Consorts with Blue Jays

Yes she does! They come to the small kitchen patio sseking food which is always there aplenty then they peck vigorously on the slifing glass door glass...knock, knock...knock...knock! Fur-Rr_Ee Queen-of-Kats looks over at her new friends from the water bowl and slowly walks to the open screen door. The jays, two each, stare but do not move from their perch near the door on the edge of a long planter. Fur-Rr_Ee slowly creeps through the door onto the tile of the patio and stops. She looks towards the birds and they sit there looking back, no motion from either party.
Then with a loud Squawk! The birds leap to the small tile table and stare down at Furry on the ground below them. A challenge! Come get us! Let's play! Squawk! And they fly to the garden a few feet away amidst the dry and dead grasses and branches broken off from the line tree. Furry creeps low to the edge of the patio and stops, the birds squawk again! Furry weinds up her rump like Kats do...and off sher goes paws flying in the air to grab one of the ellusive jays. Without success she stops to reset herself back on the patio above the "ring" where all the action happens. Then the birds fly down again and Furry once again winds up her rump and away she goes! Amazing! This has gone on now for the last week or so, the birds are seen here about this time of year but rarely does one see interaction like this between species. Hopefully I'll get to capture some of these shenanigans before the birds head further south.

Neutrality , Diplomacy, what? How?

Obama for President! Did you watch the deer-in-the-headlights performance last night? Or maybe it was a moose! Anyway, ol' Palin doll looked pretty good until she started talking then it soon fell apart...logic that is. McCain sure knows how to pick them. But the deal wasn't lost last night, it was lost when the stock market took the 778 point dive a week ago. That was it. Killer. So now Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden get to figure out just where to start in the train wreck of a country. Money counts so I guess it has to be some patchwork to breathe life back into the ol' wheezer. The House past the Senates pork-laden bill last night as well so now that part is in place, I wonder what it will do for ol' Joe Six-Pack?! Not much I suspect as most of the bailout will get into the hands of those Wonders of Wall Street that created this mess in the first place with the help of the current administration. We need REGULATION of the money markets in this country ( what ever happened to the SEC?), we need an end to the damnable war in Iraq (Get onto Afghanistan please!), we need a National Health Care system run by Kiaser Permanente (Burocracy already in place) and improvements to the passenger rail system throughout the US. So there! What comes next I cannot imagine but it should be interesting.
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Adventure at Larry's. Larry's is a smallish roughly constructed outbuilding that houses a veritable cornucopia of fresh vegetables during this time of year. It is about 5 miles out of Suisun in Green Valley. It is a wonderful place, dirt and cement fl;oors, wheel barrows for carts and piles and piles of every vegetable known to man and a few that I don't know WHAT they are! A fantastic place and a great social experiment too...the place is filled with caucasians, indians, mexicans, chinese, japanese...the works, thai's, vietnamese, I mean the whole bloody WORLD comes to Larry's to buy vegies both fresh and cheap! We bought the usual plus a small crate of beautiful strawberries so I can make a strawberry sorbet for tomorrows dinner extravaganza AND a BOX of tomatoes, 20 lbs worth. I'm making basic tomatoe sauce so I have local tomatos in my sauces during the winter to come. The basic sauce before salt, pepper and spices so it can be made into various taste profiles upon thawing. Many pints will be made today.
Recipe:
Lute's Basic Tomatoe Sauce
2 large red or white onions, 1/4" diced
4 stalks celery, sliced lenthwise into 4 then diced
1 carrot cut lenthwise into 4 and diced 1/4"
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 lbs roma or other ripe tomatoes, diced 1/2"
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Saute the onions for 5 minutes in a large pot with the olive oil. Medium heat please, do NOT brown the onions, just wilt them.
Add the celery and carrot and allow to cook 10 minutes.
Add the diced tomatoes and lower the heat, cook for 1 hour.
Allow to cool and decant into freezer containers (1 pint size is good for 2 people)
and freeze. You now have a good basic sauce to use for spaghetti with meat balls, enchilladas, lasagna etc. Saves time too for those weedday quick meals.