I went for a walk...

on the premise that I would forage some free food. I love free food. I wasn't disappointed. The sights were pretty darned good too.

Whenever I need a quick, simple walk, I head for the creek and this bridge. It's always a peaceful refuge in the middle of the city, but I was also sure the path would provide me with an abundance of summer fruit.

Just a few puddles left from the torrential rains on Monday.

I see you lookin' at me.

My goal was wild red raspberries, but they were well protected by these vicious, vicious things. I brushed up against just one when reaching for the red berries. Ooooh, instant searing burn. All of the red raspberry patches seemed to have nettles mixed in. The pain was just not worth it to me. I went looking for blackberries instead.

There you are my pretties...

There you have it. Free food. I now have blackberry cordial brewing in the cupboard and I have more berries stashed in the freezer. Not bad for a couple hours of foraging.

Composting

I just found out I'm a criminal. Are you kidding me? Composting in my city is illegal???

Um, too bad. I refuse to stop. What are they going to do, dig up the compost area of my garden to see what I have buried there? "Hey, Mister, let me get you one of my shovels so you can turn it all over for me. It will decompose even better." Hah!

Stupid laws. Just sayin'.

Cherries are in.

I love cherry season, and the sight of trees loaded with juicy red fruit just about makes me swoon. I love the smell, but especially the taste of freshly picked, sun warmed tart cherries. Heck, I don't even mind my fingers being sticky and stained from picking. Fresh picked fruit is so worth it.

Picking cherries (and blueberries) was my summer job for a few years. I always liked the sense of accomplishment that came with filling those buckets one right after the other, and of course I liked the money. Hey, five dollars a day was a lot to me back then. However, some of my favorite memories have to do with sitting perched on a branch high up in the tree, shaded from the blazing sun and gorging on juicy deliciousness as I watched others walking around beneath me. Oh, the taste...

As a young girl, I remember staying overnight with an aunt whose house was surrounded by a cherry orchard

and she would send us out to pick fresh fruit from the trees in her yard so she could make a pie. I. Love. Cherry. Pie. I really do. I'm trying to figure out what my favorite pie is and I can't be sure, but at the moment I'm saying it's cherry.

So, Saturday morning, tart cherries were in and my plan for the day was to pick some. I ended up with 15 pounds of tart and I could have used more, but I also accidently ended up with 12 pounds of sweet. I seriously only meant to pick enough to eat within a couple days, but because it took me a long time to fill a bucket with tarts, I guess I got carried away with how easy it was to pick the sweets and before I knew it, my bucket was full. So easy to pick. So easy to eat...I ended up giving away most of them, but I did keep just enough for me to eat within a couple days...or so.

The end result is cherry jam and canned cherry pie filling. I love having homemade pie filling in the cellar so I can whip up a pie any time I want during the winter. I'm thinking a cherry pie will be delicious in January.

Next up, blueberries and apricots. So much summer goodness.

African Violet

I've mentioned before about my grandmother keeping violets in the north window and how she always gave them the remainder of her nightly drink of water--and how they thrived for her. Well, it seems mine also love her cake stand.

I'm sure they feel special and pretty sitting on this stand and that's why they bloom so profusely. That, and the light, and the extra water I give them all the time. Still, I miss my grandmother.

Unexpected Return

I've been purging, slowly, deliberately and steadily. I've noticed the past couple of years that I'm getting irritated with the stuff in my house, stuff I've paid good money for, stuff that's stored in boxes or totes, stuff that's taking up precious space in my house and in my psyche. No one is using this stuff and no one wants it. Why am I storing it? Oh, because I might want this for the cabin, or the grandbabes might wear that, or one of the kids might want these--ya know? I know you know.

It's been hard--I won't kid you. At first, when I thought I was getting rid of stuff, I soon realized that I was really just moving everything around and repacking it better so it looked like I had more room. Later, as I was digging in an upstairs closet, I found a tote of stuff that I was sure I had gotten rid of and you know what? I was mad, like, grrrrr mad. I couldn't believe that I still had this tote of stuff, this stuff, this stuff I was positive I had gotten rid of. I needed a better plan. A plan that didn't include shuffling.

Here was my plan--start with three boxes. 1. Goodwill 2. Garage Sale 3. Ebay/Craig's List

Many days I would walk through each room and take at least one item and place it in one of those boxes. Some days I would tackle an area like my bedroom closet, or the linen closet, or the desk in the livingroom, perhaps a kitchen drawer or cupboard. If an item went in Goodwill, then I wrote the item on a list so I could deduct the donation. If it went in the garage sale, I priced it right then and there so everything was ready to sell. If it went on Ebay or Craig's List, well, I'm slowly listing those. Fortunately, that box is really bugging me at the moment so I'm researching the items to list at a fair price and in all fairness, there's not a lot in that box.

I've already made several runs to Goodwill and we just had a garage sale over the weekend. Whatever didn't sell, I logged and placed in boxes and then delivered the whole lot to Goodwill with a fond adieu as I drove away, relieved that none of that stuff was coming back home with me. Do I have lots more space? Not yet, but the space I have isn't crammed full of stuff anymore. I know I've gotten rid of boxes and boxes of stuff, but I can hardly remember any of it. Imagine that. I've found that the more I got rid of, and didn't miss, the more comfortable I was with letting more go. I stopped thinking about all the money I spent on this stuff because really, was it worth any more to me to have it boxed up and shoved in a closet? Okay, the money I would still have in my pocket had I not purchased all that stuff I just gave away would make me happy, but hey, lesson learned.

