Blizzard Charlotte ~ 2.8.13

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Barbara Rodgers

Connecticut averaged about 30 inches of snow, down here by the coast in southeastern Connecticut we got 21 inches. Below is the first peek out the door the morning after!

Our governor has banned all use of roads today – we won’t be going anywhere any time soon. Our neighbor’s son has been digging out his mom’s car and thankfully he will be doing ours, too! It’s heavy wet snow. The workers with the snow-blowers to clean off the sidewalks have not even arrived yet.

Relieved of shoveling responsibilities we decided to take a short walk. The wind is still blowing and biting. That’s me in the next picture, bundled up and ready to proceed.

We heard many limbs snapping off trees during the peak of the storm. These evergreens (below) behind our unit normally stand tall and straight. They are terribly bent over now by the weight of the snow…

After we finished checking out the back we decided to take a walk up the road, which is normally very busy with traffic. It would seem everyone is in compliance with the travel ban.

Returning home through the other end of the parking lot we found another evergreen between three other buildings weighed down by the snow.

Sadly, there was a terrible incident at our condo complex this morning. I heard a woman screaming and quickly went to look out the window. A small group of people had gathered around the woman but I couldn’t see what was happening because of the snow drifts. Soon a policeman arrived and our neighbor later informed us that someone’s dog had attacked and killed someone else’s dog. I was stunned. Tim later saw the policeman taking away a little body in a black plastic bag. Rest in peace, little dog…

There’s our neighbor (above) still working away at his massive shoveling job! We went back inside and had some hot cocoa, feeling a little guilty that we had not done any shoveling to earn such a delicious reward!

Oh Deer!

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Barbara Rodgers

Not too long ago my friend Kathy, over at Lake Superior Spirit, looked around her little house in the snowy Michigan woods for colorful or meaningful objects to take outside and put in different places in the snow for a photo shoot. She suggested I might try it sometime. :)

Well, sad to say, it hasn’t been snowing much here in southeastern Connecticut since the winter of 2011, which was the snowiest winter we ever had. But I decided to carefully pack up the most meaningful of my objects, a large doe figurine, and head out to hunt for a little patch of relatively unspoiled snow.

We wound up at Haley Farm State Park and chose a few spots on a crumbling, lovely old stone wall. For the first picture, which is my favorite, I positioned my doe on a stone that had fallen in front of the wall. For the second spot I put her up on top of the wall so she was a little above the camera. Tim suggested the third setting, placing her on the ground in front of the wall. The little birds came from home, too, as they are usually perched with the doe on a special shelf in my room.

It was fun, Kathy! Then something wonderful happened after we had packed up my precious doe and her little bird friends. A few people came along with their dogs, who were off-leash. Some of my readers may know that I’ve been afraid of large dogs ever since one bit me when I was a toddler. But I watch Cesar Millan on the Dog Whisperer all the time, trying to understand dog behavior and overcome my deeply entrenched fears.

With my deer totem safely in my bag and my husband by my side I watched in awe as three dogs, who seemed to belong to several different couples, greeted each other and asked each other to play. All agreed and a fast game of chase ensued! I suppose dog owners see this kind of thing all the time but for me it was amazing. The dogs were running like the wind, making huge circles around a tree, and barking for the joy and thrill of being alive. Their energy was boundless, and they whooshed close by us several times. I wasn’t afraid! I could interpret their behavior correctly! Tim took the camera and tried to get a few pictures. I will never forget this experience!

Thanksgiving Blessings

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Barbara Rodgers

As the four of us piled into the car one night to pick up some pizza at Z Pizza, I realized that this was the last Thanksgiving all four of us will be in our 50s – next year Tim will be 60. Where did all the years go???

Again we took the train to Washington, DC and then the Metro to Springfield, where Tim’s brother Dan picked us up after his session in Cardiac Rehab. There was so much to talk about, and so many notes to compare… The household cats (Baby above, Tammy below) took little notice of our arrival.

The new plant-based diet was a hot topic, and the guys decided to make some pasta from scratch, with a pasta machine Dan dragged out from storage in the garage. They used a broomstick to hang the pasta – after cleaning the stick part thoroughly. It was fun listening to them solve logistical problems as they went along. And the pasta was such a hit that they made it again a couple of days later!

After a few days I was totally hooked on the cappuccinos Dan made with soy milk. One night on CNN we all watched with great interest, Dr. Sanjay Gupta Reports: The Last Heart Attack. We did wind up having a turkey, and one night some salmon, but other than that we enjoyed vegan and vegetarian fare, Fran inventing a gluten-free vegan lasagne that was out of this world!

Below – Baby anticipating her share of the Thanksgiving feast…

A lovely centerpiece on the coffee table…

Table set for Thanksgiving…

While Tim and Dan went golfing on Friday, Fran and I went shopping in historic Occoquan, Virginia, where there was not a Black Friday deal in sight, and a friendly gnome reminded dog owners to mind their manners. :)

At the Golden Goose I was thrilled to find a Norwegian Julenissen (Santa) figurine, five and a half inches high! I’m sure he will show up soon on this blog if I get a good picture of him while decorating for the holidays…

We had a great lunch at The Blue Arbor Café…

Whimsical rest room signs…

And this is pretty much when the picture-taking ended – I was having too much fun to continue!

