Today's Challenges

I do have some challenges today. I won’t go into detail. My purpose in writing is to put into perspective the fact that here I am in all of the glory of the R-Ranch and have been reachable. I have argued against having easy access to telephone service here simply because it is a good excuse to ignore everything that is going on elsewhere. Likewise for TV. However, there are arguments for having the ability to call my husband without having to drive to Dahlonega to “just say hello”, to ask him to change my airline reservation so I can stay another week, to receive messages about various family issues, etc. I can now send email messages from the Lodge or I can sit out in the middle of RV-2 and go on-line thanks to the graciousness of someone who has a Hughes network satellite dish there that does not require a network key. Perhaps there are not as many flies there as at the Lodge. To do this blog entry I decided to write it in Word first and paste it into the Blog when I go on-line. That decision took care of the fact that I don’t want to drag my computer to the Lodge, or anywhere else right now. I am waiting for a visitor that I learned only last night to expect.

I owe Ellen a vote of thanks for telling me about Picasa2, downloadable from Google. I find that it, in combination with my Roxio media management software, allows me to edit photos and transfer them directly to my blog. I owe Terri M. a vote of thanks for encouraging me to buy a digital Walkman and to learn to transfer music onto it to accompany me on my walks. Actually, more than anything, I am enjoying listening to the local FM radio station on it as much as anything. It’s just a little dynamite of a music machine. Lastly, I owe my husband so much. I am so grateful that he is so generous in his encouragement of my travels, and never complains when I am not at home to be with him. I am enjoying my respite alone – for a few more hours- here at the R-Ranch. Just finished reading Brother Odd by Dean Koontz. He is such a delightful writer. Start reading about Odd Thomas in the first book by the same name. There are three in the series. Do it especially if you are an Elvis fan. On to my next chore now – some retrospective blogging about recent trips to California and Florida. I seem to be behind. Pea

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.

Grow and Buy Locally

I am endeavoring to stick to my plan to raise edible food and buy what I can't grow. That adds up to everything (minus two tomatoes, two zucchini squash and a lot of lettuce and cilantro).

My garden is coming along and today I discovered three or four tiny Roma tomatoes on a plant. I have melons traveling up a fence and ginormous zucchini and yellow squash plants. Onions and carrots are coming along. My fallback plan is to shop at the roadside veggie stands and fill in from the grocery store. I located a great farm stand near our house so I go there first to see what is available, then go to the grocery store. Yesterday I found lovely tomatoes, peppers, fresh parsley, blackberries and cucumbers. Cukes were 75 cents each vs. 99 cents at Giant. I bought two boxes of tomatoes, one red and one yellow. I paid $7.00, but would have paid over 10.00 at Giant. Today I made Tabbouleh salad with the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions from another day, and fresh chopped mint and parsley. It is ever so much better than what I make from the box. I want to encourage my faithful readers to cook from scratch because it is gratifying and tastes better. My veggies looked so beautiful in the basket that I had to share. Here is a picture of my bought locally goodies.

I have also always loved daisies and am happy to report that I now have my own patch - another gift from the house. I have planted Black-eyed Susans and also have yellow Shasta daisies in the bed near the deck. Will share those at a later date. Hope you are encouraged to cook and eat well and watch birds and flowers.

Is being profound a necessity or an indulgence?

I'm giving some thought to writing and its purpose. Its purpose can be to share information, to put thoughts into words for review and reflection or to lay a foundation for further thinking. I think I do a lot of writing to share information about myself and how I live. I hesitate to put in too much identifying information but find that some is necessary to eliminate confusion and misunderstanding. Some writing is for documenting events either in depth or simply to note that they occurred. I think a great deal of my writing that is not just news-sharing falls into the review and reflection category.

