While other people sleep in on this Saturday morning, my body wakes
with the sun and urges me up. A few minutes after 6 a.m, Elvis the
dog and I hiked into town, up and down a few hills, and past a quiet
Main Street. The cafe was packed with old folks. The more trendy
coffee shop and cupcake shop were still empty, waiting for the upscale
younger crowd to wander in.
Coming up the driveway, I noticed that the squirrel I accidentally
hit yesterday afternoon was already gone. Nature wastes nothing. I
felt bad about hitting the squirrel, although I have been at war with
the long-tailed rodents for a few years. I like to feed our wild birds,
and the squirrels have been raiding my various feeders for a long
time. I have been known to take pot shots at the raiders with my
one-shot pellet pistol. I missed more than I hit, but I did manage to
hit a few.
Recently, I purchased an overpriced squirrel guard for the bird
feeder, which was simple but effective. Since it worked, I guess it
wasn’t overpriced.
Since installation, the squirrels have been content to eat the birds’
wasted seed on the ground, rather than climbing up the pole, lifting up
the lid, and stuffing their greedy heads into the feeder itself to eat
like pigs at a trough. I no longer feel animosity towards the grounded
squirrels.
After arriving at home, I grabbed my bag of freshly roasted Mexican coffee beans.
Actually,
the beans were baked, not roasted. And that’s an important
distinction. Properly roasted beans undergo temperature changes from
room temperature to over 400 degrees. My heat gun crapped out on me
during yesterday’s roasting session. Beans that normally roast in 12-15
minutes took over 30 minutes with the dying heat gun. Not a good
thing. Baked beans taste flat. Still, these fresh baked beans were
still an improvement over anything that I could buy locally. And being
the frugal guy that I am, I couldn’t throw away the baked beans!
There was a time when I would drink nothing but a ristretto
(restricted espresso shot). Those days of purity are long past. Today, I
opted for a simpler form of making coffee–a method that will serve me
well when I begin travels with the Scamp.
Justin and I are taking it easy. Julia is off in Nashville at a
meeting. She left me this cup from a previous meeting to remember her
by–with a semi-famous Ben Franklin quote.
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