Happy New Year

The year of the ram.  I don't know how that translates for the dogs that G and I are. We'll see. But I will be taking the Swedish wooden horse down off the mantle and replacing it with the Irish wool ram I received as a gift from Ireland when G was a "traveling man".

My Winter Minestrone is way too heavy on the tomato.  A 28 ounce can of pureed tomatoes.  I have added more water and tried to lower the carb count by not adding the pasta in the recipe.  I will be adding MORE water to the next 100 bowls (it made so much) and I will be adding the pasta.  It doesn't taste bad.  It just has a "one note" taste.  Tomato, tomato, tomato.  All the nice vegetables: celery, carrots, butternut squash, kale, onions, garlic, white beans and potato are lost.  I looked at the picture posted on the blog where I first noticed this recipe--and it is indeed pretty tomato-y but the broth looks more watery than mine.  Sometimes a recipe is good from the beginning.  And other times it takes work to get it right.  And sometimes the effort to fix a recipe is wasted.  I have a perfectly perfect vegetable soup recipe I didn't use. Duh!!

We had another storm last night.  The plow just went by the driveway so I think I will jump up and look out the window and see how high the pile is at the end.  Well.  Not high enough to keep us from blasting through it at some speed.  But it still needs clearing.  G is getting ready to go out and get the newspaper--along with his trusted assistant Riley.

It was calm and sunny the past two afternoons and we took Riley for a walk on neighborhood streets.  He, typically, climbed every high snowbank (and they are taller than G or I) and typically--chose to poop on the top of the tallest pile.  G got to climb up and collect both days.  BUT, the up and down is really excellent exercise for a large muscular dog like Riley.  Not so much for a 60 something dog owner.

These twice a week storms are tiresome.  And the Blah, Blah, Blah of the weather men on the news is even more tiresome.  After the last "oh, gosh, it missed us" storm they are now saying "might" more than "it's gonna bury us".  We were supposed to get 6 to 10 inches of new snow last night and possibly-- the hype-- up to 12 to 20 inches.   Looks like 3 to me.  We'll see who is right when G goes out to shovel the back deck.

Anyway, I think we should go out today and eat some Chinese dumplings and noodles for good luck.

Riley finally--after all these years of chasing them in the yard--caught a squirrel.  G was hoping it was just stunned but it hasn't moved from the spot where G put it in the garden.  Riley can't get into the garden.  We'll see.  Circle of life an all.  But Riley wants to go catch another one.