It’s called a travel trailer
March 1, 2013

It’s called a travel trailer, not a live-in-it-all-the-time-and-bake-bread trailer.  About this fact I must remind myself.  Just the other day, I ran across a yummy-sounding recipe for honey oat bread and decided I must give it a try; it sounded perfect to go with the soup I was making.  To cut to the chase: the soup was great.

The bread went something like this.  Check the list of ingredients.  Yup, looks like everything is here - whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, yogurt, canola oil, milk, egg, honey. 

So getting started: remove multitude of pans from oven and put them on the bed.  Realize I don’t have a loaf pan and scramble around for a substitute.  Find an oval glass casserole dish that is close to the right size. 

Assemble ingredients.  Shoot, no baking soda after all - now what?  Google substitutions - no good - the computer tells me I can use three times the amount in baking powder but it will affect the taste.  What to do - scratch the whole idea or drive all the way to HEB where I’ve been already once today?

It is worth mentioning that we live on the south side of Midland; all - and I do mean all - the supermarkets are on the north side.  I did notice a small neighborhood grocery once in my wanderings but am clueless where it is.

Well, feeling a pretty big yen to bake this bread, so HEB bound I am.  But wait!  A brainstorm!  Just on the wild off-chance that the nearby Stripes convenience market might have baking soda, I risk my life zipping across Midkiff right where traffic is zooming down from the overpass at a high rate of speed and not visible until it’s too late.  Manage to dodge vehicles barely.  Sure enough, there is baking soda right on the shelf across from the motor oil.

Methinks they must stock staples because of the dearth of groceries at this end of town.  Hooray for Stripes!

Back to the travel trailer.  Find a bowl in which to mix the dry ingredients and another in which to mix the wet ingredients.  So far, so good.  The problem ensues when there is no bowl that will hold all the ingredients together.  Punt: get down the bean pot.  It works, not well, but it does work.

Mix the dough.  Notice the directions say to put the oven rack at a medium height and notice that there are two levels for the oven rack in my oven - low and high.  The high level has sufficient clearance only for a cookie sheet, so low it is.

Pop the casserole dish into the oven and guess how long it will take in an oven heated by propane at an incorrect distance from the flames in a dish that is the wrong size.  When all guessing is completed and the inserted toothpick comes out pretty clean, I remove the bread from the oven.  Much fussing later, it is removed from the pan only to discover that it has started to scorch on the bottom despite being barely done in the middle.

Chris calls it good, says it is great toasted for breakfast, too, but I am thinking I need to remember this is a travel trailer, not a live-in-it-full-time-and-bake-bread trailer.

March, the preserve . . .

A new month is upon us, a bit closer to spring and it showed this morning when I walked in the wildlife preserve - more leafing out and green growth.  The ponds’ water levels continue to drop and warmer weather is encouraging wide swaths of algae goop around the perimeters.  In places where water used to be, I now see lush spring grass.

Often, I am the only person in the preserve.  The Midland wind was toned down to a cool strong breeze and the sun shone without any clouds - brisk and beautiful.  I had not been there for a week, having been away for a few days and then volunteering in the library.

Over time, I find odds and ends to photograph in the preserve:  a wasp nest precariously perched on a slender twig overhead, red cactus fruit, unusual seed pods.

A curve-billed thrasher blends into its environment.

I added a bird to our trip list, too: a beautiful little verdin.  I caught a cardinal on a suet feeder but before I could photograph him, he spotted me, too.  As I watched through the binoculars, he simply slipped downward into the brush and poof! disappeared as if by magic.  A new trip bird another day: a curve-billed thrasher.  He was exciting to spot - gave me an excellent view of his startling orange eyes.  Other new birds: Bewick's wrens making use of a nesting box, sharp-shinned hawk and mourning dove.

This may be the remains of a hawk's meal.

A pear tree has burst open its white blossoms.

 

An eagle scout project provided the preserve with a number of nest boxes; one of those has been usurped by a hive of honey bees.  Evidently, they are not Africanized; I surmise this because I got close enough to snap a pic.

The powers that be have even equipped the preserve’s viewing blinds with first-aid kits, doubtful that would be of much comfort if a hive of bees took it into their teeny tiny bee heads to attack.

The genealogy library moves . . .

As the genealogy section in the downtown library closed in preparation for its move, I find must occupy myself otherwise.  I have spent part of most days there working my way through the extensive collection without making a dent in the material available. 

Once the move became imminent, I was put to work in the basement labeling city directories.  Later, I was allowed to move upstairs and complete several other tasks that will hopefully allow the movers to transfer all of the thousands of volumes to their proper places in the new facility.  Organizing this endeavor has got to be a monumental headache.  I watch the librarian agonizing over each aspect, working to insure that every need is anticipated, and thank my lucky stars that it is not I with that responsibility.

Tumbleweed house . . .

Evidently, we made the national news with the tumbleweed-buried house.  Someone in Arizona told me about it, which is a little odd but then I’m not up on Mid-local-land news, so I googled it and found a photo to use here in case I’m not the only person in the country who didn’t see this place that was covered up by wind-borne Russian thistle.  I just hope he clears them away before someone tosses a match in there.  Those things flare up like nobody’s business.

