What's cookin'?

Well, we're all cooking in the current heat, but that's supposed to moderate starting tomorrow.

I'm assembling the ingredients for this sweater, my 2025 SAL/MAL (spin-along/make-along) project in the Jenkins group on Ravelry. The pattern has been purchased and is printed out; I'm plying the black for the main color; and am waffling between two options for the contrast color. I have 28g of the perfect red fingering in my stash, which might be enough, or I can keep spinning the ~50g of white Friesian and dye it with Cherry Kool-Aid.

There is always a caldron of trouble simmering, of course, as that is life. Our current portion involves my car, which goes to the shop tomorrow; the needed repairs are going to cost 50% of what we so recently paid for it. If I am tempted to feel sorry for myself, though, all I have to do is look over at our neighbors' house. Two years ago they started noticing problems; turns out a whole slew of things weren't done correctly in its construction. They had to hire a lawyer and a forensic contractor to get their original contractor to cough up some of the cost to right things, but much is coming out of their pockets.

In the kitchen, I'm cooking to use the abundance of summer. Recent entreés have included toss-together pasta primavera or frittata, this recipe, and this recipe. The Apple Cucumber Salad I find so refreshing can now be made with our own apples. I'm baking muffins and cakes with shredded zucchini, and made a peach pie by request with some peaches Rick brought home. (Note to self: procure enough peaches for freezing and start making applesauce for the pantry!) There has been a steady trickle of strawberries to eat out of hand and five delicious figs from our little tree still pining in a big pot.

The tomatoes are finally ripening!

What's cookin' in your life right now?

That's it for now from . . .

Wildfire weight

I've heard many mentions of "pandemic pounds" put on by people staying home and baking/cooking more. Since the pandemic didn't really change our home life much, that hasn't been a problem here. However, if our very hazardous air pollution hangs around much longer, "wildfire weight" may become a thing! (Our air quality index is 562 right now. 😳😷) I'm only going outside to do chores and let Poppy relieve herself (on leash, so she doesn't run around too much) so neither one of us is getting the exercise we need. She is one pent-up pup, and I am spending too much time sitting and not enough time moving. And cooking is something I can do inside....

No 'pandemic pounds' on this lithe form!

So far, all the food has been pretty healthy. I get a weekly email from 'A Veggie Venture,' and last week's recipe sounded interesting. Our new neighbors had given me some of their abundance of tomatoes (jealous!) so I had enough.

This is SO GOOD! Rick and I devoured the whole thing within a day and I'm pondering begging the neighbors for more tomatoes so I can make it again. I have plenty of basil, but it needs a thorough washing to get all the ash off. 😝

I've had the dehydrator running pretty much non-stop on prunes; just started another load this morning. Now I'm going to try a batch of 'prune sauce.' We like peanut butter and applesauce over toast and I've made pear sauce, too, when we've been given pears. Why not prune sauce? Jars and rings are in the dishwasher as I type. I did get two pint jars of eggplant on their way to pleasant fermented pickliness. Now I need to figure out what to do with all the slender sweet peppers and jalapeños in the garden.

So far I've resisted the urge to bake something sweet and yummy because of the high likelihood of my eating it all. But there is a tube of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls in the frig and it's only 69° in the house (the only benefit of all this smoke is the reduced temperatures). I should just make granola.

Stuck inside at . . .

September morn

True confession: I've long been a Neil Diamond fan, and this song tugs on my heartstrings as I think about my little boy growing up and moving on to college in a few short days. Still, I am looking forward to getting more sleep. Poppy won't ‘whine me awake’ because Brian's alarm is going off, even as he sleeps through it because he was out until all hours (last ‘night’ it was 3:45, ostensibly because he got so tired coming home from work that he pulled off the road and slept in the truck a few hours). Rick can just go to sleep, but moms lay awake and wonder....

Once Poppy is awake I usually just get up and take her out to potty and do chores. Hunting is her passion so we check out the henhouse and tack room in the process; one morning she investigated the gopher holes in the side yard, too.

Once chores are done and the sun is up, Poppy likes to sunbathe on the deck. Chuckie often joins her there; this morning I caught their easygoing interaction in video format.


