Friday, July 23, 2021

Another monsoon - more destructive.

 Another interesting day yesterday. More monsoon weather in our area. 

But before going into that - Bill always teases me when I write out our grocery list. I always use the word "oleo" when we need margarine. Have called it oleo since I was a little girl. My first real memory of it was squeezing the plastic bag to distribute the coloring. Does any one else remember this. 

Buying margarine that came with little capsules of food color. One broke the capsule and kneaded the soft plastic container to spread the coloring. 

Yesterday started out really nice. Blue sky with big puffy white clouds. Lots of humidity though. Around 50% and a high temperature of 105 - not a good combination. 
Come afternoon all heck broke loose. Wind picked way up - gusts over 60mph! And it poured. Sounded like bullets hitting the roof. 

Some of the aftermath of the storms. This is just a few blocks from where we live. About 12 poles just snapped and went down. Luckily it did not affect us - just a quick flicker of the lights here. But some of the homes in that area are still without power and the main street Boulder Highway is still closed going south.  
Lots of street flooding around us and no power for the traffic lights. Our area got a little over 3/4 of an inch of rain in less than an hour. Glad we didn't have to go anywhere. 
And we will be getting more of the same next week. At least the desert plants will be happy for a while. It is going up to 106 today with dew point of 64 and humidity at 53% - really ugly out. 
Went to other side of town to pick up my sewing machine. They did not get a drop of rain yesterday! Will play with the sewing machine tomorrow.

7 comments:

Kathy Tycho said...

Mother nature is flexing her muscles everywhere right now and she is not happy😡 BC to the south of us is burning up and it's cool and showery here right now. No complaints. I had no idea what oleo was until I started doing crossword puzzles. Who knew?I am reading that Sinaloa is in the Covid red zone..so sad when the Usa and Canada have people who won't get vaccinated. What a privileged society we are. Disgusting when Mexico can't get enough vaccines and also not the most effective ones.

Craftyfox said...

Squeezing the oleo was my job every Saturday after grocery shopping when I was a kid on the farm in Illinois. I walked up town from my piano lesson and met Mom on the square in the small town we lived near,we did the rest of our errands and than went home. We always had fried beef cube steaks that night for supper and homemade bread with the "butter" from the plastic sack of oleo.

We were also on a telephone "party line" and could tell if it was our call from the combination of long and short rings the phone made...best part was you could listen in on the other people's conversations on the line!

SandyM said...

Yes, I remember on at least one maybe two occasions getting to help squeeze the white oleo in a bag to distribute the color. Do you remember what happened to the capsule the yellow/orange dye came in - when you opened the oleo did you find it and take it out? My memories are not real clear. Now I use “real” butter for almost everything.

Nancy Kissack said...

It was the same south of Tucson. You couldn't see fifteen feet and the noise from the rain was deafening. We didn't have to use the squeeze technique except when milking our cow. I got the fun job of turning the paddle wheel handle to make the butter. Depending on which cow we milked, the butter was either white or light yellow.

Grandma on the Road said...

We never used oleo, but I do remember the name. I remember reading that the reason the color came in a capsule was that the dairy people were upset that buyers would mistake oleo for butter, so a law was passed that said stores could not sell it colored. Only the buyer could add the coloring, which is why the little capsule.

I am sure the animals are happy with the rain, also. That ought to help the plants grow so the animals have food as well.

Carol and Bill said...

Kathy - I know - why aren't the people here getting vaccinated. 99.9% of people dying and in hospital are vaccinated. Sure hope things begin to clear up in Mazatlan. This will probably be the last year we can go there.
CraftyFox - that was my job too. I'd forgotten about beef cube steak. We had it often. Is it still available in markets. Smothered in onions. Yum.
We never had a phone but my grandmother had a party line.
Sandy - I think the capsule was just a bubble part of the bag. And it just broke open when squeezed. But not sure. We use both butter and oleo - I like Can't Believe it's Not Butter.
Nancy - interesting about the color of the butter depending on the cow. Only milked, or tried to milk a cow on a school field trip. Life is easier now, but is it better?
Grandma - Yes, I remember the reason - it was a big deal then. So far we've had 2 inches of rain in the last couple of weeks. With more to come today and tomorrow. The plants look a lot happier.

phxxer said...

In addition to selling it white, the packages had to state "Oleomargarine." I don't think you ever saw Oleo on the package. I think Allsweet was the first brand to offer the color capsule. Now the question is, what did we do before the color capsule? I think maybe you could only by white oleomargarine. Maybe add a drop of yellow food coloring.