The Best Cheeseburgers...

 





It was gorgeous, blue sky with lots of sun, this morning when I went out to fill up the birdbath and all the feeders.  I popped my frozen apple/raisin/suet cake out of its tray, slid it into the suet feeder I dug out of the basement last night, and hung it on the crook.  Now all I need is for a robin or two to get the message that it's there.







 
Despite the thick blanket of snow that covered everything up last weekend the rhubarb is continuing to poke its pink knuckles out of the ground.  Pretty soon that big one will unfurl leaves and then, zoom, it'll shoot up like rockets.





Durwood and I met TWA and his wife, ARA, for lunch at Joe Rouer's Bar in Duval (a crossroads in rural Kewaunee Co. about 20 mile north of Green Bay).  I started going to Joe Rouer's for burgers when I was in college back in the Dark Ages when Joe and Mrs. Joe were still alive and raising their own beef cattle and having the whole cow ground into hamburger.  She'd fry them up in an ancient-even-then skillet.  They were divine--and they're still pretty darned good.  T and A were on their way home from church a little further north so it was a good place to meet to eat and catch up.  We haven't seen them in quite a while, we enjoyed visiting and reconnecting after a couple of challenging years for all of us.

 
On our way back into town I stopped to take a look at Wequiok Cascades which is a little waterfall just off the highway.  With last weekend's 24 inches of snow and temperatures over 50 degrees for the last couple days there's a lot of water hurrying down the escarpment toward the bay.  Have I told you that the limestone escarpment that runs up the west side of the bay of Green Bay is the western edge of the same limestone that forms Niagara Falls?  Yep, it's like a big rim of stone that juts up and around from Wisconsin to New York.  Pretty cool, huh?

The other day I stopped in at DIL1's office to drop something off and I snapped pictures of the cool plant towers that line the entrance of the student cafeteria.  There are herbs and greens planted in these white plastic towers ringed in grow lights with a nutrient solution pumped through.  DIL1 said that they harvest the plants for use in the food they serve.  They're too big for home use but I'm intrigued.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to pick part of your food every day?  Come on, summer!

April 22--Patrick Henry Bruce, Forms.  

Three shades of blue,
red, brown, black,
one shock of chartreuse.
Blocky and sinuous,
perspective askew,
cubist modern
not representing anything
merely forms
for form's sake.
~~~~~

DS and I went to listen to Christopher Moore speak this evening.  He was funny, giving a fake commencement address, complete with mortarboard, because he said he'd never get asked to do a real one and he was pretty funny.  There was time for people to ask questions and then he signed books.  We each have a signed book of his that DD got for us when he did a book signing in Lexington years ago so we didn't stay for that.  It was nice to sit and talk about book with my son.  I should do that more.
--Barbara