Spring Has Sprung!

And I, for one, am ecstatic and began the day with a colorful plate of fresh Florida strawberries I found earlier in the week.

OK, now that I've calmed down and faced the reality that March is not a spring month in Maine, it's time to at least begin planning the garden.

I had every intention of taking a few of the hardier plants out of the winter garden room downstairs and moving them to the sunny loft in the garage, where I've set up a potting/seeding station, however, when I went outside, I felt it was still just a wee bit too cold. Not to be deterred in my celebration of the Vernal Equinox, I ventured out and cut a few pussy willows that I had spied blooming while on my walk up the drive yesterday.

Just the thing for my Grandmother's vase.

Despite not being able to take anything over to the garage, I brought a couple of overwintered geraniums upstairs to clean them up by removing all the dried leaves and give them a nice watering and bath.

The one on the left has several buds just about ready to bloom, so I put them in front of the south facing sliding glass door in the bedroom so they can soak up the sun.

I also cut back the rosemary sprigs I had rooted last autumn. They look pretty puny, but with a wee bit of good old Miracle Grow, some sun and warmth, they will take off!


I've begun picking up some seeds as I see them on sale in various stores. These are just a few packets, but I have more than I need stashed away!

I'll start putting the cold hardy ones out as soon as we get back from our visit with my Mom and Dad.

Last Sunday, we had a nice warm day and decided we would drive over to Sorrento for a walk to our favorite beach and look for sea glass. Since the tourists have all been gone for the winter and we've had several stormy days, the pickings would undoubtedly be good.

And, I was right! The beach was loaded with glass, but I only picked up ones that were either unusual in color or shape. Brown is all over, but green, white and especially blue are harder to find. We left loads more for the tourists when they return this summer.

H was the winner of the hunt as he found both of the "bluey's!

We also headed over to Bar Harbor on Tuesday to wander the streets and see which stores were open. Most of them were still boarded up for the season, with signs out front stating when they would reopen, but we stopped in to Sherman's Bookstore to browse and then headed to Geddy's for lunch. It's always nice to visit off season and we like to look across the park at the Bar Harbor Inn and reminisce where our adventures all started and we ended up in Maine.

And now, for the cat segment of the post!

Sluggo, it seems, has found a new favorite spot sitting on top of the fridge. He's been looking at how he might make it on top of the cabinets, but I don't think he's quite agile enough to make it. At least not yet!

His Majesty, Spike, just looks bored with the whole thing.

And so ends our first exciting spring day of the year!

Life is Good!

Hugs, Giddy

It's Thawing Out!

Finally! The weather forecast is showing temperatures in the high 30's and 40's for the foreseeable future. Yesterday, the high temperature was 52 whopping degrees and the sun was high in the sky! Whoohoo! I stood out on the deck, toasting the glowing orb with a nice glass of Merlot and soaked in the Vitamin D. I deliberately ignored the snow still on the ground. The birds were chirping, the squirrels were mincing about and all was right with the world.

However, we are still planning on heading south next January to visit with the kids and grandkids, and maybe miss a bit of the inevitable bad weather of winter. With that in mind, we purchased a nice traveling kitty condo for the boys.

And what a deal we got! This same item sold for $119.00 at Petco. We just happened to be at Ocean State Job Lots last week and found it for $29! Oh, how I love a deal.

Now, if the boys will just agree to enjoy their trip south with us. We've had the condo set up in the living room for a week so they could get accustomed to it. Even threw in a few of Spike's favorite treat of boiled shrimp, however, I think they still remain dubious.

Last night, the boys were entertained by Big Booda, the raccoon who was helping himself to the bird feeder.

I've been frantically knitting, trying to finish most of my UFO's (unfinished objects) and finally put the last touches on my cotton sweater.....


I also finished another market bag for a special person who likes to frequent Friday Green Markets. It should be on it's way in tomorrow's mail!


Last, but not least, we found this cute little guacamole kit at the Bangor Air National Guard Base Commissary. It has all the necessary ingredients; avocados, tomatoes, onion, garlic, jalapeno and lime. All that for only $2.17! I'd show a picture of the resulting guacamole, but we ate it before I remembered the camera. DEELISHUS!

