I do not have a picture of the clam chowder because Bill and I ate it all.
Since today is a public holiday for government workers, we do not have the opportunity to go into the archives and do digitizing. It has been raining off and on through the night and it was full moon and the river was at king tide. I just wish it had been light enough to see how far up the bank it came. I was looking out the window at the birch trees and the other trees that still have some leaves on them and noticed that the trunks of most of the trees are quite stark in contrast to the yellow leaves. A lot of the trees have lichens growing on them and they are a pretty light blue green on the dark trunks. The lichens only grow on one side of the trees – guess this is the side the weather comes from. Of course the grass is very happy to be watered and they do not seem to have watering systems in their lawns here like we have in Prescott….and that is due to the fact that the grass we have growing in our backyard is not native to Arizona and as such is not really suited to the high desert climate and needs to be watered and babied along so that it remains green and gives our eyes a rest from the starkness of the rocks that comprise our landscape in the back yard. I never cease to marvel how the Master Gardner has planted His garden with “appropriate to the climate” plants.
I do miss the smell of the rain washed alligator cedars in our back yard when it is monsoon weather. There is no such wonderful smell here in Augusta – they only have pines, no cedars here in our area. Mankind has tried to duplicate the aromas of nature and has failed miserably. For example, we have a bath soap called “Irish Spring”. I have no idea what an Irish Spring smells like, but the manufacturers have created this smelly soap to convince us that if we use it, we will feel clean and fresh – like an Irish Spring. Some time ago when I was visiting Sara, I saw that she was using Mrs. Myers Clean Day detergent to wash her dishes (her dish washer had died a slow and ignominious death). The smell of the detergent was different from all others and so I looked on the label and saw that it was labeled as “Lavender”. You can’t fool me, my mother used to grow Lavender Dentata and I know what true Lavender smells like and Mrs. Myers Clean Day dish Detergent does not even come close to the smell of real lavender. David has decided that a certain body wash will help him find and attract a girlfriend. So he uses something called AXE body wash in the hope that it will be some sort of pheromone to attract the opposite sex. In reality, when he is at our home, I have forbidden him to use the stuff because it just stinks, and it is not even a pleasant smell. In fact, it can be aptly named, “Olfactory Assault” instead of AXE. He assured me that all the women love the smell, it said so on the TV commercial. Well, I have spent all my life as a female and the smell of AXE is not alluring, by any stretch of the imagination.
It is craft show time here in the area and the main selling point is that they offer “Maine Made Items” for your pleasure. Well, I did see some stuff that had been made in China that was put together with a glue gun………………..assembled in Maine may be more like a true description of the stuff. We have been to poorly executed craft shows, Mediocre craft shows, Top of the Line craft show (Maine Craftsmen’s guild last weekend) and tomorrow I suspect we will be treated to a mix of poorly executed and mediocre stuff at the Augusta Civic Center. I suppose I sound too harsh in my summation of the craft shows, but I have been part of the Pennsylvania Craftsmen’s guild, exhibited at the Somerset Festival, been a part of the Log House Craftsmen’s guild , Mountain Spinners and Weavers Guild, Mountain Top Quilters Guild, Thumb Butte quilters guild and have spent hours gazing in awe at the top notch crafts exhibited at Van Goh’s Ear Gallery and other galleries in Prescott. Two big craft shows I attended while in the Phoenix Valley were the Tempe Arts Festival and the Fountain Hills Festival – both top notch shows and not to forget the Scottsdale Craft show……so I do have some background in what can be done and compare it to what is done and presented to the public. So where do I stand with my creativity? Well, I suspect somewhere in the middle because I follow an activity to satisfy my present needs and then move on to another one rather than follow just one craft into infinity and become a real expert. There is a doll-maker named Akira Blount whose work I really admire and Lisa Lichtnefelds work is also quite remarkable. Both are doll-makers and both are quite different in their approach to the figurative form. I have studied figurative forms with Lenore Davis (now deceased) and have made a few things to my own degree of interest and now I have moved on. Sara was sure that I was top of the heap, but I tried to explain to her that fame is short lived and that there are some doll-makers who hit the big time (e,g, Xavier Roberts – Cabbage Patch Kids) and their fame wanes quickly. In order to stay on top, one has to come up with something new, desirable and saleable to stay ahead of the game. Akira Blount stopped producing her magical dolls when someone came up with a really cheap ‘knock off’ of her work – quality sells mostly to collectors and admirers, cheap knock off’s flood the market and detract from the well developed craftsmanship of the originator of the article. Lenore’s work is in corporate collections as is the work of Lisa Lichtenfelds. Since I no longer subscribe to Doll Magazines, I have no idea who is top of the heap or how they stay there. Folk art type dolls by elinore peace bailey are mad in abundance and sold at some craft shows, and I have seen elinore listed as a teacher at National Quilt Show in Houston.
