The Power of a Table

I have been writing about my outdoors and it has gotten even better. I found a great table at Rite Aid, of all places, for $46.00. It has all the requirements - four legs and a top - a great glass top, and the best part, the requisite hole in the middle! Now I can encircle the hole with my nifty lazy susan with all its little compartments for goodies, and put the umbrella in the middle. I can sit outside and read my book with a place to put my coffee. I was there earlier this evening and could imagine how people sit at a table in pleasant weather and write whole books. I am thinking about taking my computer outside and seeing what happens. I just need a longer extension cord. I am rather limited here at Horror House by boxes that contain electrical outlets - but no juice. So we plug cords in inside and drag them under doors - trying at the same time to keep either the warm air in or the cool air in and the bugs out. One day I found an orange cat had strolled in the front door and was wandering around the dining room. There's a story there.

When I was at the University of Kansas I rented two rooms in a house - upstairs. My bedroom was an old sleeping porch with leaky windows and it was cold, cold, cold. I saved enough Green Stamps from my grocery shopping and was able to redeem them for an electric blanket. I went home, remade my bed with the new blanket and snuggled in with my textbooks to study. I left my door open to the hallway so I could get some more heat. All of a sudden this big orange cat walked in my door, hopped up on my bed and proceeded to pee. Then it hopped down and ran out. It was just horrible. I have hated orange cats ever since. The cat in my dining room surely sensed that for it ran out the front door immediately. Yes - I had a flashback - it was PTSD!

But I'm loving my deck and my table and another new bird feeder - and my soul is being fed.

What's in the smoke?

I, admittedly, am dangerous around fire. I have the scars to prove it. A long time ago I swore off lighter fluids and have perfected the art of starting my charcoal fires using a chimney charcoal starter. If you don't have one - get one, unless you don't have a grill, then you don't need one. I have to thank my friend and colleague, Hal Forman, for introducing me to this miracle of fire. It is, first of all, a no-brainer. Secondly, it always works, as long as you can set paper on fire. I never use starter fluid. I don't like to use charcoal because of the benzopyrines, but I left my propane-fired, second-hand grill behind with the next-door Mormons in Germany. I think that is what I did. Maybe it went to Rita's along with the dogwood tree. Anyone with the answer is welcome to set me straight.

I have in my possession the beautiful royal blue Weber grill I bought on Easter Sunday at the Exchange at Vogelweh. It has a few more chips of enamel off the outside but all in all it is in great shape. In addition to that I have our CharBroil Smoker. Since moving to Pennsylvania I have been able to find all of its parts. That is what this blog is about. I am trying to learn how to use the smoker. Last week I shopped at the the market for the first time in many weeks. In the process I bought turkey burgers, chicken sausages, tuna steaks, butterfly pork chops and the buy one get one free specials - pork roast, London broil and chicken breast with back bone. A lot of meat.

For the Memorial Day feast I cooked on the Weber grill - the sausage, burgers, chops and tuna steaks. I forgot to mention the butterflied shrimp. I offered my honey whatever he wanted. He was a happy camper and had plenty to take to work in his lunch. It was really good I have to admit. Last night we had all the leftovers from the week. Today, after having read up on using a water smoker I fired up the CharBroil. Somehow I just kept remembering how much Harry and my mother liked using the smoker. I may be wrong, but I think that is why I bought one in the first place - because they liked it. I think I got this one from the Navy Exchange when we were in La Maddalena. I think I used it once. In the interim, being packed up and moved around, it got sort of bent out of round, so when I used it today I wasn't at all sure it was working right. But I fired it up anyway, following the instructions from various videos and descriptions I had watched and read on the Internet.

I put six chicken breasts and a pork roast in the smoker along with a pan full of water, vinegar, juniper berries, rosemary, thyme, summer savory, onion and apple. No particular "recipe" - just what I had on hand. After many hours of adding hickory chips soaked in water and coals I was not very confident that I was going to have meat that would not kill us when we ate it. To make sure it was OK I made up one last chimney full of coals and finished off the meat in the Weber grill. I think that eventually the meat would have been OK, but I was a worried novice. So, after testing each piece with the thermometer I concluded we were safe. I swooped them all into to the house and proceeded to carve. It was just yummy. I'm pretty ready to try it again, but know a lot more than when I started. One of the things I know - which I read somewhere, was to not hang out the wash before you start up the smoker. Only I forgot that and now Jay will get to wear his dinner to work every day until the next wash day. The price for being green.

