Smoked Paprika

 I follow the food blog Cafe Sucre Farine. Although her recipes and ideas seem to produce attractive food, I have made very few. Mostly, because she uses ingredients that are hard to find in my small town or that cost too much for just one recipe. However, after reading her tip to buy smoked paprika at Costco, I plan to try several of her recipes that use this ingredient.

I can buy over 8 ounces of smoked paprika at Costco for what it costs to buy 2-4 ounces in my local grocery stores. I have sprinkled some on grilled vegetables, grilled shrimp, and on chicken fajitas. None of those are from recipes, just me doing my own thing. Chris assures us that the spice stays flavorful for a long time; I can take my time experimenting with it.

Last night was the second time I have made a version of chicken fajitas using the paprika.

I used the leftover peppers from Saturday's vegetable/sausage skillet, some onion from the bulb I bought at the farmers' market, and towards the end I threw in a few small tomatoes. The frozen grilled chicken strips make this dish easy. The only seasoning I used was the smoked paprika. The chicken/pepper mixture was spooned into warmed flour tortillas and topped with some shredded cheese. We had Spanish rice along side. It all was very tasty.

The ad circular for my Kroger store featured a dozen roses for $6. I added a bunch to my online order which I picked up after my doctor's appointment this morning.

My x-rays showed no "gaps" between the vertebra replaced in December; the bone is maturing in the "cages" and the motion and instability is now gone after the posterior fusion done in May. My roses became celebration flowers.

 I have some low-level pain toward the top of my shoulder blades. When I mentioned it to the surgeon today, I didn't even have to point to the location. He knew exactly what I was talking about and instantly touched the spot. He said it is muscle pain and should continue to decrease. He offered to write a prescription for a muscle relaxant, but I told him I still have some tizanidine I use at bedtime. I would use it during the day if it wasn't so sedating, but the pain is tolerable enough during waking hours.

 We won't know for probably another 6 months if the healing/fusing of C4/5 and C5/6 is a complete success. It takes a long time for the body to generate new bone to fill in the spaces. I will go for another set of x-rays in one month, but so far things are progressing well. My neck feels tight when I move it different directions so I need to continue with range-of-motion and strengthening exercises at home. I had slacked off the past 10 days because I developed pain at the base of my right thumb from using the therabands. 

Pandemic Communion Elements

 The church where we attended today had communion. There were tables holding an individual serving of the bread and juice before the entrance to the sanctuary. A sign said if one wanted to participate in communion to pick one up before going inside. 

This is my first encounter with using a "packaged" individual serving of the elements.

One peels back the clear top layer to access the wafer.

Then a sealed foil top is peeled back to get to the juice. I was worried the juice might spill while opening the container, but it peeled back easily and could be "resealed" before disposal.

This concession to the pandemic virus worked quite well. No passing and touching of containers by multiple people. It was quicker too since everybody that wanted to participate had their serving right next to themselves.

I could see how this setup would work well in a military war zone, for homebound people, at hospitals. I didn't see an expiration date, but I am guessing these are shelf-stable for months. 

Blueberry Time and Drooping Zinnias

 I haven't picked blueberries for a few years now. Instead I am buying Michigan blueberries in 5-pound boxes from Martin's, a local grocery store. I bought two boxes this week. I would have preferred to buy one box this week, and another box at the end of next week; but when I tried that last year, the blueberries were no longer for sale. I choose the firmest berries in the box to freeze. This year I ended up with 2 1/2 gallons. That means the rest need to be eaten fresh within a short time.

 One of the negatives of blueberry season is that it is usually during the hottest time of summer. I don't like baking and getting my house hot when we are in the 80's and 90's, but I always make a blueberry sauce to eat over ice cream and lemon pudding. 

The fresh berries go nicely with peaches and cantaloupe also. And I often eat some on my cereal at breakfast. 

This morning I went to the local farmers' market. I already enjoyed some fresh green beans from my sister-in-law earlier this week.