And now, I hate to run, but the sun is shining again! YAY!!!

Life is really, really, good.

Hugs, Giddy

Giddy's Got the Cookies!

Sigh! Will this winter never end? H and I have always loved the winter months, but this constant onslaught of nor'easters and bitterly cold weather is beginning to wear very thin.

So, what's a housebound gnome to do? Can't get my fingers dirty in the garden yet, so why not play with something chocolate to pretend they are covered in warm, wonderful garden soil.

As you may have noticed in many previous posts, I am a huge fan of Zoe Francois' baking. Her blog, Zoe Bakes is wealth of yummy recipes, helpful hints and makes great reading on a long, snowy day. The other day, she had a recipe for Chocolate Ginger and Grapefruit Biscotti. Perfect! H is of Italian heritage and I love chocolate, ergo, a great combination!

OK, I rooted through the pantry and unfortunately, I did not have crystallized ginger and no candied grapefruit. However, I did have a knob of fresh ginger in the fridge and some dried apricots in the pantry. Perfect!

First, I peeled and diced the fresh ginger, added it to a saucepan with 2 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar and simmered it until the ginger was soft and the water had all evaporated, leaving a nice, sweet coating on the ginger. I let it cool while I added the rest of the ingredients, substituting diced dried apricots for the candied grapefruit. (see recipe on Zoe's blog).

After shaping the dough into two logs and placing on a parchment paper lined half sheet, I baked them for 35 minutes.....

I let the logs cool for about 1/2 hour and then, with a serrated knife, sliced them and returned the slices to the baking sheet, popped them back into the oven for 15 minutes, turned them over and baked them for an additional 15 minutes.

The resulting biscotti were deeeelicious dunked in a nice morning caffe latte or better yet, a nice glass of wine for a late afternoon break!

Next, H was determined to brave the cold and grill hamburgers. Would I please make some hamburger buns, he asked? No problem, says I.

I think I have this recipe just about down to how I like it. The trick is to make a very loose dough and handle it as gently as possible. The resulting buns are so superior to the ones you get in the store and hold up much better to those nice, juicy burgers.

The tiny Maine shrimp posted on a previous blog came in handy for a salad the other day.

Little Sluggo watched all the goings on from his perch in the kitchen window......

While Spike kept a close watch on Sluggo as he is often the first to find a fun time!


Give a cat a box and he's happy for hours!

And so goes life in the Great Frozen North! Spring is on it's way!

Life is good!

Hugs, Giddy

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good Guys!
Since it's impossible to reach our compost bin because of the snow, we throw scraps out to the crows every day. These guys do a great job of cleaning up anything we toss to them. They are the best scavengers and show up twice a day to see if there's anything on the "buffet". It's getting so I can call them and they come flying in.

They're also great "watch dogs". They make a huge ruckus whenever they spy the fox in the yard.

Our steep driveway, fondly referred to as "The Luge" has been particularly slippery this year with all the snow so we've had to have it sanded several times already. It's now looking pretty bad. It's difficult to tell from the photo, but those side walls are about three feet high!

The really ugly part of the door yard right now is the nearly 7 foot high wall of nasty, dirty snow plowed up against the front of the house.

As cold as it has been, I imagine we will still be seeing this pile in June!

On the positive side, the garden has had plenty of insulation this year and the spring and summer show of flowers should be spectacular!

Life is good

Hugs, Giddy

"Nuff Said!

That is NOT a smile on my face, it's a grimace! Last night, we had another 12+ inches of heavy, wet snow. We lost power last night and the generator is sucking propane out of the tank at an alarming rate. The wind is picking up and I fear we will be losing more trees as many of them are bent to the ground from the weight of the snow.

We looked out the door this morning only to see the truck was covered and we had very little room to maneuver the plow in the dooryard. Fortunately, we have a wonderful neighbor who came over with his John Deere snow blower and helped us out.

Yesterday, knowing the storm was coming, we headed in to town to stock up on a few supplies. On our way back home, we passed a local fisherman who was selling Maine shrimp on the side of the road. The price was too good to pass up - .75 cents a pound. Wow! we thought. What a bargain and promptly purchased ten pounds.

