Happy Mothers Day, and change of plan

Lovely ecard arrived from Handsome Son, who's working a full day today, so can't visit.  I played it several times!

And here's some good thoughts about art

Yes to just about all of this.

The weaving needed a change of plan, because I forgot, when I threaded, that pattern threads need to be doubled. My single threads didn't show up legibly. So I decided to continue anyway, with a medley of pattern motifs to see how it works.

Each mistake I make shows me why things are done the way they are. All good experience. And this band is giving me the chance to try a lot of the five pattern thread motifs in the book. They'll look different because of the single threading, and that will be interesting.

I think soup will be on today. Carrot, pumpkin, red lentils. This will be a nice color. 

The containers are whey from the paneer making, and I added in potatoes as well as the ingredients you see here, to make it thicker. I used two containers of whey and the third, still frozen, is back in the freezer.

Here's lunch, decorated with the last of the chive blossoms from the paneer.  It was a golden lunch, because dessert was mango chunks with the last of the paneer 

I had a great postprandial walk, local kids at the start playing football 

Then down the greenway between houses and golf course 

Then chats with neighbors and exchanged greetings for Mother's Day, to turtle watching at the pond 

And young golfers out doing pretty well. These are not the duffers.

Home again and the honesty is developing seedpods. I'm going to have a good harvest. The plants coming up among the sage are interesting -- they're running to seed while the sage blossoms are budding out. Outside there are iris budding up, after years of foliage.  I think they too are glad the butterfly bush is gone. 

So, reading on the deck, sleeping happened too, pot of tea, after checking the iris 

These are heirloom purple and white bearded iris, descended from some planted nearly 100 years on a now deceased friend's grandmother's farm south of here. There are others I gave to neighbors now in bloom, because they're in a sunnier location.

Tea featured several visits from a squirrel who kept forgetting I was there and suddenly realizing ohemgee a human, and dashing away, once with a carpenter bee in pursuit. They're territorial insects, and the squirrel was pottering about in the honesty where the bee was being busy.

Lovely Mother's Day, texted wishes, in person wishes, ecard, it was all good.

Now back to weaving, I realized you can try out a series of designs without making a whole band for each. Just because that's the tradition doesn't mean I hafta. This way I'll have a band that's also a sampler, and a few experiments thrown in. 

Happy day everyone. For some people this is a difficult day. If that's you -- it's just one day, soon done. Hang in there, sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula.

Memorial Day in the US

 It's Memorial Day, to remember and honor the people who died in wars. 

One way to honor them is to celebrate the living, and when Handsome Son announced he plans to come over this afternoon, I thought I'd better make a little something.

Yesterday I'd set dried apricots into apple juice overnight thinking maybe a sauce for fish. 

Then Gary came dashing in last evening, i was spinning and winding on, so I couldn't put the spindle down. 

He had been grilling chicken and got a plate out of my kitchen cabinet to leave me some slices for today.

So then I thought ah, apricot sauce and chicken, great. Then when handsome Son planned to come over I rethought.

Made the apricot, juice and cane sugar into preserves this morning

the idea being jam tarts. 

A search for a nice pastry recipe not written in impenetrable British terms was, um, fruitless. So I searched on and remembered making the artisanal apple pie which readers will remember from a while back. That was when I found that artisanal doesn't mean quick. 

But the pastry, buttery and flaky, was worth a try.

I noticed that the preserves set up much more glutinous than expected because I forgot the pectin in apple juice as well as apricots. 

So I had to think yet again. I doubted if it would work to bake the tarts as usual with the preserves in them. Better bake blind (empty) then add the preserves.

I like this way of baking blind which I did ages ago and liked - draped over the other side of the muffin pan

I rerolled the extra pastry to freeze for a future fruit pasty

Cook's privilege bottom left 

See it's lovely and flaky

 

I had to take a guess at baking time, so settled on 15 mins at the normal flaky pastry 400°f. I could have taken them out a minute earlier, noted for next time.

So here are Memorial Day Fruit Tarts. A couple will probably go next door, Gary loves anything to do with jam. And I have extra preserves, maybe to go with the extra pastry.

Yesterday I took a stab at gardening, got the sage tied up searched in vain for Iris rhizomes. I think they may have rotted. 

Found one, which I'll hopefully replant in a better spot. Out front I know there are quite a few under the pachysandra waiting for rescue another day. 

And in honorary family news, most people wave cute baby pictures of grandchildren, or sweet little dancers in tutus. 

Here's my honorary granddaughter with her marathon and 5K friends.

Front row. Banana suit. I rest my case.

Also seen lately, on Freecycle

And let's not forget on Memorial Day, the people now fighting and dying in Ukraine, fighting our proxy war, to secure Europe from a would-be dictator.

Happy day everyone, enjoy being here.

Lilac time, iris and the dating (pit) game

 A few yards away on a neighboring patio

The scent drifts over on the wind.

And the first iris opened yesterday. I think the pachysandra has covered the others too much to bloom. Plenty of foliage, no buds yet.

And, in the hope springs eternal category, here are some Medjool date pits soaking for a few days to see if I can get germination. I'm thinking of a houseplant rather than a date crop. Has anyone reading succeeded in sprouting a plant from date pits? 

The ginger hasn't done anything yet, but the yellow potatoes are sprouting.

I'm impatient for the fencing project to be done so I can get the ficus tree out of the living room and to camp on the patio. 

That's the naturalist's notebook for the day.

Irises, heirloom and reblooming

The purple and white are from the farm of a friend's grandmother, who inherited them from her mom.

The white and the blue are reblooming, and are only just finding their feet after two years. With luck, they'll bloom again in the fall.

Taken five minutes ago.