Song of the day: “Sweet home Alabama” by Lynerd Skynerd (sp?) I know, it suits summer so well, doesn’t it? Even though at the moment we are having some seriously chilly weather for this time of year. Brrr. I’m going to need to get myself a sweater, or something.
So yeah, I don’t have a lot of time today, considering that most of the day was spent preparing for another canning session (tomorrow) and that I still have to print A.I.L.’s query letter and synopsis again, because it has been six months since I sent the package and haven’t heard anything despite the return postage stamp I had to add. *sigh* So exhausting. Hah.
Like I mentioned, today was spent preparing for canning. I washed pots, cooked them for ten minutes and cut a load of veggies with the help of tenant and Dani. Tomorrow we’ll be canning pumpkin, zucchini, green beans and tomatoes, yay. I had wanted to do some experimenting with melons, but since the melons aren’t ripe yet, it will have to wait, darn it.
First thing the morning, after laundry, breakfast and walking tenant down to my terrace, was painting the new ladder for the Land Rover’s imperial. This took only a short time, so afterward tenant and I walked down to the lower terrace where she kept us company and even helped out by cutting a fair share green beans.
Before we got that far, though, I first had to pluck the beans, naturally. These were the last French beans, by the way. It was time to yank out the plants and strip them of their last few fruits. There were quite a few left, but a lot of bad ones too. There will be only three pots, at most.
Which brings us to yesterday, doesn’t it?
Writing didn’t go too bad. Got three pages down, as usual, along with a solid idea for the end scene which I’ve been working on since early this morning. It just popped up in my head like a movie, and has been chomping at the bit to get out ever since.
But where was I, oh yes, yesterday. Well, there was the yard, of course. These days we’re harvesting at least once a day, sometimes twice. Tomatoes are absolutely great, not to mention gorgeous. I even made a picture of a tomato that was the size and shape of an apple. Really weird. It was tasty, though. Hah.
Most of the stuff that we prepared for tomorrow was gathered yesterday...except for the ten melons (they need to ripen a bit yet, but we have a rodent problem, apparently, so they had to be plucked) which look downright delicious. I can hardly wait.
There are quite a few patches freeing up by now
We also had to water some stuff, but now that we’ve got drip-tubes in there’s a lot less of that.
Then there was tenant who spent a lot of time with me, naturally. Considering caregiver has some more hours at her other job, tenant (luckily) doesn’t mind hanging with us more. In fact, she actually seems to enjoy helping out with canning and cooking and such.
At the moment I’m a little worried about Gada (my black labrador) she appears to be a little on the thin side, in particular because she used to be decidedly chubby. I do hope that it isn’t her Leismania playing up, because if that’s the case, I’m going to have to take her to the vet for a test. *sigh* Poor Gada.
The plan is that grandpa and I start working on sanding my future hardwood floor (we’ve decided to go for waxing, rather than varnishing), but what with everything going on, and what with tomorrow already fully booked, he’s been doing most of it on his own, darn it.
The weather is extremely wonky at the moment, seriously, after a fresh day the evening is downright chilly. Which reminds me, I’ve got to get a sweater...there, okay. I’m going to leave it at this. I’m drawing a blank anyway and, well...I need sleep.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
From here and back again
Song of the day: “In and out of love” by Armin Van Buren and Sharon Den Adel. Beautiful song, and luckily not all that hard to sing. Hah.
What have I been up to these past few days? Gawd, I’m drawing a complete blank from this very morning on. Yup. It was spent with annoying bureaucracy once more and seriously, it makes me want to crawl up the walls.
