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"Personally, I'm a lazy kind of guy, and leaving the door open on the mystical saves me work. I don't have to stress my brain trying to explain the unexplainable. It's magic. End of discussion." - Janet Evanovich
11/25/2023 - Christmas Parade & Enchanted Forest Lighting
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We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at The Grove. It was just going to be my wife and me, so I set out to find the smallest turkey at the store. As so often happens in my life, a comedy of errors quickly ensued (don't ask) and I brought home a 16-pound turkey for the two of us. I have to give my wife her due - she's the Jedi Master of turkeys, and this is the way that the bird looked when it came out of the oven. Believe me, it tasted every bit as good as it looks here! We watched the parades on Thanksgiving morning, caught one channel that was broadcasting Miracle on 34th Street non-stop and managed to see it start-to-finish, and then started decorating the house for Christmas. We ate turkey for every meal for the next couple of days, and finally froze the rest on the 3rd day. We split it into meal-sized portions, sealed them with our FoodSaver, and now they're tucked in the freezer, just waiting for us to enjoy down the road.
It was raining the other night, and I went out on the back porch of The Grove to watch the storm. The rain had pretty much stopped, but I saw the time capsule that we'd put in about 12 years ago, and it made me stop and think. We sealed it in 2011, the 150th anniversary of The Grove, with a plaque on top instructing that it be opened in 100 years - in 2111, to be exact. We put everything we could find from 2011 in it - a Jefferson High School yearbook, a Jessie Allen Wise Garden Club membership book, posters from all the events that year, and everything else that we could collect. There's even a bottle of cognac included, which should be interesting after aging for 100 years. There's nothing of intrinsic value in it, except for a U.S. Mint proof set from 2011, but I think that only cost $20 at the time. We had a great time selecting all the items to go in it, and I hope that they all survive 100 years - we put it above ground to help be sure. I'd love to be around to see it opened, but I'll be long gone by then. Given all the supernatural activity from former owners at The Grove, though, maybe I'll be there in spirit. I sure hope so!
Okay, this isn't a ghost story by any stretch of the imagination - but it is about something very, very scary... food prices at the grocery store! I mentioned this contraption a couple of years ago in the GroveZine (and just a moment ago, above), and we're relying on it even more today: a FoodSaver vacuum sealing machine. Ours is probably ancient by today's standards, but it still does a great job. Case in point - our local grocery had a sale on Angus hamburger, basically half price. Since we've had so much success with our FoodSaver, we stocked up, separated it into 1-lb. packages, vacuum sealed each one, and stacked it in the freezer. A few weeks ago they had a sale on NY Strip Steaks and we did the same thing. The FoodSaver machines aren't cheap - $100~$200 - but with the price of meat these days it pays for itself in fairly short order. Just a tip from The Grove - I don't own stock in the company, nor am I connected with them in any way... their product is just proving to be an amazing cost-saver for us at the grocery store.
This is a paranormal story that doesn't involve The Grove, but it's interesting because it's something that I've never heard of before - Witch Bottles. What are Witch Bottles? Well, you can read the entire story in the news by 
One of the things that happens periodically is the smell of pipe tobacco in one particular area of The Grove. We would never allow smoking in an old 1861 house like The Grove, yet occasionally one area of the house smells like someone was just smoking a pipe there. Apparently whoever it is has been hanging around a bit more lately, because it's happened on two tours. Twice in the last month I've had guests report the sweet smell of pipe tobacco. This isn't new - it happened a few years ago and when we walked into the room, a lady asked, "Who smokes Prince Albert"? When I asked her what she meant, she said, "That smell. It's Prince Albert pipe tobacco - my daddy smoked it his entire life, and I could pick it out anywhere." I now keep a full tin of Prince Albert in the kitchen, just in case our pipe-smoking spirit wants it. Since the level of tobacco in it never goes down, I guess that he's got his own secret stash.
xxx
