Dinata Misovec

The Sandhill Cranes were making a terrible racket outside the motorhome this morning.  I couldn’t sleep any longer with all that warbling and got out of bed.  They continued.  After a bit, I decided to look outside to see what had them riled up. There were five of them behaving as I have not seen them behave before.  They were walking about in a loose group. They seemed to be wandering aimlessly rather than their normal slow graze across the lawn.

They throw their heads back when they warble.  The closest I can describe it is something like a turkey gobble yet much different.

Then I realized that they were not really a group of five but three cranes seemed to be herding two others.  I thought maybe it was a territory dispute.

The two apparent intruders took off flying and that was the end of the ruckus.

There is a big gap of empty lots between the previous one and our house so we can see it from a good distance away.  We could see that it was a different color well before we got to it. It is still gray, but lighter and brighter.  I had been expecting a darker gray like several others in the area.  I like the way the white trim stands out against the darker gray.  But our house is such a pretty blue/gray that we both like it anyway.

Three men were busy painting with long-handled rollers.

They were on their second coat already.  And, they had painted the columns white as I expected.

We went inside to see if anything else had changed.  The linen closet in the master bath has been spackled and is ready for a coat of paint and the doors.  We didn’t notice anything else.

We went back outside to watch the painters. As with most tasks around here, progress was fast.

The paint color is most noticeable right where they were painting.

At the back of the house, the left side had two coats and the right side had one.

The man painting the edges with a brush enjoyed having his picture taken.  When he finished painting around the front door, he caulked with a bright white caulk.  He gave me a thumbs up after he used that thumb to smooth the caulk.

The other two were making great progress on the east side of the house.

Check out the size of their paint roller pans.  They just dunked the roller, gave it a quick shake and slapped that paint on the side of the house.

They were done in no time.  I looked at the time stamp on my photos and it took them less than fifteen minutes to paint the side of the house.

Boating friend Ross Herbert sent me an email recently asking how I made the pizza topping pie that I have described in my log/blog over the years.  As a result, it has been on my mind and I got the needed ingredients and made one for dinner today.

This is a deep-dish pie plate with one of those Pillsbury rolled-up crusts from the grocery store.  First, I sprinkled a heavy dose of shredded mozzarella cheese in the bottom of the pie shell. That was to keep the bottom crust from getting too soggy. Then I scrambled some Italian sausage in the frying pan and spread it on top of the cheese. Next, I layered in sliced mushrooms, green peppers, and onions, with a little more mozzarella sprinkled in.  I used two cans of diced tomatoes, drained.  Gave that a more-than-liberal sprinkling of Italian seasoning and covered it up with gobs of mozzarella.  The pie pan was full so I put on the top crust.  On the top, I sprinkled parmigiana before laying out slices of pepperoni.  (They work better on top of the crust where they get properly toasted.)

This is a recipe I concocted myself years ago and I think I nearly perfected it today. The only thing wrong with it is that it is a little too juicy. Next time I’ll drain the tomatoes better. I have always called it pizza topping pie, but today thought I should call it “American as Pizza Pie”.

The painters were done and gone when we got back to the house about 4:30.

The white trim doesn’t stand out quite as much as on the darker gray houses.

Andy was admiring the front porch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It does not show up too well in this photo, but I like the way they painted the columns. The square base is the same gray as the house.  The square top of it is white on the vertical sides and a pale gray on the top.  The round columns are bright white.