Hector (aka George), the Hero Gargoyle

When I first met Hector, he was on the back porch of my granddaughter’s new house. Maya, my great granddaughter, was frightened by his eyes, so he had to go. I, however, felt drawn to him, and so I took him home with me.

As all 50 pounds of him was placed in my garden, I said, “Your name should be Hector.” 

“No, no ,no,” he pleaded. “Please, my name is George.”

“But, but,” I sputtered, “I just feel your name is...”

“Quiet!” He demanded in a loud whisper. “Can’t you see, I’m missing one wing and one ear?”

“Yes” I said, “I had noticed.”

“Well, how do you think that happened?”

And with that he began telling me his story. 

“I became at the beginning of eternity in a place beyond infinity. I was trained to be Guardian of the Stewards. I learned quickly and did my job well. Maybe too well. I accumulated a few enemies along the way in the form of fire breathing dragons.

“I was assigned to guard the home cave system of a long line of Earth Stewards. This lineage was very benevolent and always championed the populations of Earth. This did not go over very well with the dragons who wanted to enslave the Earth’s populations, and control all Earthly resources.

“A True Dragon, the most feared beast of Dominaria, began circling the area; checking out the fortifications...which consisted of me. I was much, much, much bigger then. This happened millennia ago.

“Diablo Respiración de Fuego Dragon (that was his name) started attacking the caves entrances, which meant he was also attacking me. It was my job to protect the caves and those who lived within them. It was a ferocious attack, lasting many earth years. In the course of wing and fang to claw combat, I lost one wing and an ear. But I battled on. One day I decided I had enough, and I starred Diablo down with such a fierce look, that I literally took all the fire from his breath. That’s why my eyes glow fiery red today.

“Diablo slinked off in disgrace. There were parades and feasts in my honor, but he had one more card to play. My name went at the top of the Most Wanted List of the Fire Breathing Dragon Consortium. I was no longer of any use to my assignment. I changed my name to George and went into obscurity. All of that caused my body to shrink down to the size you now observe. I’ve had to move around a lot, the last place where you found me...that back porch...where I was not wanted and, most importantly, unloved. I haven’t known love in so long...”

Hector began sobbing softly; huge tears ran down his cheeks.

“Oh, Hector, I’m so sorry.”

“For the love of all that’s Galactic, don’t call me that! Do you want to bring the Consortium down on our heads? I’m in no shape to fight them!”

“George, I’m truly sorry. Look, I’m going to do some research on the Consortium, and I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, you just sit here enjoying the sunshine and your new home.”

It took a while, but I hit pay dirt and rushed back to give George/Hector the good news.

“George! Woo hooooo! Listen up!

“About a millennium ago, all the records in the Most Wanted Library burned. Nothing was left but fine ash. It seems that the Fire Breathing Pre-School was next door to the Library. One little whelp, just learning how to breath fire, under-estimated his new-found ability. He took in one deeeep inhalation of air, held it in his internal furnace, and, with a powerful Wooooooosh, let it rip. Right into the Library. All the Most Wanted records were right in front and they went up in flames. 

“As time went by, the old dragons started not remembering so well. They forgot to pass on vital information to the youngsters, and soon the Most Wanted list was forgotten. There is not one fire breathing dragon alive today that remembers what you did to Diablo! They don’t even remember that there was a dragon named Diablo! You’re free! HECTOR!”

“How can I ever thank you? If I wasn’t 50 pounds of solid stone, I’d jump up and down for joy! You can call me Hector, or anything else you want! I haven’t been this happy in literally Ages!” 

I set about decorating his new home by planting mums all around him. 

I swear he smiled.

After much trepidation and random button clicking I'M BACK on my blog spot! 

It has been a long time since my last post. I strongly believe Facebook brought an abrupt end to my posting. Once I had put it in a facebook post, what was let to say. My new plan is to post here at least once a month...maybe more if the occasion calls for it.

So...what have I been up to? Well, let me tell you, it has been mostly the East Windsor (CT) Historical Society. 

In 2016, I began researching three historic houses where I had lived in East Windsor, CT. It was not as simple as I thought. I soon realized I needed to research the history of these houses, not just my memories. And, so it began. I went from researching at Town Hall to visiting the Historical Society. I found all the information I needed. I also saw that the Historical Society needed volunteers to help with the work of accessioning all the items that had been donated over the years. 

