Tom came up for the weekend. Olivia and Tina hit the beach for a week of spring break and Tom came up here for a few days of fishing. We had fun but the fishing was severely curtailed by lousy weather-windy and wet. Saturday morning we hit Strickland Creek; Saturday afternoon, our lake; Sunday AM the St. Johns; Sunday PM – washed out; Monday morning we got up at the crack of dawn only to find the wind blowing hard. Tom was able to go right back to bed but once I’m up, I’m up. So it wasn’t the ideal get away fishing weekend. We did learn another “don’t” launching the boat. Be sure to remove the motor transom prop before launching. If you don’t, the boat only partially floats off the trailer and somebody has to get fully immersed to unhook it.
My palmetto clearing project is progressing nicely. In fact, I’ve thinned out the area I had intended a day or two early. My original thought was to clear cut for an enhanced lake view but I like the way it looks thinned. We get “hint of lake” rather than a full on view. The way the lake is dropping, I’m not sure I could take a full on view of a mud bottom.
Nancy outdid herself in the food innovation department. She started with beef ribs which were cooked and then left to settle out over night so most of the grease could be removed. Not sure how she cooked those other than in a pot on the stovetop. Today she added the veggies to create the “stew”. Of course all of those came directly from the garden. Included were the last cauliflower and the last of the shell peas, picked a few weeks ago. The fresh stuff included onions, carrots, zucchini, kale, spinach, swiss chard, and various herbs. Then she put in a new (to us) “grain” that Chris had brought with him, something called farro. He described it as a pasta replacement but I think it’s more of a barley. It fit the stew perfectly and gave it some body. I know when you just list the ingredients, it doesn’t sound too appetizing but believe me, it was excellent. Maybe it only works with really fresh materials. Most of the stuff was picked and in the pot within 5 minutes so it would be at peak sugar content. The interesting thing is that no way could we ever duplicate the meal accurately. Next up – pork shoulder osso bucco.
Got up this morning and it reminded me of mornings in Yellowstone on the Firehole River. It was quite cold, the humidity was low and the steam was rolling off the lake. We’re having record or near record low temps and today that was visible. I’m getting through the palmetto project quicker than I thought because the low temps are letting me work longer. I had planned on doing a couple hours each day and finishing up on Friday. Instead, I’m running two days ahead of schedule.
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