Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

CBC has a piece about a woman in Maine who found a python in her washing machine when she was removing clothes from it. She’s a bit paranoid about doing laundry now. I’m still a bit curious as to how exactly the snake managed to get there. I’m even more curious about the following bit:

Maine Animal Damage Control operator Richard Burton reached into the machine and pulled and pulled – all 2432 centimetres of a reticulated python.

I might also be paranoid if I found a 81′ snake in my washing machine. Never mind how it got there. How does it fit in there? How big is the washing machine?

Any ideas as to what number the CBC really meant to use?

Sydney

Sydney dropped me off at the Ithaca airport this morning at 5 and Mom picked me up in St. Louis at 9:30.  Since then we’ve driven straight south and I’m currently writing from the main library on the Ole Miss campus.  Hot weather, but the campus is beautiful.  Lots of red brick and white columns–and perfectly manicured grounds.  Yeah, I’m going to enjoy being here for a few days.

On our way Mom and I realized we were starved and stopped at a place in southern Missouri for lunch.  Oh.  Myyyy.  It was like a Golden Corral or, if you’re an Iowan, Hickory Park in Ames.  Gigantic barn feel, with wooden seats, gigantic portions, and fried okra.  Here a guy came around tossing dinner rolls to patrons and I saw a stack of ribs that was close to 18 inches across being served to a woman whose eyes widened in shock at the sight.  These people are into serious eating!  Mom and I both got a small collection of vegetable sides and were on our way–after Mom marked the place on the map for the major meat-eaters in the family.

Off to explore a bit more of campus before hitting a grocery store and heading back to the hotel.  This is going to be fun!

Erin

By the numbers:

– 8 bags of frozen, chopped cilantro for the freezer

– almost 8 quarts of peas

– 6 pounds of new potatoes

– 4 large heads of broccoli

– purple cauliflower

– kale (we could have it by the bushel, but nobody wants to eat that much)

– fresh basil

Having chopped and shelled, I’m off to Mississippi.

Erin

With the recent addition of six chickens to the household, we’ve been finding new ways to enjoy eggs.  Christi’s sold a few eggs at the farmer’s market and I’ve recently discovered that omelets are a great way to feed a hungry farm boy and fit a few more greens into our diet at the same time.  In addition to sauteed peppers, onion, and garlic, I’ve made omelets with mizuna, spinach, kale, beet greens, and today I made scrambled eggs with garlic, feta, and purslane.  Yes, the weed.  It’s apparently edible, and Sydney and I ate it with relish–a  gardener’s revenge!

Erin

Our garden looks great, by the way.  We stopped there on the way home from Nova Scotia to check things out and all seemed to be going well.  The weeds were pretty high, but after a solid morning of garden work on Saturday, hoeing and staking tomatoes for all we were worth, we’re a good chunk of the way back to order in the garden.  We also picked our first broccoli and our first batch of peas, which we shelled while watching a nature video this afternoon, and we had fresh peas with tarragon for dinner tonight.

In other news, I’m hatching plans with Mom for our trip to Mississippi.  I’m jumping-up-and-down excited about this trip, despite my desire to spend some time at home after all of our recent travel.  I’m flying to St. Louis on Thursday, where Mom will pick me up and we’ll continue the drive to Oxford, Mississippi, home of Ole Miss and Faulkner.  Now, the only question is, can we survive Mississippi heat for a whole week without melting into a puddle?

Erin

Sydney and I arrived home safely on Friday night . . . and then our internet provider was down for two days, so there’s a lot to cover since then.

I married an interesting man.  To make the drive home seem more fun than arduous, Sydney decided we’d take the ferry from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick, which meant that we got to spend three hours walking the decks, eating a nice packed lunch in a leisurely fashion, and reading, rather than spend 5 hours on the road.  I think the primary motivation for him was the chance to spy seabirds with his binoculars, but I appreciate that he was trying to cut down on my road time, however incidental to his main goal.

