          "Oh ho ho, Momma. You're not going to believe this."

          "You found some."

          "Yup. Okay. Cancel the panic attack." I pulled the jar from the shelf as I was speaking and pulled the baggie from the jar. "There's plenty here."

          "Are you sure?" Momma asked.

          "I'm sure."

          Now it's two days before Thanksgiving. I open our second, not as often-used fridge to get something and there's red Kool-Aid spilled all over the bottom of the fridge. That truly was my first thought. It took a nanosecond for me to remember that I don't have any kids in the house anymore and I haven't made Kool-Aid in 20 some years. My eyes went to the turkey sitting on the shelf and you can guess what was really all over the bottom of my fridge.

          "Why didn't you tell me to put it in a pan!" I admonished Mike like it was his fault.

          "I just thought you'd know." He always has an answer.

          "I thought the plastic bag would keep the blood in."

          "Peg, have you never thawed a turkey before?" you ask.

          Umm. No. I usually don't remember in time and end up roasting a mostly still frozen turkey. However, this year a handy chart came up on my FaceBook feed. It said if you have a 13-16 pound turkey, move it to the fridge on Sunday. I did that. Now I have a clean fridge.

          I also cleaned up the mess from drilling seeds and carried the Dremel back out to the shop. Then I set up to make the rosaries. I picked up one of the wooden beads to start and realized why the beads were in two different spots, why the extra beads were on the shelf by my drill press. It's because the holes in the beads are too small for the cord I'm using and I have to drill them out first.

          OY! Oh well. I'll get started and when I run out of drilled beads, I'll just have to set my drill up again and drill some more.

          I've got one rosary done.

          Thanksgiving dinner consisted of just our favorite foods. We had turkey, of course, dressing, sweet potato, cranberry sauce, and apple pie for dessert — which we were too full to eat until several hours later. After stuffing ourselves fuller than a Thanksgiving turkey, I picked all the meat from the bones, tossed the bones into the stew pot, and simmered them all afternoon. There's turkey noodle soup on the horizon!

          I, uh, I tossed pieces of turkey to all the little beggars under the table. I may have overdone it a little. Two-thirty in the morning Ginger wakes me up. I get up to let her out and despite acting like she wants to go out, she gets to the door and backs away. It was really, really cold out as our temps dropped to the single digits overnight. I closed the door and went to pee. Ginger runs around in frantic circles.

          "All right," I tell her. "I'll let you out."

          I opened the door again, and again she's on the verge of going out and backs away at the last second. I head back to bed and find a nice gooey pile of diarrhea on the floor. I grabbed Ginger and forced her out the door, then cleaned up the mess.

          Serves you right, Peg. I scold myself. You gave them too much turkey!

          But I was careful not to give them any fat! I justify.

          I guess it doesn't matter.

          After getting the floor and puppy bottoms cleaned up, I washed and went back to bed only to repeat the process two more times during the night.

          Black Friday we woke to heavy frost again, so I went out for pictures.      

             

            

           On my way out to take pictures, I filled the birdfeeders. When I came back in, I saw the birds were hitting the feeders.

          A pretty red Cardinal.

          A Chickadee on my homemade suet. I used my leftover grease from cooking, raisins, nuts, I chopped up an apple, a scoop of peanut butter, and birdseed.

          A little Downy Woodpecker took to the backside of the tree when I went out for a closer shot.

          "I can still see you, ya know," I told him. He took wing.

          And the bad boys of the bird world, Blue Jays.

          There's six of them on this pan of cat food that I put out for them.

          "Peg, why are you feeding them cat food?" you ask.

          Because the cats won't eat it. I don't know what it is about this bag of food but none of them like it. I tend to have two different flavors of food open at a time and mix their bowls half-and-half. They don't like and won't eat this stuff, so I'm feeding it to the birds.

          Tractor supply was having a one-day Black Friday sale and I needed some birdseed. I normally buy the really cheap stuff and add sunflower seeds to it. They have a better mix in a 50-pound bag and it was $3.50 off the normal price. I figured it was a better deal since I didn't have to buy sunflower seeds to put in it.

