Honk if you think things are looking ‘up’

For weeks, we’ve been surveying the ground for signs of spring. Is the snow melted yet? How can I avoid stepping on all those worms coaxed onto the driveway because of the rain? Is the grass turning green?

This morning, we looked up to find spring.

A couple of Canadian geese were making a heck of a racket on the neighbor’s roof (apparently they were as surprised to see the sun at sunrise as we were).

This post is part of WordPress’ Weekly Photo Challenge: Up. To see other interpretations of “up,” click here and check out the comments.

DIY salad jazzes up lunchtime

When I’m trying to eat right, I eat a salad for lunch.

That’s Rule No. 2. Rule No. 1 is fruit and eggs for breakfast. Rule No. 3: Everything in moderation the rest of the day.

Those are my diet story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

In any case, a salad for lunch every day gets boring if your only choices are chicken Caesar and chef salad. So I collect salad recipes, and I build crazy combinations around whatever leftover protein I have on hand. Here’s the DIY version of a tasty salad:

• Protein: Chicken, ham, tuna or beans of any sort.
• Greens: Romaine is my go-to green.
• Chopped vegetables for flavor and color: Green onions, cherry tomatoes and cucumber get into almost every salad I prepare, but carrots, peppers, celery and fresh herbs like parsley or mint are nice, too.
• Cheese: Try parmesan, feta or mozzarella. Avocado is a good-fat alternative to cheese.
• Something sweet: Some kind of fruit like dried cranberries, grapes or oranges adds a flavorful counterpoint, but sun-dried tomatoes or a dash of sugar in the dressing is nice, too.
• Something crunchy: Pepitoes are my favorite, but croutons, nuts or corn chips add texture, too.

When you’re looking for a particularly hearty salad, a whole grain carbohydrate is a good addition. I love quinoa.

I made a delicious lentil and barley salad earlier this week, but today’s protein to build around was barbecued pulled pork. My Beloved can eat only so many pulled pork sandwiches, and I can’t bear to throw away what’s left. WordPress’s Photo Challenge this week is “Lunchtime” so I’m sharing it with you.

Pulled Pork Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• A dash of each: Ginger, allspice, salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup or so of last night’s barbecue pulled pork
• A couple of cups shredded romaine
• 1/3 cucumber, peeled and sliced
• 1 green onion, sliced
• Fresh cilantro leaves
• Pickled baby corn, sliced
• A canned peach half, chopped
• About 10 roasted almonds, chopped

Preparation:

1. Stir together dressing: Vinegar, oil and spices.
2. Assemble romaine, vegetables and peach on plate. Top with dressing.
3. Warm up pulled pork in the microwave (about 45 seconds on high), and arrange on salad.
4. Top with almonds.
5. Eat and feel virtuous.

Sun sets on another week

Look for the beauty wherever you are.

Sentimental shores

Being a Midwesterner means sometimes defending one’s residence to people who aren’t from the Midwest.

I remember a conversation one morning at a San Diego bed-and-breakfast with a California couple. When I told them we were from Minnesota, they exclaimed, “Minnesota! Who would ever want to live there? You must be crazy!”

As Californians, they apparently thought they knew Minnesota to be a vast wasteland near the Canadian border where it’s always winter and residents rarely emerge from their igloos.

It’s cold in Minnesota, and winter is long, and that bitter season is one of the reasons I’m now a Minnesota transplant living two states south.

But it’s not so bad that only crazy people live there (only some of the people who live there are crazy).

Living in Illinois now, I sometimes take heat for the state’s political machine and its perenially losing baseball team (don’t get your panties in a bunch, White Sox fans, I’m referring to the Cubs).

For the record: Despite its history of criminal governors and high interstate highway tolls, Illinois is not filled with a bunch of rubes and it’s a nice place to live.

I now can defend Iowa with its corn fields and early primaries also.

Dubuque, Iowa, is a beautiful place to visit. The postcard perfect city on the Mississippi River is filled with nice people, good food and absolutely stunning vistas. I now can say I see the love in this place.

This morning’s walk along the river revealed a pretty little bonus, too, on the muddy shores of the water sparkling in the morning sun:

Do you see the love, too?

