The Center Cafe

 Our local Career Center has a Chef and Restaurant Management program. Three days a week they offer a lunch.  Sometimes the menu mentions a student who has created the recipe.  Today G and I went there.  G had baked salmon in a broth with vegetables which actually were not cooked.  Mine was a pasta with chicken, mushrooms  in a white sauce which reminded me of French cooking. Lots of cream and cheese.

I am only including photos of food to keep up with another blogger I know.

My woods

I spend a lot of my time in our woods. In addition to being overwhelmed by the beauty, I am doing what I call "woods management".  That is marking trails, and cutting briar bushes so one can walk the trails without coming out all bloodied. 

When I walked out from the woods, this is what I saw.  From in the woods I had no idea but made it home before the storm.

 

Gerry makes the news - again

https://medina-gazette.com/news/286887/top-10-stories-of-2021/

The Medina Gazette is a local newspaper. In February they had this picture of him getting his vaccination.

  Now he made the TOP 10.  Along with Matt Amodio of Jeopardy fame!

Windy

Today we are having wind gusts up to 50 mph.  It sounds like the siding is being torn off our house.  Gerry went walked around the house and saw to serious damage.   I did not cut back my grasses on the side of the deck.  It usually is quite pretty covered with snow.  But the question is, will it still be upright.  

Quite a change from yesterday.  It was so calm I was able to take pictures of leaves as I sat in the woods. Gerry just rolls his eyes when he sees pictures like this, but I think it is beautiful.  I find it so peaceful to be out in my woods.

Weeding the garden

I always have dreams of having beautiful landscaping and flower beds.  Finally I have to be honest and face the fact that I cannot/do not keep them weeded.  We have heavy clay soil so digging the beds up with a shovel is impossible. G borrowed a back hoe from our neighbor. He used it to dig out perennials and weeds that had completely covered them.  Next year I hope to have the area covered with mulch with just a few colorful shrubs. 

 

Camping trip

 Gerry and I have started on a three week trip with our camper.  The camper is almost new.  But we are pulling it with a 98 van with about 220 thousand miles. It has been quite an adventure.  We were driving on the first leg of the trip and heard a noise of something rubbing or hitting something under the van.  We made it the 350 miles to Kankakee, Ill where we visited friends.  Gerry took the van to a mechanic.  His car lifts were being used but he crawled under the van and reported that a strap holding the fuel tank had broken and was rubbing on the drive shaft.  Gerry found material to replace it, and of course did the repair himself.

He drove it up on a curb so he could get under the car.   A friends was helpful in holding the light.

We are staying in an Iowa State Campground.  It has all the amenities we want except WiFi. But the local library came to the rescue. 

Mowing the Lawn

 

From here

For several years almost every time I would mow the lawn, Gerry would be on call to make repairs.  Usually not as extreme as repairing the engine.  

To here

I have a smile on my face but even after mowing  a couple times my jaw hurt from clenching it so hard.