Not that it went bad, or anything. It’s just annoying. First there was the trip to town hall, where I had to deliver a form mom had filled in...oh yeah, that reminds me, I was there yesterday as well, because it turns out we have a tenant registered here, that doesn’t live here. Really weird, but there you have it. Now the biatch is that in order to write him out, we might have to resort to legal steps, just because we have no way of contacting this person. *sigh*
But anyway, the foreigner liaison at town hall, was nice enough to write down the details, which I had mom sign so I could hand deliver them back. Then, we discovered that while we had an unexpected tenant, grandpa wasn’t properly registered. I know, insane, right? Well anyway, it took about an hour (the computer was blocked) for the error (of grandpa) to be corrected, while the unexpected tenant would have to be handled by the district, rather than the town. *sigh*
Bureaucracy exhausts me. Oh, right, now I remember. Yesterday involved driving to town to drop of the Opel, then doing some small groceries and heading back home...only to get a phone call that the car was done. Decided to go later in the day to pick it up.
Which also reminds me, there was a bit of startle early in the morning. Coppers honked and wanted to know if there were any illegals living around here. Huh? Seriously. For that they freak me out? Yikes. Luckily they were nice enough, and didn’t make a total nuisance out of themselves...though they did take more than thirty minutes just jotting our information down...meaning I was late for the garage. *double sigh*
Be that as it may, I did manage to get some serious writing done yesterday, despite all the distractions. We did go for a dip in the sea after picking the car up, by the way. The water was downright freezing, and the waves too high for some serious swimming. It was nice to play in the waves a bit, however, so it wasn’t an entirely wasted afternoon after all.
But let’s get back to today, I get so distracted. Where was I. Ah yes, this morning, town hall, followed with a trip to our insurance agent to get at least copies of our papers, because the official ones haven’t arrived yet. That took some waiting again, and afterwards I headed straight for the back to make sure that the insurance for the Daewoo will not be automatically withdrawn. This took a full hour of waiting, during which time I literally almost dozed off right there. Hah.
That done, we went back home to drop grandpa off and then heading on towards the village and the vet hospital. It was time to pay for the big batch of vaccinations from last month. Added to that, prior to heading out, big brother and I took a nice batch of harvest from the yard, which I put in a basket and gave to the vet to thank her for giving us such a good discount, and for agreeing to be our mailing address for some biological seeds that just won’t get brought to our home (out in the boondocks, remember?) no matter how often we try.
Sitabah and Dax came with us, just because the idiots had scaled the fence again when we brought grandpa back. Since I was too friggin’ lazy to bring them back inside, they came along. Of course while big brother got out of the car (we were in a rush because lunch hour was there and the vet was at the verge of leaving, and we had to head back because Sally needed a ride to her job) Sitabah jumped out, and decided it was smart to run straight onto the street. Grrrr. Seriously, if she’d gotten hurt, I would have strangled her. As it was, I managed to catch her, and tossed her back into the car.
Finally we came back home, at which time I changed into something a little more comfortable, and then walked tenant down to the basin terrace. We made supper of fresh beets, potato, onion and cheese, and it was wonderful. Didn’t get much writing done, thought, just too distracted.
In the end I gave up trying and went into the yard again to check everything, harvest some more peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers. All in all a wonderful way to end the evening, which brings us to this blog, doesn’t it? Well, this will have to do. I only managed one page after all, and maybe I’ll get another slammed out before I give up on the day and hit the sheets.
What have I been up to these past few days? Gawd, I’m drawing a complete blank from this very morning on. Yup. It was spent with annoying bureaucracy once more and seriously, it makes me want to crawl up the walls.
Not that it went bad, or anything. It’s just annoying. First there was the trip to town hall, where I had to deliver a form mom had filled in...oh yeah, that reminds me, I was there yesterday as well, because it turns out we have a tenant registered here, that doesn’t live here. Really weird, but there you have it. Now the biatch is that in order to write him out, we might have to resort to legal steps, just because we have no way of contacting this person. *sigh*
But anyway, the foreigner liaison at town hall, was nice enough to write down the details, which I had mom sign so I could hand deliver them back. Then, we discovered that while we had an unexpected tenant, grandpa wasn’t properly registered. I know, insane, right? Well anyway, it took about an hour (the computer was blocked) for the error (of grandpa) to be corrected, while the unexpected tenant would have to be handled by the district, rather than the town. *sigh*
Bureaucracy exhausts me. Oh, right, now I remember. Yesterday involved driving to town to drop of the Opel, then doing some small groceries and heading back home...only to get a phone call that the car was done. Decided to go later in the day to pick it up.
