New home for the wedding bench

The summer before Mark left he brought the bench down from the top of the hill so that it could be sanded and repainted. He used the tractor, and I no longer have one, so taking it back up again isn't really an option. I already replaced the bench with two chairs, so I can still watch the horizon with a friend.

But what to do with the bench? It was a wedding gift from our good friends Mike and Teresa. Mike officiated at the wedding. Having it perched on the hill was a perfect place for a Mike and Teresa gift. Just having it sit around the yard like an ornament didn't seem right.



So I sanded and stained it, hauled it into the back of my truck, and drove it down to the road to a little place by the creek where there used to be a log bench that has rotted away. Now our many walkers can sit and enjoy the quiet stream, and I can too.



This seems like a Mike-and-Teresa type place, too.

How to beat the "I-want-to-eat-fresh-vegatables-but-I-always-let-them-rot" blues

At the store, buy carrots, celery, broccoli, a few onions, a small bag of potatoes, a small package of sausage (Italian or sweet, your preference) and a cake of bird suet (because you ought to, but seldom do). Total, $12 at the Big M in Spencer.

When you get home, throw a load of laundry in the washer. This only takes a sec.

As you unpack your groceries, get out a pot, knife, and a cutting board.

Fill the pot with 3-5 cups of water and put it on "high" on the stovetop.

Peel three of the carrots. Cut them lengthwise, and then chop them into small pieces. Throw them in the pot. Put the rest of the carrots away in the fridge. If there are old carrots in the fridge, pull them out, cut them into a few big pieces, and throw them in a plastic grocery bag or a bowl for compost.

Wash the broccoli. Cut off the tough end of the stems and toss them in the compost bag. Slice off the rest of the stems up the the floral part of the broccoli. Throw the good stems in the pot of water. Break apart the broccoli florets and put them in a ziplock bag so they are ready to munch on them when you are hungry. Put this in the fridge. Look for more old veggies in the fridge to pull out and throw in the compost bag/bowl. Old bread, etc. are also fair game. Don't ask "Is it expired?" Ask "Will I really eat it?" If the answer is "no" throw it out now.

Cut off the entire top of the celery bunch. Throw the top in the compost bag. Wash the whole remaining bunch. Chop off about a cup in small pieces. Throw these in the soup pot. Wrap the celery in foil and put it in the fridge. Pull out the old grody celery you'll find in the vegetable drawer.

Pull out a few of your new potatoes. Hopefully you got some in good enough shape that you don't need to peel them. Wash and cut three potatoes into bite sized pieces. Put the rest of the potatoes away in the cupboard. Look for old potatoes to toss. Throw these in the compost bag. You may need to cut the old potatoes in half so they will rot faster.

Peel and chop up an onion. Throw in the pot. Put the rest of the onions away. (ditto discard old onions you may find...)

Rinse off the cutting board. Take the sausage and cut into 4-5" long pieces. Slit the skin on one piece and put in a small frying pan. Wrap the remaining pieces individually and put in the fridge for future cooking options. Fry up the sausage, breaking it into little pieces.

Put half of the sausage in the soup pot and keep the rest in the pan. By now the soup should be boiling. Turn it down on "low." Don't let it boil over or it will just piss you off, ruining the whole exercise.

Immediately wash up everything you used, wipe down the counters, throw away anything that needs to be thrown away, and put away remaining groceries.

Take the old vegetables and trimmings out to your compost tumbler, compost pile, etc. Bring your suet with you. If you don't have a composter, take the scraps as far from your house as you can and throw them out for the critters. Scatter them, don't dump them in a pile.

Don't do this if you have bears. :)

If you don't have compost or a country back yard, I guess you have to throw the trimmings out. What a pity.

Put the suet in your suet feeder. Fill your bird feeders if they need filling.

Wash your bowl/throw out the plastic bag.

When the soup has been boiling about 45 minutes and the veggies are soft, take it off the heat. Take a smoothie wand and put it in the soup and turn it on for about 10 seconds. This will puree about half the soup, making it thicker. Throw the rest of the sausage in. Turn the soup off if dinner is an hour or less away, then warm up right before dinner. Don't overcook. Freeze the leftovers in dinner-sized portions or save some for lunch the next day.


How will this keep you from wasting your fresh vegetables?

