Home Made Pasta

I haven't made pasta for awhile, but I saw a recipe in the paper this morning that  I thought I would make for Carrie and me while she visits.  Since it is a pasta dish, I decided to go all out and make my own.  This is whole wheat pasta, but I also made some with regular flour.  As usual, the task turned out to be much more work than I anticipated.  First I had to find my pasta machine, which I haven't used for about twenty years.  Then I had to clean the thing.  Then I had to look into the recesses of my mind to remember the procedure.  Luckily it involves only flour, eggs, and salt.  My first batch was a little dry, though It was fine when cooked.  Of course it would be, since it is cooked in water, so I needn't have worried.  The white batch was so successful that I made twice as much dough for the whole wheat......a decision I regretted about two hours later while I was still cranking the dough through the machine. 

Comic relief came as I was cleaning up and spotted Patrick taking an overly active interest in the drying noodles.  He managed to snag one, and then I tempted him with another in order to take a picture.  He is such an adorable boy.

Golden Glow

Two years ago Elizabeth sent me these plants.  She had never heard of them, but my mother used to have them.  When we moved to our first house as a married couple on Parkview Avenue, I transplanted some of hers.  After a few more moves, I lost them and hadn't been able to find any since.  I don't remember how it came up, but Elizabeth ended up researching them on the web.  She found some and sent me four little plants.  Probably I wrote about this before.  Nevertheless, these flowers mean so much to me that the story bears repeating, at least in my view.  Sometimes such a small, unexpected, and seemingly somewhat insignificant event can end up being the source of lasting pleasure.  The circumstances that conspired to get these plants to me gave them a special, complicated and a little obscure meaning to me.  I'm so glad I have them.

Beautiful Day

It has taken me most of the day, but I finally figured out a way to download and then post pictures.  It's a mystery to me why my computer decided to behave so differently, and I'm not sure I can repeat the process, but I will enjoy the fact that I finally accomplished what I wanted to do.  I took these pictures from the window.  I was so impressed by the clouds.  The day is very sunny even though the fog has settled over the islands.  I presume that it is very foggy out on the water, but I've seen a few motor boats speeding by close to the land. 

The memory of last winter is still fresh in my mind.  It is disconcerting that the summer is already coming to the end.  Fall is looming, and then winter again.  Meteorologists are predicting another winter like the one we had last year, which is very disconcerting.  It seems as if this wonderful weather should last at least long enough to erase it from our minds.  We have not yet adjusted to feeling warm and comfortable, looking at the spectacular scenery we live with.  We've yet to be able to relegate last winter to a dim memory.

Of course the good weather is not over yet, and we have the pretty Fall to look forward.  Still, while there are huge portions of the United States that are dry and very hot, our summer has been relatively cool.  Extremes are everywhere. Global warming is changing the weather.  We have been in the process of using up our environment for a long time, and while some are championing the cause to stem the tide, it's my belief that we are really on the road to extinction as a species.  We are following the natural course of nature.  We have evolved to dominate other species, to become so successful that we have over-bred and over-used the place where we live.  It's happened to so many other species.  It's the way of the world, the ebb and flow of life forms that flourish as we have.  Like them, we are trying to figure out how to survive.  Of course we are using our best tool, our brain, to diagnose and solve the problems we face. But like all the extinct species that have gone before, we will fail.

How do I know this will happen?  I don't.  I expect things to go on as they are and always have been (as far as we know).  Even that is just a function of the human brain working to understand based on observation.  This is not a gloomy thought to me, but a comfortable idea that we are far from alone, far from special.  We are not outsiders.

 This is a test to see if I can post from my kindle. This is a picture of Carrie and Jesse taken at the Bangor fair around forty years ago.  WOW.......time flies.

Low Tide

The pictures aren't as impressive as the real thing, but I was shocked to see this view as I walked the dogs down the hill this morning.In all the time I've been here, I don't remember ever seeing the water so low.  As a point of reference, the little island in the middle of the picture is normally completely underwater at high tide, the beach is almost non-existent,  The pilings on the left are exposed only at the very top.  The islands in the distance look huge compared with the way they usually look.  The tides are always impressive here, which is why Eastport is a major shipping port for cargo from Europe and Asia.  Still, this morning they seemed unusually low.  Most likely this is due to my normally non-existent powers of casual observation, but today I was so impressed that I made a special trip with my camera just to photograph the scene.

Speaking of photographs, I am finally back in business in terms of computer functions.  Yesterday I received the new monitor I ordered after the other one died, and today I got the camera cable I needed to download pictures (the old one ceased to function for some reason).  Now all I need is the ink for my printer.  I have ordered the cable and the ink twice already and got the wrong thing, but I think this time all will be well.

We finally are having what is typical summer weather for Eastport.  It is absolutely beautiful.... sunny with temperatures in the 70's with a slight breeze off the ocean.  My thoughts of living in Bangor now seem absurd.  Though the summer is short, or perhaps because it is short, it is worth the wait.  The winter seems like a vague memory, or a dream, or perhaps a nightmare that no longer has relevance in real life.