>Marky went over the rainbow today. She lived a good long life. She was 15 and a half, and as the vet said to us today, it is very rare for her to see a dog her size live so long. For the record, Marky’s full name was: Marky, Jimanez, Rooster, Joy, Watering can, Love Black Hole, Neurosis, Smelly Butt, Calabrese Barton. She earned a new middle name like a soldier earns his stripes. Scrappy. Determined.

Our most memorable times with Marky were the times: She rescued Smelly Cat, when she saved me (angie) from the pit bull, and just her way of sticking her butt in your face when she wanted some love. When we told Bee and Frankie, Frankie’s immediate response was to say that her heart was broken and Bee just cried.

We love you Marky!

>I havent been posting on dinner because I havent been cooking anything exciting. But last night we got our biweekly CSA share and it had a range of different hearty greens: kale, bok choy, spinach, and some other kind of thick skinned dark green thing. So I took all of it -must have been 10 cups or so – and did a quick light sautee with olive oil and some salt. It was so good! We had some flounder on the side, trader joe style.

We also are having a snow storm this weekend, with winter weather warnings posted, and the 15 day outlook doesnt have us getting much above freezing. I sure hope that saying about march – in like a lion out like a lamb (or vice versa) is true this year bec. Grampa Calabrese used to always say that!

OK, I just figured out the other green. It’s Komatsuma and it is very tasty! I read about it in our CSA newsletter this morning.

>Yesterday was one of those days when it was sunny (not so warm though) and you looked at the sky and thought, hey that sun is really up higher in the sky! I think the sun’s angle must have crossed some critical level that my body notices. So I looked it up (see below), solar noon is at 35.9 degrees. On Dec 21 it was at 23.9, so not sure if 35.9 degrees means anything, but i will take it. And in case you are wondering, we are now gaining close to 3 minutes a day, and we are almost at a solid 11 hours of daytime here!

Feb 18, 2009 7:31 AM 6:14 PM 10h 43m 31s + 2m 44s 12:52 PM 35.9° 147.872
Feb 19, 2009 7:29 AM 6:16 PM 10h 46m 17s + 2m 45s 12:52 PM 36.3° 147.904
Feb 20, 2009 7:28 AM 6:17 PM 10h 49m 03s + 2m 46s 12:52 PM 36.6° 147.937
Feb 21, 2009 7:26 AM 6:18 PM 10h 51m 50s + 2m 47s 12:52 PM 37.0° 147.971
Feb 22, 2009 7:25 AM 6:19 PM 10h 54m 38s + 2m 47s 12:52 PM 37.3° 148.005
Feb 23, 2009 7:23 AM 6:21 PM 10h 57m 26s + 2m 48s 12:52 PM 37.7° 148.039
Feb 24, 2009 7:22 AM 6:22 PM 11h 00m 15s + 2m 49s 12:51 PM 38.1° 148.073

>
We love you! Have a great day!

>I know, its hard to tell the difference isnt it? Anyhow, we got about 4 or 5 inches of snow yesterday (its hard to believe that the previous 50 had all melted!). Its a very sunny 32 or so today so the snow is perfect packing snow! We started off building a snow fort, but Frankie thought it looked like a “pyramid in egypt” and the rest is history, literally.

The builders at work:

>Bee has been wanting to learn to whistle and I have been trying to teach her how. Maybe she still isnt old enough, but I have been having a hard time explaining how to whistle in a way that makes sense to her. i found these directions but they havent quite helped. any other ideas?

>The girls went sledding today (without me again!) because they had so much fun yesterday. This time though, they brought a camera. Here’s some action (turn your sound down now- it was windy!):

>We went sledding yesterday, and we hadnt gone in a couple of weeks. For the life of us, we could not find the sled. Then finally Frankie spied the corner of it on the desk. So, here is evidence of how much snow that we have gotten in just the last two weeks alone! Our poor sled was covered in about a foot of snow! The sledding was so much fun – and fast – yesterday that we may just go again this morning and take the camera with us! Frankie’s favorite part is going down the big hill with the bumps that send you up in the air! Bee’s favorite part was seeing who could go the farthest! She is really good at steering her sled straight ahead.

>We escaped the big snow and ice storm, which went south of us, and caused Ohio State to close down for the day (scott says, “wimps!” ha ha). I’ve checked the 15 day extended forecast and I banking on the fact that Feb 7th is forecasted to be 42 degrees! Lets hope its true! However, in the mean time, Im so excited that we are now gaining over 2 minutes a day in sun light and by this time next week we will be gaining 2.5 min a day, and the sun will be setting at just about 6pm and rising a good ten minutes before 8am!! Now, all we need is the groundhog to not see his shadow! We have good memories of passing through Punxsutawny, PA, walking by the groundhog museum, and eating some of the best pizza in PA. We even passed by the “Calabrese Garage” in town. We would stop there on our treks between NYC and MI as way to get off the beating path of i-80. We would stay at the “historic” Panthall Hotel, where they even had “pet rooms” where your dogs could stay with their human guests!

Jan 28, 2009 7:56 AM 5:47 PM 9h 50m 10s + 2m 14s
Jan 29, 2009 7:55 AM 5:48 PM 9h 52m 27s + 2m 16s
Jan 30, 2009 7:54 AM 5:49 PM 9h 54m 45s + 2m 18s
Jan 31, 2009 7:53 AM 5:51 PM 9h 57m 05s + 2m 20s
Feb 1, 2009 7:52 AM 5:52 PM 9h 59m 28s + 2m 22s
Feb 2, 2009 7:51 AM 5:53 PM 10h 01m 52s + 2m 24s
Feb 3, 2009 7:50 AM 5:55 PM 10h 04m 17s + 2m 25s

>To celebrate the presidential inauguration we made an Inauguration cake! Frankie called it the best cake ever! ha ha! We made it with a new recipe we found on All Recipes , and used dark chocolate cocoa! yum! We cut the sugar by about 25% and it was still sweet enough. We also cut the whole recipe in half and then used our little camping pans to make small round cakes so we could layer them. I mean, after all, if we had a whole cake we would have to eat the whole thing… Then we made simple butter cream frosting with powered sugar, butter, milk and vanilla. Sprinkles of course! Enjoy a slice!

Oh, Im noticing its -1F. Well, really Im trying not to notice. Calling all ground hogs. Can you call the end of winter please!