Great weather and harmony on the patio

 This morning was cool, and I found a new friend on the zinnias, Mr. Praying Mantis 

And wild and tame flowers and only a couple of weeds 

The peppermint is coming along, a new shoot there, showing why you need to keep it in a pot, or it goes for world domination.

It's such a lift to step out and visit these friends each morning. I will need to prune the butterfly bush, which also has plans for world domination.  This is plenty of garden for me to work these days.

Treasure everywhere, to quote Calvin and Hobbes 

I see that Khelif, boxing Olympic gold medalist, is planning to sue the slanderers who tried to ruin her life. After she celebrates her gold medal, against a wonderfully sporting opponent, who was not just gracious but generous in defeat. 

Some big names ought to be nervous now. I really hopes she gets justice. The Boston Globe was smart to retract and apologize quickly, too bad others weren't. It's FAFO time. 

Yesterday's cooking was spectacular! I won't drag you through the entire process of making Will Yeung's chickpeas and rice, just show you last night's dinner. 

The chili oil was featured in the sauce. I had to sub a couple of ingredients in the sauce, Worcestershire for oyster sauce, malt vinegar for black vinegar.  The result is really worth doing, spicy but not combat sport spicy, warm deep flavor. 

The fruit and ginger beer went fine with it. I like Yeung, and Spain on a Fork, because their meals are filling and satisfying but still very light.  And they reheat a treat. 

I'm a pote 

and I don't note.

I think I may make a fruit crumble for Handsome Son's birthday, whenever we celebrate it. The fruit's lovely, and I remember giving him chocolate cake last time he visited. I'm thinking plum and peach.

Happy day everyone, may all your gardens flourish, whatever form they take, including imaginary.

 

Here's our resident praying mantis looking right at us, greener and bigger. Gary came over to admire then took her picture.

After bringing me in to admire his newly installed fireplace insert, he leashed Billy the pup and decided to come on my walk. He'd never been down that side of the development, and was amazed at the frogs leaping about.

On the way back, we met a neighbor new to Gary, whom I've known for years. We admired her vegetables, her Yorkie and Billy made friends, and so it went.

The weather was just about cool enough for  walking, so I  thought it would be a waste to be indoors at the knitting group if there is one. I'll get back when the heat moderates.

I also made  arrangements for the water heater, incredibly expensive, at least double last time, to be ordered for installation next week, and for  dryer vent  and chimney inspection and cleaning also next week.  This month, with the several $K hearing aids, will set me back quite a bit. Good thing my stock fund has gone up,  and I can pay for it all, so there's that.  Thank you, Joe!

Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured a young yardage weaver who encourages everyone to make clothes from their own woven yardage, not to fear cutting into it. She has done custom sewing, including wedding dresses, also her own. She also sells kitchen cloths and insists people use them, not just keep them "for best". Joanne would approve.

this length was woven, unwoven and rewoven to get this blurred effect.

And here's her favorite jacket with great pockets usually crammed with what she needs in her current project.

Behind her here is a dress she made for herself. She started life in computer software and web design, and says weaving is really programming. It has a lot in common. 

I usually knit or stitch or weave while I watch and do screenshots. Yesterday I was pinloom weaving, because I have another idea about woven and stitched patches worked together in a piece, using my backlog of both.

So yesterday was pretty full, one way and another. 

I pretty much followed this suggestion

Happy day, everyone, my potatoes will soon be ready to harvest!  

One of the  joys of writing a blog is that my words are never interrupted as I go. Any small woman with a small voice reading this will know how precious that is. You get right to the end without anyone cutting in,  shouting you down and arguing, it's lovely. Anyone can get their turn in the comments, and that's fine. Just sayin'.

 

Good things happening anyway

 Here's some excellent legislation for my state, which has a long history of failing to fund the transportation sector. In fact previous governors raided the trust fund to finance their own pet projects. This changes now.

Notice where the funding is coming from. Take that, Amazon!

And I wrote a line of encouragement and support to Biden and Harris, and the office acknowledged it

We're good.

On the home front, I was out briefly early morning, and met a baby praying mantis. He must be very young, still transparent. I like having them around to help with mosquitoes. And he's on the hibiscus, so that's welcome in case any insects are planning to eat the new leaves.

Too humid and hot to venture out yesterday, so I set up an afternoon of Lucia, with a glass of rooibos and chamomile sun tea.

Supper was pancakes and plum sauce, the pancakes made with AP and chickpea flour. 

This cooking didn't heat the kitchen up, and there's batter to make more today. 

Happy day, everyone, I'm trying to shed more light than heat today.

Photo AC

Gloves, gardening with friends, and granola

 Yesterday I knitted. The new exercise for my neck seems to be pretty effective. I did this much on the second glove

with no ill effects this morning. This is great. And yes, before you say it, I won't go wild knitting. I'll keep it to a mild gallop.

