The flowering quince brought in on New Year’s Day to force into bloom did:

Malheur is a corruption of an old French word that means bad luck.  I guess whoever arrived there first didn’t like the looks  of things.  I can’t think why.

For people from Texas, Oregon may not seem like a very big state, but to illustrate things,  Malheur County is as far from Portland as the middle of the Panhandle is from the Metroplex, except it’s over a mega-mountain range, and the biggest town out there is about the size of Barstow.  It is the size of the State of Massachusetts.  It has a population of 8000 souls.

To understand what is going on out there, it is necessary to understand a couple of things. Three of the occupiers also are sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who, with a contingent of armed supporters, faced down an effort by the Bureau of Land Management nearly two years ago to seize his cattle for nonpayment of grazing fees — a bill that remains unpaid (over 1 million dollars).  They are out-of-state political grandstanders.  They may have some legitimate political grievances, but so do the Piutes.  Most of the locals are not in league with the Bundys and want them to go home.

You can be sure if Mr. Bundy looked like this

instead of like this

the entire exercise would be moot.  This is still the Wild West in some ways.

We’re having yet another gorgeous cold, sunny day, so I changed the order of things on my to-do list and went out back to do battle with a squirrel attack on the LED lights that light up the little bay tree year-round.

Apparently, this is a well-known issue.  You can google it.  Cities have had their holiday lights decimated by these chewing rodents.  And they are rodents.  We excuse them because of their cute, fluffy tails.  I will not be outdone by a rodent!

I mended the lights that could be mended and added several strings I bought 75% off after Christmas. I hung up lots of scary plastic ribbons on the bay and an old owl kite from the magnolia.  We’ll see.

While I was out there, I noticed that the daffodils are poking up.

Roxie wins the photo-bomb prize.

Also noticed that some branches on the flowering quince looked ready to be brought indoors for forcing, so I put some in the “apple tree” vase on the kitchen table.

And I saw one camellia had bloomed way ahead of season.

Anyway, all this took longer that anticipated, which meant that I did not have time to make the requisite New Year’s Day black-eyed pea dinner from scratch and would have to go to the store for canned peas. And the ham hock in the freezer turned out to be beef bones.

Let me tell you, I was greatly relieved to discover while there that I would be able to select my valentines in plenty of time.  That’s always such a concern.

The black-eyed peas are turning out to be pretty good, even though the store was out of ham hocks.  I just went Cajun with andouille sausage and rice. Sometimes, you just make do.

Then I decided that I wanted to make the corn bread into cornbread sticks and remembered that I gave my cornbread stick pan away years ago.  So I used my madeleine pan.  Turned out great.

Why, you may rightly ask, would a girl from Oklahoma have a madeleine pan and no cornbread stick pan.  Well, you know, I’ve moved around a lot, and I’ve learned to adapt and make do and it’s all good.  And that’s a pretty darn good motto for a new year.  Learn to adapt and make do.  Could be delicious. Or beautiful.