skulking around in the heat
freow. it’s HOT!
I made the best of it: sent Amber the (finally completed) Josephine-knot paracord bracelet (Amber, I hope it fits!), schlepped my one item to the dry cleaners’ (I am 98% opposed to dry cleaning, and this is the only jacket that gets to go), bought bug spray (ah, New Jersey!), finally remembered to go to the bank, and went to Purl Jam, for pleasant conversation, great yarn, and refreshing A/C. If she had a coffee bar in there, I’d probably never get any work done AND I’d have no money left. I urge you to visit…it’s worth it. Buy some yarn!
It’s so miserable out that all the garden work’s been curtailed for evenings only (if at all), and I’ve mostly just been overseeing progress: the pumpkins and golden purslane are the stars of the summer, although I know that the kale can’t help it: it’s just too damn hot for kale to be happy. Last summer, the kale rocked, but we had really no tomatoes to speak of, and I can always plant kale as a fall crop: you certainly can’t do that with tomatoes!
I made cottage cheese!
I feel like a wizard!
Seriously. There’s something magical about watching something coalesce right in front of your eyes.
Although I do think that assembling flat-pack furniture from IKEA at the same time as making cheese has hurt my modern homesteader cred somewhat.
Countdown to Colorado
Whee!
Is it wrong to be planning a cheese & ice cream tour of Boulder, before even landing in Colorado? In other way-too-early-news, I’ve had the surreal experience of test packing the same suitcase with the same stuff twice, and had it end up fine the first time & bursting at the seams the second time. I am talented, that’s for sure. And I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of important stuff that’s not even packed yet.
I’m also a bundle of nerves for my Botany final & trying to study & keep all the words from leaking out of my head. I have an A average & am hoping not to kamikaze it to oblivion on the last day of class. 
I’m taking my real actual camera to Colorado this year: after trying to document the trip with the iPhone last year, I came to realize that I’m a macro-dork, and can’t be happy unless I’m photographing some gnat’s backside, and had better take the big camera on trips. So, Flickr friends, prepare for the deluge.
I have nothing to say
…I’ve been in the house for 8 days, sick as a sick monkey.
The vegetable garden is booming, but ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE has gone on.
I am very busy & very bored at the same time, which is an accomplishment of sorts, but not a very interesting one.
I would be laughing very hard at myself, but my back hurts from being in bed for a week, and I have an earache from wearing headphones for a week, and this state of affairs is even funnier than being bored & busy simultaneously.
Mostly, this post is to remind me that I have a blog & need to update it.
Lyme Disease!
Yup.
It’s funny, too, because I was so out of it from running a fever for four days, I saw the big old bullseye rash & thought I had the plague or something. But I’m lucky that it showed up, because I would have continued thinking I had the flu, when actually there was help to be had. So, I have me some antibiotics & now it’s time to go back to bed. Yay.
On the mend!
Damn! Some fever this has been…it’s finally starting to go away. I started doing some new paracord bracelet prototypes & knitting some stuff to sell for the winter season, as all the time stuck in bed has been gnawing my mind to mush.
ugh
but not dead!
102F fever? What the…?
Craig & I have some wretched cold, except mine’s largely come in the form of a bone-crushing fever.
I sneeze about twice an hour, but otherwise it’s just all fever, all the time, since about 10:30 this morning. Is there a summer flu going around?
sour cherry cobbler
Sour cherries from our own tree: the birds (who normally steal all of the fruit) were rather pissed off that we took away so much, but they get everything above 7′, and we get everything below (which isn’t much: 4 cups of cherries, in the end).
This was a pretty good recipe: I was afraid to sweeten it too much, in case it became insipid, so it kinda smacks you in the face a little. But some vanilla ice cream mellows it out perfectly, and it’s not a drop too sweet or too tart, a la mode.
I’m gonna plant more trees!
ice cream, with a chance of hail
Between sweating in the garden, and sweating in the house (really? Is it really just May? Why is it so hot?), I took a break to whip up some ice cream. I pretty much made it up as I went along, so please forgive the lack of precision:
Coconut-lime ice cream (requires an ice cream maker)
1 can of coconut milk
1 half-pt. of heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
8 Tb. light agave syrup (or to taste)
1/2 vanilla bean (scrape out the pith only…I like to put the empty bean in a small cup of sugar & let it sit around until the sugar all smells of vanilla.)
1/2 c. key lime juice (I was trying to use up what was left over from making pies, so this amount could also be adjusted to taste)
1. Chill the can of coconut milk: I used it straight from the pantry & it slowed down the chilling process too much, so: don’t be like me.
2. Dump all the ingredients in the ice cream maker, as per the maker’s instructions.
3. Watch as they swirl around, and try not to drool into the ice cream maker.
4. Put in airtight containers (with a little headroom, so they don’t expand too much), and freeze for 3-4 hours, or until you can’t stand it anymore & need to have some.
I also did a small container with graham cracker crumbs swirled in, a la premium brand Sarabeth’s Key Lime Pie ice cream; it seemed like fun.
As I’m writing, we’re supposed to be outside, stapling up the chicken run’s wire, but an ugly storm is moving in….fingers crossed we don’t get hail, because that’s what’s in the forecast. Yikes!
My Dad’s Pet Fig Trees
real food challenge
my awesome cousin