June day at home and away, and strategic planning for 6/14

I wake early these mornings, and get my walk in before it gets too warm and the shade moves away.

Only a couple of frogs at the pond Wednesday morning, jumping, but I could hear them farther away 

Back home I did a bit of garden cleanup, mainly battling with catbriar, and carried the debris to the trees to add to the grass cuttings left by the landscapers.

Then I transplanted the spearmint into its own pot and gave it a place outside.

Back, California poppies I think, front, small zinnias, spearmint and large zinnias.

Finally got the lemons processed. I use lemon zest a lot, but don't love using the micro plane. It's effective though. I like tackling life with zest (!)

Since the lemons were large, the rind was thick, so I chunked the lemons up for lemonade, rather than juicing them. 

Thick rind usually means less juice, though the smell was still heavenly.   And I dealt with yet another sinkful of dishes, amazing how they add up.

This afternoon I read, well maybe slept, on the deck, Frederica, old Heyer favorite on my Kindle. 

There's a lot of woodpecker activity close by, drumming in trees, rattling calls, so I'm hopeful of a nearby nest. I haven't seen who's active, could be flickers or downies or red bellies, since we have all of them.

The cardinals are busy and there are tiny peeping sounds, maybe young getting around to flying. That and chickadees, and wrens. 

I see very little activity,  but I hear quite a bit. A crow was chased out of the nearest tree by a bluejay, who may be nesting there, too. It's an avian condo development in a couple of evergreens.

This is a great time of year, not too hot yet, not too buggy yet. Wednesday was my  sister's birthday. I think she'd have been 96. She made it to 92, living independently at home till her last couple of days.  I'm hoping for something like that. I'm in much better health than she was at my age, so we'll see.

Happy day everyone! Getting ready for Saturday, those who can march and demonstrate. Thank you! 

And if agitators attempt violence in order to discredit the march, here's the strategy

Ted sez do what we can, be safe, and loud.

Paris, life offering lemons, White rabbits

White rabbits, for July 1st, also Happy Canada Day

 Edith Holden's tribute to July

And a special day for Lucia and her fans

I may reread her in tribute. 

Then life, well Misfits,  literally gave me, well sold me,  lemons, so beautiful I had to take pictures. 

I zested two of them then pitted and sliced them for the freezer. The other two will keep on the counter where I can enjoy seeing them 

Speaking of famous people and streets, more or less, this suddenly showed up on my timeline

This is the street I lived on when I worked in a Paris family as an au pair. I was there in the late 50s.

See the very top floor, under the roof? My private room was a tiny place up there with a marvelous view, much better than my employers ' affluent apartment several floors lower.  The attic floor was the servants quarters when the boulevard was built, dating back to live-in help. Also suitable for starving artists.

Right across the street lived Francoise Sagan, of "Bonjour Tristesse" fame, very young, newly affluent,  and my employer used to grumble at how badly she treated her wildly expensive cars. I used to wonder if a little bit of envy got in there.

Fast forward to now, and this morning I started weaving skirt panel four, 

so happy to be making again. I tried a bit of knitting yesterday, 

and found my neck wasn't quite ready, but getting there.

 Happy day everyone, when life brings lemons, we can try looking for the workarounds. Sometimes there's a workaround.

June's over, Pride isn't.

 

In praise of lemon zest, and freezing lemons

A while back a neighbor who was going on vacation, gave me a bag of half a dozen lemons on the grounds that they would be no use when he got back and that I would no doubt make good use of them.  Which I did.

Far too many for me to use fresh, so I zested them all, then sliced the rest of the lemons.  And froze the lot.  I blessed the day I did it, since it enabled me to make real lemonade back there when I was sick, and the zest has flavored all kinds of foods, very simple, freezes well.

Today it came out again, when I made tomato, chickpea, yogurt and lemon zest soup.  

Wonderful bright flavor over the tomato, so I thought I'd mention it.  Lemons being the only citrus fruit I'm not deadly allergic to, they come in all the time for me, where oranges would be expected, great stuff.  Used zest yesterday in those sugar cookies.

The soup is very easy: one can diced tomatoes, one big can chickpeas, though you can buy them dry if you think of it the day before and soak them and cook them for ages, one small container of leftover yogurt whey, seasonings you see on the counter. Aside from the usual garlic and onion, sizzled for a while in the olive oil base before adding the other seasoning items.  They all cook a while before adding the vegetables and the liquid.  I sometimes add in a can of chicken broth.


As to seasonings, to wit: turmeric, a big fave in this house, excellent health food as well as lovely color, fresh ground black pepper, see it in its little glass grinder, kosher salt, and the aforementioned lemon zest, of which I used a tablespoon or thereabouts.

This makes about six servings of soup.

And when there's a good price on lemons, I plan to stock up and freeze. I supposed you could squeeze and freeze the juice, but I didn't go that far.