G is for Garage Door

Now I ask you, "Doesn't everyone's garage door have a story to tell?"

From initial glances my garage doors look pretty commonplace. Your driveway is most likely paved instead of being gravel. And, your siding is probably not made from logs, but other than that your garage doors are probably similar to mine.

You may have an occasional animal lurking around your garage door wondering what is on the other side of your door. Most likely, this animal is either a cat or a dog. In fact, your garage door may have many a tale to tell if it could only communicate with you!

My garage door has tell-tale signs upon it that make me wish I had a hidden camera attached nearby. First, there are the animal signs - as in wildlife.

These are the claw marks of a brown bear. These claw marks have been scratced into the wood for about six years now. They have weathered several harsh winters. They have weathered the logs being powerwashed and stained three times. They are here to stay. These marks tell the story of one husband who left the garage door open overnight and one bear who feasted on three 20-lb bags of wheat and the contents of one dustbuster pulled off the wall and emptied. The claw marks were made on the subsequent night when the bear payed a second visit only to find the garage door properly closed. The claw marks stretch all up and down the middle partition, this is only a sampling.

The next sign of wildlife are the "nibbles" on the garage stripping. I used to think these were little chipmunk nibbles of which we have quite a few. They are hibernating right now and will be coming out soon. Now I say, 'I used to think...' because the nibbles are getting higher and higher as each year passes. These chippies must be standing on their tippy-toes to nibble away at the stripping. Once again, if I had a hidden night camera I just might discover who the culprit is! I'm not sure why they want in the garage. I'm beginning to wonder if their family members live in my storage room. Perhaps Papa Chippy scrounges around in the day and returns at night after the garage door is closed. Any ideas?

And lastly, we have another kind of animal that has left tell-tale signs upon my garage door. This animal is of the 'teenager' variety. I will say two words and let the garage door picture tell the rest of the story. The first word is TEENAGER. The second word is DRIVER'S PERMIT.

This is the attempt Allison, my nurse daughter, made to "patch" up her collision with the garage door. I'm quite confident that she is doing a much better job patching up patients these days than garage doors.

I will now leave you with a frontal view of my garage door. Now that you know the story it tells you can see how high the little chipmunks are devouring the side stripping, on all sides of each door. It is a good think all this activity happens on the exterior. If it happened on the interior side I just might walk out to my garage one day and discover the doors lying on the ground!

Does your garage door have a story to tell?

F is for French Press

My favorite coffee is made with a FRENCH PRESS. It takes a little longer to make coffee this way and there is a bit of mess to clean up afterwards but, in my opinion, the effort is worth it. If you have seen these coffee gadgets and have always wondered how they work I am about to give you a brief tutorial which is bound to make you tea drinkers run and grab your favorite tea bag shaking your head in dismay.

Each French Press comes equipped with a plunger-filter unit inside it. The plunger is removed and the French Press is warmed with water as you grind dark roasted oily beans to a coarse grind. Finely ground coffee will clog the filter.

The coffee is then placed in the bottom of the French Press and the warming water is discarded.. Hot water, not boiling, is added to the pot leaving a minimum of one inch at the top. The coffee and water is stirred gently before placing the plunger unit back on top of the pot.

The lid spout opening is closed and the coffee is allowed to brew for at least four minutes. Do NOT press down at this point.

The pot handle is held firmly with the spout turned away from you. Using the weight of your hand, slight pressure is applie on top of the knob and the plunger is lowered straight down into the pot. Lowering the plunger slowly with minimal pressure produces the best results. Do not use excessive force, which can cause scalding liquid to shoot out of the pot or cause the pot to fall over spilling coffee all over the place!

The lid is turned to the strainer position and the coffee is poured. Yummy! French Press coffee lacks the 'burned' taste that you so often get when using a traditional coffee maker.


The downside, as I mentioned earlier, is that you do have coffee grounds to deal with in the pot. They have to be scooped out with a spoon and discarded. BTW, does anyone know if you can put coffee grounds down a septic system?

So, this is the French way to make coffee. Or, at least one French way. When I was in college one of my roomates was a Cajun girl from the deep Cajun country of southern Louisiana. Cajuns, as you most likely have heard, are descendents from the French Arcadians and are steeped in French tradition and language. My roomate made coffee in a similar way without the nifty French press filter that we have now. She used a plain old strainer. This, of course, was back in the days when folks used a percolator to make coffee, shortly before Mr. Coffee came along. And, the coffee we used was chicory coffee which had a unique flavor of its own.

This is my "F" entry for the ABC Along. And, if you are wondering what happened to my "D" and "E" entries I now confess I spaced them out and forgot to post them. "Forgetfulness" would have been another "F" entry I could have made. This attribute is something those of us who grew up in the percolator generation can identify with these days :-)