Which also reminds me, there was a bit of startle early in the morning. Coppers honked and wanted to know if there were any illegals living around here. Huh? Seriously. For that they freak me out? Yikes. Luckily they were nice enough, and didn’t make a total nuisance out of themselves...though they did take more than thirty minutes just jotting our information down...meaning I was late for the garage. *double sigh*
Be that as it may, I did manage to get some serious writing done yesterday, despite all the distractions. We did go for a dip in the sea after picking the car up, by the way. The water was downright freezing, and the waves too high for some serious swimming. It was nice to play in the waves a bit, however, so it wasn’t an entirely wasted afternoon after all.
But let’s get back to today, I get so distracted. Where was I. Ah yes, this morning, town hall, followed with a trip to our insurance agent to get at least copies of our papers, because the official ones haven’t arrived yet. That took some waiting again, and afterwards I headed straight for the back to make sure that the insurance for the Daewoo will not be automatically withdrawn. This took a full hour of waiting, during which time I literally almost dozed off right there. Hah.
That done, we went back home to drop grandpa off and then heading on towards the village and the vet hospital. It was time to pay for the big batch of vaccinations from last month. Added to that, prior to heading out, big brother and I took a nice batch of harvest from the yard, which I put in a basket and gave to the vet to thank her for giving us such a good discount, and for agreeing to be our mailing address for some biological seeds that just won’t get brought to our home (out in the boondocks, remember?) no matter how often we try.
Sitabah and Dax came with us, just because the idiots had scaled the fence again when we brought grandpa back. Since I was too friggin’ lazy to bring them back inside, they came along. Of course while big brother got out of the car (we were in a rush because lunch hour was there and the vet was at the verge of leaving, and we had to head back because Sally needed a ride to her job) Sitabah jumped out, and decided it was smart to run straight onto the street. Grrrr. Seriously, if she’d gotten hurt, I would have strangled her. As it was, I managed to catch her, and tossed her back into the car.
Finally we came back home, at which time I changed into something a little more comfortable, and then walked tenant down to the basin terrace. We made supper of fresh beets, potato, onion and cheese, and it was wonderful. Didn’t get much writing done, thought, just too distracted.
In the end I gave up trying and went into the yard again to check everything, harvest some more peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers. All in all a wonderful way to end the evening, which brings us to this blog, doesn’t it? Well, this will have to do. I only managed one page after all, and maybe I’ll get another slammed out before I give up on the day and hit the sheets.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Canning the excess
Song of the day: “I just wanna make love to you” by Etta James. Again.
It’s been a friggin’ busy day, and I think I’m running on fumes.
Why, I hear you ask? It was CANNING DAY. Seriously, nothing too serious, but it is time consuming and somewhat exhausting. Hah.
It started yesterday, really, with boiling bottles and such for today’s use.
At the same time I cut about 12 pounds of Gherkins. All got sliced and after putting them into a bucket (filled up to three quarters) I filled it up with water and salt so it could pickle for 24 hours or so. So yeah, this my first time ‘round with pickles, so basically today was spent experimenting with it. Bad thing is, we won’t know if it worked out until three weeks from now. Hah.
First there was some serious organizing to do, and one of the things that really had to be done, besides getting another table down so I’d have a surface to work on, was shoveling away sand. It’s been lying about ever since we started building the wall, and the dogs spread it out all over the place. It took me about fifteen minutes to get a semblance of a path going, but then it was time to get to it.
Yesterday was actually a pretty nice day, all things considered. Sure, it was warm and all, but it was rather wonderful to work in the yard after cleaning all those pots and cutting the Gherkins. Harvested tomatoes for today, put in new lettuces, even though it is doubtful that it will do much good. In summer lettuce (iceberg slaw in particular) does badly here. They’ll grow and then before they start forming a head they will shoot through into bloom, which kinda defeats the point of getting lettuce, doesn’t it. Ah well, gotta try anyway.