          So after everyone was fed, Mike and I made the trip to Wysox to get birdseed.

          Frost on the hillside coming into town.

          And the power plant. It's so cold the steam was frozen in mid-air.

          Tractor Supply was busy for their sale, the store was packed, and we looked around, finding a couple of other good deals. 25 pounds of scoopable cat litter for $3.99. I stocked up. Although it doesn't have enough odor control for the inside cat boxes, it's just fine for the feral cat room.

          And Mike got a jacket made by Blue Mountain. It's a little lighter in weight than a Carhart but very similar in material. They actually had a tall, which made the arms long enough for Mike. This is only the third jacket I've ever seen him buy. He wore the first one out. The second one... Oh my gosh! He bought an expensive jacket and the first time I washed it, I ruined it. I dried it too hard and it shrank. He went back to wearing his worn-out jacket because he just couldn't find anything he liked or the sleeves were too short. So you can see why Mike buying a new jacket is an event. 

          The deer come around in the early evening hours and clean up the dropped birdseed. Mike was in the kitchen with me. "There's deer at the birdfeeders," I told him and went for my camera. He came to look. I zoomed in. "She's looking at you," I told Mike.

          "No she's not! That's her butt!"

          I laughed. Since I was looking through the zoom I knew what I was looking at but Mike couldn't see it. "No, she's looking at us."

          But Mike was insistent. "Peg! That's her butt!"

          I snapped the picture and showed it to him on the camera.

          "Oh. Now I see it," he says.

          Her fawns are with her yet and they're getting big.

          Another afternoon we were visiting with the Kipps and the deer can actually reach their birdfeeder. "They'll clean it out," Rosie said. And we watched from the window.

    

          This time of year it's really easy to spot the Bittersweet hanging alongside the road and there's a lot of it too if you just look for it.

          Lastly, I'd like to thank my mother for getting me hooked on coloring. When I was visiting her she gave me a calendar with those intricate pictures that you color. "I'm just too shaky," she told me.

          "Okay," I said as I took it, and honestly, I intended to stash it away for a rainy day or whatever. Coloring was not on my radar.

          "And when you get it done you can send it back to me," Momma said.

          Oh great! Now I had to color it for her! But don't take that the wrong way. I'll do anything I can for my mother — and happily too.

          A couple of years back, adult coloring books were all the rage. I didn't bother with it. I didn't think I was interested in it all. But sitting here with the vibrant colors of the markers, the ease with which they glided over the glossy pages of the calendar... I don't know, it just somehow hooked me.

          After I finish the calendar, I'll have to buy a coloring book.

          Thanks, Momma!

          Let's end this with sunrise pictures I took just this morning.

It Came!

            It came!

          The snow came!

          Our first real snowfall of the year.

          "No, it's not," someone on social media pointed out. "It snowed in January."

          And that's true.

          Our week started with a heavy frost. I stood in the kitchen, drawing water for a cup of coffee, gazing out over the morning landscape. Mike was pouring his cereal. "Why does it look white out there?" I asked.

          "Because we got a heavy frost."

          After getting the critters fed, I pulled on my boots and went for frost pictures for you. The pond has a skim of ice.

          And winter flowers.

          Frost on the Bittersweet.

          Just a red leaf.

          Frost crystals on a leaf.

          I put my birdfeeders out. I think this woodpecker and jay are having a standoff over the suet feeder.

          And then it came. The snow. The flakes started to fall lazily from the sky. I took Ginger and Itsy out and this is what they think of it.

          By the next morning, we had around 10 inches on the ground. Smudge sat on the stump watching me fill the bird feeders.

          Then I went on a walkabout.

          I went down to the road and snapped a picture of the Robinsons' barn, then I headed up the hill to our upper barn.