It won't, but when you discover they have rotted in your fridge or cupboard in a few weeks, you can console yourself that at least you got one batch of soup out of them, did your laundry, fed the birds, cleaned your fridge and your pantry (so you won't encounter future nastiness), ate at least part of the broccoli if you remembered it was in the little ziplock bag, picked up your kitchen, and had sausage to use for spaghetti or breakfast.

Your house will also smell good for a day. You will have gotten a nice feeling of accomplishment once everything is done.

Then the future-forgotten veggies won't seem like such a waste.

And it only took a half an hour.

Unless you blogged about it. Then it added another 20 minutes.

How to be alone

Couch finds second life at Grassroots Festival

Anyone recognize this?



I'll try and find a photo of it when it was at my place.

Grassroots volunteers were looking for furniture to give a new life to old furniture in a cool way for their musician's lounge. They came and rescued the poor orange couch from my barn. I don't know how much furniture they ended up with, and what the whole lounge looked like, but the couch sure came out great.

I hope it goes home with someone or they use it again next year.

They are looking for similar (ornate wood frame) furniture that needs a second life. If you have any in the Finger Lakes region, let me know and I'll send Stephanie's email address.

Thanks for sending the photo, Stephanie. And I hope everyone who went had a great time at Grassroots.

Blueberries

I'm not a big fan of blueberries from the store--even so-called 'fresh' ones. It seems like they are always bruised and warm, not to mention expensive. Today I was coming back from Ithaca with a load of cat litter. It has been raining all weekend and I've gotten very little done in the line of house projects. At the "BLUEBERRIES" sign I paused and turned right. I'd been meaning to check this place out for years and today seemed like a good day.

I drove up the hill. And up. And UP. AND UP! I finally found the place, and I was the only one there. The owners came out on their deck and when they heard I only wanted a pint, waved me toward the bushes. "Just go anywhere." I guess if I'd been after gallons they would have sent me to where the most berries were ripe.

Oh, it was beautiful. Rows and rows of blueberries about 1/4 ripe. It was raining just a little bit, the paths were all mowed, and the blueberries just rolled off into my hands. I only had five bucks on me and didn't know how much they were, so I only got about a pint and a half. I came back out to my car, tapped my horn, and the owner came out to weigh my berries. He was only charging $1.85 a pound, and I had less than a pound. I gave him two bucks and told him to keep the change.

If anyone wants lots of blueberries, I'll be happy to help you pick on some cool and cloudy day. I forgot to put a hat on (yes, there were a few deerflies) but picking would go fast.

When I left, I discovered that if I continued to follow the road, it dropped me right at the end of my own road, and it was only three miles home.

I'll be going back.

Dog days of summer

Literally. Summer and Jack have come to stay for the weekend. They are easy-care dogs (Jack slurps up his four pills along with his dry food). I can't walk three dogs at one time, and Molly has been surprisingly patient about being left clipped on the porch. No barking, no whining.



It's a lousy weekend to have dogs. Hot, humid, rainy. Luckily there have been enough pauses between the showers to walk them, although we had to wait quite awhile yesterday evening. They are good dogs, and it's almost no bother at all to have them here.

Bear doesn't think too much of my impromptu porch gate, made out of a screen door laid on its side. Molly did a classic header right into the screen (bonk!) when I let her run around in the side lawn unclipped and then called her back over. Even though she'd been on the other side of it all day, I guess it didn't occur to her that it was also there when she came back up the steps at full tilt.

That's gotta hurt. But it's hard not to laugh. Don't worry Molly, even humans do it.



Speaking of Bear, he went in for his post-fight-with-Skinny Bear FeLV/FIV test, and (happy days!) was negative. So he got his first FELV vaccination and I'll take him back each month for a retest. I'm sure my vet thinks it's overkill, but I can't imagine what it would be like to wait six months, discover he's positive then, and wonder at what point he started shedding the virus in my house among my other cats. Nope--I'd rather pay $40 a month now with one cat, then drag five of them in later on.

I'm not going to even try to plan what I would do if he tested positive down the line. I guess he'd live in the Great Room or the downstairs of the barn. But at this point it's just not worth wasting brain cells on a future that may not happen.



