I made clam chowder for my lunch on Sunday, and for the next couple of days, using the recipe from my old Betty Crocker cookbook. I put in extra potato, and I also add ½ tsp. celery seed, a tip from my college roommate.

Sunday night dinner (it is in the oven) is Pork Loin Roast with Barley, Butternut Squash, and Kale, a recipe that I adapted from a Cooks Illustrated one that did not work that well. I am using the last butternut squash I had from the autumn farmers’ market; it stayed fresh in the cold apartment over our garage. I really like this one-pot recipe on a cool (50s) rainy day—the way it is supposed to be in northern Indiana in the spring. The rain is always welcomed, especially since my husband is well on his way to planting an additional 250 trees.

Chocomouse--my husband plants with his trusty shovel. He planted a little more than a hundred red pine, a little more than 100 burr oak. He planted 7 black spruce, 4 white fir. He bought these which are between 2 and 4 years old.

Then there are the ones he is growing to plant: 6 sugar maples, 5 jack pine.

He has started a lot of tamarack and grey birch. These are from seeds, so they have a way to go if they make it. He has them in containers on the sun porch. He figured out in the winter how to open a window and put a frame over it with plastic to keep the cold out and let the sun in during times when the sun shines. (You may recall that the new enclosed porch windows block the heat, so that is how he gets around it.)

Some of the trees are replacements for ones that the drought killed last year, and some are replacements for the ones the deer (so cute and so destructive) got.

What an interesting assortment of trees! He is forever the scientist!

For dinner tonight, we had egg salad sandwiches on maple buttermilk bread, with assorted raw veggies and dip.

Challah French Toast is my favorite. What a yummy meal you're having!

Re: KABC Bakers' Special Dry Milk -- is that really a milk product or something else?

Last night we had chicken tenders, rice and gravy and cooked carrots.

Cwdesign,Happy Birthday to Will and your brother,the dinner sounds good!

We've been doing a lot of cleaning outside.My husband pressure washed the overhang trim,cleaned the gutters etc.I've been mopping, vacuuming and dusting today so I'm tired.We went to a local restaurant and had Steak tips and mushrooms,baked potato and salad.Our afternoon coffee and now he's on the lawn mower.