Some writing that does not appear here ends up in other peoples mailboxes. I read a book by John Lescroart called Betrayal. I didn't like some of his foundational material about the treatment his main character received at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where I used to work. He wrote some very unflattering words about conditions there, and some very misleading words about the capacity and capabilities of the hospital. I decided to write to him to tell him how I felt about those characterizations but also my understanding about the nature of writing for effect. I haven't received a return message, and may never - but, he opened this can of worms and I have decided that he needs to recognize the efforts of staff there in some meaningful way. He earns money from selling those books and some of it needs to go back to the source of his information - or at least the use of WRAMC as a source. I think I wrote to institute guilt, and maybe a little embarrassment. He is a performer as well and has a record label called CrowArt. Maybe he will go sing. I don't think a book signing would go over all that well. I just want him to not forget what he has learned about Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD, especially from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). In some way I felt that he was exploiting the damage they do to make a good story. It was a pretty good story but fell just a little short of doing what was needed in my opinion. Of course I told him that in my message.

So, writing in this context was for beating my own drum. I'm writing about this now to review and reflect on my actions. Question: Do I wish I hadn't written to him? Definitely NO. I am pleased that I did so because it helped to put to rest my feelings about a small part of what he wrote and remember the book as something that was otherwise a well-crafted and enjoyable read.

Catching Up With Myself

Today is Friday and I finally have a day off. It has been a very busy month, this month of June. No one I know got married but two very significant events occurred. One was the high school graduation of Emily Rose, the eldest daughter of my niece Brenda. There was a large gathering of relatives at their home - with grandparents from California, great-aunt and uncle, aunts, uncles and cousins. In the midst of it all the father of Brenda, Terri and Lori died in Colorado. So the gathering had its ups and downs. I guess I am blogging about this simply to make it a moment in time. Brenda had produced a booklet called "The Wilson Girls" with pictures of the three with their father. When I looked at it I became very emotional (mostly inside) but with a few outside tears. This was a man I had known as a child. I guess we were all children to tell the truth. He became a parent, as did my sister, and three lovely children were produced. Then he left. The events over the years of their rearing and experiences could fill many pages, and they do fill many hours of story telling. Their story cannot be that different from that of many other families and as I think about that I feel almost overwhelmed at the thought that there are so many stories in the world. I think all of them are worth telling - but who would ever have time to read all the stories if they were written. I guess that is why they stay in families - to be told over and over again as families get together for graduations and funerals.

People are remarkable in their accomplishments and our family is no different. I think the children in the family will go on to achieve and not achieve, each to their own abilities. As the family continues to spread, like a pebble falling in a pond, there will be many stories. I hope I get to hear the good ones. The bad ones make me feel sad. I, personally, try to find the greatness in everyone and try to find the reasons why everyone cannot be the first, the greatest, the most talented, the richest. Most of them are OK just like they are. I think that is enough reflection for today. I am taking a break.

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.

Helplessness but not hopelessness

I went out for coffee and a bagel this morning, as I sometimes do, to break the monotony of being at home. I go to the Coffee Express, a little hot spot in Pickletown, where large and small groups gather in the morning for meetings, chat and breakfast. There is a TV with closed captions that I usually watch because I am not a part of the Coffee Express crowd. It's enough to know the owner who is a friendly entrepreneur with a rather thriving business (she puts mustard on my bagel and sausage sandwich for me.)

I watched part of Good Morning, America with a crowd of people jumping and waving in Bryant Park in NYC. It is Fleet Week there and lots going on. There was some local news and weather, including an update on a 24-year-old Iraqi amputee who is missing in the Susquehanna River near York, PA.

I was suddenly in need of writing about my state of mind in general, and world events in particular, so this is what spilled out.

In the coffee shop
People jumping up and down on TV
There's a man missing on the river
His arms are in his boat.
A great wind just blew through Colorado
and there's sickness in Myanmar.

All around the people talking
Some choosing shade grown fair trade
There's a man missing on the river
His arms are in his boat.
Rain is pouring on the city
and there's no rice in Myanmar.

They just built another house in Louisiana
and celebrated with tears
The cameras have gone home now
and the city left behind.
There's a man missing on the river
His arms are in his boat.
There's no hope for those crushed in China
and no clean water in Myanmar.

I can drink the coffee black
and watch the people talk
There's a man missing on the river
His arms are in his boat.
I can't go to China, Colorado or Louisiana
or make them happy in Myanmar. (c) Patricia G. McKellar, May 23, 2008