Category Archives: Weather

Rattlesnake Bite #7

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We had a cold front blow in yesterday morning, dropping the temperature 20 degrees in about an hour. That sent some critters looking for a warm hiding place. One rattlesnake found such a place on our back porch yesterday. Then our dogs found the rattlesnake.

Fortunately, only one dog got bit. He’s been to the vet and came right back home, with meds. There is a canine vaccination for Western Diamondback rattlesnakes and our dogs got their latest dose on April 10th. Timing is everything, right? There are so many variables that go into a rattlesnake bite (the dog’s age, his size, the amount of venom, for example), even a dog current on his rattlesnake vaccine needs professional care.

Here is Clint, a few hours after being bitten. His nozzle is swollen some. The bite is just above his nose, in the dark, bruised area.

A yellow Labrador Retriever with a swollen nose due to a rattlesnake bite

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it got the dog bitten by a rattlesnake

This is rattlesnake bite number seven for our pack of dogs in the 14 years we’ve lived here. All the dogs survived the bites.

Here’s Clint in his younger days, without a swollen nose.

A yellow Labrador Retriever in a field of bluebonnets

Clint in bluebonnets

April Showers

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Proof positive rain can sneak through the Creedmoor force field every once in a while. This rainstorm brought us 1.47 inches.

Rain

View from our back porch

That PVC pipe arrangement on the far side of the fence is the broken agility equipment resting ground.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons (2)

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Winter Clouds

Winter Clouds

A few more pictures for the changing seasons. Winter clouds. They look like dinosaur ribs to me, cold dinosaur ribs, as they only show up in the winter.

A Pyracantha bush with lots of red berries

Pyracantha with lots of red berries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then the Pyracantha bush has its winter red berries on display. I returned to the Pyracantha bush yesterday and took a few more photos.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

Not Like The Other

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Here are the temperatures as of 6:20 p.m. Central Time on Sunday, 11 November 2012, for all the places I have on my iPhone weather app. One of these things is not like the other . . .

Degrees Fahrenheit
-20 . . Ulan Bator, Mongolia (Yikes!)
.32 . . Denver, Colorado
.37 . . Montreal, Quebec
.37 . . Oslo, Norway
.39 . . Qaqortoq, Greenland
.55 . . Kenosha, Wisconsin
.61 . . Chicago, Illinois
.81 . . Buda, Texas

Lentil Soup

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November 9th and the high is predicted to be around 82 degrees. That’s about 15 degrees warmer than normal. It’s going to get cold, sooner or later. When it cools off, I’ll be in the mood for soup again. Here’s a post from my old blog, written in the summer of 2011.

In addition to my new Black Bean Chili Soup recipe, I recently made Lentil Soup from Rip Esselstyn’s Engine 2 Diet book. The real name of the recipe is Savory Lentils and Greens and it is on page 222.

I had the list of ingredients in my shopping app when I was at the grocery store, so when I started making the soup, I had all the ingredients. That’s a good start. Everything was going fine and dandy until it came time to add my leafy green of choice, kale. There wasn’t any room for it in my Dutch oven pot. (Dutch oven pot: is that redundant?) It was just chopped up green stuff but when I took off the lid after the soup had simmered for 45 minutes (or thereabouts), there was no room. In fact, my supposed-to-be soup looked like lentil chili, it was so thick.

The Black Bean Chili recipe called for 3/4 cup of water; it was supposed to be thick. It was in self defense that I ended up using 5 cups of water and making it into soup. This recipe called for 5 cups of water and 5 cups of vegetable broth. I just knew it was going to be soup-y. No? Obviously I’m still having “issues” with soup recipes.

No room in the Dutch oven for the kale? I got out my second Dutch oven and transferred half of the lentil chili into it. To make it soup, I ended up filling up both Dutch ovens with several more cups of water and it was still a little on the thick side. Now I had two 5-quart Dutch ovens full of lentil soup. That’s a lot of soup especially considering I’m the only one at my house interested in it.

Although I had read the recipe correctly and had all the right ingredients, there was one little detail that I had missed before starting this endeavor. The recipe “serves a firehouse of 10.”

Oh.

Well that explains it. When I try a new recipe, I like to make it exactly as written for the first time. I just wasn’t prepared for the quantity. Next time, I’ll try cutting it in half. If I remember, that is, and I probably won’t.