Winding down after the festivities, I washed clothes yesterday, and dried most of it on the line.
Today I'm sewing: I'm attaching sleeves to my long-awaited yellow linen jersey.
At the picnic, I told Jeanie that I didn't have the chops to make a wedding dress — but later I realized that there's a reason I don't know how to make a sausage-skin dress that has to be held up with stays because there isn't any fabric above the armpits: I wouldn't wear an outfit like that to a dog fight. I could do a slightly-better job than Mom's dressmaker on the dress I actually wore.
But it would take me months instead of a couple of weeks.
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After much Duck-Ducking, I have decided that the most-common unwanted plant in my strawberry bed is chickweed. It has the charming property that if you follow a vine down to its root, you can clear as much as a square foot with one yank.
Perhaps I can learn the name of the pointy-leaf weed that I never allow to get tall enough to flower. I know that I'll recognize the name when I hear it.
I believe that the squirrel in the trap this morning was #20.
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When I was about to ask about frozen brats at the courthouse market (I bought italian sausage, because that was what I found in the cooler first) we said "good morning, no it's afternoon" and I pulled my phone out to check the time. It said "new message" — I hadn't heard or felt the arrival; perhaps I was doing something that required concentration at the time.
The preview said "Got no", and since my parting words (after telling Dave I planned to stop at Owen's on the way back) were "Well, if you think of something, I have my telephone", I figured he was telling me we were out of something.
After downloading the message, I puzzled over "Got no. 21" for a while.
And yes, we feel guilty about feeding them to foxes instead of killing them, but neither of us is equipped to kill a critter cleanly.
We have only one cucumber off the vine, so I'm making bread-and-butter giardiniera.
I sliced up the cucumber and a zucchini that I bought at a farmers' market. I wanted a yellow squash too, but everybody's squash was too ripe to pickle. On the way to the courthouse market, I bought two green jalapeños and a bag of cooking onions at Carniceria San José. I put both jalapeños and three of the onions into the pickles. I also sliced up most of a celery stalk, three or four red mini-sweet peppers, and part of a small carrot. I think I should have put in two carrots (or a bigger carrot), but the salt is on them now.
Picking the seeds out of the peppers was a pain. Literal, in the case of the jalapeños. Washing didn't get it out of the chronic irritations on my hands, but calendula cream seems to have done the trick.
While at the courthouse market, I heard a rumor that the booth in the orange tent had tomatoes. I walked back, but found only an unlabeled gap in the display.
We had one of the sausages I bought yesterday for supper tonight. Next time, I'll cook us one each.
We re-homed the Steinway today. Now I need to find someone who gives dinner parties and knows how to take care of fine china.
We couldn't get Ben to take the Carom board. I've moved my cutting mat to behind the secretary. No plans yet for the card tables.
I washed, dried, and put away two loads of wash, sewed around the cuffs of my new jersey, *and* put up five half-pints of bread-and-butter giardiniera, and another jar half full.
Al says "forget all that; it's time for my second treat".
This evening, Al reminded Dave that it's been ages since he combed the cat. Dave said he got out wads of fur.
This morning, I finished the shirt that I started making last February.
In the afternoon, I wore it to the grocery store. Seems to fit.
It was really, really muggy on the way to the store, but not so bad on the way back. I picked up four thighs for supper at Penguin Point; it had been ages since we had fried chicken.
I had been thinking I'd go to the fair to get out of making supper, but when it was time to go, sharing an Atkins frozen dinner and zapped potatoes sounded like more fun.
Tomorrow night we get bean soup. I've put a pound of Great Northerns to soak, together with a teaspoon each of mustard seed, celery seed, and brown rice.
Good soup. I'd been thinking of making cornbread, but Dave brought home some roasting ears.
I've been noticing that Al's fur looks slept in, and today Dave said that the comb was bumping on his bones.
When I opened a fresh can of treat food today, I cut it into four pieces instead of five.
It doesn't take as long for Al to get bored with the flashlight as it used to, but he still gets a good workout when I swirl the red square around.
Today two of the tents had tomatoes, but I thought it still early in the season — and I didn't have a good way to carry fragile fruit.
I had bought gooseberries at the fairgrounds market, and jalapeños at Carniceria San José, so there wasn't much room for cushioning in my cooler. (And I'd put the gooseberries into my tomato protector.)
I bought red jalapeños and (at Owen's) yellow mini-sweets to decorate pickles.
Dave missed one cucumber and it got big enough to make a batch all by itself. I'll have to make pickles Real Soon Now.
I was disappointed that only two of the five jars in the first batch of pickles sealed. Yesterday or the day before, I wanted pickles on a sandwich and popped the lid off one of the un-sealed jars.
There was another lid underneath, and *that* one had sealed. I put the sealed jar into the soda fridge with the other two.
I *thought* I'd heard more than two plinks while I was doing my evening exercises.
I made the three one-pound potatoes I bought a while back into salad this afternoon. I tasted the two bottles of vinegar in the fridge, "sherry" and "balsamic". The balsamic was sweet and Dave likes sweetened savories, so I put that one in — a split second before I remembered that it's about ninety percent black food color.
Tastes good, but looks funny.
