Indiana Primaries

I know the primaries are over here and the presidential candidates are all glad to be out of Indiana but it was exciting to be in the midst of the hoopla. Leila and I went to Hillary Clinton's speech here in Lafayette, but we missed out on rollerskating with Barack Obama.





I haven't been a big fan of Hillary Clinton, that's her in pink holding a microphone, but she gave a great speech. It was the first time I had listened to a whole speech from any of the candidates. The worst thing about our ad driven 24 hour soundbite news coverage is you never here the whole thing, just "Hillary said 'gas-tax' and now our paid commentator will tell you what he thinks." (Do you ever notice that she is usually called Hillary, Barack is Barack or Obama, but John McCain is never John?)

I think all three candidates are better than Kerry vs. Bush. I remember watching Barack Obama speak at the democratic national convention and thinking Wow - that guy should run for president. I don't know that any of them can fix Iraq. John McCain sounds like he will scale it up. Obama and Clinton want out. I think we need some serious help to make it better before we leave, but we've got to help improve things there.

I hope that John (McCain) will come here also so I get the chance to hear him speak also. But now that Indiana's 15 minutes are over, it will be doubtful.

Pets

This is our new dog - Sam. He is no coon killer, in fact the coons got past him and killed two chickens while he was tied up right outside. He didn't even bark. But, he will fetch anything you throw - yesterday he brought me back the brick I threw at a raccoon. He is also super gentle around the girls, especially Aleah. Aleah spends hours a day with him while she picks flowers - lots of purple ones in honor of her new hero - Daphne from Scooby Doo.



We played vet this last week also. Sam had parasites - tapeworms. Ugh. Leila got him some regular worm medicine as well as tapeworm medicine. We forced him to eat the worm medicine with some treats and the tapeworm medicine I dissolved in a can of tunafish. National, the cat went missing and came back dehydrated and half starved. She wouldn't eat or drink for 6 days. Leila went next door and Kim, the vet, showed Leila how to put in an IV and gave us worm medicine and a bag of saline.



She has pulled through and is back eating and seems OK. Weird. We don't know what was wrong or why she got better.

Shrooms

Mushrooms are a big deal in Indiana. Morels bloom in the early spring and last until the dandelions set seed in May. There is a mystique to how to find them, where they are, and what to do with them once you find them. Every patch of woods has cars parked outside it with salivating mushroom hunters. They are a little bit like hobbits in that way. Whenever they talk about their mushrooming adventures I think about Farmer Maggot and Frodo. Last Friday it was too wet to plant corn so we took a little break and went looking through the bit of woods on the farm for mushrooms.





We found some yellow morels! They look soft and spongey, but are firmer than they look. They were growing around the base of a dead elm. Tara and Doug Cook promised if we found any that they would cook them for us. Oh, they were good. So good. The hollandaise sauce, apple smoked bacon, onions and asparagus helped. As did the rosemary chicken, wild rice cakes, peach pie, and mint ice tea.