After the trauma caused by Dorian the hurricane not coming to The Villages, The Blonde in the house has decreed that I should write something light. She is probably correct as I know that I am pleased that Dorian didn’t decide to visit the Friendliest Home Town. We are friendly, but not that friendly. We are also not happy about the damage it did elsewhere. However, making a conscious decision to be “light” is not always that easy. I guess that we should emulate the birds. The birds were not at all bothered by the coming storm which probably should have told us something. They just kept eating the seed from the feeders outside our front window. You would be surprised at how aggressive little birds can be when they want the best place to obtain the seeds. They can really holler at each other. What they didn’t know was that if the storm had hit us, the stores would have been closed and we would not have been able to buy more bird seed. Then they would have really hollered!
There is also the fact that our front yard birds are very spoiled. They are not satisfied with plain old sunflower seeds. Nope, for them we have to get the hearts of sunflower seeds. The hearts are of course lighter than the plain old sunflower seeds. Thus, I am keeping on the course of writing about something light. It may not be the greatest course, but hey as I said “light” is not easy. I might mention that the squirrels did not mind the storm either. Their frustration comes from the fact that they haven’t been able to crack the squirrel-proof feeders we have. That is so far, but they are working at it, and you can see their little brains whirling as they plan the next attack. We do have a feeder that they can get in, but we put safflower seeds in that as the bird seed lady assured us that squirrels do not like that seed. That may be true, but in the last couple of days one of the squirrels has decided that he does like them. When I see him, I growl and he takes off but usually he comes back still hungry.
Now as to lightness in our house, the Blonde made a bunch of her Belgian waffles which are crispy – and light. As I have mentioned before most people ruin the crispiness of waffles by pouring syrup over them immediately turning them soggy. To make it worse, they often use “light” syrup which is not much more than sugar water with some color and flavoring in it. I normally use preserves (rhubarb is best, if you can find it), but I have on occasion used syrup. However, it is real syrup – normally of the maple type although there are all kinds of other syrups out there. When I do use maple syrup, I make certain that it does not come from the notorious Quebec Maple Syrup Cartel. What we have is direct from Wisconsin – which is close to Canada, but not in the cartel – I hope. It is very good even if it is not light and does make the waffles soggy. I guess that you can’t have everything perfect in this world.
Now that Dorian the hurricane is no longer in our thoughts of its hitting The Villages, and the sun has come out all is lightness and good. I hope that everyone is able to enjoy what we now have while remembering that the next hurricane is out there someplace.
Hopefully, it will see the light and avoid The Villages, too!
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com.