Not a lot of writing yesterday, but three pages nonetheless. The story is getting there, I have to say. I only have another 15.000 words to go, and still have several scenes to add, darn it. Why is it that I always have trouble with the limited word count? Seriously, I overshoot by 10.000 words if I’m not careful. Heck, I’d probably overshoot by 20K. It’s so much easier to do longer stories than it is to compound it into something shorter.
But okay, I’ll figure it out. Worst comes to worst, I’ll have to cut out words, or cut a scene (screams in horror). I know. How can I ever possibly do that? You don’t cut scenes...at least, I don’t. Hah. Ah, writing. Ya gotta love it.
I was late getting to bed, darn it, and so friggin’ tired I started nodding off half an hour before I finally got to my bed. Seriously, I’m really making it too late these past few weeks. I can hardly get out of bed in the mornings.
Which was a problem again this morning, seeing as I didn’t hear my alarm. I’m going to have to pick a different sound, because I just don’t hear it anymore. It made me half an hour late, meaning that I had to rush through the morning rituals which I positively hate to do. No matter, though, laundry had to be done, breakfast had to be made, and with the dogs howling around me, I headed up to tenant’s place to start on the day’s tasks.
Time for chickpea patties for dinner, btw, they worked out splendidly again, and I’m definitely adding them to my recipe book...same goes for the lentil patties for that matter, and maybe even the mix that has soy beans in them as well. Ah well, we’ll see.
That done, tenant and I walked down to the basin terrace where, by using the outside kitchen, we were going to do the canning in the great outdoors, rather than inside the dark stuffy kitchen. Yay. It was wonderful out. A bright sun, yes, but also a cool eastern wind that took the coolness of the see to us.
The majority of the morning was spent cutting herbs, peppers, onions and tomatoes...the latter for the tomato canning I planned to do as well once I got done with the pickles. Tenant’s caregiver was at her other job, so I took tenant down with me. She helped nicely, if I may say so. Seriously, she cut up to two kilos of tomatoes, and then continued on to cut zucchinis as well for our lunch.
While tenant was doing that, I started on the pickles which I’d decided to do the sweet and sour way. One by one I filled the pots (grandpa and big brother had to go to the village because of the moped...yes it is giving us trouble again) putting everything except dill, juniper berries and mustard seeds, which grandpa and big brother had to buy for me while they were out.
I’d just about filled all the pots (seven more than planned, mind you), added the herbs I had when they returned with the necessities. I added the last three things closed the lids and then started on the tomatoes. They cooked, and I started preparing the pots with lemon juice. It all fit in there ‘till the last drop, so now we have eight pots with herbal tomato mash and thirteen with herbal pickles...one pot died in the process, darn it. Spread glass and tomatoes all through the cooling bucket. Grrr.
Made lunch in-between, of course, for tenant as much as big brother and myself. Of course, as usual when I’m working with food, I wasn’t all that hungry, something for which I will undoubtedly pay later tonight, darn it.
Right now the last pots are being cooked, at which point I can finally start cleaning up ‘round here and start to get ready to head on up the mountain. I for one wouldn’t mind ending the day a little early today...in particular since the garage appointment is tomorrow and we’ll have to be a little early to make it.
Ah well, this will have to be it for the day. I’ve got a little more stuff to do, and maybe make a quick tour of the yard yet, and then it is up to my cabin terrace for some actual writing. Yay.
It’s been a friggin’ busy day, and I think I’m running on fumes.
Why, I hear you ask? It was CANNING DAY. Seriously, nothing too serious, but it is time consuming and somewhat exhausting. Hah.
It started yesterday, really, with boiling bottles and such for today’s use.
At the same time I cut about 12 pounds of Gherkins. All got sliced and after putting them into a bucket (filled up to three quarters) I filled it up with water and salt so it could pickle for 24 hours or so. So yeah, this my first time ‘round with pickles, so basically today was spent experimenting with it. Bad thing is, we won’t know if it worked out until three weeks from now. Hah.
