theora

There's still snow in the garden (this time last year I was planting peas!), but but but...



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Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.

I recently had a chance to visit Bigelow Prairie Cemetery in central Ohio. It's an old pioneer cemetery where the indigenous prairie plants have survived. It's totally surrounded by farmland in cultivation since the 1800s, now corn and soy fields (I'm guessing GMO round-up ready stuff at that), so the cemetery is one of a very few places where the native vegetation survives.

The place was mad with life. Butterflies (sulphurs, painted ladies, pearl crescents, and several others I couldn't identify), bees and wasps, spiders, beetles, hummingbirds - wherever I walked I caused a commotion of living things. I wouldn't have thought that a half acre would be enough to sustain so much life, and maybe it doesn't. But I'm not sure where else they could be going for food in the surrounding ocean of monoculture fields.

Unfortunately my pictures don't do it justice; my camera likes to wash out detail in bright light. Such as they are:

( Bugs, butterflies, and prairie plantsCollapse )

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.

Flipping through yet another holiday catalog featuring festive fair isle sweaters modeled in snowy winter backdrops, it occurred to me that catalog makers must believe cold weather imagery has sufficient appeal all over the country that it's worth loading their Christmas catalogs up with picture after picture of it. Unless, of course, they send out different catalogs to the parts of the country where it doesn't really get cold or snow, which I doubt. I just don't get how pictures of weather which isn't yours would be appealing. But then I'm also bewildered by Christmas decorations involving fake snow and snowflakes in warm places, and actually find them rather upsetting. So this is probably just another way in which I am weird.

The further upsetting thing is that winters in New England are getting warmer and warmer. I don't know how much longer I'll be entitled to the wintry stuff myself.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.

Can I just start by saying how utterly miserable this winter has been? Yes, I'm probably the only person who feels this way, and I know, last winter was difficult. But right now I feel totally disconnected from the seasonal cycle; how am I supposed to await the coming of spring when it's already been here for months? It's disorienting and really unpleasant.

Anyhow, the December and January state of the gardens didn't happen. And nothing's blooming outside in my garden (though I hear tell of snowdrops in nearby vicinities), so for actual flowers you'll have to be satisfied with houseplants.


African violets doing pretty well in eastern-facing window.
( Flowers, buds, shoots, and swellingsCollapse )

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.

14 quarts tomatoes
7 pints pear sauce
2 aching feet
1 blister from the food mill

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.

Well this is depressing.


Most common words used to advertise girls' toys


Most common words used to advertise boys' toys

(More details here.)

Wish I could come up with something insightful to say about this, but no, depressing is all I've got.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.

How to make cookies on a rainy day on not enough sleep.

1. Decide you want to make cookies. Realize you have two *coughmumble*-old egg whites in the fridge, and some slivered almonds you otherwise won't use, and remember there's a biscotti recipe using egg whites in one of your cookbooks.


2. Fail to find cookbook. Cast about the internet and come up with this recipe instead. Decide to make a half recipe, which means you can use one egg and one egg white instead of one and a half eggs, which will surely be fine. And slivered almonds can sub for whole almonds chopped, of course.


3. Set the oven to heat and stick the almonds in to toast. Measure out flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir with fork, which is as good as sifting.


4. Reach for butter. Oops, it's supposed to be melted. Start melting a stick while you add the egg, egg white, vanilla, and orange liqueur and zest to the bowl.


5. Get almonds out, chop them up a bit further for good measure. Having melted butter, realize you only needed five tablespoons, and you melted eight. Spoon out three Tb of liquid butter into a small bowl, hoping it's roughly equivalent to three Tb solid.


6. Add the melted butter to egg mixture, then add flour. Mix a bit, notice it's kind of gluey. Add almonds as directed and attempt to knead them in as they keep falling out.


7. Read next instruction: "Using floured hands, shape each dough half into 13 1/2-inch-long, 2 1/2-inch-wide log." Okay, there's no way floured hands are needed to shape this stuff, which is taking on the consistency of pizza dough.


8. Reread recipe from the top.


9. Add 3/4 cup of sugar to bowl.


10. Sugar won't mix in, so add another egg and a slosh of the leftover melted butter. Mix with your hands, trying to force the sugar in.


11. Once sugar appears incorporated, grab the flour bag and waft some over the top to make up for the additional egg-and-butter moisture. Add flour until the mixture is formable into a log with floured hands. Sure, the sugar, baking powder, and flavoring proportions are now off, but it'll probably be fine.


12. Form dough into a log, put on baking tray and bake as directed.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.

It's December, and all the leaves are gone.

( No snow yet, but...Collapse )

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.

Night of November 2-3 was our first frost. It seems very late.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment here - comments.