The garden is beginning to offer us fresh produce. We have been eating fresh spinach in our green salads for about a week, at first just the wee plants that were thinned, now with small tasty leaves for salads and stir fries. We also have a few small beet leaves, and Chinese broccoli leaves. After cooking some extra rice, it is now frozen in ½ cup portions for quick lunches of rice with stir fried greens from the garden.
I had made a very substantial chicken and vegetable soup, using one chicken breast. It made almost four quarts of soup. It wasn’t my tastiest soup, not sure why, but as it is a nutritious soup, it makes for a quick lunch. Attila suggested adding two tablespoon of dill pickle brine to the soup bowl to spice it up, which didn’t seem like quite enough, so another two tablespoons were added. What a pleasant difference those four tablespoon of flavourful vinegary liquid made to the flavour of the soup. Brine from our home canned pickled items has so many uses.
I also added a litre jar of home canned tomatoes, store bought onions, and home canned red peppers using store bought peppers. The olive oil used in the soup was also store bought. Most of the herbs were from our garden, with the exception of the garlic granules and pepper.
The day is bright, blue sky with floating clouds. It isn’t all that warm this morning, jackets were needed for a morning walk. Attila and I walk two miles a day, one mile in the morning, and one mile in the afternoon. My knees won’t go much further than a mile before they start to complain, and we feel our two miles is adequate. The walks are enjoyable, always something interesting to observe in the sky, with the landscape, and in the neighbourhood.
When we walk we say hello to everyone we meet, even if they repeatedly ignore us, or scowl at us, which is rare. Most people are friendly right back, and some even stop to chat. Where we live is small-townish enough to make this behaviour feasible, it would be exhausting in a densely populated urban area, and potentially dangerous.
When I walk alone I am not as friendly to males as I am when I am with Attila. This is a result of many negative experiences with males taking my friendly greeting as flirtatious, which is has never been, and never will be. There are some men that although they are treated as equals, do not respond as equals.
Yesterday two dozen Chocolate Zucchini Muffins were baked, cooled, then packaged by twos for the freezer.
Today bread is being baked, and a batch of Kombucha is being transferred to mason jars, date labels attached, then into the refrigerator to enjoy for the next week or so.
Tomorrow will mean milling flour. The wheat berries will need to be sorted, weed seeds and small stones removed, then milled into whole wheat flour. The mill gets hot, so it is left to cool for thirty minutes after milling about four or five cups of wheat berries. This means the process takes up a great deal of the day, and is well worth the time and effort.
Yesterday Attila harvested the oregano for dehydrating. There was a lot, it will get us through the winter months.
Attila is out in the garden today, planting some of his seed starts in the earth. Most of the starts will go into the ground and not the raised beds. Seeds were planted directly into the soil in the raised beds. There are still two more raised bed frames to assemble and fill, but planting the starts takes priority over other projects, the additional raised beds will get done when they get done.
My Mom is considering moving to an apartment, a big change for her, and for my sister, with whom she has lived for decades. It isn’t that Mom is unhappy living with my sister and brother-in-law, or their shared home, she has been very, very happy there, and still is. Mom has many reasons to move into her own place, all of them valid, all of them carefully considered. It is exciting in many ways. My Mom knows what she wants. Of course, she is also entitled to change her mind at any tim
Worldly
Weather
13°C
Date: 8:00 AM EDT Friday 30 May 2025
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 100.5 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 13.2°C
Dew point: 12.7°C
Humidity: 97%
Wind: WSW 12 km/h
Visibility: 19 km
Quote
“A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”
Bertrand Russell
1872 – 1970
And so my general lack of respect for journalism, social media, and gossip, which are slowly becoming one and the same.
I hear you on experiences with men when alone. I tend to find men to be constantly worried that my just being kind and pleasant is some kind of overture. No, that’s just the way I’m built. You only see a negative side of me if you or someone around us is treating me or someone else badly. Still, at least there are a few men out there that have pleasant natures and don’t fear a woman who has a shy but pleasant (not forward) nature. (Yes, my experiences have almost consistently been with men who fear I’m coming on to them, rather than assuming I’m coming on to them.)
I’m looking forward to the beginnings of local produce for salads and such. DH used to enjoy planting a few cherry tomatoes and herbs, but he’s gotten out of that the last few years.
Teri, interesting to gain insight into another aspect of the gender conundrum. There are some very wonderful men out there, so glad we know some of them!
Soon the fresh Ontario produce will be showing up in the stores and markets, always a great time of year. I loved shopping at Kensington Market in Toronto, at that time I did not have a garden, so purchasing food from others was the only option, and it can work really well.