September Day

 Another beautiful September Day! I've been busy all day and feel I've accomplished quite a lot, even though nothing that really shows much. I did some paint touch-up work, long overdue. Last fall when I had to move a heating element in my dining area to accommodate the doorway onto my new porch, there was an unpainted spot along the baseboard behind were the element had been. The new baseboard covered some of it, but not all. I had completely forgotten about that until last week when I moved a table to clean behind it and realized I'd never painted that spot. It's taken care of now. Plus, I touched up some dings on wall corners where bumps had chipped off small particles of paint. 

Bob McKay came this morning to finish trimming some cedars for me. I've done them in the past, but somehow for the past two or three years, they were neglected. I managed to keep the hedges at the front of the house and the smaller cedars trimmed, but there were some larger ones that haven't been trimmed for at least two years, and I thought it was safer for me to have someone do them rather than trying to do it myself - they were just too tall for me to reach. Bob had them done in no time, plus some other limb trimming, and I now have a good start on a brush pile in the fire pit again! Bring on the s'mores!

My pond has continued to recede. The spring that I had running into it is very low, so I've

shut that off. The flow wasn't keeping up with the seepage out of the pond, anyway, so I decided to let the water go down as much as it would - then we'd know better where the leak is -- maybe. Ben will come and we'll try to fix it at some point, but he is a busy guy with all sorts of high-priority jobs on his plate, and I've told him my pond is not a big deal. Well, it is to the frogs. They are no doubt getting pretty nervous wondering if there will be water cover for them this winter. Right now, when I walk around the rim of the pond, they plop into the water, sometimes on top of one another because there are so many of them and the water depth is only a few inches. It's more of a puddle than a pond at the moment.

Sometime during the morning I watched a video about cooking bacon in a waffle iron. That seems like a disaster waiting to happen to me. Waffle irons aren't made to deal with lots of fat runoff, and I can just imagine what could happen if fat were to hit a red-hot electric coil - or whatever is under those plates that make them hot. Then there was information about cooking bacon in other non-traditional ways, like baking in the oven, or cooking it in a  microwave.  The microwave method intrigued me and looked safe enough, so I decided for lunch I'd have my version of an egg McMuffin. So while I cooked the egg and toasted an English muffin, two slices of bacon were rotating in the microwave, sandwiched between several layers of paper towels to absorb the grease. The instructions were to microwave 6 minutes on high, but I opted for 4 minutes.  Before the time was up, I smelled smoke and stopped the microwave. Turns out I had my own disaster. My bacon slices were a smoldering, solid mass of piping hot charred paper towels and the bacon was unrecognizable. It looked like melted black plastic - and oh, my goodness, the smell!!! 

So I had an egg McMuffin with perfectly cooked egg with cheese melted over it on a nicely toasted muffin --  but no bacon. And it has taken all afternoon to get the stink out of the house. I haven't opened the microwave yet. I washed it down and left a saucer of baking soda in it to absorb any left-over odor, and I'm hoping when I open it up the smell will be gone. I probably won't be able to enjoy bacon again for a really long time!

Queen Elizabeth passed away today. It seems England and the 14 countries for which she was head of state, will have a lot to change. She has ruled for so many years, it will seem very strange to now have a "king" in place. Constitutions, anthems, prayers and emblems on flags will all need to be changed to reflect the new head of state - and to be gender correct. It is sad to think she has passed; but what a reign she had!

I just learned that Tirozzi's Bakery is leaving Danville because they bought Riley's Fish Shack property on Route 2 East in St. Johnsbury. That is sad for us near Danville, but great news for St. Johnsbury. I'm not sure if they are already operating there or not - according to their FaceBook page, they had a brush with Covid recently, and had to close temporarily on Labor Day weekend. I just heard about their move to St. J. today, but it seems others knew about the change earlier. I hope that is a good move for them; we'll miss them being so close! I also hope they retain some of Riley's menu. They had the best fish chowder this side of the east coast. They will have a lot more space, far better parking, and they are close to the interstate. We wish them the best.

Now I'm going to go into the kitchen and carefully open the microwave. I might like to use it getting my supper ready tonight, but not if it still has that awful smell!