A day of parts

Hot day, good for working indoors, on paper piecing, which you can witness at https://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com.

But there's more. I suddenly got a plan to make lemon curd. For putting in lemon curd tarts, which I'll make tomorrow.

I was wondering why it's been so long since I made lemon curd. So I  assembled the lemon juice, salt, sugar and egg yolks and butter. Ages since I separated eggs, and there was a bit of combat with bits of shell, but I triumphed. I had to bring the butter and eggs to room temperature. Interval while that happened. I'll bet any money lemon meringue pie happened when someone made lemon curd and had to use up the egg whites.  Where was I.

Then the recipes I checked all insisted, in bold type, italics, and various other ways of shouting in print, that you HAD to make it in a double boiler, not directly over heat.

Short interval while I figured out a substitute for the double boiler I don't have, since they all insisted, as one, that you couldn't use a metal bowl, or it would taste metallic. Oh. So I did find a nice pottery bowl which fitted over the big pan nicely.

Then I noted that after you assemble and mix all the items, that you set them over the boiling water, and here's why I haven't made it recently, you have to whisk it continually for 15 minutes.

Several chapters of my current audiobook. My whole upper body was whining by the time it thickened and I whisked in the butter. I'd had a mason jar boiling quietly away, sterilizing, to receive the curd.

And finally I got it done, and this is the entire amount:

The texture,after cooling in the fridge a while was fine, just right for spreading.

So I tasted it, thinking this better be worth it.

Whereupon there was a blast of trumpets in my mouth, and I remembered exactly why this is worth all those pesky assemblings and separatings, and whiskings and cursings, and holding your aching ribs.

No, neighbors are not getting any of this. Handsome Son will get lemon curd tarts and tea when he visits Saturday. But it is totally a five star, reserve edition, curd.

In fact, it's not bad.

In other news, the family across the street suddenly felled a 40 foot tree, no idea why, perfectly healthy.

This is what's left.  All hands to the pump. One man doing most of the work, the others issuing commands.

I noticed this when I went out to check on the situation with the condenser pipe of my central air conditioner. In a climate like NJ with hot and very humid summers, not cooling below 75f even overnight, it's vital that the moisture wrung out of the house get safely away. Hence the pipe sticking out of the exterior wall.

It is usual to install this pipe above grade, for obvious reasons. However the builders of this development buried mine. So every spring I go and riddle it out, removing debris, or the condensation would back up and come through the living room ceiling. This has happened to neighbors who didn't know about unblocking it.

We also have a very high water table all year round, and our torrential rains have raised it more. I found the pipe under several inches of water. Oh.

Sooooo, I dug  and bailed, and chucked mud around until I'd reduced the water level to where the pipe began to flow nicely, and removed debris.

It's pretty tricky digging below ground level, quite tiring. But it's done for now. I notice the hole is filling up again. So the bailing may become a feature of life around here. I did have a picture, but I thought it'd be repulsive in the same post as the lemon curd..

And, not being very quick on these things, it occurs to me that it's not surprising my ribs are tired, what with piecing and whisking and digging. Hadn't added it all up till now.

It's nine pm. I'm taking the rest of the day off.