          I hadn't seen a single critter track. Not one. In my minds' eye, I imagined all the critters snug and warm in their dens.        I'm the first one to make tracks in the snow, I thought. Then I spot deer tracks.

          Down the trail is my Bittersweet.

          The red stands out against the snow.

          And that made me think of the winterberry. I made my way across the ditch Mike made to funnel water into our pond.

          And that was a little tricky. I couldn't see where the soft spots, ridges, and valleys were and almost had my boot sucked right off my foot!

          But I got across and with no slips or falls and all my footwear intact.

          Winterberries.

          The barn on the hill.

          Mike got out the snow blower.

          He cleared the driveway and a path down to the mailbox as well as the mailbox itself.

           Mike got called for jury duty. "How can I get out of it?"

          He was asking the wrong person. "I don't think you should try to get out of it. I think it's your civic duty." Easy for me to say, right? I wasn't the one called. "I'll tell you what. I'll go with you and be your support."

          Mike was to report to the courthouse in Towanda at 8:30 in the morning. The letter also told him that parking is limited; we couldn't park in the employee parking lot, and if we parked in a 3 or 5-hour limit parking space, put our jurors notice in the window and we won't get a ticket.

          "We should leave early so we can get a parking space," Mike said. "We'll stop at McDonald's for breakfast."

          Towanda is like 19 miles. We left here at 7. Yeah, plenty early. I know when to pick my battles and this wasn't it. "I'll take my Nook so I have something to do while we wait."

          Here's something you won't see very often. Mike with no beard.

          "What happened?" you ask.

          Someone had a dumb-ass attack, or maybe senior moment might be a nicer way to put it. "I usually go in and pull the guide off and shave my neck," Mike tells me. "This time I pulled it off and started shaving my beard!" he laughed and shook his head. "Once I had a strip shaved off I had to finish the job."

          He wasn't real keen on my taking his picture.

          Crossing the Susquehanna from Wysox to Towanda. See the courthouse?

          We were early and had no trouble finding a parking space. We sat in the Jeep and ate our sausage egg McMuffins.

          "At least I'll have my Nook to help pass the time," I commented.

          "You can't take that in with you."

          "I can't? Why not?"

          "I don't know but that's what the paper says."

          "Well now's a fine time to tell me that! I'll just read on my phone then."

          "You can't take your phone either," Mike informs me.

          I got his paper out and read it. Sure enough, no electronics of any kind for me. You're not allowed anything that can take pictures or record. But because Mike's a juror he's allowed to have his cell phone.

          I ended up being the only bystander that morning and spent my time talking with a gal who held the position of Tipstaff. "I don't know why we're called that," Cathy told me when I asked. She also gave me a lot of history about the courthouse.

          The first courthouse burned. When they built the second one, they put the fire station right across from it. "I guess they learned their lesson there," Cathy said.  

         The second courthouse was outgrown and the current courthouse was built in the late 1800's. All of the woodwork is handmade and a testament to the skill and workmanship of the builders. The granite is from Italy. The walls are one-inch granite for the first few feet, at least on the level we were on, and from there up it's canvas. "It was to help deaden the sound."

          And I learned about Cathy too. She was an operating room nurse before retiring. Her friend worked in the courthouse and had been after her for several years to apply for the position of Tipstaff before she actually did, then six months after she got the job, her friend retired. We had a good laugh over that. Cathy likes the job and only works a couple of days a week. It's her job to aid the court. Hand out the paperwork to the jurors when they arrive and seat them, make copies, answer questions, things like that.     

          Have you ever done jury duty? This is my first experience. Once the doors were closed, the jurors had to fill out a questionnaire. Those were taken into the back and fed into a machine. Then they come out and assign each of the jurors a number for the voir dire process. That's where they question you to see if you have any views that would keep you from making a fair and impartial verdict. Mike's number was 33. They expected to pick two juries this day.

          And then we waited. Mary, the lady who gave the jurors their instructions, helped to pass the time by giving the history of the courthouse. I'd already heard much of it from Cathy but still listened and learned a few more things.