It stopped raining and I wanted to go walking but Bill said wait for him – I did, and one hour later I was still waiting and we did not get to go walking. We did go to K-mart and return the space heater – it was just taking up space and did not heat well, so it went back to the store. The comforter I purchased when we came also went back to the store because it was made of slippery fabric and kept falling off the bed during the night. We went to Kohl’s and purchased a 100% (made in China no less) quilt for the bed. Yes, it is an ouch to be sure to have a quilt made in China in my possession, but Bill did not want to bring his Eagle quilt with us…………..and so it goes.
We decided to go to the grocery store to purchase food for this next week. I had been looking at the recipes in the local cookbook that I purchased and I saw that they had a recipe for Clam Chowder. Now I have to say here that the clam chowder we had at Bar Harbor was wonderful and I have a desire to avoid buying New England Clam Chowder from Campbells while we are here. So with that in mind, I looked up the recipe for Clam Chowder that they had in the recipe book and took note of the requested ingredients. Yes, it required clams and I dutifully put them on the shopping list. When I got to the store, the seafood clerk said that they had a special on clams today - $1.99 per pound – the regular price is close to $5.00 per pound (including shells of course). Well, I was game to try this, so I opted for the clams from the showcase. I looked at how closed up they were and wondered how to get them open. The clerk at the checkout said that she just steams them for a few minutes and they open up by themselves. I had visions of myself trying to open the stubborn shells with a kitchen knife or even a screwdriver. So with my bag of clams safely in my shopping cart, I set off for home. The directions on the weight slip said to use no more than 1inch of water in the pan to steam the clams. It is hard to measure just one inch of water and would the clams rally know or care if it was a little over 1 inch? So I put the water on to boil – threw in one clam to see what would happen, and lo and behold, he opened his shell for me to remove him. Success! So I put the rest of the clams in the water and they all opened up. Took the meat out of the shells, separated the intestines part from the meat of the clam and then cut the potatoes and onion etc. ready to make the chowder. It then occurred to me that I had just put 2 ½ pounds of live clams in hot water to get them to open up for me to remove them from their shells. I guess you can say that today was not a good day for the clams. Well, I made the clam chowder, and Bill voiced his misgivings at the amount of clams I was using, the number of potatoes etc. etc. so I told him that I had cut down the recipe from service to 8 persons to service to two persons. Well, he gathered his courage and came to the dinner table. After all it is a recipe from Mrs. Margaret Chase Smith. We sat down to eat dinner and the clam chowder just disappeared. I was sure that I would have it as a left over but he must have been hungry. I even got some to eat as well.
I guess the next one to try is a Lobster Bisque……………..move over , Julia Childs. The supermarkets here will even cook your lobster for you……….I can live with that.
Sunday I have to teach a lesson on Chastity. It is a difficult subject to deal with because I do not know the class members or what worries they have packed away in their minds. One has to be so careful what is said because guilt feelings can sometimes erupt in difficult behavior patterns that we would not expect in the Sunday School class. The major thrust of the lesson is that in order for us to be forgiven, we need to forgive and move on. If I can get them t this point, then they will feel a lot better when they leave class. Feeling forgiven and free is a feeling that is indescribable.
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