The weather continues to be hot and dry, although the forecast for the next week or so has been adjusted downward from record-breaking heat to ‘just’ hot. Plants and bushes around the yard look stressed; I'm focused on keeping the pots and garden and animals watered. I've given up on the sugar peas; I need to pull up the plants and feed them to the sheep. But the other fresh veggies provide lots of ingredients for our meals, including this recipe from The Splendid Table which got two thumbs up (Brian was out late and didn't eat with us). Yay for another excellent way to use zucchini, and it utilized one of my jalapeño peppers, too!

My hill of Red Kuri winter squash is taking over the garden with very little to show for it. I didn't think it had set any fruit at all, but the other morning I found two peach-sized squash. I'm not sure what mature Red Kuri look like; Mama Pea?

Inside, my littlest orchid is arrayed with breathtaking purple flowers,

and pretty blue yarn is being plyed when I have time.

I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open and still need to finish the church newsletter, so I'll sign off for now.

Just call me Sleepy South of Seattle . . .

Heating up and slowing down

Friday is usually filled with cooking and cleaning in preparation for Sabbath, a day of rest and worship. But the best-laid plans of mice and (wo)men don't always work out. Our power went out at 10:30 in the morning, not too long after I returned home from taking Brian to work. The recording on our utility company's phone system estimated that it would be restored by 1:30, so I (kinda-sorta) followed the examples of Chuckie and Poppy and took it easy, sitting in my chair and spinning (a near-vegetative state is not my style).

I needed to go to the bank and post office at the small town just over the hill, so I took Poppy along so she could play with her sister Penny.

"Sisters, sisters; there were never such devoted sisters,,,,"

Both good-looking Decker Rat Terriers, but in different ways. Poppy looks like their dam; Penny looks like their sire.

By the time we got home it was well after 1:30, but the power was still out. Since I couldn't cook or clean and it was heating up outside, I stayed in the relatively cool house and spun. As soon as Rick got home around 6:00 I asked him to start the generator to power the refrigerator and well, because I suspected the sheep and horses were in need of water. Within a minute of him getting it out and running, the power came back on – of course!

Sabbath morning dawned clear and warm. How come the dusty, weedy pasture looks better in the morning sun than my dusty, dirty house?

Chuckie was feeling his catnip. Fortunately, he can't take it out on the hand that pets him when he's up a tree!

The boys are all doing well now. There's not much to eat in their little 'pasture,' so they get hay:

Poppy and Chuckie were both interested in the fresh gopher activity in the yard. Although Poppy has a much higher prey drive than Chuckie, she doesn't seem to posses the ability to lie in wait like a cat. It's "Go! Go! Go! Hunt! Hunt! Hunt!" It works sometimes; as of this morning she has killed eight mice in the tack room.

My two hills of summer squash are starting to put out. I'm picking them young and tender (that is a small, RV-sized dish drainer) and using them in yummy pasta salads which is this summer's go-to staple. Rotini pasta, whatever fresh vegetables are on hand, olives of any kind, and a simple homemade vinaigrette dressing. I've added fat-free feta cheese when I've had it. We all love it and it's refreshing in this hot weather.

Yesterday Poppy and I rode with Rick in his air-conditioned truck to the coast for vet calls. I had finished the roving I was spinning the day before, so I didn't have something to keep my hands busy – until lunch. We were both hungry by the time Rick finished his calls but there weren't any good spots that we knew of to get food, so we started driving home. We passed a cute little gift and flower shop that advertised pizza on a sign; I suggested going back to see what else they had. I just had a good feeling about the place. Rick went in while Poppy and I waited in the A/C, and eventually came out with the most amazing grilled cheese sandwiches! Mozzarella, pesto, tomato, and avocado; it probably had more fat than I usually eat in a month but tasted soooo good. Of course hunger IS the best appetizer. 😉 Rick even bought a treat for Poppy (yes, he's a good man 😊).

It's been awhile since I've gotten a good sunrise photo. Now that day length is shortening, I'm sure to be sharing more. Here is one from this morning:

Trying to keep cool at . . .

