MARCHNESS . . .

Almost twenty percent of the year has sped by and we find ourselves caught up in a variety of things associated with March -- the madness of NBA bracket basketball, what some say is the madness of daylight saving time, the Ides of March and recently -- spring training baseball -- both in the fields behind our house and on TV. And we all have our own March "madness", just saying . . .

The weather, for example, is so varied that -- if we were actually going outside -- at least a couple of different clothing needs might come into play.
Across the country, we see extreme weather changes and conditions. There have been a few times that we have been without power for at the max a couple of hours and were totally frustrated by that. We read and hear about folks that are without power for days -- and the temperatures are freezing so no heat, no lights (you'd have to watch TV by candlelight) and what alternatives do you have -- so from that standpoint we count our lucky stars.

And then there are the "Ides" and who hasn't worried about them. Actually, my favorite grade school teacher was an Ide and no worry there . . . so, no matter where you are in the country March is bringing it's "Marchness".

One nice feature of March for us (actually February too) is that the sounds of the "crack-of-the-bat" come wafting over our backyard fence.
In late February there was the beginning of baseball activity out back and it sounded good to us.


Now, today there seems to be a game being played or at least a fairly organized practice of a game. Even though it is chilly and dismal outside there are scenes and sounds of ball being played which makes it seem warmer than it is.

Then too, we have already watched (parts of) a few spring-training games of the MLB. There is the Cactus League in Arizona where 16 teams practice and play including the San Francisco Giants and then there is the Grapefruit League where the other 16 teams practice and play.

I remember visiting my parents when they lived in Kissimmee, Florida where there was a very well attended stadium where the Astros do their training these days. It won't be long before the sounds of "play ball" will be heard for the real season -- and it just seems like we had the "World Series".

 Now, this weekend is the time to move our clocks forward one hour. Does that give the birds extra time to devour the seeds and the suet we have put out for them?

Actually, it is fun to watch 20 - 30 birds zooming in and out attacking the suet and the landing and take-offs from the seed feeder (we're old). We are going through a lot of bird feed lately.

And it is nice that we have only seen one or two squirrels in the area with no attempts by them to get at the unreachable feed.

Besides the feeding areas, we also have a mini, heavy on the "mini", water spout floating in a pail that we have actually seen a couple of birds use to "take a shower". Amazing.

When we do come back inside from our trip into "nature" one of the things that we can do is -- work on the new puzzle.

We finished a great one last week and now have another challenging Dr. Seuss pictorial puzzle.

Of course, the colors are brilliant and the subjects all nonsense, but hopefully it will keep our interest for a couple of weeks while we swear we can't ever "finish" such a puzzle.

And, just opening the new puzzle is an adventure in itself as the aroma of freshly sawn lumber wafts out of the box. Then we get busy arranging some of the pieces into "like" areas and hopefully get lucky by putting a couple pieces together. It's a good break from struggling with doing our taxes . . .


Things are "heating-up" in the DNA matching world. Almost every day I receive notices from at least one of the four companies with which I (we) have tested -- that they are reporting more matches for us.

Just this week I have communicated with four "new" cousins commenting on a DNA match.

One of them, in particular, I am hoping to follow up closely with for sure. As I have mentioned in earlier posts -- when Gail and I both tested with AncestryDNA it came back that she and I were likely -- 4th Cousins.

It so happens that this new cousin that contacted me this week ALSO has a match somewhere in her family tree with Gail. This is encouraging in that hopefully I can search the five common surnames that we share and maybe, just maybe, find out how and where Gail and I became cousins . . .

And lastly -- just when we think that there are no more kitchen appliances that we could conceivably want to use . . . along comes the one to the left.

An "AirFryer" touted by many as to be an appliance that you will want to use more and more as you get used to it.

We got this last week and have used it to make things for four different dinners -- all successfully and pretty good tasting stuff.

The fryer "fries" with almost no oil -- using air to cook and crisp up the food inside and in a relatively short time.

We have used it so far to make "fries", fish sticks, chicken & a sausage dish, all turned out well.
I had to make room for it by removing a blender from our one large cabinet that we store kitchen appliances in so it is not out on the counter when not in use.

The fryer is big enough so that we can "fry" a whole chicken, so just as soon as we make a "Costco" run we'll try that as well. There are tons of recipe books for the air fryer and we have one of those and will try some of the recipes.

And that is a bit of our week, see you all "in a few" !   👫