In the middle of this, I brushed a hand across my eye, and got a stark reminder that earlier I'd been shaking Serrano pepper seeds I'd dried, into a container. The pain was amazing, and I ran to flush my eye with saline drops, then, once I could see out, checked on remedies for the burning eyelid. 

The handiest was vinegar, to neutralize the capsaicin, the hot stuff, with acetic acid. Like bee stings. Anyway bathing the eye area did gradually reduce the fire, gosh that wasn't fun. I'd also evidently inhaled it, and ended up sipping dilute apple cider vinegar till all was well, the desperate coughing subsided and I resumed knitting. Good thing knitting is calming. 

Those peppers, grown by Aditha, are very good indeed, chopped with homegrown plum tomatoes and diced yellow Gary potatoes, all doused with olive oil and fine sea salt and roasted. With a pita bread, I've had a couple of nice neighborhood suppers from them. The seeds are ready to shake over spaghetti. I was sure I hadn't handled them, too. Next time I'll rinse my hands in dilute vinegar afterwards, as insurance.

In other exciting news, I removed the morning glory

and hauled it out to the trees, here

This is a good place to toss organic material, good for the earth and the groundhogs and other residents appreciate it. Since I never spray, it's clean foliage.

And back home I noticed I was being observed from the Japanese maple

First praying mantis I've seen in ages. *She leapt to a lower branch, see her posing diagonally here, still watching me closely.

I wonder if I have her to thank for very few insect bites lately. They're fierce predators. *corrections made to sex of the pm, thanks to Ellen's greater knowledge.

I'm thinking about making granola, haven't had any in a long time, and the latest yogurt batch turned out very well, so together they'd be a great breakfast. I expect thinking about the 7up series brought back the granola days of the seventies! I have various ingredients that will work together. Watch this space.

Happy day, everyone, oh yes, the puzzle answer is

MEDIOCRE

I mean that's the actual answer, not a description of the puzzle.

Red Lentils Without Soda Bread

Well, the recipe, here actually has the dish with soda bread, but I didn't feel like making it, already have good wholewheat in the house anyway.

So since I had various bags of lentils around, when I found this recipe on twitter, it seemed like a good idea.  Fast, good food, not too laborious. 

Here's the makings

The recipe talks about cilantro, a handful, but I didn't have any on hand, so I subbed a handful of mixed spearmint and rose scented geranium leaves, worked fine.  And it's a brit recipe, in metric and in ounces, so I just guessed as I went. 

And here's the result

This resulted in quite a bit of extra water, seen here in the background, as well as lentils.  I spooned off the water, then mixed with the leftover lentils, blended with the immersion blender, and now I have two containers of lentil soup in the freezer for some time when I fancy them.  I'll probably add in some coconut milk when I reheat, too. This dish was a bit low on salt and other flavors, so I'd use more salt next time and probably a lot more garlic and chili pepper. And maybe some curry powder.

It's done with red lentils, which as you know, cook down faster than the other kind, because they're the peeled version.  So they make a nice cooked sort of mass in about half an hour.  The other sorts of lentils tend to keep their shape, which is okay if that's what you want.

While all this activity was going on in the kitchen, I noticed right outside the window a praying mantis hard at work in the Russian sage 

Haven't seen one this season, and it's always a welcome sight.  They are deadly on mosquitoes, and since I provided a snack for same on my brief trip out for the herbs, I'm glad to know she's at work on the issue.

Little Friend Shows up in the Garden Again

 
I love praying mantises, and often find one or more on my plants, devouring bugs for me at this time of year. This year it's quite a small guy, but none the less welcome.  See him there, giving us his better profile?

I find that the plural of mantis is mantises, how disappointing. I was hoping to find a more exotic one, such as mantok, or mantim, or maybe mantids.  Other languages have more interesting plurals.

When Handsome Son was a little guy, we sent away for a nest or chrysalis or something of praying mantises, and we had them hatching all over the vegetable garden, lovely.  Often we'd see a couple of babies hanging onto the back door screen, where they were quite able to withstand even high winds.  For years after, their offspring attended to bugs in the garden, very obligingly.

I love all the insects I ever met, because their architecture is so stunning.  Some really good artist made them..even the Asian stinkbugs have a wonderful sculptural shape.  

I realize that it's not everyone who gets excited about things like this.  Such as the friend who looked at me pityingly the other day when I pointed out a lovely miniature colony of fungi on the crossbar of my garden gate. 

You do realize, he said that this means it's rotting, no?  He's a contractor in real life, so fungi and that sort of thing on wood are not the same attractive items as they are to me, as I look at them through a magnifier!