Long, long ago, when Marianne and I owned Ladybug Landscaping, we used to fight over who got to do weed burning jobs, but again, I digress.

The storm that created the tumbleweed house was the one that induced me to buy a vacuum cleaner.  I had been talking about doing it since I got here but could no longer put it off; the little hand vac just was not up to the task.

When were were able to write in the dust on the stove top with the accumulation between breakfast dishes and supper preparation, I knew I could no longer stand it.  Truthfully, something snapped for me when I went to flick something off my pant leg and a large poof of dust exploded.

I don’t care what anyone says about Arizona’s dry - it doesn’t hold a candle to the way they do it in west Texas.

Seating . . .

Another thing I have procrastinated about - seating in the trailer.  There is not one single place in the Totee in which to be comfortable.  Sure the bench seats and the couch are fine for short sits; however, longer sits that do not make my back hurt are not to be found here.  And then there’s the bed: a short mattress that causes upturned toes to be mashed horizontal by tucked in covers, and inadequate support for backs all contribute to a lack of long-term relaxation.

I’ve tried a springy doo-dad for lower back support and a portable heat-massage thingy.  Both helped but did not alleviate the difficulty. 

Sometimes, he prefers just to play with the back support.

Now . . . my solution is to bring a camp chair inside, taking up most of the pitifully small remaining floor space, but it’s helping.  It is helping, that is, when Rowdy allows me to sit in it.  Instantly, upon its appearance, he determined that it was his domain.  If I dislodge him, he retreats to the springy doo-dad, albeit a little grumpily.

These seats were never adequate when we were traveling for months at a time; however, on those trips, we were seldom inside, being either out exploring, visiting or sitting in the camp chairs outside, none of which are happening in the present circumstance.

I smugly think I have found the solution for back support; we will just have to stumble around one more thing in here.

Midland’s snow day, yo-yo weather . . .

Pat sent me the best Midland story after the last blog posting and promises more from the time she and John were here. 

She says, “I am having a great time re-living West Tx in winter through your blogs!  Did I tell you about the time they had SNOW?  New Year's Eve and it had the audacity to snow!”

This was in the 80s and the party town did not want to shut down for the big holiday.  So in order to clear the streets of the scant half-inch of snow that fell, the water trucks came out and yep! poured water on the streets!   Not surprisingly, by 10 p.m. every street in town was an ice slick!!!

I would place this exercise in the “It seemed like a good idea at the time” category.  Thanks for the laugh, Pat!

I have seen some extreme temperature changes within a day at home, but I have never seen anything quite like we experienced in Midland recently.  During the previously mentioned storm, we endured winds up to 70 miles per hour (yes, indeedy, this little trailer was rockin’ and rollin’) and the day’s temp topped out at 37 degrees after the breezes transported a whale of a lot of dirt from one place to another.  Within that same week, we warmed up to 87 degrees.  I even shot a pic of electronic proof of that early March summer day - still 80 at almost 6 p.m.

Tall city on the prairie . . .

Midland is sometimes referred to as Tall City, a reference to its abrupt high rise out of the prairie.  Upon approaching from the east, one sees nothing but highway and mesquite-choked plains until suddenly there is a city.

We saw evidence recently that prairie dogs remain unimpressed by the municipality.  We spotted several blocks of vacant lots filled with the critters, residing within short walking distance to downtown.  These guys are definitely urban dwellers, so accustomed to the big-city life that they entirely ignore displaced small-town women shooting photographs of them.

Cousin Carl said there is even a place hereabouts where they are protected and fed and watered.  We will have to look that up.

 





Kin and more . . .

And speaking of cousin Carl, we had the distinct pleasure to meet again with him and his wife Alice for an evening of conversation.  We first met them years ago after becoming acquainted from a distance because of our common interest in our ancestry.  Carl and I are related via our common ancestors, Major Ezra Madison Owen and Lydia Vance.

Ezra is a fascinating character: born 1770 in Halifax County, Virginia, he married Lydia in her home-state of Georgia when she was but 13, ten years his junior.  Twelve children later, they had resided in Kentucky, Illinois, Arkansas and Texas. 

Their grandson was David Owen Dodd, known famously in Arkansas as the boy martyr of the Civil War.  He is memorialized by a statue in the State House yard in Little Rock.

Ezra attempted to establish a college and the state capital in Collegeville, Arkansas.  His children followed in his ambitious footsteps, becoming military officers, Indian agents, sheriffs, judges and legislators.  One son, Thomas Jefferson Owen was the president of the first village board of trustees of Chicago in 1833, essentially the first mayor of Chicago before it was an official office.

Another visit to my new-found friend, Joy, was great fun because I was privileged to meet her sister, Ruth and Ruth’s family, all here from over Dallas way.  Like so many others of us, some of that family are hoping to find employment here.

Rowdy enjoys a new sun spot when the door is open.