I watched something very interesting from the window in the kitchen. We have a tangerine tree with 99.9% of the fruit gone and I happened to glance over at it and saw something hanging from one of the remaining tangerines, pecking away at it. Turned out to be an immature woodpecker clinging to the bottom of the tangerine and digging in for all he was worth. I don’t know if he was going for the seeds inside or the fruit pulp or just practicing on something softer than an oak tree. I thought they only ate bugs but maybe when they’re little guys, they are less picky. A couple hours later I went out and looked at the tangerine and spotted a couple more that had been worked on in the same way. Not sure if it was the same bird or multiples. The tangerines looked like carved halloween pumpkins, hollowed out with a smiley face. If I hadn’t seen the bird it all would have been a big mystery.
Tried a spinach experiment that mimic’d something I saw a few weeks back. I have some great spinach, a variety with extra large, thick leaves so I decided to try making spinach chips. You coat them with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and then roast in the oven. I didn’t pick up on the temperature or the time so I decided to try it with a couple of leaves and the toaster oven. The first shot was 450 degrees for 10 minutes; charcoal. I pulled them out after about 7 minutes when they started to smoke and disintegrate in front of my eyes. I consulted with my resident chef in Jersey City and he suggested I lower the temp to 275.
George finally had his pace maker installation repaired. That poor guy was in the hospital a full week for something that was planned as an out patient procedure. The heart surgeon commented that the original pace maker installation was a mess and that he hated to clean up after another doc. It took 4.5 hours. The other thing that really bothers is that he has had problems with intubation in the past and specifically alerted the nurses to that situation. Further, the problem was documented in the hospital’s charts but nobody bothered to look at the history.
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