All In All – it wasn’t a bad day

I have been cleaning dutifully, but still have more to do. The happy news is that Darcey Downs is back! I was so afraid he had gone on the ultimate walkabout, but he just had a terrible string of bad luck - stolen computer, stroke, and he lost his house. But things are looking up now, and it is his turn for some very GOOD luck for a change. (Did you hear that God?)

Last night's noises kept Smokey awake and uttering various kinds of barks and complaints until finally I got up and looked out into the moonlight to see what he was upset about. Right in front of my window was a very large shape in a spot where no shape should be. It looked sort of rectangular. Then I noticed a flicking tail, and as it moved I saw it was a horse. There are several herds of free-range cattle and horses wandering around this horse camp this fall. We have had a long drought, and the poor things are looking for some grass. The horse campers who stay here on weekends usually leave a little alfalfa scattered around, and it doesn't lie around long before the cattle and horses get it. I keep a trough of water filled for them and I water a couple patches of green grass that they keep cropped down to a nubbin.

I had some unexpected expenses this month, so I am trying to use up some of my cache of groceries I keep for emergencies. I also try very hard not to waste anything. So today when I decided to make fish chowder, it turned into an imaginative masterpiece. It was more of a dinner chowder surprise. I usually make my fish chowder roughly by my New England mother's recipe. All her chowders were delicious. But, when I make soup, I make substitutions and additions according to what I have on hand.

Today I started with a few strips of bacon, fried crisp; I sautéed the raw fish with some chopped onions, added some diced-small potatoes, and threw in a can of creamed corn. In the fridge I found half of a small cauliflower and some wilting celery, so I chopped them up and added them, and then grated a couple of carrots for color. Some people might not like the taste of cauliflower, but I did. There were six kinds vegetables, and that has to be good for me. I have enough left for the next two days.

With the weekend coming tomorrow, I decided to wash all my dirty clothes by hand and get them out of the hamper in the bathroom. That way I wouldn't use gas going to the laundromat over 5 miles away. That worked out well. I washed my new African long red muumuu, and was glad I did it by hand because the color ran. I would have had pink everything if I had done it in a commercial washer. The wind was blowing pretty hard so the clothes dried in a jiffy.

I have decided the best way to make this trailer look cleaned up, is to remove everything I don't really use frequently, except my books. I'm trying for cleared off spaces. I have two bookcases made of heavy wooden wine cases here in the front of the trailer, and they are cleared off except for a small colorful afghan folded on top for the cats to sit and look out the window. There was quite a lot of other stuff I carted out and stored in one of my dead freezers. The mice killed them by chewing the electric cords, and it's too far to get repairmen out here.

I still have to do some clearing out in the bedroom, and finishing washing the windows. Then I'll be as ready for company as I'll ever be - except for raking up the acorns in the yard again.

There was something else I wanted to talk about, but it is almost midnight and I'd better knock off and get some sleep.

Welcome back again, Darcey.