Oh, but little did we know how much work we were in for. Maine shrimp are tiny compared to Gulf shrimp.

By the time we boiled, beheaded and peeled all ten pounds, we ended up with about 4 pints of a pound apiece. I'm not sure the juice was worth the squeeze, but they are pretty tasty with a bit of cocktail sauce.


Another project was making my own curry powder. I purchased the seeds and other spices online from Penzey's spices. We have been ordering our herbs and spices from them for years and have found the quality to be fresher and far above what one can buy in the grocery stores.

First I toasted the seeds in a large skillet......

fennel, poppy, black pepper corns, cardamom, brown mustard, cumin, coriander and chili seeds were toasted until fragrant but not burned. After they cooled, I added ground cinnamon, fenugreek, turmeric and ginger and then ground it all together in my old coffee grinder turned spice grinder.

The aroma in the house was incredible and the veggies vindaloo I prepared for lunch was delectable.

When there's 90 inches of snow on the ground outside, our home inside is always warm, aromatic and delicious! However, I think H and I are definitely contemplating becoming snowbirds next winter and heading south to be with our kids and grandkids.

Life is sooooooo good.

Hugs, Giddy

A Plethora of Pizza

Last weekend, a friend and I made pizzas for the folks at the Franklin Veteran's Club. We, of course, used "the recipe" from the "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" cookbook for the dough. We both made huge double batches and we only used the Olive Oil dough which Heidi made.

So, here I was with a humongous batch of dough. What to do? Well, according to H, the only reasonable thing was to make more pizzas and put them in the freezer for future consumption. Thus, the title of this blog - A Plethora of Pizza!

We ate one and are looking forward to the rest one of these days. YUM! Oh, and I did make one boule too.

Most days, when the cats get into romper room mode, I don't have the camera handy. The other day, I was sitting at the computer, downloading photos and I happened to catch sight of Sluggo out of the corner of my eye. I could tell by the look on his face that he was in a feisty mood.

Spike was sitting on the island minding his own business, watching the birds and squirrels on the deck. Sluggo had stealthily leaped up on the stool........

Sluggo, sneaked quietly up, surprising Spike.

I got this shot off just before Sluggo, the Thug, pounced on Spike and the romp ensued. Notice Sluggo's ears pinned back and the hair standing up on his back!

The resulting chase was too funny to watch. They ran chasing each other from room to room. One minute Sluggo would be the chaser and the next would be Spike in hot pursuit of Sluggo. Whew, that was a lot of energy being expended.

Today, we were expecting (according to the TV weatherman), 3 to 6 inches of snow. H and I got up early and began plowing/shoveling around 9 am as there was already about 5-6 inches on the ground. It is now 1:30 pm and as far as I can tell, there is another 2-3 inches on top of what we had already and it's still coming down. So much for AccuWeather!

This brave squirrel was hanging on desperately despite the wind whipping him about.

The trees are beautiful cloaked in white, even though I've really had just about enough of the montone color.

I guess the grill will have to be idle for another few weeks! Oh well, there's always PIZZA!!


Life is Good,

Hugs, Giddy

Late Winter Doldrums

My Muse has once again flown the coop! Like me, she is tired of the dirty snow, the ice that has built up in the door yard and the wind which keeps blowing the cold arctic air in our direction.

It wouldn't be so bad if we could get out to hike in the fresh air, but with over 2 feet of snow still on the ground, that's not possible. Yesterday, in desperation, I walked up and down our long, steep driveway 6 times just so I could get fresh air and exercise. At least that was over a mile.

On a bright note, I did notice the pussy willow was beginning to bloom!

I have not been idle on these long winter days and nights. So far, I have finished knitting numerous market bags, dishcloths, socks and, TA DA!, the sweater is finished!


And here is my latest pair of socks.

The winter sunsets continue to amaze us with their beautiful colors.......

These Mourning Doves are regular visitors to the deck buffet.


And through it all, the cats do what cats do best!

Life is Good

Hugs, Giddy