Continuing his “this is part of the vacation” theme, Sydney stopped in western Massachusetts so that we could take a short hike before driving the rest of the way home.  I think he’s learning that a happy Erin is one who has been walked regularly, much like a growing puppy.  And it worked: after our hike I definitely didn’t have trouble sitting still for the rest of the drive!  That might be, however, because the “short hike” turned into a 3.5-hour serious climb up the face of a mountain.  We poured sweat, stretched our legs, and climbed up and down until our knees were shaky.  And, oh yes, the trail was not terribly well-marked, so we got a bit lost coming down the end of the trail and ended up trying to break our own path down the steep terrain before backtracking to pick it up again.  But it was great!  We sweated, we breathed fresh air, and we got to see something besides concrete.  Highlights of the hike include hearing several bird species that are rare at home, eating wild blueberries at a gorgeous lookout spot that gave us a view of the Berkshire hills and valleys, and scaring up a porcupine (he quickly hid under a rock, but we could still see him if we crouched down).

Erin

Sydney and I are back in Maine after an interesting day of travel.  We started late this morning so that we could catch the ferry in Nova Scotia and cut a bit of driving time from our trip.  The late start meant that we got to spend a bit more time with dirt between our toes at the Penner farm, and Sydney’s mom had more of a chance to bombard us with fresh peas, new carrots, and other goodies to take along.  We were slightly wary of having too much produce with us when crossing the border, but it seems the agent was too dumbfounded by the fact that Sydney has had a wife to support for almost three years and he still doesn’t have a real job to give us a hard time about our lunch bag.

Erin

So yes, Sydney and I arrived safely in Nova Scotia last week.  I hope no one was sitting on the edge of his seat, waiting to hear of our arrival 🙂

The morning after we arrived in Nova Scotia the whole family took off for a two-day vacation to Cape Breton, on the other side of Nova Scotia.  Talk about dramatic scenery!  Pictures forthcoming, I’m sure, but imagine a park with high mountains, a rocky coastline, lots and lots of trees, and a road snaking around it (and up and down it), with the occasional pull-off at key picture-taking spots.  It was lovely.  It also gave us a chance to get to know Heather, Nelson’s new girlfriend, since all six (both parents, both boys, plus wife and girlfriend) traveled together in the family van.  I loved being able to see the park, since I’d heard a lot about Cape Breton from Sydney and others.  We also took a boat tour out to the bird islands, where we saw Atlantic puffins and cormorants and gulls and even a kind of penguin.

After four days of straight driving, though, I was glad to come back to the house and do farm work for awhile–with a few other diversions.  On Friday night the youth of Sydney’s church got together for a game of volleyball, and Nelson convinced Sydney to come along, despite Sydney’s demurrals about no longer being “youth.”  I was glad Nelson proved persuasive, since we all had a fantastic time.  I hadn’t played volleyball in a really long time, but it only took about ten minutes for me to get pretty competitive.  Nelson and Sydney and I were all on different teams (Heather was with Sydney), so it was great to meet your mate or your brother-in-law across the net . . . and try to cream him 🙂  There were a lot of siblings out there, so everybody seemed to be giving everybody else a hard time and having a great laugh about it.

I went with Sydney’s mom to the area farmer’s market on Saturday, and got what Sydney calls my people-high as I negotiated foreign currency, twenty kinds of vegetables, and lots of customers.  People in the area have really gotten into organic, local produce in recent years, so we did well.  Since Sydney and I are frequent customers at our own farmer’s market, it was also interesting to see it from the other side of the booth!

Sydney and I plan to head home on Thursday, arriving late in the evening on Friday.  Since it’s such a long drive here and back we would love to make it a longer visit, but as we weed here we are reminded that our own garden is becoming overgrown while we’re away!

Erin

– Despite having spent the last week packing, Sydney caught me without something important just as we walked out the door: “Okay, Erin, I’m not forgetting anything dumb like my passport, right?”  “Oh, no, you aren’t . . . but apparently I am.”  So it seems Erin is not quite used to this “international travel” business.

– License plate seen on the drive: “YUI AUTA.”  We also got to follow a couple of souped-up cars from the ’40s for a long stretch of road before they turned off into what looked like a large regional car show.  The license plate on the one?  “RD RAT 1.”

– We called it quits in Bangor, ME, after 9 1/2 hours of driving and have settled in for exactly five minutes of a David Attenborough film on birds.  Then we’re out for the night.

Erin

Sydney and I are heading out tomorrow morning for the long drive to Nova Scotia.  Right now he’s frowning over his computer and looking a bit peaked; I’m feeling the energy burst of packing, but a bit tired as well.  I think we need a vacation!

Erin