New daisies, visits and Textiles and Tea postponed

A couple more daisies join the daily arrangement. Picking the first blooms pushes the next to bloom.

I watered outside flowers early, but already at 9 am, too hot to walk.

Yesterday Gary ran over to see how I was doing in the heat, while officially returning containers.  Shortly after, the letter carrier delivered a package of meds into my hand, and asked how I was managing. Some of our local carriers are unofficial social workers. 

Since the stolen meds, he's insisted on personal delivery and even checked whether the man who accepted them during my recovery was my son! Just being careful. And much appreciated. 

I notice since T2 started, it's been like the days after 9/11, people checking on each other's welfare. For new readers: 9/11 was very close to home, we all knew casualties in the Towers,our train station parking lot was filled with cars whose owners were gone. Our post office was the center of the anthrax attack. So we looked out for everyone, strangers, didn't matter, for a while after.

Food notes. I tried mixing canned pumpkin with yogurt and got an excellent dessert. I used to buy mango yogurt from the Asian market until they moved away. Now I realize that with a bit of amchur and turmeric or pumpkin, I have a good lookalike.

I also plan to try Suzanne's idea about Graham cracker crumbs on lime flavored yogurt. Collaborative food! 

And I plan on crushed berries in yogurt. I've always added ingredients but not mixed them in to a pudding idea. I think this will be the Summer of Yogurt. Please weigh in with ideas. The Boudian Cooking Co-op Calls.

Lunch was several ideas drawn from Will Yeung, minimal cooking. I made brown rice, heavily seasoned the water with cayenne, salt, smoked and sweet paprika and tomato paste. 

While that was cooking, I roasted chickpeas with salt,minced garlic and ginger, avocado oil in the toaster oven at 400°f for about 25 minutes. Scallions for garnish.

Nice lunch,  and enough chickpeas left for tomorrow with rice.  I like the idea of seasoning the rice instead of the other ingredients, then serving them together. And I want to try making a dipping sauce but pour it over cooked rice once the dish is assembled. Same flavors coming from different directions.

Since I can't get out walking today, I've got more serious about indoor fitness. Quite a few of the moves I learned in PT are classic and you can find them on YouTube. I have favorite workout people, including this mother and daughter team. The mom is in her eighties, daughter in fifties, so it's good for mid and older women.  

The mom is so good humored about what she can manage and what's hard, the daughter clearly skilled at not pushing but keeping up a challenge. Here's what I watched today.

I used 5lb dumbbells throughout, the daughter switched between 5,8,and10. The mom used 2lb. You use what's right for you, not too easy.  And they take rest and water breaks. I took an extra couple of minutes about halfway through. I really like this pace. There's a timer, with a  second hand going,  top right as you work, so you can see how long to the end of each exercise.  They're about fitting in eight to twelve reps in approximately 30+ seconds.

Quite a few of my PT exercises show up in this workout, so it's a good reminder.  I'm still in recovery mode in my left leg muscles, some of which had shortened over the months of joint issues and compensating. The muscles in front and below the knee are tighter than they used to be, too,  so this is good. None of it hurts, but you know you've been working. 

Meanwhile 

I did not go to the Tuesday knitting group, as you probably guessed.

Textiles and Tea featured Valeria Maldonado, an architect and 3D fiber artist. This post is already full, so I'll talk about her tomorrow.

Happy day everyone, hang in there 

Woman proposes, heat disposes

Today's morning plan was to return the DVDs to the library early, in the book drop, then take a walk around that neighborhood, complete with construction, before it got too hot 

Then I checked before 8 am 

Already too hot for the plan. So I have to regroup. 

Maybe I'll fix the crochet, which I worked too tightly at the knitting group, being a bit distracted. Maybe find embroidery to finish.

My other plan, to make baked shells in cheese sauce, is also on hold, not wanting to turn on the oven. 

Meanwhile, another paragraph beginning with M,  I've been looking at faucets online and find the reasonably-priced name brand, in a design I like, comes without a sink stopper.  I haven't ordered yet, just as well, since I kind of assumed that a faucet with a drain assembly would have a stopper. 

It's not an emergency. In fact I'm waiting for the State budget doings, July 1, new fiscal year, to find out if my property tax refund will happen. That would help. 

For now I'll lie on the sofa singing Manana, provide your own accent, and drinking lemonade. Watching a bit of Wodehouse Playhouse, maybe. 

I'm in search of Pie in the Sky, a series about a trying-to-retire met detective opening his dream restaurant. 

I loved it back when, and I might be able to get it on DVD.  Or maybe streaming if there's a non subscription possibility.

Happy day everyone, keep cool, sez I, never mind about bears wearing warm hats, what do they know.

And here's today's bouquet, blue day flowers, lavender, coleus, philodendron, daisy 

Summer in the living room

The season is officially changed, the warm sofa rug now in the laundry, replaced by the white quilt.  The loveseat quilt is turned over to show the wedding ring side. 

Last evening as soon as I heard about the latest Iran lunacy, I ran to do a bit of seed planting. 

Tomatoes, if we are lucky. Complete with squirrel proofing.

Today's walk disturbed many frogs all leaping and diving on the other side of the pond, squirrels unworried, and many bird calls.

I'm hearing a Carolina wren with a variation on the usual teakettle teakettle teakettle TEA. This rugged avian is singing teaKETtle tea KETle TEEEEEE.  Maybe it's a local accent. A Joisey boid.

I came home through the street and saw these fun things. A lot of my neighbors do whimsy.

And here's a very tiny bunny. 

The gate is about three or four inches from the ground, to show you how small. He's a teacup size.

Happy day everyone, try to find something to be joyful about. Let's not let those people steal what fun we can find.

