What Are You Looking At?

There I was, sitting at the kitchen table yesterday minding my own business when I saw something big swoop toward me out of the corner of my eye. I said "whoa," shied back and slid down in my chair, then looked outside to see one of the Red-tailed Hawks had landed on top of the furled patio umbrella.  Durwood said "what?"  I motioned him to roll his chair over by me and we both stared back at those beady black predator eyes.  It looked around for any tasty morsels on the patio, stayed there for about five minutes and then flew off.  But, WOW, seeing it so close was very cool.  Now my ears are tuned to their call so I hear it every time I'm outside.  D'you think when they've gobbled up all the food in the neighborhood they'll fly off to better hunting grounds?  I hope not, even though it seems like the bird population is a bit down out there but I read in the Audubon book that they eat rodents, not birds.  They're welcome to all the rodents they can catch.

My rhubarb tart was a thing of beauty.  Actually half of it still is, but I convinced myself that half a recipe of filling from Dad's pie recipe wasn't enough so I made a little more.  It would have been enough.  The thing ran over like crazy and sugary pie juice burned on the pizza pan but I was smart enough to put a piece of parchment paper on the pizza pan first so I could cut around the pie, cutting away the spilled and burnt stuff, then slide the tart onto a plate, thereby saving myself from having to throw away the pizza pan because of my inability to remove the crud.  Although I did learn an "old wives" way to clean your oven or a burned pan.  FW at Friday Night Knitting said that leaving a bowl of undiluted ammonia in the closed oven overnight will make it so that you can just wipe it clean the next day, and she says to do the same with a pan--put ammonia in it, seal it in a trash bag, and leave it in the bathtub overnight.  FW says that baked on crud and grease can then be washed off.  I've got a Dutch oven I'll be trying that on.

I realized while I was knitting on the beaded Rapid City Magic Lace scarf last night that yesterday's calculations were flawed.  I don't use up 7 beads per repeat, I use up 14 beads per repeat, so I only have about 35 more rows until it's time to start binding off and dropping stitches.  Hooray!

In "That's Odd" Department news, two of the three pairs of shoes that I bought off eBay in the last couple weeks came with a pair of earrings tucked inside.  These aren't used shoes, they're new, unworn, in the box, toes stuffed with tissue paper shoes from private sellers.  With earrings inside.  I got all excited when I saw the pink ones; I thought they were stitch markers for my knitting but they're pink earrings.  I'm not a pink person.  I'm just glad I tipped the shoes over before putting them on.  I wish the pink ones were stitch markers.  But thanks for the earrings, shoe sellers.  Kinda random but thanks.

July 5--Bruno Burklin, Clouds.  "That one looks like a dog."  Danny pointed at a cloud.  "Which one?"  Cece asked.  "That one right... oh, nevermind, it changed.  Now it looks like a rhino."  "You mean a unicorn.  Its horn is too long for a rhino, and now it's a beluga.  See the tail?"  Danny flicked an ant off his shin.  "That's the problem with clouds, they're always shifting and changing."  "Mm hm."  Their mothers had gotten together and declared that every Wednesday all summer long was "Unplugged Day."  That meant no TV, no computer, and no video games.  Board games and card games were okay.  They could read but only paper books, no e-readers allowed.  At first it was torture but by the third week they'd kind of gotten to like being outside on their bikes exploring or making a camp down by the creek out of things they saved from the dump.  They'd lost track of their "shows" but they were having too much fun to mind, most of the time.

I couldn't do that, it'd be especially hard to turn off my audiobooks.  It's hot today.  Mid-80s hot and there's barely a breeze.  I ran to Sam's for some stuff and then to Walmart to get a watch battery changed and of course it took the lady forever until I was certain that the "1/2 the fat & no sugar" ice cream I decided to treat myself to would be soup by the time I got home but it survived and I popped it right into the freezer.  Now my watch works and I've got ice cream to have on my rhubarb tart after supper.  That rhubarb tart's not low-fat or low-sugar but I did leave out the salt Dad's recipe calls for.  Makes me feel virtuous.  I'm going to go knit.
--Barbara