I watched The Bucket List last night. I should watch more movies. They jerk my brain out of my day-to-day rut. Fiction quite often has good messages. I tend to get down on "media" because TV is so incredibly bad, in general. I don't mind fiction when it is clearly fiction. I do mind contrived "reality" that encourages people to compromise reality in search of a "better story." So when I pop in a movie and get to watch something like The Bucket List that is entirely contrived (you aren't being asked to believe it happened) but has good messages (friendship, discovering yourself and the world, having to go away to learn your greatest gifts are often home), it's sort of a relief. A little mini vacation right in the living room.

I have books to read (thank you Kathy, if you ever do get a chance to read this) but I haven't cracked the open yet. I really should.

On that note, it's Sunday morning and I have lots to do. The birds are impatient for their feeders, and Owlie is yowling his head off in the barn (so glad I have no neighbors!) asking to be released from his quite-spacious run into the nonetheless-much-larger cage room.

He'll have to wait until the kittens romp, first, and I go to Ithaca for cat litter. Oh, poor Owlie!

Reunions, friends, fires

I am totally tuckered out after a trip back to Norwich for my 30th high school reunion. Sometimes I wonder how the majority of kids survive high school. Now, with most of us safely on the far side of 45 and closing in on 50, so much of the high school angst is gone. Facebook had brought many of us up to date, so it wasn't like walking into a room full of strangers. And then I had a slumber-party-catch-up with Lisa and Sandie, wine glasses in our hands, until 2:00 am. It wasn't nearly long enough, but I do get through DC at least once a year and must make an effort to stop in and see them.

Before the dinner I stopped in for a short visit with Mom, and this morning before I left I picked up my sister Kathy and we had breakfast. I made it to Ithaca around 3:00, fed the Fast Food and South Hill ferals, and then came home and jumped on the lawn tractor. Then it was up to the cat facility to clean and play, and then off to the kennel to get Molly. The house is a wreck and it's been "clean as you go" tonight, grabbing the vacuum cleaner and scooping up loose items to stuff them back where they belong. I rely on my weekends to get things in order for the upcoming week, and that didn't happen!

We have rain coming in again, just as the wood had finally dried out in my firepit, so I treated myself to a fire, bear or no bear. I don't want winter to roll around and feel regretful that I never enjoyed the summer. I started blogging out there, but Molly kept making me nervous by going on the alert, so I finally blew out the torches and left the fire to burn out (yes, dear family, I am keeping an eye on it and will water it out before bedtime)





I think I really need to revisit high school, and my high school friendships. Dig through the yearbook. I was out of touch with everyone in the 90s, and while they were hashing out our high school years, I put them entirely on "hold"---basically I just stuck them in a memory box where I expected them to stay. Therefore I learned far less from high school and those friends than I might have. I guess it's never too late to catch up.

Holiday are good for...things you should have done months ago

I have today (the Monday following the 4th of July) off. There are of course the tasks that can't be put off - taking care of the cats, mowing the lawn, doing some laundry.

Then there are the tasks I've been putting off for months. July 4 is the Summer Wake-Up Call date. It's all downhill to winter from here. Finishing the paint on the house, doing remedial work on the roof and my unused chimney are summer "to-do-list" items that had better be attended to now, or they won't be attended to at all.

Worse yet are the tasks you actually spent money on months ago because you perceived them as urgent, and then never completed.

On this list I can include the auto-powered air compressor (to fill my truck tires, bike tires, wheelbarrow tire, and two-wheeled cart tires). I purchased this many moons ago because it was VITAL that I have these things to complete my summer tasks.

I never even took it out of the box.

Today I wanted to wheel some wood in my wheelbarrow but the tire was too soft. I wanted to move some pallets out from the barn to the house to start work on the cat enclosure, but the two-wheel cart tires were soft. And I caught sight of my somewhat-squishy silhouette in the mirror today and resolved to get on my bike but...you guessed it.

I dug the brand-new compressor out of my blue truck today, all set to finally fire things up.

Of course, the battery needed to be charged first. 16 hours.

Sigh. The new battery charger is now plugged into the great room outlet, charging, and all my tasks requiring the wheelbarrow, cart, and bike will remain undone another day.

My second purchase was a pair of jackposts for the house and barn, since both are sagging. Bear has pushed the still-boxed post--intended for the house--off the porch rail at least three times. I fish it out of the grass and hoist it back up on the porch rail...but don't install it. The spidery basement may be the cause of my avoidance.