I think it was last Thursday that we saw the last of our piano tuner as he and two assistants drove away with the Steinway. I hear that Ben is playing it a lot.
When we first moved here nearly twenty years ago, I was in the church basement and heard someone practicing on the piano on the stage in the fellowship hall, and walked to where the curtain wasn't between me and whoever was playing so well. The first I saw of the player was teeny-tiny feet dangling well above the floor.
Dave put the love seat where the piano used to be. This made the parlor look much better — mostly because we had to straighten the rumpled bedspread and put away everything that had piled up on the love seat. I threw the lamb pelts on the floor where the love seat used to be, which pleases the cat very much.
Yesterday, I looked at the potato salad and wondered whether turmeric would make it better or worse, then realized that it couldn't possibly make it worse, and sprinkled in a lot. It looks better, but not good.
I'm planning to make pickles today. I didn't feel like slicing vegetables last night, then realized that overday would be all the same as overnight to a cucumber, so I sliced this morning and put a timer set for eight hours on the bowl after I'd salted and iced the vegetables and covered them with three plates (two for the weight) and plastic wrap.
Dave's two largest cucumbers came close enough to making half a gallon that I put in only part of an onion. Also all of a red jalapeño, a yellow mini-sweet, and a few slices of carrot.
I don't put in the snort of cayenne when making the syrup.
I'm running low on half-pint jars. I thought I had quite a few; I'll have to take everything out of the container cupboard and put it back neatly.
I kicked the bucket this evening. Fortunately, it was a bucket I'd carelessly left in the hallway after washing clothes this morning.
My new package of alum came from Kroger's spice display, but the label mentions only that it's used in dyeing. I hope it's the same stuff as the old jar.
I have a batch of sliced vegetables under salt, ice cubes, and three salad plates on the counter, ready to make bread-and-butter pickles in the morning. There's just enough of the old alum to do that batch.
I was slightly surprised that the vegetables I took out of the fridge sliced up to exactly half a gallon. I used all the older cucumbers, a stalk of celery, most of a carrot, one jalapeño, two mini-sweet peppers, and four very small onions.
Now I must tell Dave to stop putting the newly-picked cucumbers into the paper bag — these are now the older cucumbers. There's already enough to make another batch of pickles; I'm tempted to dig up one of the giant garlics and put that in.
A little carrot brightens up a jar, but the carrot must be sliced about half as thick as the other vegetables. I use the potato-chip blade on my mandoline.
I looked out this morning to see someone driving fence posts into the sand bar. When I got up from my nap ugly green netting had been strung on the posts, and two people were driving stakes, apparently with the intention of planting stuff that would fill in the lake.
DNR is supposed to send us a letter when they grant permission to mess with the waterways.
I got two pints and one half pint of pickles. One of the pints didn't seal, so when it was cool, I threw away the lid, drained the syrup into a saucepan, added the left-over syrup, brought it to a vigorous boil, and re-tried with a fresh lid. This time it sealed, but I'm going to let it get completely cold before I take off the ring.
I'm disappointed that the batch filled three jars precisely, with nothing left over to taste.
I should have snitched a slice from the unsealed jar while waiting for the syrup to boil.
I burned sticks today. It was harder than it looks because every stick was under all the other sticks, but I managed to get most of what is too close to the burning place.
There are a lot of nice coals out there now. Pity I haven't any bread dough in my bake kettle.
I spent most of the day doing needlework on the porch. I haven't been walking or taking any other exercise this whole week, but I will ride a couple of miles tomorrow.
I dropped out of the Tour des Lakes last Saturday: heat exhaustion. I should have stopped at the Pizza King for lunch. The ride started so early that my breakfast was a protein bar eaten in the truck. Some food, half an hour in the cool, and a tall drink would have helped a lot.
The cucumbers are ripening faster than I can pickle them.
I went to Sprawlmart yesterday, partly so that I could witness the transformation of Big R into Stock + Field. Big R appeared to be freshly painted — in the old colors, with the old logo. But one copy of the logo was on a sheet that looked as though it could be peeled off.
I bought an envelope of pickling alum at Big R. While in that aisle, I read the instructions on an envelope of pre-made "pickling brine": they ended "consume within a week". That's using the word "pickle" a tad loosely. In the newspaper a while back, there was a recipe for "pickles" that said "refrigerate for EIGHT MINUTES". I wouldn't even call that marinated. Or, for that matter "chilled".
Before going to Big R, I had a taco salad at Wendy's for lunch. The beef in the chili appeared to be broken-up hamburger patties. If so, you no longer need "lots and lots of napkins" at Wendy's. The hamburger was no better than the fat-free hockey pucks sold at Oak and Alley. It was acceptable in chili, partly because there was a lot of shredded cheese in the salad.
I suspect that the food at Wendy's is modular. The boy opened a bowl of salad, put a ladle of chili on top, and put a bag of chips, a pot of salsa, and two tetrahedrons of "sour cream" on my tray. That bowl could be listed several ways on the menu and, as I mentioned, the meat appeared to have come off the grill.
Snivel. I have a mysterious stain on the right shoulder of my brand-new shirt. Yesterday afternoon I rubbed it with bar soap, then soaked it three times, and I think it isn't quite so striking.