I bought a banana pepper, a zucchini, a medley of small tomatoes and an onion. I have never bought an onion from the grower before. We will have peppers and chicken sausage saute tonight using the banana pepper and some slices of larger red, yellow, and orange peppers from the store, part of the onion, and some of the small tomatoes. I might throw in a little zucchini, too. We haven't included pasta for several years. I sprinkle some garlic pepper on while cooking and parmesan before serving.

I was so pleased to see several vendors selling fresh flowers. The zinnias were a real bargain at 3 for a dollar. Unfortunately, now as I photograph them I see the heads drooping. According to the internet, placing some of the bottom stem in boiling water for several minutes will revive them. I then cut off the immersed stem and put the blooms in cold water in a vase. I am going to try that right after I finish here. 

The stems were not quite mature and should have been left on the plant longer before being picked re the internet. Last year the zinnias I bought in a bouquet lasted for days. We will see if this "fix" works. At least I am only out $2. It worked pretty well. I had one white bloom that was not drooping which served as a "control". The 5 flowers I put in the boiling water have a tiny tilt compared to the control, but they look good. I checked at 20 minutes, and they still drooped though looked a little better. At 40 minutes they had mostly straightened up. Certainly counter-intuitive way to fix the drooping.

I will try to buy ones that are not drooping at all next time though.

Now I can enjoy my flowers for a longer period.

I haven't felt very well this past week. The new med my doctor wanted me to try for my blood pressure has caused problems. I stopped taking it this morning. The pressure did decrease while using it, but I cannot live with this side effect. I will call her office Monday. 

Personalized Gift

 One of our new neighbors is quite crafty. She bought a house previously owned by Grace Village that abuts the retirement property. It suits her needs well as she needs room for china painting, throwing pottery, working with stained glass, painting on canvas. 

We had some previous ties with this woman thru Grace College and thru my cousins. Her parents had worked as missionaries across the border into Mexico at the same time my aunt and uncle did the same type of ministry. 

One of her ongoing projects is to create stained glass stepping stones. She has invited many of the Robin Hood residents to come use her facilities to design and create one for themselves. A few have taken her up on her offer.

For others, she has designed and made "personalized" stones as gifts. One neighbor's stone has an accordion(which he plays). Ours has books because we were librarians.

She delivered our stepping stone Sunday evening. She was pulling a little green wagon with two stones. When my husband accepted the gift, he found out why she hadn't carried it over to our house. It weighs 20 pounds! Supposedly it can sit out all year, even in the winter snow. The well water that irrigates our yard has discolored the stones and driveways. Since we didn't want the stone to turn rust-colored, we placed it in the one area (near our rose bush) which does not receive the well water. 

Hope it holds up well through the coming seasons.

Odd Supper

 About 4:30 my husband said he would like to drive to Silver Lake to get half a sandwich at the Subway, then follow that with ice cream next door at the Igloo. That would be our supper. We were not hungry at that point so waited about an hour.

After a pleasant drive on Country Club Road, which was surrounded by country fields but no club, at SR 14 we turned west where we got in line at the Igloo.

We didn't feel hungry enough to eat a sandwich first and decided to just stick to ice cream. Despite all kinds of advice from a regular right in front of us in line, I ordered an ordinary hot fudge sundae, but my husband got the rhubarb crumble sundae. His was made of rhubarb ice cream with slices of strawberries and pecans. Both sundaes were topped with whipped cream. At least he was adventurous. We ate at one of the picnic tables to the side of the building.

As we walked back to the car I had this sensation that drops were falling on my head. Once to the car I saw little tiny raindrops on the windshield. We drove in some light rain about half a mile, then it stopped. We could see the black cloud to the west of us though and expected more. Never had any more. 

It took a bit to get home; by then, my tummy said it wasn't quite satisfied. I got out some crackers and cheese to nibble. Perfect.

Kosciusko County Fair Senior Day

 A little before noon we drove over to the fairgrounds. This is senior day and admission was $1. We ambled past the food booths, finally settling on the Etna Green Lions Club operation. Cheese burgers, onion rings, sodas sated our hunger and thirst. Our neighbors who live behind and one over from us showed up a bit after we got our food. They joined us on the bench going around the perimeter of the wooden booth. We had a nice chat.

