The Mountain Thymes

 I believe my days are back to some normalcy.  My new refrigerator was delivered midday Tuesday.  It was scheduled for possible delivery on Friday because of unknown road conditions due to wet roads and freezing temperature each evening.  I was so full of gratitude Monday evening my eyes welled up with tears.  Each time I needed something to eat or tried to prepare an easy meal, I put on my winter jacket and brought in supplies.  Daytime temps never reached thirty degrees for a few days and most of the meal foods were still in Janice's and Libby's refrigerator/freezers.  I couldn't bear to drive up every couple of days and get food.   Five large cushions line both French doors, day and night. It was easier to just use the kitchen door to do everything than move and restack rolled blankets and pillows every time I refilled the bird feeder or brought in foods.  This is the coldest and longest spell of deep winter throughout the southern st...

 Sunday  January 25 Slept like a lazy cat all night.  Woke at 4 am, turned up the heat a few degrees, crawled back under the soft comfy covers and went into a light sleep until 6:30.  About 10 I went out for 80 more pounds of ice, hauled all the coolers onto the porch to empty the water, dragged them back in and put a new bag of ice in each cooler.  This allowed me to sort and place the foods in some sort of better order.  Extra bags of ice were placed in the warm "freezer" until I go to bed.     Bags and coolers can be placed out on the back porch before I go to bed. It looks like by midnight the temperature will drop into the 20's.  I'll see if the raccoon and bears have a party in the night.  I am so pleased that I built up muscle mass at the gym since Cliff's passing to allow me to lift properly without injuring my back or joints.  After all that lifting and tugging I made myself a nice pasta dish with fresh spinach from my...

 Sometime between going to bed Thursday night and making breakfast Friday morning my refrigerator gave up and died.  The milk started getting warm, water dripped from the ice-maker onto the floor, the ice-cream was soft.  Back up to Sunday when I pulled a 5.5 pound free-range chicken from the freezer with plans to cook it in the slow cooker Thursday to supply me with plenty of chicken for the predicted deep freeze coming this way.  Thursday I made my rub, rubbed it all over the chicken, cut fresh rosemary from outside to stuff inside the cavity and placed it in the cooker.  I had to borrow Janice's cooker because mine is a 6-quart which is too small for the hefty bird.  Plugged it in and set it on High for 6 hours at 9:30. Then noticed an hour later the pot wasn't even warm.  Moved the cooker to a different plug and check 45 minutes later.  Still no heat.  Stuck the whole ceramic vessel back in the fridge because now it was too late to cook i...

 If you look really closely..... you'll see the small covey of plump round quail camouflaged in the dead leaves and one near the green power cord.  Since November at least seven show up every morning for breakfast and again around three in the afternoon feasting  on little sprouts and bugs that they scratch up from under the rotting leaves.  They are the cutest little creatures, talking and peeping as they walk around.  When at the kitchen window in the morning I watch how busy they are scratching like chickens, flipping the leaves and turning them over to expose bugs and plant sprouts.  The blend in so well that unless one moves, you'd never know there were quail in front of you.  I've watched them dig and gyrate those round plump bodies into the leafy clay so that only half of their brown feathered bodies are exposed.  Mark got to see them walk around the driveway and scratch the for dinner while he was he.     This one posed for ...

 A few days before Christmas the weather drastically changed from frigid to unseasonably comfortable and my favorite temperature....anything where I didn't need to wear, thick coats, scarves, and shiver.  Mark arrived from Melbourne early Monday evening to spend Christmas with me.  Tuesday morning we had coffee, bacon and eggs at Waffle King, a wonderful treat for me, then headed to Walmart for Mark to pick out his Christmas gifts for me to wrap and place under the tree.  He needed a new toaster, some new sheets and pillow cases, a large bag of pistachios and Andes Mints.  On the way home he shopped for me at Tractor Supply.  I love that place. He bought me a two bags of bird seed and a couple woodpecker suet squares.  When we got home he went into his bedroom and wrapped the gifts so I wouldn't know what I was getting.  He also changed the filter and all the smoke alarm batteries, did some outside chores.  Tuesday evening we made meatballs w...