May 2009 Archives

The honeysuckle is blooming and my yard needs a lot of work.

Earlier today I was trying to rid it of an obnoxious (to my eyes) climbing vine that has invaded my property in recent years. I didn't know what it was called, so I briefly thought of snapping a photo and posting it to my blog.

Since I thought it was just a worthless weed, I didn't hold much hope of identifying it on the web.

Fast forward a couple hours and I'm reading a book on viruses when the concept of a virion, a complete virus particle, is introduced. Off hand, I can think of several ways of pronouncing it (why can't science books include the pronunciation of scientific terms?), so I look it up in the dictionary. VIE-ree-on. OK, now I can pronounce it.

As I'm closing the dictionary my eye notices a photograph in the top right-hand corner. Was that a photo of my obnoxious plant? Or were my eyes playing tricks?

So I re-opened the dictionary and went back to that page.

Sure enough, it was my plant. Now I know it's actually a Virginia Creeper.

What are the odds?

Garlic, olive oil, and parmesan cheese.

Most pasta recipes call for at least one of those ingredients; many include all three.

But when we were growing up, my mother always served macaroni with browned butter, and I hadn't eaten it that way since I was a kid. For some reason the other evening I had a yen to try it that way again.

Surely I could find a vegetable to mix it up a bit. Checking my pantry and refrigerator, I found black olives and scallions. They would do.

So I salted a pot of water and brought it to a boil, then tossed in the macaroni.

Meanwhile, I chopped up the scallions and sliced the black olives.

When the macaroni had about five more minutes to cook, I began to heat a little bit of butter in a small pan over medium heat.

When the macaroni was done, I drained it and tossed it into the pan with the butter, which had browned quite fragrantly. It sizzled!

Stir to coat the macaroni, toss in the vegetables, season with salt and freshly ground pepper, and I had a very tasty dish.

Most of the time when I experiment like that, I end of up with something that seems good the first time, but when I revisit it, its initial appeal becomes a mystery.

Not this time. I've prepared this dish at least four times already, and each time it seems to get better. I think I've found a keeper!

I haven't gone down to the creek lately because of the rainy weather, so earlier today I decided to check in on George and Martha, the Canada Goose couple that I've been feeding.

George saw me at once and began honking like crazy, presumably to alert Martha. But Martha didn't respond, so he swam over to the bank, where I gave him some bread.

Martha's nest seemed to be empty, so I walked around to the other side to get a closer look. It appeared that the eggs had been hatched, and there was no sign of Martha or the goslings.

I thought it was possible that Martha and the goslings had strayed a bit out of range, although that seems unlikely.

Anyway, I went down again just a few minutes ago. George still seemed to be by himself, but there were three other pairs of adults swimming around. One pair of the adults had four young 'uns with them.

We've had some rough weather lately, and a lot of tree branches have been broken off by the winds. And of course, there are foxes in these woods. I'm beginning to think that George may have lost his family.

The cable networks are hysterical over the so-called Swine Flu.

I'm proposing that we call it the Lou Dobbs Flu.