Musings

MaNachur is ripening the black raspberries—not the same as blackberries. My favorite. Thank you, the Botanist. And next to these canes are some newly planted foxgloves, rescued from this side of the road, resuscitated on the other side of the road by a far better gardener than I, and now returned to this side of the road. I think they may have originally been planted by my great-grandmother (or under an arrangement she made).

Day 2 of the two-day project: the workbench is assembled and all parts are functional (note the nifty built-in light!), and the drawers now hold some tools. The (back) porch is pretty darned clean and we are taaarrrred.

At this late hour, we have had a line of lightning-thunderstorms come through and now its all drippy out, although another cell may tease us before midnight.

Posted at 10:36 PM | Comments Off on Production results

This morning’s fog kept the sun from punching through until sometimes shortly after, maybe?, nine? Loved that it obscured the woods….

Foraged in the long grass for chives. I’ve been using them frequently…local farm-to-table produce, I guess….

Posted at 10:00 PM | 2 Comments »

Turns out the electricity came back sometime after midnight and before 1AM. I slept through the signal, but the Guru heard the radio playing dance music. We forgot it was on when the power…went.

So, in the interests of recognized continuity, these are the chives I remember from my deep childhood, probably escaped from great-grandmother’s garden maybe shortly before WWII. Maybe. Without a doubt, they have been here a while. Baked potatoes anyone?

Today’s big excitement was picking the 2016 crop of rhubarb and making a simple compote with a bit of water and more sugar than I expected. No photos of the deep crimson compote…none of that greenish, grayish stuff, just a deep red sauce extracted from these jewel-tones…. The fine genes of our rhubarb are from careful husbandry a decade ago (and more) by the Botanist. [Tomorrow’s chore is to weed the (surviving) five rhubarb crowns and give them the gazinta to get through another summer/winter.]

Okay, an artsy shot. The gate has sentinel white lupines. And outside, to the left where you cannot see, is a robust group of lilacs I do not remember from times past. Clearly, my memory is from years ago, and not from, well, last year.

Sometimes, anyway.

Posted at 10:43 PM | 2 Comments »

The apples are showing the inexorable march of time…the petals are almost entirely gone (bits of withered brown tissue remains), and the apples are just beginning to form.

We cheated and purchased some sets yesterday, and put them out today. Just planting is easy. The prepping can be considerable. Today it was. We had to remove all the weeds from the Botanist’s garden mound, and otherwise make it habitable. The plants are a patio cherry tomato, a plum tomato, and two pots of multiple plants of Genovese basil. We got the plants in and watered them in a bit. Then we added the squirrel cage (to keep them plus rabbits, deer, chipmunks, skunks…OUT) and another screen overlay to protect the second tomato and give it a larger space to grow.

Just as we were gathering the tools to go in, it began to lightly sprinkle. Just in time, we said, like we’re weather sages, hah!

Soon after we ate, while the Guru was slogging through kitchen-cleanup, the lights flickered once, then stayed off. Still some daylight outside, despite the now-rain overcast. We figure it was about 7:45P.

Maybe a quarter hour later, we decided we should call the electric company, and had to punch through to the “report a power outage” option, and finally get to a recorded message, which indicated an outage in our general area by mailing address. Hmmm.

So, we decided to take a drive, and see if…well, just be a bit nosy. We made a half-hour loop, including through McMillan (where we found the old county garage with an elegant sign), and never found houses with the lights on. Lots of people have security lights over their driveways, and zippo, no light. That made it easy to gauge.

Our theory by the time we returned to our place was that a good-sized area had lost power…. Another call the the Electric Co after 10P, and a new recording indicated that the outage area was north of “our” lake and south of “the” swamp, plus to the west. That’s a lot of customers.

There was a flicker of on maybe around 9:45P, but no sustained on. So, we lit tea lights and made us each a drink. Great plan!

I COULD have posted on time—that is, on the day of, avoiding a “10:22P” post, by using battery power, but wondering when the electricity would come back was distracting. So, a delayed post, marked as usual by the “10:22P” time-stamp.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Busy, busy

Did a family walk this morning, and escaped the threat of raindrops, against the odds. We found these flower spikes; I do not know what they are, but am attracted to the range of colors related to white, green, and grey-purple.

Late in the afternoon, we discovered that the tops of Midtown buildings were…obscured. We returned home safely, despite street after street of traffic.

Posted at 6:37 PM | 1 Comment »

I just want to note that “leaves of three” sometimes is kudzu (say: kooood-zoooo), which causes no dermatological upset (that I am aware of).

Speaking (writing?) of leaves, this is my invented spinach lasagne with bison meat-sauce, and cheese. Made a small container of a non-spinach version for the Vitamin-K-sensitive among us.

Posted at 6:59 PM | Comments Off on Leaf-counting games

Ooops, not. Maybe it’s just an iris, and it IS Mother’s Day.

So, I was doing some simple cooking. And the cauliflower was purple. White at the base and purple at the…flower part. Nice contrast with the capers, no?

And, speaking of colorful, Thai curry à la Sammy and (Trader) Joe. With no fresh basil. And because of the recall, these are Danish peas. Of all things—Danish. Not merely organic….

Posted at 10:54 PM | 1 Comment »

You see it in flowers and in insect wings, the delicacy of MaNachur’s artistic choices.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on May day!

As we drove along this small estuary, we decided to stop and behold it…get a bit more closeup, at a well-placed pull-off. And to set foot in Cornwall for the first time on this trip. We parked, and as we began strolling down to the waterfront area, I saw Army Men. Real, not an art installation in the shrubbery.

Three guys, in camo, with helmets and guns (pretty sure) and daubs of drab on their faces. Right in the vista-view pullout.

We spoke the more casual but still uniformed guys down by the water (no helmets or face-paint), and they said, training exercise. While we were in the general area, we saw two large helicopters also. Maneuvers, is that the term?

We made our way to Rame Head, one of many end-of-the-road peninsulas. Windy and sunny. On the high ground behind me is an installation now used by volunteers to monitor activities on the coast, and especially radio traffic for SOSs. I assume many are retired military. They had a telescope and binocs. Couldn’t see the radios.

We stopped in Polkerro for a stroll about town. The Pol- part means pool. We had crossed the Tamar River into Cornwall before the Army Men, and Polkerro is a tourist stop rather than much of a fishing village any more, so many shops had Cornish this and that. On our way out, we succumbed and got hot pasties to go; I had chicken and leek. Yum.

Polkerro harbor. Mighty rusty, the pulleys and whatnot on those fishing boats to the right.

Our daily castle: Restormel. Near the once-stannary town of Lostwithiel. I mention this because stannary is a new vocab word for me—means that the community was a center for monitoring the production of tin, so the royals could get their cut, I assume, and also possibly for minting coins.

This the gate looking out—two gates originally. The second shows the inside of the castle, same direction, from the upper walkway.

This is the administrative heart of the Duchy of Cornwall, and we all know who the Duke is, roight?

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Welcome to Cornwall

We went for fruit and burgers here for our Good Friday dinner. Not Great Friday, mind you, and just a tad less lovely than Fine Friday. The burgers were of bison, and the fruit in both blue and red varieties (both high in colorful antioxidants).

JCB scooped the groceries up from the Buckhead WhlFuds, not our nearby one, where they added three (count ’em) rubber bands to bind the plastic packs holding the two fruits.

My rubber band stash is now robust, if you need one.

Posted at 10:41 PM | Comments Off on Not Fine Friday