I've tripped over the post in the barn countless times. My excuse there is that I don't want to scare the barn swallow babies out of their nest too soon.

They left their nest today, so that excuse is gone.

Fall is coming, people! What's on your list that you've been putting off?

The rebirth of a happy cat

As I've mentioned before, since Norma, Nellie's buddy, passed on, Nellie has been including herself in the household instead of remaining upstairs glued to Norma's side. She made Norma's lonely scared-kitty life much better, but it's quite nice to see Nellie get to live a normal pet-kitty life now.

She's a tubby cat (as she wanders over right now with her tail in the air). While she does wrestle with her brother, with everyone else she is affectionate and remains a great hot-water bottle for any cat who wants someone to cuddle up to. Every encounter with another cat usually begins with her walking over and planting a good solid lick on their forehead. In the rare situation where this results in a swat, she just gives them an offended look and stumps off to find someone who will appreciate her ministrations.

She also wants to squeeze into bed with me at night, but she manages to do this while I'm asleep and don't notice, and at least it doesn't result in kitty tiffs, as it did between Ivan and Ditzy.

It's good to see her comfortable.

Visiting an old friend....

...my dentist.

When a chunk fell out of one of my teeth that had previously had a root canal, I finally sucked it up and called the dentist. I had not been to one in 8 years.

As I he peered at my xrays, I wondered if I might get a small miracle, but it was not to be.

"I expect you know you won't like what I have to say," he mused.

"It's a lost cause, right?" and he said yes, the tooth had to go. I said "Well, it's my own fault."

So I had my first tooth pulled.

Let's just say it's a lot faster than a root canal, and a hell of a lot cheaper, too.

Let's also just say it's good none of you are here, because I am quite tired and grumpy. Excedrin migraine formula works quite well, by the way, but the ups and down as it kicks in and then wears off every six hours is a real bummer.

I can't whine much though, because Sara's husband had three teeth pulled at the end of last week, and I had dinner with a friend who has had three pulled in the past.

However, I will whine a little, 'k?

"The Checklist" revisited

Some of you may recall that awhile ago I set up a checklist to maintain a sort of minimal functioning sanity. It worked fairly well for awhile, but like all rigid things, fell by the wayside. Fortunately it did pass on a certain rhythm to my days, which was the whole point.

I have since acquired a desire to finish (REALLY finish) my job by 6:00 pm each day (Apologies to colleagues who have now alarmed their mates and pets by guffawing loudly over their morning coffee). I don't mind starting two hours early, but I don't want to continue two hours past quitting time. So the list is coming out again for a major overhaul.

There is a notable difference between the last list and this list. The last list placed "things to do" one at a time. This list recognizes that "one-at-a-time" isn't going to cut it. So it starts out with "Make coffee/wash dishes/pick-up," moves onto "laundry/bathroom," progresses to "birdfeeders/fetch paper" and ends up at "Break on porch/check work messages."

Alas, I'm at "break on porch" and as I try to check my messages, the voice mail system thwarts my good intentions by ringing busy. I now waste five vital minutes calling my work phone from my home phone (and vice versa) to make sure the issue is indeed the voice mail system and not my phones (it is indeed the voice mail).

Curses!! So I shall blog instead, since that also needs to be included on the checklist somewhere.



Post Note: Gremlins at large. The laundry didn't spin out! Oh well. Moving onto "save faxes/take a shower."

More later...

Discover your impact day...

This week was Discovery's 25th anniversary, and today was a company-wide day of service. Working from home in the frontier called Central New York, I wasn't near any of the volunteer projects that people were doing around the globe. Discovery had some projects for people who were needed at their desks, so I signed up to make happy cards for kids at The Children’s Inn at NIH. At the main offices they had supplies set up for people to use, but I raided my craft drawer.

Believe it or not, for once I did a simple project and I actually owned everything I needed! Seriously---that never happens. Can it be that I have become organized? Well, I could have used a hole-punch, but I can pick one up tomorrow before I put these in the mail. I even had little kitty charms and tassels.



I printed the kittens off adoptable pets on Petfinder. Here is the real miracle: I didn't even run out of printer ink. Amazing! I even had glossy photo paper. I nearly shocked myself.

I hope my disorganized readers will understand why this was such a pleasant surprise.

Sometimes you can almost feel guilty doing something so simple and enjoyable and calling it "community service." Maybe "community fun?"