Now I have all kinds of protein stored away for future use. One of my discoveries since moving here was the freezer in the basement. Kim cleaned it recently and we have fired it up. Seems it works just fine and now I have a place to store my future excess from the garden.

I have not met some of my goals set in earlier weeks, but one thing I have done is to make myself an outdoor haven to enjoy. While waiting for the last of the meat to come off the grill I sat back with a glass of wine and watched the mama Robin feed her baby in the spot we had just tilled for the herb garden. Tomorrow I will cover the tilled dirt - currently full of worms and goodies enjoyed by the birdies - with weed block plastic, and put in my herbs. I have actually grown Italian parsley from seed, and curly parsley and cress and cilantro. They are in the other garden but I am moving them to the home of the herbs where they will live with rosemary and thyme and sage - purple sage at that. My garden is a song.

So - as for what is in the smoke - there is learning, memory, smell, taste and a sense of satisfaction - along with anticipation of what tomorrow holds.

Bird Count

I'm not really counting birds - but I am counting my blessings. Today I worked my buns off building a new "step" off of our deck. It is actually a temporary replacement for the very precarious footing to exit our deck to the yard. After I removed it from it's location at the exit from the deck to the back yard I discovered that the former owner had no reservations about burying his trash under the deck. While raking out dirt from a newly discovered concrete structure at the edge of the porch I discovered pieces of wood, lengths of pipe, some sheet metal somethings and - a pair of socks. One sock would have been no surprise, but two matching socks -that was really different. Of course, since I am such a "sock warrior" I was tempted to rush them to the washer but I resisted. What was a blessing was the fact that I built this new "step" from materials that I found in the garage. I also did some creative wood cutting with my old, but trusty, Craftsman Skil Saw. Even I was impressed after I ripped a 2X6 to the size I needed. And, I did it on the saw horses I had constructed myself. You should see my work - it's getting better, but I will admit that I am no pro.

One of the things I have committed to is making things plumb and level. It paid off today when I sat the new base for the step on the concrete "pad" and had very little to do to make it not rock and roll because everything was not square. It does make sense and you will not find me out carpentering without a level or construction square nearby.

After I had screwed the piece of "sub-flooring" that used to be the ramp onto the porch to the base, I began to clean up. I used to laugh at my nephew, Dwayne, because he could get out more tools in 10 minutes than I owned. Well, at the end of this job I thought I had him beat. I groaned when I realized that I had to put away two cordless drills, two sawhorses, a shovel, a SkilSaw, an extension cord, a hammer, nails, trash, a dolly, excess pieces of wood, two empty Coke Zero cans, the stuff for the compost pile, etc., etc. and etc. Because I am a one-woman show and have only two arms and one back I got most of it done but asserted myself and left the sawhorses on the back porch. Then I had to put out the trash and recycling. I did it! and collapsed into a chair to watch the birds. Thus the bird count.

I have been keeping track of what is coming to our backyard to feed. We have grackles, house finches, goldfinches, robins, doves, some pretty little grey juncos, a pair of cardinals - but, alas, no JAYBIRDS! Well, today my goal was reached when finally Mr. Jay showed up to eat. I felt that we now were complete - did I mention the squirrels and the rabbit? I am declaring that we are a Certified Wildlife Habitat - except for the deer and bears. I'm working on the butterflies and bees. We do have some of the big bumbles, but too few honeybees. I'm going to do my part though. I have lots of annuals to put in their flowerboxes, and some perennials on the way at the end of the month. Did I mention the garden? I figured out today that I have spinach. I am so excited. By the end of the week I may have a little crop of baby spinach to go with the mesclun that is bigger every day. So, not only is the bird count up so are my spirits. And - I can step down without fear. Please come for a visit.