One person could not possibly bring all that information up-to-date; and one person was trying to do just that. There were 3 x 5 index cards with the information, and more recently, there were proper donor forms. Lots to do. So I volunteered to help...and I haven't left. 😉

From there I became involved in other activities. Every August we put on an Ice Cream Social. The first one I got involved in, 2017, included the 100th Anniversary of the East Windsor Academy, the grand opening of the Osborn House, as well as the Ice Cream Social itself.

For more information on the Historical Society you can go to www.eastwindsorhistory.com.

So, that's where I've been and it looks like I'll be there for a good long time. Lots of work to be done, and, as so often happens, too few volunteers.

What else have I been up to? I bought a new bike this spring. The weather hasn't been the best for me to ride (I'm 83). Yesterday I finally had a beautiful day and no other plans, so I took a bike ride on the Windsor Locks/Suffield Canal. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. The important thing here, is that the canal has been terribly neglected by the owners. Yes, even though this is on the National Historic Register, its owners are neglectful. The canal was build by Irish immigrants from 1827 - 1829, and has been neglected since the new owners took charge. I called them out on my facebook page. I probably should make that posting PUBLIC. I will do that when I finish here. You can search facebook for Beverly Robidoux Titus, and you should be able to see my original posting there.

Here are the pictures I took. They are on facebook as well.

 This is what's left of the old Enfield dam

 The canal at the north end lock

 A low spot in the river where the rapids are

 The north end of Terry's (King's) Island

 The south end of the island

 A little graffiti under the railroad bridge

 And a little more on the other side

 This is what you do with left-over paint

 A piece of railroad machinery up on the trestle

 The canal crosses Stony Brook by an aqueduct.

 The south end of the trail

 The end of the trail closer to the Montgomery Building apartments

 Just one example of the condition of the path

 Does this look like what water in a canal on the National Historic Register should look like?

 Needs dredging. Badly silted. Has formed new land

 Debris along the canal banks. Below, more debris that will sit there until it rots.

TWO THINGS

It has been so long since I last wrote anything in my on-line journal. All is well. I’ve just been so happily busy! All about the busy is for another day.

Today, I had two pleasant surprises I’d like to share with you.

#1: I went to Town Fair Tire to make an appointment for tire rotation. During the inspection process, the technician discovered the front right tire had a bulge. Not good!

He said: Did you buy these here?

I said: Yes.

He said: Did you happen to buy the Road Hazard Insurance?

I said: Probably not.

We went into the store and he looked up my account.

He said: Yes, you did!

I said: Smart girl.

The replacement tire was no cost to me, so all I paid for was rotation, balancing, and alignment. 

#2: Today I bought some beets (along with some other veggies). I’ve had beets before, but I have no history with beet greens.

After I liberated the greens from the beets, I decided to simmer them for a while and use the resulting beet water in soups.

Once they had simmered for a short period of time, I wondered what they tasted like. I’m not much of a cook, and I have not had many gastronomic adventures, so I know nothing about beet greens.

So...here goes! Hmmm. Tastes like spinach! Add a little salt...wow, these taste pretty good!

Now I have a dish of cooked beet greens in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch of a pork chop and mashed potatoes. Plus, I have 2 pints of beet water in the freezer.

Life is good!

My Gardens Now

I want to show you what my gardens look like now. The previous posting shows my front garden just planted. All three have grown a bit since then.

The back garden on the left side

The back garden on the right.

The front garden. Compare it to the previous post.

2017 Front Garden

On the left front are the peppers; behind them are two tiers of snapdragons and the azalea behind them. You can see the bleeding heart and the wave petunias. Way in the left back are hollyhocks. Coming forward you can see foxglove, lupine, maybe you can pick out the phlox, snapdragons and bee balm.

Ah! It's gardening time again.

It took me two days to till the soil using my three-headed garden weasel. On the first day, I was half-way through the weeding/tilling process when I had to quit. Two days later I finished the clean-up and was ready to plant. I used to do the entire front in one day. 