Nature notes, and cake

Early morning walk, so glad I pushed myself out before the heat set in. Me and many birds and frogs at the pond. There were a lot of branches down from the storm and many more frogs, leaping into the pond at my approach, clearly approving the weather. Three drakes fussing about there, too. I wonder if the ducks are home busy with ducklings.

More wild daylilies

 and the jewelweed has started

That pocket-shaped blossom is very much like the sage blossom. I must check the name of the shape and see if it's a family.

One of my neighbors not only plants herbs, she labels them 

This is the first sighting I think I've had of rue.

On the way home, dandelions added to the daily bouquet 

Home to read These Old Shades, ancient Georgette Heyer, and bake cake, which is called bread because I bake it in a loaf pan, but who am I kidding. 

Banana bread but with pumpkin instead of banana,  crushed walnuts, dried cranberries.  Very nutritious! I used whole wheat flour. 

Perfect breakfast food. Or afternoon tea. Any time, really. With a spoonful of yogurt mixed with lemon juice and cane sugar, it's dessert. It's the Swiss army knife of breads.

Happy day everyone, enjoy whatever you're up to, hoping it's trouble, sez 

Big U and Ted

Judge John Deed and dreams around the solstice

Yesterday was busy, what with food prep,  walking, exercises including weight training in the evening, garden consult with Gary. So as usual I'm surprised that I'm tired today, why does it keep surprising me. 

I was up at five, breakfasting, thinking about walking to celebrate the solstice, then reading an old favorite, Heyer's Faro's Daughter, then I woke up mid morning, having apparently slept through my plans. 

I had wonderful dreams about a huge building that seemed to comprise all the parts of my life, with helpful people. 

I dreamed I arranged a gallery show of small prints which I'd visualized and was going to execute. I woke to realize the gallery director and even the building are long gone. It was a hyper realistic dream and took me a minute to reorient myself to the day. The Dream as Memory Lane. La vida es sueno. Either way.

I did eventually get a walk, on a beautiful after-the-storm day, puffy clouds, wind, warm sunshine. Around here I didn't see any damage, but at the condo just five minutes away,  there's siding torn off, trees down and chainsaws in action after a wild night.

Here it's more like this 

The Montauk daisies needed water, because despite the overnight storm, they were sheltered by the roof overhang. I pulled out some lemon balm here and there and will toss it when I get my energy back.  I garden in short bursts now, getting the hang of it.

I've started watching the Judge John Deed series and I'm really liking it again. I love the actor who plays Deed, warm, thoughtful, but a renegade all the same. 

The premise that such a man, however brilliant and well connected, could get to be a UK High Court judge, that stuffiest of institutions, is shaky, but I was up for the willing suspension of disbelief in the service of fun and rule breaking.

He's also a very intelligent character. This wins me every time. Foyle, Mrs Bradley, Lewis, Holmes, Maisie Dobbs,  Maigret, Miss Fisher, it's the intelligence. 

Update on the insurance question I got from the neighbor the other day -- he got a quote for coverage from my insurer,  for half the premium proposed by the company he'd started checking with. Same coverage. As far as we know, good response to claims.  So he's a happy neighbor, glad he asked.

Food update: the second day of tofu katsu, the aqua faba makes a crisper coating than the flour and water coating. I like it but it might be too brittle for some tastes. 

And I find that adding lime juice and cane sugar to Greek style yogurt gives you a definite key lime pie filling lookalike. I may try this with lemon juice too, to simulate lemon filling.

Happy day, everyone, play with your food.

Juneteenth, Walking and Misfits

It took a long time for the news of the January 1, 1863 Emancipation Proclamation to get around.  Slave owners were not in a big rush to lose their source of wealth, the enforced labor of Black people. 

This date in June commemorates the arrival of the news, finally, in Texas, in 1865. Two and a half years to get there. 

Celebrate while we can before someone decides to abolish the holiday. Nobody can abolish the day and its significance. 

I've taken to early morning walking before it gets too hot, amazing for someone who has never been a morning person. I'm out with the dog walkers nowadays. 

Looking back towards my house, down there on the left past the little red aralia. 

And home again after about half an hour, and the empties are now out for Misfits pickup 

I bless them for retrieving the ice blocks and insulated bags, saves my trying to find homes for them, too bad for such good items to be single use. The ice blocks go to Gary once his summer sports with grandchildren start, for his cooler. He'll let me know when.

The Envy apples ran out, sad, but everything else showed up. I remembered yogurt and eggs and cheese as you see. The pumpkin filling is for a bread with the dried cranberries. Cilantro because I add it in all over, and chocolate covered nuts and raisins,nutritious.

Yesterday the tofu katsu plan didn't happen because I found one more container of the spicy black beans and rice in the freezer.

I added in chunks of fresh apricot, which worked well enough to make a note to do it again. The combination of spicy rice-and-beans heat, and fresh fruit was very good.  And I'm reheating on the stove, up to now working fine.

Maybe the tofu sticks will happen today.

 Narrator: they did.

This time I skipped the batter, but dipped the sticks into aqua faba then the panko, and they worked just as well. More to come, too. 

The dipping sauce you see is just enough for this number of sticks. Tablespoon of ketchup -- organic, not that brand name metallic-tasting kind-- a bit less of soy sauce, splash of apple cider vinegar.

The salad was spinach with a few bits of scallion I'm growing from a previous one, and a dash of lime juice.

Also summer seems to be here, so I broke out the hand-stitched linen top from last year, cool, loose fitting. Not seen here, there's an inverted pleat detail on the sleeves. 

 And another sign of the season, the lavender is out, bringing bees, well, one bee

And the first little bouquet of the season 

Lavender, poppy dropping her petals, philodendron, coleus.

Happy day everyone, when apples don't arrive, you're obliged to eat chocolate.

Sez Ted. And Ursy agrees mrmph.