Celebrating a spiritual holiday by communing with Mother Nature and her handiwork

Happy Halloween!

I’m not watching horror movies today.

I’m not lifting fun-sized bars from my kid’s candy bucket.

I’m not voting early or avoiding political ads on TV.

I’m not waiting for the doorbell to ring and counting how many pieces of candy I have left before I need to turn off the porch light.

I’m not dressed as a beer bottle or an English queen about to be executed.

Nope, the spine-tingling (and quadriceps-burning) activity I undertook today was climbing up the trail (with more than 600 steps) at Amicalola Falls in northern Georgia and then walking back down.

The last time we visited Amicalola Falls was a year and half ago in the 1983 Pace Arrow. If you missed that story, it’s worth checking out. I count that post as among my best (and I’ve written more than 1,200 posts here at Minnesota Transplant so that’s saying something).

The scenery and the view here are so beautiful, we came back. We’re staying at the lodge at the top of the falls, and the view is breath-taking.

You can see for miles.

The only way to see the falls in all their glory is to take the trail (classified numerous times on signage along the way as “strenuous”).

Here’s the reward:

The dramatic view at the halfway point at Amicalola Falls.

I parked our vehicle at the bottom and then hiked to the top to fetch my Beloved. We returned to the bottom together so at least I did the hard part first (and in anything-but-spooky bright beautiful sunshine).

The trees in Georgia still have some of their leaves.

Amicalola Falls is the beginning (or end, depending on your perspective) of the Appalachian Trail, and there’s a historical marker here to announce this fact. The quote on the marker at the trail’s terminus is an apt ending to this post, too:

“Remote for detachment, narrow for chosen company, winding for leisure, lonely for contemplation, it beckons not merely north and south, but upward to the body, mind and soul of man.”

~ Harold Allen

The pot of gold at the end of autumn’s rainbow

The trees here in northern Illinois are beginning to change colors. Most of them are still green, mind you, but a few trees have changed into the most gloriously colored robes including the golden ash trees across the street and a purple one on my running route.

But these red maples stand out on a clear blue-sky day. A nursery sits on a country corner not far from my house, and this group of trees turned red first. These gorgeously pinkish red sirens are clearly flaming from a mile away.

It’s scenes like these that make autumn bearable.

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

~ American poet Langston Hughes

 

Fleeting moment of wild blue yonder

About 10 a.m. today near Cherry Valley, Ill.

If an artist painted this sky, she would be accused of overly done brush work. But this is how The Artist (and I’m not talking about the rock musician Prince) created the heavens this morning near Rockford, Ill.

These swirls in Blue Gray (retired by Crayola in 1990) dissolved quickly into dull gray skies, vague thunder and isolated showers. Hampshire got a much-needed drink after a week of temps in the 80s and 90s.

The corn field is the perfect foundation for this summer sky. Fresh corn on the cob is available at the local farm market tomorrow!

Find more fleeting moments captured on camera here.

Weekly photo challenge: Close

Row 5 at the muddy demo derby is extremely loud and incredibly close enough for me.

Up in smoke and mirrors

Friends help friends move, so my Saturday included boxes, packing tape and a trip to the U-haul store to pick up a 17-foot truck. With a broken mirror.

When I looked into the glass and realized it was broken, I knew I had good subject matter for “distorted,” this week’s WordPress weekly photo challenge.

Actual unretouched photo

The pile in the green bag sitting in front of the house? That’s a Bagster filled with trash. The Bagster® bag is “a dumpster in a bag,” a Waste Management product designed to get rid of contained messes (and you thought there could be no innovation in the garbage industry).

Part of the distortion here is that all that stuff in the Bagster was once deemed necessary to make a home sweeter. Now it’s just a whole lot of unwanted junk.

Warning: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

Sun worshipper

Surrounded by piles of receipts and tax records on the living room floor, I tackled the taxman’s demands this morning. I was preparing for an ominous meeting with our tax preparer on Tuesday (yes, my Beloved scheduled a romantic rendezvous over the tax code on Valentine’s Day).

The little bearded lady, meanwhile, was chasing the sun. From one chair to another,

she moved locations as a shaft of sun did. The best location, though, was down on the floor with me. And my paperwork.

Well, at least one of us enjoyed our Saturday morning.