I'm not the only one who takes on projects.

My younger son decided to make himself a walking stick. He cut down a limb from a silver maple tree and carved both ends to look like the knobs on the end of a femur. That's right, a thigh bone. Because that's the sort of kid I have.

Sanded, stained and polished it until it was like satin. But the best part is what's hidden under the knob at the bottom of the stick.

He fired up his forge and hammered a metal spike to fit into a hole he carved into the end of each piece, so that when he's outside, he can use the spike end. Carving, blacksmithing, building, mechanical projects - it seems that if he imagines it, he can make it.

A good day for using the oven.

This past week, I read a post on the Molly Bawn Chronicles about making whole wheat raisin walnut bread, and I thought this cold weekend would be the perfect time to try it out. Step-by-step instructions are here on Molly's cooking blog. I rarely can get bread to turn out right, but I so love working with dough. I had this table made with scrap granite and it's the perfect surface for kneading bread.

In spite of the fact that I am a notoriously poor baker, I made a few changes to suit ingredients I had in my house. For instance, I had a bag of whole white wheat flour instead of the regular kind of whole wheat flour. This is made with white wheat instead of red, so it's a little milder in flavor. It's not refined flour, though. Also, I subbed in regular dark raisins, currants and apricots for some of the golden raisins. Because I had them. And some pecans for some of the walnuts. Again, because I had them. And threw in chia seeds for no particular reason except that they are so healthful. My version has this ingredients list:

1 pkg. dry yeast
1 1/4 C warm water
3 T butter, softened
1 T sugar 1 tsp salt
3/4 C walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 C pecans, coarsely chopped
3/4 C golden raisins
1/4 C regular raisins
handful dried currants
4 dried apricots, chopped
1/4 C wheat germ
1 T chia seeds
3 C (approx) whole white wheat flour

And you know, it is not only absurdly good for you, it is also delicious. We had some buttered with our dinner, but I think it would be good with jam or honey, as well. My son felt it had too many raisins, but I don't think that's possible.

And while I had the oven on... the grocery store had peppers on sale for a buck a piece. Well. I know what to do about that. Into the oven they went, at 400 degrees, until the skins began to wrinkle and brown.

After they'd cooled a bit, I de-seeded them, removed as much of the skin as would peel off easily, and sliced them into strips. There you have it, roasted peppers for adding to recipes at a later date (to top pizzas, add to pasta sauces, use on fish, and so on).

I wanted to freeze the colors separately but in small amounts so I could just get what I need to use. I decided to lay out sheets of plastic wrap and roll them up a small batch at a time, then pack the roll into a bag. Then, when I want to use them, I can just un-roll as many as I need. I was pretty pleased with that idea. Also pleased with the fact that even with all that cooking, I managed to get a nice long walk in at the lake. Sunny and high about 50 by yesterday afternoon - it was almost hard to remember we were covered in ice a couple of days ago.

A brief taste of winter in my yard.

Icicles on the bird feeder.

Grass.

Harry Lauder's walking stick (a contorted filbert).

Dogwood buds.

Hibiscus.

Euonymous (burning bush).

Holly.

Clematis.

Nandina berries.

"I cannot see you -- that way you cannot see me: I am hidden."

Friday's ice storm (or what passes for ice storm this far South) caused all my patients to cancel and kept me at home yesterday. My steep driveway was covered with a sheet of ice and left me housebound. Might as well get my taxes done. I spent almost the entire day at this silly computer. For me, doing my taxes involved finishing entering all the practice's expenses and the last of the amounts from the remittance advices into spreadsheets, and downloading this year's edition of TurboTax. Nearly done, although I'll wait to efile when I've gone back over the numbers and so on. In the meantime, for the non-arachnophobes among you:

My buzzards are keeping up their watch on my life.

A friend texted Saturday to say he'd bought a chair for his living room and a dining room table and chairs and I could come over to see them if I wasn't busy. I sat on his apple green couch and looked at the sage green living room chair and the hunter green dining room chairs.
Me: "You've got a frightening near-miss thing going on here." I got the colorblind look of incomprehension from him.
Him: "What do you mean?"
Me: "You know this couch is green, right? What color is that chair?"
Him: "Tan?"
Me: "And the other chairs?"
Him: "Brown?"
Me: "No!  They're all different kinds of green!"
Him: "Well, I like the tones."
Me: "Okay, but they don't go together. At all."
Him: "Welcome to my world."

Eventually we decided to go get some dinner. On the way down the highway, we very nearly hit some cows standing on the side of the road. I didn't even notice them until he said, "Black cows!" (Sure, he can't see green, but black cows at night he can see.) We doubled back while I called 911, and herded them up against the fence until a cop got there to drive them back into the pasture. The Thai place we wanted to go to didn't have a liquor license but said we could bring our own. We went to the gas station across the street to pick up a six-pack.  Up front was a display of fleece hoods and bananas. He picked up a hood and pointed one of the bananas like a gun, saying, "Look, the tools for a robbery right here at the cash register!"

The waitress poured our beers into water glasses and then later brought us some water in beer glasses. No matter, it was really, really good pad Thai.

Why I'm canceling my subscription to the local paper.

Not because they'll print anti-choice editorials, but because they'll allow such divisive, inflammatory titles for those op-ed pieces. I get it - free speech, blah, blah, blah. But when they print a headline-like title to an opinion piece and allow that sort of extreme bias in the language used, it gives credence to it as if the newspaper condones it. This is not news. This is one goombah's take on the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme court decision giving women the right to govern their own bodies. Agree or disagree, leave out inane statement that some of us are celebrating slaughter.

And to clinch my decision to stop having the paper delivered to my office waiting room, today's paper had no mention anywhere on the front page of a little event called a presidential inauguration. And yet there was full coverage when Bush was inaugurated. Doesn't matter who you voted for, an inauguration is news. Right wing fuckers.

Snow day!

 When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, the snow was already falling thickly.

By dusk, everything was covered. This sort of snow always looks magical to me.

 Patients cancelled today. What could I do but head out to the lake for a walk?

There was a group of kids who'd brought sleds for the hills and a few other walkers. The icy patches called for attention and I didn't even try to walk quickly.

Kids aren't the only ones who enjoy a snowfall. This herd of deer were having a big time, running and leaping in the snow. I switched the camera over to video, but they stopped to huddle up and chat until I put my camera back down. Contrary things.

The schools had been closed since Tuesday for flooding anyway, and it was easy enough for them to tack on one more closure for a snow day. I could have gone in to the office to do some accounting work, but I wanted to be home.

 It's supposed to get up to the mid-50's tomorrow, so I am just enjoying it while it's here.