Ready or not, Happy 2011

White Christmas, for sure!

The snow started in earnest about 8:30 a.m. Not blizzard like, but a steady fall. The ground was covered in less than an hour, and we had an official white Christmas.

Lem and Alice, visiting from Minnesota, took Willie and Nellie for a walk. Our dogs, Southern born and bred, get a little crazy in the snow. We heard on the news that the Twin Cities got six inches yesterday which makes 33 inches for the month.

Our few inches isn't much compared to our northern neighbors, but pretty just the same. Atlanta had it's first white Christmas since sometime in the 1800s.

OK, we've had our white Christmas. Now . . . it can stop.

Our friend, Slick

It’s often said that dogs take on the personalities of their masters.

Take Willie, for example, my white boxer. Everyone who knows Willie would agree that he’s impetuous, impatient and always looking for his next meal, not at all unlike yours truly.

Slick, accordingly, was the image of his master, Larry. Calm, genuinely inquisitive but always measured. A medium-sized black Labrador, Slick walked many miles over the years in Deerfield with Larry at a steady gait. Willie and I would occasionally join Larry and Slick on a walk with Willie invariably wrapping all four of us up in his leash while he dragged us down the road. Slick would remain unperturbed.

Slick, like Willie, was a housedog, but he was occasionally allowed to stretch his legs and roam Deerfield on his own. One of Slick’s favorite pastimes was to jump in Deerfield Creek and wallow in the mud shallows, usually right after Larry or daughter Angela had given him a bath. Slick would high-tail it home, clamor on the front porch, anxious to show the family his refreshing mud-bath treatment.

There are other black Labs in Deerfield, but the friendly Slick could not be mistaken. He had a crook at the end of his tail that almost did a 90-degree turn. You always had the feeling that Slick was pointing at something.

Dogs in Deerfield have lots of acres to call home, so most are protective of their large territories. Slick was the only dog that had carte blanche everywhere. Dogfights are not that uncommon in Deerfield, but Slick always kept his head and was welcome everywhere.

About 18 months ago a large cancerous tumor appeared on one of Slick’s rear legs. Larry took him to the veterinarian to have it removed. Slick improved, regained most of his strength, but earlier this year a growth sprouted on the other rear leg. Over the last few months Larry and Slick made trip after trip to the veterinarian. He grew weaker by the day. Larry said last week that he came to realize that what he was doing was more for himself and the family than for Slick.

The beautiful photo above of Slick in front of the living room stove was taken in October 2009 by Larry and Marilou’s son, Jeffrey. Slick’s peaceful eyes say more than many of us can convey in a lifetime of words.

In a freezing rain, Larry took Slick on his last walk this morning before the final trip to the veterinarian. I’m glad I got to pat him. We will miss Slick greatly and wish him a place where the stoves are warm.

'Ice flowers' are back with a vengeance

In January of this year I wrote about the "ice flowers" or "frost flowers" that pop up in Deerfield after the first extra-hard freeze. This latest numbing freeze has brought them out again.

The "flowers" occur when the cold causes the sap in small woody plants to ooze out of the stem. The sap then freezes and expands. There's a good explanation of the phenomenon in Wikipedia. Some spots around here look like a box of Kleenex has exploded.

There's much to be said for these flowers. They don't have to be fertilized or tended to, and then they go away on the first warm day.

Finally, a full deck

After about 200 hours of work, 1,600 board feet of lumber and 27 pounds of screws, the deck rebuild is finally finished. I knew the task was going to be lengthy, but I didn't know how much it would test my short attention span.

I had a few hours of help on the front end coming up with a design and some good help on the back end from neighbor Larry who designed the bench structure. The middle, for better or worse, was all mine.

In my post of October 25, the photo shows that the original deck was built on a radius with California redwood. Going back with redwood was impractical, so the challenge was to turn a "round" deck into a deck with angles and make it look like it belonged there. If I do say so myself, the feat was accomplished. In my mind, the angles of the deck actually match the house better than the radius.

I will wait until late spring or early summer to stain the deck. The yard from which I purchased the treated lumber receives their material straight from the treatment vats. The wood is so wet that it oozes green stuff when a screw goes into it.

So, one of my biggest construction projects is complete. Now, I'll start planning my retaining wall.

First loaf of persimmon bread

B rose to the call and baked our first loaf of persimmon bread. It's much like pumpkin bread, but to my taste, is a little more tart. I can eat persimmon puree with a spoon. I would never attempt that with pumpkin-bread makings.

I'll have at least one more good harvest of persimmons to fill our freezer for the winter.

(Food styling for photos is an art. My attempt was meager, but an attempt nonetheless.)

Persimmon plans

My son, never one to let me get away with anything, asked me what I was going to do with my embarrassment of persimmon riches.

Well, the first ten pounds went to a friend who has her own plans for her batch. I harvested another five pounds this morning and turned them into a persimmon puree (at right in photo). As best I can tell, five pounds of fruit yields about five cups of puree. One story on the internet said you should peel the persimmons before freezing them because the skin contained tannins. There's no way I'm peeling persimmons, so my wife suggested using a food mill (at left in photo) and it worked beautifully (after she showed me what a food mill was.)

The puree is so sweet it can be eaten with a spoon. I'm not worried about tannins. In the past two weeks I'm sure I've eaten several pounds of raw persimmons right of the ground with no ill effects.

I'll freeze the puree in plastic bags and we should have some good persimmon bread during the holidays. Now, son, pester your mother about making persimmon bread.