Thursday, June 19, 2025

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.






38 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good day. Thundering here so I may join the dogs later.

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  2. Pretty little posy.
    Walking in the early morning is the only way to walk the dogs when it gets so hot and humid later in the day.

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    Replies
    1. I think I'm developing a taste for early walking. The new me.

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  3. Juneteenth is an important day for sure. Hope it survives but they can’t erase its significance!

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  4. There's a local women named Diane Roberts who is quite well-known as an author and commentator. She wrote a book called, "Dream State: Eight Generations of Swamp Lawyers, Conquistadores, Confederate Daughters, Banana Republicans and Other Florida Wild Life." Well worth reading. In the book she writes about how when the enslaved people here discovered that they were now free people, they simply disappeared from the white homesteads where many had been working and the former owners woke up and didn't have the slightest idea how to even make coffee, much less cook a breakfast, do the laundry, work a garden, or almost anything. I'll never forget reading that. It made a huge impression on me. Of course the white people didn't want their slaves to know they were free.
    What a world.
    That is going to be a delicious pumpkin bread.

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    1. What a sweet feeling to leave the slave holders to find out. And what a long time they dragged their feet letting their people know.

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  5. This all feels like summer. Lavender hedges were popular in Las Vegas and so beautiful. I loved them but they were always covered in bees, which meant I would never plant one at our house. Allergic. You’re almost inspiring me to make those tofu sticks.

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    1. Yes, most of my my plantings would be off limits to anyone sensitive to bees. Herbs, sedum, flowers of all sorts. When we had the old wild cherry it would be noisy with bees, just packed. A bee nightclub!

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  6. Your misfits boxes are the best!

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    1. I like planning my order each week. Then seeing how well I thought it through!

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  7. I had a morning walk, too, and the weather was perfect.
    Happy Juneteenth!

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  8. It is a good thing that Joe did.

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    1. Among many good things. Some people suggest it should replace the fourth of July, which only celebrates white people's independence.

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  9. "When apples don't arrive, you're obliged to eat chocolate." What a great maxim for life! Morning walks are good here when the temperature climbs to the high 90's during the afternoon. I should start doing them, he said.

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    1. You could reserve the chocolate option though.

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  10. I was going to walk early, but humidity is highest early...so just had windows open. Then lawn care guy came roaring around throwing bits of grass everywhere, so windows needed closing. Wish he'd spread the mulch which sits in piles in every planting area. The Texans (white former owners of slaves) were cunning critters to not tell their free workers. I am sad to be related to them, but I think one at least gave some land to the blacks to start their own little town.

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    1. It sounds as if there was at least one person making some form of reparations. It did take troops to confirm that the enslaved people were free.
      Here it's cool enough early to walk without getting overheated, so I think that's going to be my pattern. I get very down if I haven't been moving.

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  11. I can find numerous similar events whereby I am obliged to eat chocolate! ;)
    Almost the weekend. :)

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  12. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued while the Civil War still raged, and didn't apply to the states still in the Union. It was basically strategic, a way of keeping Europe from recognizing the Confederacy. Still, when it finally did become possible to enforce it, enforced it was.

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  13. Freedom but not equality until much later. Is it truly freedom if there was still a policy of apartness in many states?

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    1. Neither is a daily reality for the African American population to this day. The struggle is daily.

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  14. That's a good idea with the ice blocks. Misfits looks tasty this week! I love your bouquet!

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    1. The ice and insulated bags are top quality, worth more than single use, so I'm glad they're doing it.

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  15. It's beyond disgusting that white supremacists are in control of the government and the history books again.

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    1. Not for long if we get a couple more House seats. Then we can put a spoke in their wheel.

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  16. Being obliged to eat chocolate sounds good to me! I was just this morning thinking that I don't remember when I last had a chocolate bar.
    One wonders, if the orange idiot has his way, if ALL holidays are going to be abolished.

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    1. Once in a while I add a treat into my misfits order. I like all my food, but something different is good too. Especially since you can source fair trade, no child labor chocolate through Misfits, like Tony Chocolonely

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  17. The tofu sticks look great! I love tofu.

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    1. They're good. Easy to prepare, always a point.

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  18. I do my duty and eat chocolate daily. I am surprised they didn't undo Juneteenth.

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  19. I love your handstitched top.
    WE are so windy here today not a good day for walking in our area as the old stray branches are falling like crazy.
    Cathy

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    1. Thank you for the nice words. Agree, here we have a lot of old trees so I avoid being too near them in unsettled weather. They've been known to come down suddenly.

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