Worm Moon

Isn't that a great name for a full moon?  It is so named because the ground is warming and the earthworms reappear which brings the robins.  I was happy to see it peeking out of the neighbor's pine tree this morning when I went out for the newspaper.


Look what I saw today!  My assistant and I went out on stick patrol this morning, gathering up all of the wind-blown sticks and twigs that the melting snow has uncovered and piling them at the curb for the stick truck to pick up whenever it starts its rounds.  We tramped around admiring the blades of grass, some of which show a hint of green, before going into the backyard to fill the squirrel and bird feeders, and on our tour I spied this little clump of poppy leaves peeking out on the west side of the house.  Leaves!  Green leaves!



The bag of chicken peels (no, peels for the chickens, not peels of the chickens) in the fridge was getting pretty full so to forestall leaks I stopped over to give "the ladies" a little treat of fresh fruits and veggies.  One of these days one of the chickens will let me pet it.  Not so far, but it isn't for lack of trying on my part.

Since Durwood put the kibosh on weekly pizza I had to come up with a quick-to-fix Friday supper so I can get to knitting before Goodwill closes.  I flipped the pages of the WW recipe binder I maintain and found one for a baked penne with turkey, mushroom, and red pepper ragu.  I had a bag of cooked and cubed turkey in the freezer, some marginally successful marinara sauce I cooked up last week, a can of mushrooms stems and pieces, and a partial jar of roasted red peppers in water.  I decided that I didn't want to "spend" all of the points that stirring the ragu into the pasta and then baking it with a bunch of cheese on it costs so I used the recipe as a springboard for my own version of a ragu that we could enhance as we saw fit.  It turned out pretty well since I added more tomatoes (diced and sauce), plenty of onions, garlic, and bell peppers, a lot of Italian herbs and some of the blanched and frozen basil from last summer's garden.  (FYI--blanching and freezing the leaves makes them taste and act like fresh basil in recipes--yum)  And now we've got 3 more meals' worth in the freezer.  (yes, I am a little "freezer meals" crazy lately; do you have a problem with that?)



Here's the Worm Moon tonight when I got home from knitting.  It looks so pretty up there all cold and shiny, doesn't it?

March 2--Frederick Carl Friescke, The Yellow Room.  She said she wanted the room to look like the sun was always shining so Edgar painted it pale yellow.  It was only after the third coat of paint that someone told him that yellow was the hardest color to get right.  Maybe there wasn't enough pigment in yellow paint or maybe the color bore an ancient curse but he hoped that MaryGail understood how much he loved her and wanted to please her as he drove to the store for two more gallons of paint.  Coat number four, coming up.

I see by the clock on here that it's 11:30 PM.  In my defense, Friday Night Knitting doesn't end until 9:00 PM and I went to the grocery after that so I didn't get home until around 9:45.  It takes a while to write a blog post and unwind from the adrenaline rush that is knitting in a group.  Yeah, we're bad.
--Barbara