Deja Vu

Here I am, complaining about the weather again. But I feel like I'm in good company on that front: who isn't sick of winter by now? Could we please have at least a full week of no snow, sunny skies, and very little wind? I'm sure all the road crews agree with me. But I guess that's been too much to ask for this past month.

We've made too many trips to and from Glasgow on snow-packed, icy, and/or slushy roads. Our highway has been treacherous. (I'm aware through second-hand reports that it isn't only our highway.) There are places where the drifts on both sides of the road are up to the level of the cab on our pickup. This past week we've picked up a lot of ice on the underside of said vehicle from the slush shooting up and then freezing in place. We think our transportation has gained hundreds of pounds. You know there's a lot underneath when you hear the tires rubbing when you make a turn.

I haven't acquired any new houseplants this week, nor have I planted any seeds yet. My shooting star Hoya is still in bloom, and the tightly curled new leaf on the vigoro Calathea has opened. One of my geraniums has decided it's time to bloom. I've shared a photo of it on Facebook, with the caption that it's thumbing its nose at Mother Nature. It, as well as me, is loving the sunshine we've had for a couple of days over the weekend.

The huge snow banks are compressing downwards. The lilac tree right outside our bedroom still has several limbs weighed down by the drifts. It may deformed by the time the snow leaves. Other branches do have snow frozen on them, and the wind moves them against the siding. The sounds produced by that movement make me think some monster is trying to scratch its way inside. It has been a monster of a winter.

I'm dreaming of spring. Spring brings new greens, so that means salad weather. You can do a lot with salads for meals. Salads do not require lettuce. I've made up a couple salads recently.

One featured canned garbanzo beans, drained, with a bag of baby spinach. I added a chopped red onion (mine are still keeping quite well in their hanging mesh bag), half of a chopped and seeded cucumber, and some halved grape tomatoes. The dressing was simple: balsamic vinegar whisked with EVOO. I crumbled feta cheese on top, then sprinkled it with Everything Bagel for some crunch.

Another salad used gyro meat warmed up (I'd bought a package at Sams ). You could substitute ham, salami, or pepperoni. The rest was chopped sweet onion, and cucumber. I added capers, halved Kalamata olives, canned beets (I used pickled, but bread and butter beets would work as well), and sliced avocado on top. A simple Greek dressing recipe is: whisk together 1 tsp salt, freshly grated black pepper to taste, 1 Tbl EVOO, 1 Tbl red wine vinegar, and the juice of one lemon. Or you could use jarred Caesar salad dressing.

Let's all petition Mother Nature to let Spring arrive.