If you work with an organization (from work to Scouts) and want to help the Children's Inn, you can learn more here.

Post-note: I now own a $1.99 single-hole punch.

Oh Home Depot...bait and switch...not you?

Oh yes. There was some sort of pile of tools, or a grill, or something at Home Depot by the door--sign up to win, you know. So I dropped my name in. Today I received this little card. I noted immediately that it didn't say I won anything and figured it was a marketing ploy, but I gave a call.

I did not, of course, get Home Depot. I got some "mumble fast mumble Consulting" whatever. "Mrs. Burke" put me on hold to "look up my information" and came back and asked me how often I shopped at Home Depot. I told her I would be happy to answer her questions if it were only going to take a few minutes, as I was at work. I figured it was just marketing research. Annoying, but necessary for businesses, now and then. She assured me yes, just a few minutes. And she asked if I were familiar with Home Depot's "water mumble mumble." She wasn't really mumbling, but she certainly wasn't telling me about the grill I'd won. She was telling me about a water test. I'm thinking "OK lady, put it in the mail," then she said, get this...

"Would there be a time we could set up where you and your husband, or significant other, would be available so a team could come by...."

...and I realized Home Depot--or whoever had bought the opportunity to plunk a pile of tools down on a table to get the phone numbers of homeowners--was trying to string me in to buy a water filtration system.

I told her thank you but no, I don't let unsolicited strangers into my house and she said, get this "Oh, well you could have a neighbor there if you wanted..."

Wow.

I told her no, and thankfully she said OK so I didn't have to spoil my day by hanging up on her. And of course I stepped to the computer and discovered I was right.

How sad. You think you maybe are in line to get a cheap pack of screwdrivers (and wait all day for 4:00 to call, knowing it's a scam, but maybe...) and your instincts were right. Scam.

Today's recipe

Ravioli with Spinach Pesto

In the interested of eating better, I've been writing down the very rare recipes that sound good to me when they pop up on Yahoo.

This is one. I hope to make it soon.

Creamed corn pancakes

I was sulking through my cupboard and refrigerator this evening, grumbling. Nothing to eat. Nothing to eat. Unless I wanted to eat chicken soup -- again (on sale, 50 cents a can last month at the Shur-Save, so I bought about 20). I cast an eye at the cans of creamed corn I had purchased to make scalloped corn. I was just too weary to deal with baking.

I seemed to me I should be able to fry something up, but all the recipes on the internet for "creamed corn pancakes" seemed far too involved. I was able gather some ideas of what, in general, was needed to make corn pancakes stick. I threw together something quite simple:

One small can creamed corn
two eggs
about twelve crackers, crushed
That's it!

I used Multi-Grain Club crackers.
I think next time I would use unsalted saltine crackers.

Mix, spoon onto a medium-hot frying pan, add a tiny bit of pepper while cooking, and there you go.

It made seven small pancakes, which would be enough for two people if you had something else along with it. I didn't, so five of them became dinner for me, and they were quite good. I may throw in some diced fresh tomato next time. Probably all sorts of things could go in there (a bit of spinach, etc.).

The one pancake in the picture looks like it has a bit of tail. In fact it's the cat on the plate. :)

The cats and the dog all requested a bite of the last two pancakes. I gave them a small amount. They would have eaten them all up, but it didn't seem to me that corn was a great option for feline and canine digestive systems.

Memorial Day

I was driving into Ithaca to feed the cats today, and I slowed down to look over the improvements at Nichols Park in Spencer. While I was idling, I noticed the memorial could use a weeding and some more mulch. I'm woefully under-involved with the Spencer community, so I stopped by Home Depot and picked up a couple of bags of cedar mulch. I spent a very nice hour in a very beautiful park, weeding, mulching, and chatting with the woman who runs the hot dog stand on the sidewalk.

She gave me a free root beer. :)

Here's wishing you a Memorial Day of sunshine and good friends, and please take a moment to attend your local service if you can. It will only take a few moments of your day, and there's no better way to say "thank you" to your local veterans.

Justifying buying a new car...

Anytime I make a huge purchase, I always suffer buyer's remorse---well, not so much "remorse" as justification. I always worry the day after I buy something I'll learn it cost too much, or is the worst car on the market, etc., especially since I buy sight-unseen.

