Sometimes I think Ed was put on this planet to keep us all from needlessly wasting stuff. Mend what you have. Fix rather than replace. His favorite words may well be -- we don't need that new thing.
Last night Ed offered to make popcorn. We're weaning ourselves off of late evening lentil chip munching. Popcorn works. Except that the microwave did not work. It popped just a handful of kernels. Everything in the bowl seemed cold and under-waved.
When we gutted the farmhouse and put in a new kitchen some seven years ago, we instaled a built-in microwave. Great idea until your built-in microwave produces unpopped pop corn.
At breakfast I suggest what I always suggest when things break: let's get a new one! I do that as a joke. There is no chance, none whatsoever that Ed would go out and buy a new machine when there is at least a shell of an older one to work on.
And so after breakfast...
... he watches ten million youtubes on how to test different parts of a microwave for possible failure spots and then proceeds to take the monstrously heavy machine out (I'll unscrew it and you catch it. No, I'll unscrew it and YOU catch it!) and conduct his tests. All day long. And he finds nothing.
In the meantime, I meet up with my daughter and Snowdrop at the farmers market. The little one insists on full winter garb which appears to include this year the bucky badger cap and mommy's scarf. She is wise to cover up: it is a cold morning.
I was shocked to see this corn farm still selling just picked corn. I don't remember ever buying sweet Wisconsin corn in the last days of September.
Plenty of bouquets of dahlias and sunflowers. I picked this one. $5 is so very reasonable!
Our market trip these days always includes a side step into the Capitol building. Snowdrop is forever awed by the numerous stairs, balconies, by the cupola, by the echo in the vast spaces and the solemnity of the building. Isn't it humbling that a three year old can find beauty in these halls of such power and might?
Snowdrop is a mommy's girl on most of our Saturday outings or joint family adventures. She wants her hand to be in her mommy's hand. And it is. And she is buoyed by it.
Back at the farmette, I notice one important detail: the nasturtium are blooming their heads off. That means that, though we came dangerously close to it, we did not get a frost reading (32f/0c) last night.
I'm glad. I'm okay with Fall. I'm not quite ready for frost just yet.
Last night Ed offered to make popcorn. We're weaning ourselves off of late evening lentil chip munching. Popcorn works. Except that the microwave did not work. It popped just a handful of kernels. Everything in the bowl seemed cold and under-waved.
When we gutted the farmhouse and put in a new kitchen some seven years ago, we instaled a built-in microwave. Great idea until your built-in microwave produces unpopped pop corn.
At breakfast I suggest what I always suggest when things break: let's get a new one! I do that as a joke. There is no chance, none whatsoever that Ed would go out and buy a new machine when there is at least a shell of an older one to work on.
And so after breakfast...
... he watches ten million youtubes on how to test different parts of a microwave for possible failure spots and then proceeds to take the monstrously heavy machine out (I'll unscrew it and you catch it. No, I'll unscrew it and YOU catch it!) and conduct his tests. All day long. And he finds nothing.
In the meantime, I meet up with my daughter and Snowdrop at the farmers market. The little one insists on full winter garb which appears to include this year the bucky badger cap and mommy's scarf. She is wise to cover up: it is a cold morning.
I was shocked to see this corn farm still selling just picked corn. I don't remember ever buying sweet Wisconsin corn in the last days of September.
Plenty of bouquets of dahlias and sunflowers. I picked this one. $5 is so very reasonable!
Our market trip these days always includes a side step into the Capitol building. Snowdrop is forever awed by the numerous stairs, balconies, by the cupola, by the echo in the vast spaces and the solemnity of the building. Isn't it humbling that a three year old can find beauty in these halls of such power and might?
Snowdrop is a mommy's girl on most of our Saturday outings or joint family adventures. She wants her hand to be in her mommy's hand. And it is. And she is buoyed by it.
Back at the farmette, I notice one important detail: the nasturtium are blooming their heads off. That means that, though we came dangerously close to it, we did not get a frost reading (32f/0c) last night.
I'm glad. I'm okay with Fall. I'm not quite ready for frost just yet.
