Category: Daily Life

fruits of the garden

September 29, 2015

There’s been an unexpected benefit to having gone out and chopped my way through the nettles and brambles in search of blackberries, which is that I tromped quite a path out there and unintentionally exposed the plants to quite a lot more sunlight than they’d been getting. That, combined with a couple of weeks of unseasonably sunny, warm weather (which is due to continue for another week!) netted a startling bounty of extra berries! I got about four more cups today! I need about two more cups and I’ll have…

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apple picking party!

September 28, 2015

We have, as I may have mentioned, several apple trees in the garden. The apples aren’t really ripe yet, but a lot of them are cooking apples that aren’t going to be any good to eat straight off the tree anyway, so yesterday we had an apple picking party and the family came out to play in the garden and pick apples and eat apple pie (made, yes, from garden apples. I forgot to take a picture but it was lovely and tasty!). Hail, hail, the gang’s all here! Indy…

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funny things with houseguests

September 25, 2015

Woe, our guest has had to return home, but she has left us with many smiles and funny memories. The other night she cleared her plate from the table, then returned to the dining room, where she picked up a napkin and wrung it as she gazed indecisively at our plates. Ted said, in the driest and most certain tone ever, “You’re procrastinating. Go work on your thesis.” She said, “I’m NOT! I’m trying to be a good guest!” Ted said, “I’m married to a writer and you’re procrastinating. Go…

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strawberry rhubarb deliciousness

September 15, 2015

Iiiiiii have made an aaaaaaamaaaaaaazing batch of strawberry rhubarb jam. Ted, who likes zingy strawberry/rhubarb jam, thought there wasn’t enough rhubarb in mine generally, so I did half and half instead of favouring the strawberries, and it’s rrrrrrrrrrrrrreeaaaaaaaaaallllly good. I used jam sugar because I didn’t have enough regular sugar, and I thought I might have a little too much s/r for a kilo of jam sugar, which is often soft anyway. So I took what I’ve learned about unripe apples and got one and chopped it up and threw…

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perchance to dream

September 14, 2015

I dreamed I was trying to deal with our book collections, and found not one, but *two* copies of author Robin McKinley’s (obviously, from 1. the well-read condition of the books, and 2. their (differing) covers) 1980s-era fantasy novel ONCE UPON A TIME, and the fourth, interstitial (it fit between books 1 & 2), book of Pamela C Dean’s Secret Country trilogy. *grabby grabby grabby hands* I would pay good money to go back into that dream and read those two books cover to cover…