Thursday, April 30, 2009

"New Hampshire Senate Passes Gay Marriage Bill"


I am so proud of my birth state!

It seems especially dramatic because I remember that when I was growing up there, it was one of the most radically, virulently conservative states in the Union. The state's banner newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader was run by the poisonous, vindictive, and just plain vile conservative William Loeb, a man Faux News -- oh, I'm sorry, Fox News -- would be honored to have on its payroll today.

I'm sure Mr. Loeb is spinning in his coffin today, and all I can say to that is this:

Is there any way we can harness his spinning to generate green electricity?

Rock on, New Hampshire! Lead the way.

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Monday, April 20, 2009

Baked mashed potatoes. (And an interesting butterfly photo.)


Judi hasn't made mashed potatoes for a while, so she decided to put them on the menu for Easter Sunday. But instead of boiling the potatoes, she decided to bake them -- baked mashed potatoes.

They were awesome.

No, this blog isn't going to turn into the Food Network, but I do want to post the recipe, because they turned out so great:

She started with a bag of plain-white-trash potatoes. We washed them, and then rubbed their skins first with butter, and then with salt. Then we individually wrapped each one, tightly, in a sheet of aluminum foil.

Judi baked the potatoes at 400 degrees for an hour and a half, and then turned off the heat and left them in the oven for another two hours, just to make sure they were good and soft. While baking, a great deal of the salt oozed out of the foil wrappers and made a huge mess in the bottom of the oven. So...

Note for next time (or for you): Bake foil-wrapped potatoes on a cookie sheet, to contain the mess.

Anyway, I cut the still-hot but very soft potatoes into rough cubes, and Judi mashed them. The flavor was terrific! I don't think we'll ever make boiled mashed potatoes again. You can add milk for traditional mashed, but Judi "loaded" hers with sharp cheddar cheese, crumbled bacon, and sour cream. Gosh they were good!

BTW, we did all this on Saturday, the day before Easter, and just had to heat them in the microwave for Easter dinner, which was a lot less stressful than trying to make them on Easter.

Heads up: There's a great Photo of the Day today over on Judi's Butterfly site, JudiButterflies.com. As you may know, a Monarch chrysalis turns clear just before the butterfly emerges, and today we have a photo of a chrysalis that's half turned clear, but still remains half opaque. In case you don't get to it until "tomorrow" and the Photo of the Day has changed, you can see all the past Photos of the Days by clicking on "Photos of the Day" under "Photo Galleries" over on the right of her site.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Twitter-ers


Those who twitter have
discovered haiku. Only
now? Such a great fit!

And a reminder that butterfly posts have moved to JudisButterflies.com, where new posts are being posted. The most recent descibes a successful operation to repair a butterfly's broken wing. Take a look!

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Sunday, April 12, 2009

A big Easter surprise!

World, meet Stormi!

Stormis face

Stormi, meet the world.

Yes, on this day when we celebrate rebirth, after a season of death and despair, we are announcing that Judi has a new beagle puppy, a blue-ticked beagle (different from the usual tricolored beagle) named Stormi. Stormi is a little bundle of charm, nerve, confidence, attitude, temper, and... oh yes... love. She clearly believes she owns the world. Perhaps she does. But she's more than willing to share it with the rest of us. And she loves everyone. You included.

How, you ask, could Judi bring a new beagle into her life so soon after losing her most beloved Princess Sunni? Well, that's a good question. Unfortunately, the answer, while wonderful and uplifting, is too revealing to post here, and so to see it you will have to jump to my other blog that I mentioned a while back. To read that story, click here. You will need to be approved to read that blog (reason explained in the aforementioned post), but if you would like to be approved, all you need to do is ask. Click here and send me a message. That's all you need to do. I will approve you (as long as you're not Certain Someone). I promise.

And here's another picture:

The Storminator

Many more will follow. I promise.

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Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Drumroll, please....


If you've been a follower of this blog, you know that for the past year Judi has been in a passion about butterflies. I've posted from time to time on this blog -- very very inadequately -- about this passion, but Judi has so much more to say, not only in blog posts but in photographs and links to other sites and descriptions of her gardens and... well, lots of stuff, that...

...she now has her own Web site:

JudisButterflies.com

Yay, Judi!

I invite you to click on over and take a look. Not everything is working yet. Actually, probably most is not working yet. But the big pieces are there:

There's a blog, called Updates From the Garden. All butterfly posts from this blog have been migrated over there (that was a lot of work), and you can subscribe to a feed if you're that kind of person (as I am). It will be updated frequently, and to entice you, there's a new post there right now which is not on this blog, so you have to click over there to read it, about Polydamas caterpillars and a Big Surprise. Go read it!

There's a Photo of the Day, which will change every day, and will always be stunning, I promise.

There's a Guestbook, where you can leave your comments. Thanks! We love comments.

Other bits work, and more will be added day by day, as I dig into it. This is my first Web site that I've built using a Content Management System (CMS in geek-ronym), and the learning curve has been kind of steep. Take into account that I am an old dog, and you know what they say about old dogs and steep curves, and you'll get my drift, but I can see the top of the hill. If you run into any problems, please please send me a message at greg at judisbutterflies you-know-the-punctuation-mark com. And let me know what kind of computer and browser you're using, because a lot of times it's just that I didn't test that feature on that browser.

Thank you!

And do visit Judi's Butterfly site. A visit is guaranteed to move you up several spots on Santa's "Nice" list for next Christmas.

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