The two of us wandered through the antique tractors display, into the blacksmith shop, and into the local history cabin before heading for the events tent where a local retirement facility was offering wrapped Eskimo pies or ice cream sandwiches. In the past, they scooped up ice cream and offered toppings. A no-go during a pandemic. Two of the runners-up for fair queen came and sat across from us wanting to chat. We left to browse some displays; I see on Facebook that the folks in the events tent eventually played bingo.

We meanwhile viewed the Home Arts displays in a separate building and the 4-H projects in another building.

An historical costume in sewing competition

 

I was surprised to see that Grace Village's Artists in Residence program had entered some works, and they were displayed together. That was nice.

The 4-H projects are judged separately.

A lot of the entries were informational/educational posters which I did not photograph.

2 p.m. found us sitting on bleachers surrounding a wire cage where a tiger show was to take place. It was pretty hot today; I made sure to drink some bottled water. We did have a nice breeze though, and the show only lasted about 20 minutes. The young lady in charge explained that all of her cats were under 3 years old and still in training. Not terribly exciting, but the white Bengal was a magnificent animal. One of the Bengals was not willing to exit the temperature-controlled trailer.

The tiger was fed bits of raw meat as "rewards". Tigers are nocturnal so doing a daytime show meant less activity. 

The show started out with a 2-months-old tiger who frolicked with a dog. The trainers have the cats in Illinois part of the year, Florida during the colder months where the felines can stay outdoors and swim in a pond. Unlike housecats, these tigers like water. 

We were home by 3 p.m. The air conditioning felt good. At 3 p.m. the rides would start up, but we were not interested in them. We did not visit the animal barns this year either. 

There are harness races, truck/tractor pulls and events like that in the grandstand in the evening. 

Since the fair did not take place last summer, people were pleased to be able to attend this year. The 4-H animals were judged last year, but no audience was allowed, just a limited amount of participants and judges. 

Tonight we will have grilled chicken and our first local sweet corn of the season. Looking forward to supper. It has been a pleasant day. Tomorrow and especially Friday have forecasted rain and thunder storms.

Independence Day Holiday

 We started out the holiday festivities by eating  Kelainey's ice cream cones sitting on its screened-in porch on Friday afternoon. I was amazed how many people were walking around visiting the Village of Winona on a weekday.

Saturday morning I picked a few hydrangeas from my generous neighbor's bushes.

Since I took the blue vase off of the entry table, I put Covi there for awhile. I snapped this when the sun coming through our skylight shone right on the wood carving.

Saturday night we were able to see from our porch the higher fireworks from the Winona Lake show. I also enjoyed the numerous fireflies twinkling in our neighborhood.

Today we went to the boat-in worship service on Lake Wawasee which goes from 8:30 a.m. to 9. We sat in our folding chairs on the grounds of Oakwood Resort. There didn't seem to be as many boats around the Lilly Pad boat where the preacher and musicians are located. Maybe folks were busy with family. There was a big turnout on the land though. Our nice low-humidity days were to end today, but early morning was still delightful. It didn't really get muggy until around 10 a.m. We ate Sunday mid-day meal at The Boathouse restaurant along the shores of Winona Lake. 

Saturday I was just getting ready to take my shower when my husband returned from his woodworking efforts. He wanted to take a picnic lunch to the Stockdale Mill near Roann. We saw this mill when driving home from the apple store in Denver last fall. The mill was not open then.

We toured the open mill yesterday. Its power source is the Eel River.

There is a sub basement and 4 floors of pulleys, chutes, grinders, sifters which originally produced grain for animal feed and cornmeal and flour.

There was a rusty turbine in  the yard since the active one was in the sub-basement and thus unviewable.

This gizmo made a "patch" to splice together pieces of pulley.

Of course there were hazards working in a mill.

This historical still used for boot legging was an oddity taking up floor space.

I noticed that the brochure said the mill was handicap accessible. The ground floor had no stairs; there was an outside ramp to the second floor. The top two floors required climbing steep steps. Definitely not doable for the mobility challenged. 

There was a lot of ducking around equipment as well. It was interesting to tour.