A trip to Garden's Dream, here in Enfield, is always exciting. I know where the perennials and annuals are. I know which greenhouse has my tomatoes (that's for the planter on the back deck) and which greenhouses have whatever else I'm looking for. The wave petunias are always in the same place.

This year the bee balm is fazing itself out in the front garden. There isn't much left and I wonder if it heard me say I was going to rip it out in favor of some other hummingbird attractor. I took out two white phlox and gave them away. At least I hope those were the white ones. I'll know when everything starts to bloom!

The new plants are: ornamental peppers, hollyhocks, foxglove, snapdragons, lupine, and wave petunias. The only plants left over from last year are the bleeding heart, pink phlox, bee balm and the azalea. When the azalea finishes flowering, I will transplant it to the back garden. It is not doing well where it is.

No pictures of the back gardens yet. The bee balm is spreading nicely away from the original plants and the original plants have died off leaving me room to plant other flowers. There are new snapdragons planted in back only because I bought a flat and had plenty of them left over after I planted the front. I have more plants to buy for the back, such as New Guinea impatiens, more foxglove, and whatever else I see that excites me. My two sons gave me a pink False Spirea, which will not get very big, so that is in already.

And I have the railing boxes on the deck that need planting. I think I will go back to red geraniums with vinca vine in between the plants. The tomatoes are already in and growing like crazy.

More to come, for sure.

Cookies

You’ve no doubt heard of “The Perils of Pauline”. This journal entry is more aptly titled, “The Baking Blunders of Beverly”. Ok, so it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

I’ve had this recipe hanging around for some time now and I finally bought the cranberries and cardamom (have you seen the price of cardamom?) with the intention of making them soon. Soon came this afternoon. I had never made cookies where I had to refrigerate the dough, roll it out, roll it up and refrigerate again.

The recipe is properly called Cranberry Cardamom & Citrus Pinwheel Cookies. I read through the recipe (apparently very quickly) and started.

Combining the cranberries, nuts, brown sugar, nutmeg and cardamom in the food processor was no problem. This was set aside.

The next step was to beat the butter then add the granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt. Then add the eggs and orange peel and keep beating. Then it said to add the rest of the flour. What did it mean “the rest of the flour?” There had been no mention of flour at all up until now except in the list of ingredients. What? Ok. So I dumped in the flour and did the best I could. The dough was extremely stiff…so much so, I turned it out of the bowl and kneaded it in by hand.

Then I took this blob of dough, wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it into the refrigerator.

I turned to the counter and saw the cranberry mixture sitting there. Oh, crap. I forgot to add that. Out of the refrigerator came the blob of dough and into the mixing bowl where I proceeded to begin kneading the mixture into the dough. That’s when I remembered that this mixture was the FILLING! Too late.

I reread the recipe and noticed it said to divide the dough into two halves before wrapping each half in plastic wrap and refrigerating for an hour or so. Oh, alright! I cut the blob in half, wrapped each one in plastic and put them in the fridge (and hoped they would disappear before I needed to do anything else).

A couple hours went by and they were still there, so I took them out and proceeded to roll them (one by one) into as flat a 10” x 10” square as I could. Since I didn’t have any fill to spread (remember I made it part of the dough) I just rolled the dough out then rolled it up and wrapped it again in plastic and back into the fridge they went (maybe this time they would disappear).

They didn’t!

As directed (finally did something as directed) I cut the rolled-up dough in ¼” wide pieces and baked as directed (ah ha…the second thing I did as directed). The recipe said the yield would be 60, but I got about 70…the difference being, I suppose, the fact that the filling was part of the dough!

There were several casualties as some of the cookies crumbled as I removed them from the cookie sheet. These went into a dish to be eaten as I baked the rest. Not bad!

They taste ok. Good enough for me to enjoy with my afternoon coffee. Since I used gluten free flour (as suggested in the recipe) I can eat them without feeling guilty about them affecting my thyroid function.

Would I feed them to someone else? That depends. If it was someone who knew me well and loved me anyway…probably. Otherwise…no.

Will I ever make them again? That’s a big PROBABLY NOT! After I finished baking, I Googled the recipe and lo and behold, I found the corrected recipe where it mentioned adding flour. 

Slipcovering An Old Hassock – Part 8

TOUT FINI