The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

None of my plans for last week panned out. First off, while I had seriously contemplated dusting and vacuuming, Dennis decided we would make a run to town for various things on Monday. We headed down about noon. Two of the main things we wished to accomplish didn't happen, so they remain on our "to do" list.

While having an early supper of Chinese on Front Street (we'd skipped lunch), we received a phone call from the Billings Clinic telling us an appointment had been made for the following afternoon. This was not expected (everything worked out and we are all fine), but it sure changed all our plans for the week. We returned home Thursday evening.

Friday morning found me heading back to Glasgow to purchase the groceries we'd skipped getting on Monday. That afternoon we were again out in the fields combining our wheat. We are very glad that it rained so we didn't have to worry about our crop while we were away.

Now I'm not only running the grain cart, I'm also cooking the noon meals before heading to the fields.

Saturday morning I made a hot dish called Rice Sante Fe which I hadn't made for quite some time. You fry a cup of long gain rice in a tablespoon of olive oil, stirring constantly, until it's nicely browned. The recipe says to "turn the rice out" (sounds harsh to me), but I usually already have the salted two cups of water boiling by then, so I pour it into that pot. The rice simmers for 20 minutes (or longer, until it's done anyway) while you cook the rest.

Using the pan you fried the rice in, you saute one onion and one green pepper, both chopped, in another tablespoon of olive oil. Then add a pound of hamburger and brown it. Add a teaspoon of chile powder and salt and pepper to taste. Add a can of whole tomatoes and the cooked rice. Heat through and serve.

We don't care for green pepper (or it doesn't care for us much), so instead of that I chopped up several stalks of celery from the garden and used that. I found three small ears of corn that had been pickled and put in the fridge before the Billings trip, so I cut the corn off the cobs and added that. Next time I'll put in more tomatoes just because I love them.

We have a Ring camera that records movement at our front door, and chimes when there's activity out there. It's been going off a lot lately, and the recordings are quite entertaining. We enjoy seeing what's going on out on our front deck while we sleep.

There's a fox den somewhere near us, and this year's almost-grown pups are playing in our yard and exploring the deck. They've checked out my flower pots, crawled under the bench and chairs, and even stood up on their hind legs to see what's on the table. We expect next they'll curl up on the seat cushions to nap.

The live trap had not caught any more raccoons (or skunks, thank goodness) in my corn, but those bandits have been out there. Several ears have had the tips shredded as they check for ripeness. Last night five small ears were pulled down and partially consumed. So I finally followed a friend's advice and sprinkled cayenne pepper on the remaining corn. He swears it will deter the thieves. I hope so. (I put the partially eaten ears sans pepper into the trap. It might catch a raccoon.)

The birds have been after my tomatoes. Some of the side shoots have been broken down from them landing on them. A few tomatoes were pecked at. This morning I found just the red skin of a ripe tomato hanging from the plant. So I sprinkled cayenne on those as well. We'll see if what works on raccoons also works on birds.