Hazards and highlights of harvest

First on today's to-do list was to pick apples from our tree that ripens first. There aren't many, but I had spied some red ones when I had ridden Lance around the neighboring lot. So after morning chores I carried a ladder and a bucket out and got to work. I had just positioned my ladder to reach the last ones when I heard some buzzing. In a one-second blur, I spied a volley-ball-sized nest, got stung on the inside of my arm, and sprinted through the nearby gate toward the house, managing to avoid the rest of the angry insects. I'll have to retrieve my small bucket of apples tonight after dark or very early tomorrow morning; hopefully they will still be useable after sitting out in the sun all day.

After applying a baking soda paste to my sting, I started water in the garden and 'shopped' for supper.

I love the book title "Eat Your Colors;" it certainly applies to my harvest! I turned to my favorite source for vegetable recipes and settled on this one for tonight. I'll add some of the Yukon Gold potatoes a church member grew and gave us, and I think I have some fat-free feta cheese in the freezer. 😋

Yesterday's sunrise, showing off summer's smog:

It feels very much like summer, but the days are getting noticeably shorter. Our new neighbors have been busy figuring out where they want to situate their house; their dry window for building is getting smaller every day.

I need to tell you about our weekend in another post; it was pretty great!

That's the 'end' for now (heh) from . . .

Sum-sum-shiploadtime (again)

Yep, here comes another sporadic mega-dump of jumbled thoughts and photos, since posting more reasonably sized installments more often seems beyond me at this time in my life. The sing-song voice of Mary Poppins comes to mind, but with a different string of consonants and vowels – something like "Sparringspinningskirtingshippingpicklingsunsetsparentstress."
And for Julie Andrews' encore – let's all join in together now – "Doe, a deer, a female deer...."

Ahem.

I took those photos using the Sheep Sheraton as a blind; too bad she didn't have her fawn with her! The skinny old doe with twin fawns is staying close to our easternmost neighbor's house, where she is being supplemented with apples and organic oatmeal and rests next to the walk-out basement patio doors on a rug (seriously).

The girls have finally gotten used to each others' 'new dos' and have stopped sparring so much.

Sarai with her daughter Bardot

Where was Bardot's twin Brigitte? Mugging me for attention, of course.

The boys are still in a divided Ram-Ada Inn. Blake hasn't shown any improvement since his shockwave treatment and I hate to turn them out together with him so gimpy on a front leg, even though good grass is going to waste. Maybe I should just turn the girls out into the wooded lot....

I skirted the final four fleeces Sunday and shipped two of them off to a new customer yesterday; another one goes out tomorrow. Only two fleeces remain to be sold.

I've been spinning up another color sample of Jamieson & Smith combed Shetland top while waiting for the Tour de Fleece to begin. Yesterday I spent 2 1/2 hours at my ophthalmologist's office; I would have gone stir-crazy without this to keep me occupied during all the downtime!

What was left at the end of my waiting time; note "matchy-matchy"

 A new Turkish spindle flew in out of the blue last week, a surprise destash from a dear blogpal. I'm going to use this while spinning for the – what else? – TdF Team My Favorite Sheep!

I did buy that book I mentioned in my last post:

After a quick scan, two pints of snow peas were promptly put in brine to await the magic of fermentation:

Brian finally finished weeding the arena and got his fancy cowboy boots in payment.

He's working for Rick until his new summer job starts later this week; he's going to be driving one of these six-figure machines for harvest season:

This is a new development in the ongoing saga of "How much independence can I wrangle and still get all the perks of living at home for free?" The tale is so gripping that it will keep you up at night! (Or maybe that's just his parents and grandparents.)

Last night we enlisted Brian's help moving dry firewood from the pallets into the woodshed. It was not where he wanted to be or who he wanted to be with (his friends were hanging out down by the river), but we got 'er done. Now the pallets are available for the fresh firewood that Rick and Brian worked on cutting and splitting last Sunday at a vet client's place.

It's not like we keep him caged; on Saturday Brian drove to the coast to spend all day with his high school class. Rick and I went to church and then spent a quiet afternoon at home, followed by an evening walk up the hill.

Goodness, this is long; a new episode from the Chuckie Channel will have to wait. That's plenty for now from . . .