Saturday Fran and I took the two Freds out for lunch at the Sunflower Vegetarian Restaurant. Fred and Fred have been friends for over thirty years. One is blind from birth and the other is intellectually disabled. They had no one to share Thanksgiving with so Fran wanted to do something special for them. She was afraid these meat lovers would balk at the idea of eating at a vegetarian restaurant, but they came along with open minds and really enjoyed their selections. I had the yummy Eggplant Medley.

Sunday we all went to see The Descendants, which was an excellent movie. Then the guys went to wash the car and make more pasta while Fran and I shopped at Ten Thousand Villages in Alexandria, a Fair Trade retailer. I bought two blue egg ornaments from Peru, looking into the cut-outs there are little snowman families inside. The cashier wrapped them very carefully for the train ride home on Monday.

Tim gave Dan a bottle of port which should not be opened until 2018. That’s seven years from now, a goal for them to look forward to as they adopt this new plant-eating lifestyle in order to reverse their heart disease and beat the odds. Here’s to family and life!

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings,
and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.
~ Hippocrates
(Regimen in Health, Book IX)

Essex, Connecticut

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Barbara Rodgers

Griswold Inn, Essex, Connecticut

On Saturday Tim & I were all over the state doing long-distance errands, like visiting a computer show, etc. Larisa & Dima were also all over the state, helping a friend move, etc. For a little bit we were all in Manchester traveling on I-84 westbound at the same time, but did not meet up there. After endless cell phone calls and changing estimated-times-of-arrival and places-to-arrive, we finally met in Essex for a late lunch at the Griswold Inn.

The Perfect Small American Town & Its Oldest Inn
Essex is a mint-condition one-traffic-light river town where the dignified revolutionary-era spirit still lingers – and there’s not a fast food joint in sight.
~ Patricia Schultz
(1,000 Places to See Before You Die)

…ready for the 4th of July…

Now the Griswold Inn is a familiar stomping ground for Tim and Larisa – they are often there on Monday nights enjoying Sea Chanteys and beer. I went once but it was a little too loud and rowdy for my sensitive nature… But it’s a quiet and cozy restaurant in the daytime. The Gris, as it is affectionately called by regulars, is the oldest continuously operating inn in Connecticut, first opened in 1776.

…Goods & Curiosities…

So we had a nice lunch with Dima & Larisa and heard all about their recent scuba diving adventure in Curaçao and the upcoming plans for the move to the big city next month. And then they were off – on to the next thing, zipping around as young adults do. We think Larisa has found in Dima a wonderful companion who shares her wanderlust and sense of adventure. And so we headed home in the pouring rain to recuperate and contemplate.

…dog waiting patiently for his master…

Light in the Spring

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Barbara Rodgers

It has turned into a three-day weekend for me! Friday Janet and I got together to create pysanky – Ukrainian Easter eggs. While visiting her I was introduced to Maggie, a very sweet twelve-year-old shelter dog with arthritis who is a pit bull or mostly pit bull. She barked for a while after I arrived – Janet explained she had anxiety issues. So Maggie and I had something in common and soon relaxed around each other. Maggie kept Janet and me company as we worked on our eggs, and then the three of us took a nice long walk along the rural roads surrounding Janet’s home. It was a bright, warm-in-the-sunshine, cool-in-the-shade, day. On my way out Janet gave me some venison and a recipe for it to try out on Tim. Thanks to the GPS, I successfully navigated my way home!

Tim was working off and on this weekend, but we did get out a little on Saturday, stopping by the grocery store to get some more ingredients for the venison stew. It was very windy and we were amazed to see the flag over the grocery store flying straight out. Storm clouds were gathering, but I managed to get a picture of the chionodoxa popping up through the periwinkle and dead leaves in my garden. Tim returned to working, from home, and I watched a couple of other versions of Jane Eyre from Netflix. The rain came down hard overnight, but this day dawned bright and sunny again, a bit warmer than it was Friday.

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done?
~ Matthew Arnold
(Seasons)

Today was a slow cooker day. The recipe Janet gave me for the venison stew was given to her by Erik, Janet and Tim’s stepdad, who died in 2008. He was a fantastic cook! When I first read through the recipe, I noted with a smile that it was from an out-of-print cookbook Erik had, called Glorious Stew by Dorothy Ivens. This brought back a pleasant memory. Many years ago Tim had enjoyed a stew Erik had prepared so much that he wanted the recipe. When Erik showed him the cookbook Tim decided he had to have one, too, but it was already out of print. So Tim asked the Book Barn to set aside a used copy for him, if one ever came into the store. A used copy did show up after what seemed like a very long time, so Tim was thrilled to finally have his own copy! :)

So… I modified the recipe a bit for the slow cooker and it smelled so good cooking away all day. Being a morning person, I love slow cookers because I can prepare something yummy early in the morning when I’m fresh and alert and then have something wonderful to eat in the evening, when I’m too tired, cranky and overwhelmed to cook. When Tim got a break this afternoon, we went out for a walk around Olde Mistick Village and when we arrived back home the stew smelled tangy and very tempting. It was delicious!

I took some pictures of the ducks and shops on our walk. Yes, today we have enjoyed the sun…

By the Sea

Tag Archives: dog

Blizzard Charlotte ~ 2.8.13

Oh Deer!

Thanksgiving Blessings

Essex, Connecticut

Light in the Spring