Remarkable Saturday

Remarkable!  The Phactors actually don't have anything particularly pressing, no actual, events or appointments or anything on their calendar.  What a Saturday!  It's also a quite nice day for January, a high temperature right around freezing, sunny, with no wind. None the less things were found to keep us active and amused.  Having perused the most recent issue of bon appetit magazine, a couple of recipes caught our attention, so a trip to a grocery store was needed to buy a few items needed so that those recipes could be made during the coming week: a mushroom, leek, and fontina frittata, and shrimp and wilted escarole salad.  A wedding gift was picked out and shipping arranged, a set of dishes with a very tasteful floral pattern, for a niece in Florida.  Framing was chosen for a small print purchased at the end of last semester from a student sale.  A stop at the local pet store was necessary to get kitty kibble and admire the latest bunch of cats for adoption.  A very handsome patterned and slightly cross-eyed orphan got some oohs, but another adoption is out of the question right now.  Mrs. Phactor set to making a batch of double-chocolate (white & regular) cherry cookies.  This is definitely a keeper recipe although it only made 71 cookies not the 72 cookies it said it made!  Me thinks someone snagged one.  Winter always take a toll on the estate and although all the winter storm warnings so far have been duds, sooner or later one will be predicted correctly, so if the predicted ice storm hits tomorrow, it will be a mess.  Precipitation just never comes in the form you'd like.  But the pleasant weather did allow TPP to police the yard and gardens taking several wheel barrel loads of limbs and twigs out for pickup.  Might as well start with a clean slate if an ice storm is coming.  Later dinner is planned with friends at an Indian restaurant with a southern menu, and then betides out for drinks.  On the whole not a bad day at all for having nothing to do.

Mini-summer in October

A week of 80 degree highs in October is a rare event, and the Phactor wonders if this is the beginning of a new pattern with such weather becoming common? The weather in mid-October is often warm, and dry, not as parched dry as this year, but dry, and the 2nd or 3d week in October is reliably some of the best weather of the year and when the Missouri Botanical Garden looks its best. When deciding when to host a weekend systematics symposium, the ever pragmatic and empirical former director, Peter Raven, had his staff do a century of weather research and match that with peak display times at the garden, and mid-October was the solution. The estate is looking fairly colorful, but the display will be both less vivid, and short-lived because of the dryness. Lots of leaves are parched at their margins, and even our great big sugar maple will be not so orange as usual. This weekend we attempted to apple up, no not in honor the late Steve Jobs, but to stock up on apples for the winter, especially to seek some Northern Spies, our favorite. Our local source didn't have any, so another great old variety, the Red Pippin, was purchased instead. Then a lovely friend arrived back from a quickie trip to Michigan for football something or other, and delivered us a bag of spies. Oh, that is the measure of a friend. Unfortunately this is a bit early for spies in Michigan and indeed they are a bit underripe and their full complex flavor has not yet developed. In the usual domino effect, the pond renovation has drawn attention to a long neglected hedgerow and Mrs. Phactor declared death sentences upon the old, over-grown shrubs and left yours truly to carry out the sentences. Basal pruning is the usual method of execution, although some ancient forsythias and an old flowering crab were given reprieves on the condition that they grow back attractively. The new Japanese maples were planted and now the area can be sized up for additional landscaping. Then, as if on command, a large box of bulbs arrived via UPS indicating that this was not going to be a watch football weekend, and the joggers pranced by while real exercise was accomplishing something. Stop by if you want and drag some shrub corpses to the street. It's great exercise!

Saturday fun - household chores

After a morning spent cooking (chocolate cranberry tart for tonight's dinner party & new batch of granola), the temperature actually got above freezing so Mrs. Phactor decides we should take down lights and other outdoor ornaments. Walk around the estate showed that the rabbits were delighted that the flowering quince did not get protected by fencing; it is now thoroughly pruned. They also ate the needles, but not the twigs, off a newly plants white pine that has limbs near ground level. As good "parents" we put the Wisconsin born Norwegian forest cat kitten in her harness and let her explore the great snowy outdoors, a new experience. It was great fun even if paws did get wet and cold. Oh, these pampered house pets have it so soft. And it's so funny that all those squirrels you see outside the windows just never seem to be around when the cats go outside. Funny how that works. But good thing to get some outdoor chores done because more winter weather is on the way this coming week. 49 days of snow cover so far with February yet to go and our average is about 40 days. This is not a bad thing for the plants at all. And the granola seems like a good batch; no two are ever completely alike. The tart is spectacular.