          "The statue on top is not Lady Justice as many people think because she is not blindfolded. But the most interesting thing about the statue is one night there was a storm and she was hit by lightning. In the morning, when they came to work, her head was laying on the courthouse lawn. They couldn't find an exact match and the one they did find was a little too large for the body. You can see it from certain angles, but you're not likely to notice it if I hadn't told you," Mary said. When she ran out of facts, and after a pause, Cathy joined her.

          "The first court was held in a bar," she told us. "It was located on the corner where the bridge is. The judge would ride in on his horse every couple of months and hear cases. In the meantime, the prisoners were housed at the sheriff's house and his wife would feed and guard them."

          Mary explained the jury selection process telling us that their names were drawn at random from various places such as tax forms and driver's licenses. "We sent out 180 notices, 74 replied and only the 47 of you showed up."

          "What happens to the ones who don't show up?" I asked.

          "Their names are automatically rolled over to the next draw."

          And we waited. And we waited. And we waited some more.

          Around noon the judge came in. "I had 10 cases before me this morning," she explained the delay, "and they've all settled. I want to thank you for your service and you're all dismissed."

          Mike and I decided to go on up to Athens and have lunch at the Chinese buffet then do our shopping. It was a long day until we got home and some little girl pooped on the floor while we were gone. Yeah, Itsy. She's been doing that occasionally over the past few months. At least twice now she was headed for the door and just plain couldn't make it. I scolded her. I know she feels bad about it but I have to scold her anyway or she'll think it's okay — which it's not, but what are you gonna do?

          "Diaper her," I hear my beautiful sister Phyllis say.

          If it comes to it, I will. But right now it's not too big of a deal because we don't have good carpet on the floors.

          The next day we planned to make a trip to Dickson City. Mike needed one more furnace run and we needed to go to Home Depot to get it. When I went to feed the outside cats that morning I discovered their plastic plate was broken. How the heck did they do that?

            I didn't take many road pictures but I did take one.

          I was ready to pee by the time we got to Home Depot. I think their door pulls are really clever. You don't have to use a paper towel to open the door then look for a place to toss it as you hold the door open with your foot. If there's not a trashcan nearby to toss it into, I'll stuff it in my pocket until I can find one. Home Depot is the only place I've seen with these foot openers on the restroom doors.

          I have been busy this past week, drilling Kentucky Coffee Tree seeds to make rosaries. My shop is cold, too cold for me to work in for very long. Especially since I put the seeds in a vice to hold them while I drill and the vice was really cold!

          "If I could bring my drill press in here," I told Mike, "I would."

          "Why don't you bring your Dremel in and set it up?"

          "You wouldn't mind?"

          Mike not only didn't mind, he helped me get set up. Now, whenever I have a few minutes, I'll drill a few seeds. And I really like using the Dremel too. It's a higher speed than my drill press and the seeds don't break out on the bottom as they did at a slower speed. But this is a job I need to get done for two reasons. One, I want to get the rosaries sent off to Momma, and two, I want to clean up the mess it makes.

          "Just be careful you don't break the bit," Mike advised.

          I was sitting there, happily drilling away when the seed I was drilling on slipped. I didn't have the vice tight enough. I put the handle in the up position totally expecting the seed to be stuck on the bit as usually happens when it slips from the vice when all of a sudden — POP! ZING! It shattered! It was gone. A piece of the bit flew across the kitchen and landed on the floor. I found the seed on the floor in the other direction and it was a total mess.

          "I don't understand what happened!" I cried.

          "It probably got in a bind when you were backing it out," was what he thinks happened. Then he went and got me another drill bit. "This is the last one I have in that size, so don't break it."

         

          Lastly, I got this picture of Kevin and Kandyce enjoying a cup of tea (or maybe it's coffee) from Grandma's china.

          Clara would be so proud! You know she believed in using her china. This is a picture of Clara Catherine and Jesse Luther Kraft.

          Let's call this one done!