I was happy to see a couple of articles that indicated (so far!) that I hadn't screwed up buying my Kia. This article rates it as one of the top ten least expensive cars to own.

This one really made me laugh. This article tells you which affordable cars will make you look rich, and the Kia Soul tops the list.

I haven't yet seen another Soul on the road since I bought this one. I have been approached twice by people who are thinking about buying one, and wanted my feedback. I had to admit A) I love the car but B) don't hit any potholes or you'll break a tooth, and C) the stripped-down version is great. In fact, I find it a lot classier that some of the "upscale" models.

Of course, then there is the Best Automotive Ad of the Year" award.

Silly dreams, quickly made, quickly dashed

When I was in Ithaca I took a quick drive around Taber Street to check Nancy's parking lot to see if maybe she were grooming a Sunday dog. I came to an immediate halt when I saw the For Sale sign in front of this old place.

Back in the 80s I picked up a hit-by-car toy poodle way down on Elmira Road by the car wash, with tags that gave this address. I was met by an elderly gentleman who insisted his dog was in his fenced yard. He went out into the yard calling and calling while I stood there in tears, because his dog was in my van, dead. He finally came out to look, and he totally broke down. When he asked for me to take her because he could not bury her, I gave him the poodle's collar, said I was sorry, and drove away. That old gentleman's grief has always haunted me.

I stopped and walked around the house. What had, back then, been a front porch was now a glassed in extension. The lot was fairly large (there was a second house there back when I visited in the 80s) with a shed just like the one I used to have for a cat facility in West Danby. The yard sloped down to one of the inlet channels, and the water was dark and quiet, shaded by trees. It was a suitable spot for a dock, if legal. It was clearly in the flood zone, but the house itself was up on a four foot high foundation. There was more than enough room for another building for the cats.

I began wondering what it would be like to sell the farm, invest in this little place, and be able to plop a kayak in the inlet anytime I wanted, bike to stores, visit friends for lunch, take care of the ferals without a two hour time-investment, etc.

After wandering around, checking the foundation, and peeking in the windows, I called the Realtor. Sadly, the house is part of a four parcel bundle in the seven digit range.

4. 812-814 Taber Street 1,058 sq. ft. This white stucco two story 3 bedroom, 2 bath home is on a double lot with wonderful green space ideal for outdoor meetings. It also has waterfront access. It would be possible to install a dock on this parcel. The house is cleaned out and could be leased as office space for a variety of small businesses. Future development possibilities when combined with adjacent lots.

There is another matching house around the corner for $80,000, but while it looks out over the inlet, it doesn't have water access right on the property, which is all of the charm of the other house. It is a cute house, but I'm not in the market for a cute house. I'm in the market for a lifestyle.

What a pity. Nonetheless, it's always fun to dream.

But then I came home and, sitting on the porch, listened to the birds off in the woods, and was actually quite glad the house was not available. I won't be able to stay here forever by myself, but I can enjoy it for a long while.

Comfort food of spring -- Rhubarb

I ran into Alice in Wegman's today ("mom" to Elvis and formerly-Lulu, whose adult name I am spacing on). I offered her a rhubarb plant, as I have three on the flat I need to move, and I don't really need five producing plants and can easily spare one. She reminded me of the rhubarb crumble recipe she had sent me last year. Of course, I have lost it, but I found one on the internet.



Sadly, I took two large bunches of rhubarb over to my mom and my sister last week, and then forgot it in the car. Maybe I can get some more over to them before the season ends.

Rhubarb crumble is like a crisp, made with chopped rhubarb, orange juice, cinnamon, butter, and oat-butter topping.

Cook Time: 40 minutes, 375F
Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

* 3 cups chopped rhubarb
* 2 tablespoons orange juice
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces

* Crumble Mixture:
* 1/4 cup melted butter
* 1/3 cup brown sugar
* 2/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 2/3 cup quick cooking oats

Preparation:

Arrange diced rhubarb in a buttered 8-inch square baking dish. Sprinkle with orange juice, 3/4 cup sugar, cinnamon, then dot with the 1 tablespoon of cut up butter.

Combine melted butter with brown sugar. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda; mix with oats. Combine the flour oat mixture with the brown sugar and melted butter mixture. Spread over rhubarb. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve warm, with ice cream or whipped topping.