First there was some serious organizing to do, and one of the things that really had to be done, besides getting another table down so I’d have a surface to work on, was shoveling away sand. It’s been lying about ever since we started building the wall, and the dogs spread it out all over the place. It took me about fifteen minutes to get a semblance of a path going, but then it was time to get to it.
Yesterday was actually a pretty nice day, all things considered. Sure, it was warm and all, but it was rather wonderful to work in the yard after cleaning all those pots and cutting the Gherkins. Harvested tomatoes for today, put in new lettuces, even though it is doubtful that it will do much good. In summer lettuce (iceberg slaw in particular) does badly here. They’ll grow and then before they start forming a head they will shoot through into bloom, which kinda defeats the point of getting lettuce, doesn’t it. Ah well, gotta try anyway.
Not a lot of writing yesterday, but three pages nonetheless. The story is getting there, I have to say. I only have another 15.000 words to go, and still have several scenes to add, darn it. Why is it that I always have trouble with the limited word count? Seriously, I overshoot by 10.000 words if I’m not careful. Heck, I’d probably overshoot by 20K. It’s so much easier to do longer stories than it is to compound it into something shorter.
But okay, I’ll figure it out. Worst comes to worst, I’ll have to cut out words, or cut a scene (screams in horror). I know. How can I ever possibly do that? You don’t cut scenes...at least, I don’t. Hah. Ah, writing. Ya gotta love it.
I was late getting to bed, darn it, and so friggin’ tired I started nodding off half an hour before I finally got to my bed. Seriously, I’m really making it too late these past few weeks. I can hardly get out of bed in the mornings.
Which was a problem again this morning, seeing as I didn’t hear my alarm. I’m going to have to pick a different sound, because I just don’t hear it anymore. It made me half an hour late, meaning that I had to rush through the morning rituals which I positively hate to do. No matter, though, laundry had to be done, breakfast had to be made, and with the dogs howling around me, I headed up to tenant’s place to start on the day’s tasks.
Time for chickpea patties for dinner, btw, they worked out splendidly again, and I’m definitely adding them to my recipe book...same goes for the lentil patties for that matter, and maybe even the mix that has soy beans in them as well. Ah well, we’ll see.
That done, tenant and I walked down to the basin terrace where, by using the outside kitchen, we were going to do the canning in the great outdoors, rather than inside the dark stuffy kitchen. Yay. It was wonderful out. A bright sun, yes, but also a cool eastern wind that took the coolness of the see to us.
The majority of the morning was spent cutting herbs, peppers, onions and tomatoes...the latter for the tomato canning I planned to do as well once I got done with the pickles. Tenant’s caregiver was at her other job, so I took tenant down with me. She helped nicely, if I may say so. Seriously, she cut up to two kilos of tomatoes, and then continued on to cut zucchinis as well for our lunch.
While tenant was doing that, I started on the pickles which I’d decided to do the sweet and sour way. One by one I filled the pots (grandpa and big brother had to go to the village because of the moped...yes it is giving us trouble again) putting everything except dill, juniper berries and mustard seeds, which grandpa and big brother had to buy for me while they were out.
I’d just about filled all the pots (seven more than planned, mind you), added the herbs I had when they returned with the necessities. I added the last three things closed the lids and then started on the tomatoes. They cooked, and I started preparing the pots with lemon juice. It all fit in there ‘till the last drop, so now we have eight pots with herbal tomato mash and thirteen with herbal pickles...one pot died in the process, darn it. Spread glass and tomatoes all through the cooling bucket. Grrr.
Made lunch in-between, of course, for tenant as much as big brother and myself. Of course, as usual when I’m working with food, I wasn’t all that hungry, something for which I will undoubtedly pay later tonight, darn it.
Right now the last pots are being cooked, at which point I can finally start cleaning up ‘round here and start to get ready to head on up the mountain. I for one wouldn’t mind ending the day a little early today...in particular since the garage appointment is tomorrow and we’ll have to be a little early to make it.
Ah well, this will have to be it for the day. I’ve got a little more stuff to do, and maybe make a quick tour of the yard yet, and then it is up to my cabin terrace for some actual writing. Yay.
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