But here's the thing. I called this post the Unexpected Return because when I got up this morning I realized I didn't have anything pressing that I had to do. No clutter to take care of, no piles to sort through, no boxes accusing me of being a hoarder and slacker. Hmmm, I had time on my hands. My unexpected return is that I had time for doing what I wanted to do with no guilt, time for playing in the kitchen--which I did. It was a baking sort of morning and you know what? That's okay because I assure you, neither of these will be left in a week and they will certainly not be packed away in a box. No, they will most certainly be consumed.

Am I finished purging? Heaven's no, I still have a lot of purging to do, but I've eliminated so many of the glaring items that were in my home just because. I still have lots of boxes in the attic and cellar that need to be gone through, but for now I think I'll reward myself and spend some more quiet time in the kitchen.

Have you purged? Have you had an unexpected return? Would you care to share?

Snap. BOOM!!

Wow, what a storm we had last night. I knew there was something wierd about it when I was driving home from work and the lightening seemed especially snappy, not like normally where I see the flash work it's way across the sky. No, these were like, snap!, sudden flashes that blazed and burned out. I sat on my enclosed front porch for over an hour watching the lightening and listening to the booms of thunder. Even the thunder was different in that I normally hearing rumbling, but these were just booms, like a gunshot. Oh, and something else that was unusual is that every time the lightening flashed, my front door crackled. Wierd, but I didn't give it too much thought. I went inside to check the weather on TV and B called. We talked for a bit about how wierd the storm was acting and then I opened the front door to go back out on the porch. Still holding the doorknob, and just as I stepped out onto the porch, snap, BOOM, lightening struck in the park right in front of my house. I screamed (I'm pretty sure B is deaf in that ear now) and then I laughed as I told B about the lightening. Then I saw all the steam coming up from where the lightening hit and wouldn't you know, I didn't have my camera handy. It was then that I realized that my hand and feet stung. Hmmm, I think I got a little flash from the lightening. Later, after the storm passed, I went outside and took this picture. You can see where it hit on the bottom of the picture and then the crazy squiggles from moving through the grass.

Guess I should pay attention when my door starts crackling...or just wear shoes during a storm. Perhaps I should just stay inside?

He's like that.

He loves strawberries, almost as much as he loves watermelon and that's saying a lot. A few weeks ago when he went with me to pick up vegetable plants for the garden, he practically begged me to buy strawberry plants. I told him my garden isn't set up for a berry patch because they need lots of space. He thought he could take them home instead, but his yard isn't set up for a berry patch either. We compromised. I said I would take him berry picking with me this year instead. Can we say, excited?? Well, strawberry season is upon us and since we had to be to the berry patch early in the morning, he might as well spend the night with me. You like how I worked it so I could have a Little with me?

Friday night we went for a bike ride. We meant to go for a long ride, but I noticed he wasn't coasting and upon further inspection, I realized his brake was always rubbing on the tire so the poor little guy was pedaling twice as hard as he should have. We stopped to rest, he needed a breather, but we were devoured by mosquitos. Sorry darlin', I know you're tired, but you have to keep moving. We made it just over 5 miles by the time we finished and he didn't quit. He's like that.

 

We'll wait til the bike is fixed and try this again, but next time we'll bring bug spray too.

Both of us were hot after the ride and since it's summer, and since the night was still young -- we stopped for ice cream, unintentionally big ice cream.

 

Hmmm, must burn off the sugar. I know, let's go for a couple mile walk to get a movie!

 I have to laugh because he was crazy excited about the walk. He's like that.

And he talked all the way there and all the way back. He's like that too.

We were up late watching the movie and I reminded him that we had an early morning if we were going to pick berries. "That's okay," said he, "you just call me and I'll get right up." And he did. He's like that.

I picked most of the berries we brought home. He ate most of the berries he picked -- and he talked, to me, to the people running the berry patch and to the other patrons who were picking near us. I did say he loved strawberries. Did I mention how much he loves conversation?

I could hear him in the livingroom playing Legos while I cleaned and prepped berries for the freezer. It's so entertaining to eavesdrop on his imaginative play. 26 pounds of prepped berries later, the two of us wandered out to the back yard to sit in the shade and while I worked on an embroidery piece, he lay on a sheet in the grass playing with toy farm animals. It wasn't long before he lost interest in having his sheep attack the cows and his chickens beat up the pigs (he's like that) so he rolled himself up in the sheet, which set off a fit of giggling. He's like that.

After untangling himself from the sheet, he flipped it into the air to try to lay it flat again, but instead it blew over the top of him. Then, well, I don't know, but it seems his boyishness just overcame him because he was soon running, and jumping, and twisting and tumbling in the sheet and you would have thought it was the best toy in the world with all his grins and giggles and laughter.

He had a fabulous time in that silly old white sheet. It captured him, he captured it, it was a rug, he was a ghost, it was a flying carpet, he was a mummy. He thinks I should keep this silly old white sheet handy for the next time he's over. He really does think it's the "best thing ever!" He's like that.

And I love that about him.