New Chairs

We got two new chairs this weekend. They are replacing two blue chairs in our living room that most often seated visitors. That made us ponder about how our old chairs got in such bad shape.

Our old blue chairs

Could it be that they are over twenty years old? They were some of the first furniture Ward and I bought and part of the right of passage to “finally, we have enough money to buy new furniture.” No more hand-me-down stuff unless we really want it.

Could it be that the chairs coexisted with two active boys? Wally and Theodore just didn't put their feet on the chairs. They jumped on them and they jumped off of them. They hid behind them and and made forts with them. They turned them upside down and drug them into other rooms. And occasionally, they even read in them with their shoes on the seat.

Could it be that the chairs have been a playground for six different cats that have resided with us over the years? It seems as soon as we got one of them trained to properly use a scratching post, another one would have a relapse and use the chairs to sharpen their claws. That's not to mention all of the wild chasing they did across them.

So when I reflect on the old chairs, I could become a bit nostalgic. The chairs were there when Ward and I were starting our lives together. They were there as Wally and Theodore were learning to explore their young world. They were there as we were bringing each new cat into our family.

The new chairs that we hope will fare better with the cats.

But I say, ”Out with the old, and in with the new.” The charity truck is picking them up Monday. I've got plenty of other things in bad shape to use if I want to reminisce. Also, I just found out that Ward never liked them anyway.

Food Waste Friday, August 19, 2011

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. 


Here it goes for this week.

My son loves sweet potatoes, so he was excited when he came home with this tropical sweet potato-- a boniato. Not being familiar with this exotic vegetable (also called batata), we perused recipes to decide what to do with it. While cutting it up, we found that our boniato was not very white inside as we read that it should be. Some parts of it were not only brown but were soft too. So out of two pounds of potato, we salvaged only about 1/4 of it. ( By the way, it tasted just like the orange sweet potatoes that we're familiar with.) The rest was thrown away. I was sad for the waste, but not too sad because I really don't like sweet potatoes.

To avoid other possible waste, we played refrigerator clean up.  We made a ham and tomato wrap using leftover tortillas, cream cheese, ham, and tomatoes. It made a tasty lunch.

A Second Look--August 17, 2011

This week during a Second Look, I focused on the animals around us. It was a challenge to capture what I saw because I have a simple point and shoot digital camera with only a 4X zoom. Not the best thing for taking pictures of creatures that scattered every time I got within shooting range. Several pictures were actually taken out our kitchen window.  Anyway, here are a few things I saw this week around the yard.

This one of neighbor's cattle resting by our back fence.

We call this Tree of Heaven tree our woodpecker tree. Most years, woodpeckers "peck" out a nest here because the wood is very soft.

Adult male purple finch

Annie watching a black snake that is crawling in the basement window well.

Cardinal at the bird feeder.

 

Something had a nice snack from this goose egg.

What used to be our favorite maple tree until a sapsucker spent several years damaging it. It probably should be taken down sometime soon.

 

Bumble bee on blanket flower

Doe and fawn. There is another pair just behind them.

Clever Squirrel

Anyone who has watched squirrels, especially around a bird feeder, knows that they are very clever animals. We have been finding this out first hand.

It all started when we got Ward a bird feeder for his birthday. We carefully picked out a "squirrel proof" feeder with advice from Aunt Martha, our bird expert. However, it didn't take long until the squirrels had bypassed the weight sensitive lever on the feeder and were eating to their heart's content.

We enjoyed their antics for a while, but soon tired of feeding them the expensive bird seed we had put out for the birds. We have many oak and walnut trees in our yard providing ample tasty food for the squirrels, but they seem to only want the store-bought stuff.

Last week, Ward and Wally put up a new barrier for the squirrels in the form of an upside down bowl that others had said should thwart them. However, that only slowed them down for a day or so. They are back eating to their hearts content and looking fatter than ever.

I'd like to say, "When you can't beat them, join them" and that we are giving in. But we're not. We are going to win this battle (at least in our dreams.) In the meantime, I will be flattered if someone calls me a "Squirrel Brain."

Look at the Clever Squirrel's Antics Below.

Ward's new bird feeder before the birds or squirrels had visited it.

Mr. Squirrel having a leisurely afternoon snack on the new feeder.

 

The first day the bowl is up. Notice the squirrel climbing the pole like usual.

It wasn't long until he learned to jump out from under the bowl to the feeder.

The bowl wobbled a bit, but he enjoyed his seeds.

He followed the seeds with some hearty suet.

He finished up with one our juicy tomatoes.

After his meal, he had a nice after-dinner drink.

The next day we found the bowl moved out of the way. No more of this wobbling while he was eating.

Food Waste Friday, Augutst 12, 2011

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. 

Here it goes for this week.

Baked beans for Breakfast?

We've gotten back into the swing of things after vacation, so we have no food waste this week. Yeah!

So instead of reporting about our waste, I am going to do a follow up on a posting from a couple of weeks ago when we were on vacation. I observed that our hotel in Toronto served baked beans every morning for breakfast. This was something new for me. Apparently, it's not new for everyone else.

My interest was piqued when my brother-in-law said that his grandfathers had had baked beans for breakfast every morning. The were both French Canadian, but lived most of their lives in New England. After this, I began mentioning this different (for me) breakfast item to others and got varying responses.

• One person said that when she traveled to London, they served baked beans for breakfast every morning. They told her it started in WWII when rations were scarce and baked beans were one of the few things they could get.
• Another friend said that her English grandfather, who immigrated here, was eating beans on toast every morning long before WWII.
• Someone else, who has relatives in Ontario and has traveled there often, said that she had never heard of baked beans for breakfast.
• My friend from Germany had never heard of this custom.

Just enough variety in the answers to leave me still curious. Next, I visited with my friends Google and Wikipedia and here are some conclusions from that search.

• Baked beans are considered part of a full (big) breakfast in England.
• They are also common for breakfast in Ireland, Scotland, Quebec, and Australia.
• They probably were a fixture in England long before WWII according to the Guardian of the UK. Heinz baked beans first arrived in London in 1886, and Heinz remains the favorite brand in England today. As for WWII involvement in this story, they did stop manufacturing the beans with pork during this time because of the scarcity of meat.

So, I know a little more than when I started, but many questions still remain.What's your experience with this breakfast tradition?