A Kitchen Day

Good morning, my friends. We had another relaxing day. It was Mike's birthday, and so I made him his beloved Eggs Benedict for breakfast. After breakfast, I went to work making a small dessert for our birthday dinner celebration. I tried a recipe for Lemon Pudding Cakes for Two. I happen to love pudding cake of any kind. Since I had everything I needed on hand, it was an easy choice. They had to bake for 45 minutes. When they came from the oven, they looked like this:

So I set those aside for later. The weather has been crazy here. We've had some major thunder and lightning storms. Occasionally, we get a big gust of wind, but so far, nothing too scary. It was nice most of the day, and so I went for another stroll around the pond early in the afternoon. We've really enjoyed the avian wildlife here. These ducks were having a meet and greet on the basketball court.

As I walked to the far side of the pond, this tri-color blackbird flew overhead. We have red-wing blackbirds in Oregon, but this might be the first time I've seen a tri-color.

It's private property on the far side of the pond, and so I can walk only so far before having to turn around and head back. As I made my way back to the RV, I noticed these two abandoned goose eggs. If you've never seen a goose egg, they are about three times the size of a chicken egg.

We relaxed for most of the day. Mike started our prime rib on his Traeger, and we waited for that to be done. I'd already made our green bean side dish the day before. I just needed to heat up the frozen leftover gravy I'd brought from home and to make some mashed potatoes. It was a pretty easy meal. When it was served up, it looked like this. 

I like pepper jelly with prime rib, and I'd remembered to bring some cranberry pepper jelly from home.  Mmm, mmm, mmm. And there are leftovers for another meal.

After dinner we sat outside for a bit enjoying the golden hour over the pond.

It was early evening when we were jolted out of our relaxed reverie by our weather radio alerting us LOUDLY that we were under a tornado watch. (Holy sh!t!) Some of you are used to this, but we Oregonians-in-Kentucky are not. We were advised the tornado watch would continue until 3:00 a.m. Also, we received a text from the RV park, and notification from our weather apps. Neither of us has ever had to worry about tornados. 

My friend Kate in Oklahoma mentioned some tornado tips the other day. She's been under tornado watch/warnings over the past several days. We were notified by the RV park where the shelters are (walking distance), and so we put out shoes, socks, and clothing before we went to bed last night. Kitty kennels are in easy reach. Wallets and identification are where we won’t forget them. I was very happy when I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and found myself still alive and the RV still intact and upright. 

The forecast from last night was for increased risk of tornadoes and large hail tonight. So far our weather apps show a flood watch, but nothing about tornadoes. (We’re not worried about flooding where we are.) We can’t really leave here without either driving straight into it or else having it follow us. Hopefully, the danger has passed. We’ll see how the day goes. It's our day to tour the horse farm, and that will be around 11:00 a.m. until noon. We're showing good weather during that part of the day, but more lightning and thunder for tonight. It makes sense for us to stay put where the shelters are a short distance away. If we don't need them, all the better. In either case, we'll be heading west tomorrow and hoping for improved weather as we pass through Missouri and Kansas. It'll be a relief to reach Colorado in a week or so.

So with all the excitement, those pudding cakes were a nice distraction. I added some whipped cream and a couple of blueberries.

When you cut into them, they're cake on top, pudding on the bottom. Yum.

Okay, so it's time for me to get going. We need breakfast, and then we'll be heading out to the horse farm. I'm looking forward to seeing some foals today.