Journal

We had no New Year's celebration in mind, although P suggested he would buy a bottle of champagne but didn't find any drinkable champagne to buy in Atchison where he had gone to pick up the vacation mail.

In the afternoon, our former neighbor, Chris, brought us some homemade elderberry wine so at least we had something unique to drink for the New Year.

Then, John stopped by to tell us a package had arrived while we were away and he put it in the old house. The package was from my company and when I opened the box there was a nice little tote bag - I have to admit my first thought was "all I need is another nice little tote bag". Then I looked in the bag and there was a silver bag with a bottle of "Veuve Clicquot" from my boss! What a nice surprise! We toasted the New Year early, although I actually stayed up until midnight. (P always stays up until midnight.)

A couple of weeks ago, we tried making bread that we have had in Germany - there you can buy it fresh daily at the bakery but we have never found anything like it here. I bought "King Arthur" flour (nice to know that the wheat in the flour I bought comes from Kansas) and P got a recipe in German which meant that the measurements were different so we had an extra step using the scale to determine how many cups of flour to use. We made one call to our friends in Germany for a clarification and then plunged ahead. The recipe had one difference from other bread recipes I've seen in that you mixed the ingredients and then let it rise once (the recipe didn't say for how long) before kneading it. It turned out pretty well but wasn't the same as "broetchen".

I tried another recipe today and it was not good at all. Our next attempt will be to go back to the first recipe and try two types of flour.

Today was a respite from winter - up to 54 degrees. My new PIP calls for taking a walk every day that the temperature is above 38 and below 90, so I had a pleasant walk in the woods - the creek is still mainly ice.

The annual trek for P to the "ranch" outside Bandera started yesterday; he has enough gear to homestead in the area. Currently he's visiting his mother in WF, then to Austin to visit E,D & J and then on to start spotting the quail at the ranch. He'll go to Houston to visit before heading home. Have fun!!!

Being in Texas for a few days has been great - the one evening I was in Dallas for work, I went out to eat with Cathy. Always a pleasure to catch up and it had been almost a year since we had gotten together.

Then, onto Austin where I coincidentally arrived on the same night of E's book group so I got invited to tag along. It was a special treat because the book club was at Jfer and Stepan's house that evening. The supper was very nice. It turned out that I was one of only three people that actually enjoyed reading the book selection for that month - Josephine B.

I had about an hour to play with Jonathan before going to the book club - he is so much fun to be with. The next day we got to play most of the morning while Mom slept.

Another treat was Felicia being in town for work and staying with E and D. Jfer and Stepan came over for supper so they could see Felicia (having already seen me the night before) and it was a very pleasant evening. E fixed a great stir fy dish.

This part of the world is heavy into the Bicentennial Commemoration of the Lewis & Clark expedition which occurred (as of course you have already calculated) in 1804. The presentation last night at AAUW was by the event organizer for the Lewis and Clark celebration in our area. It is pretty impressive how much a small town like Atchison is doing. The events scheduled for July 3rd and 4th that look the most interesting to me are the "Step-back-in-time 1804 village"; toast with one Gill of whiskey (they won't really give away whiskey) and the encampment of the keelboat and pirogues of the Discovery Expedition. The Boy Scouts are also in the process of creating a fur trader encampment in one of the bluffs along the Missouri river.