Nothing like the green of spring after the long brown of winter. It is on, and I am loving it!
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Spring is finally showing her beautiful face in our neck of the woods! Look at this gorgeous first flush of leaf and bloom, a spirit lifter if ever there was! This photo is service berry, and I absolutely love the little whisper of spider web on the bottom bud.
I am equally delighted to think there will soon be food in the form of flowers for the eager bees and wasps giving our garden a good zoom.
Sea buckthorn lives up to the name. We planted male and female bushes, but have yet to make any fruit, which is a real shame.
aspen
choke cherry
golden currant
rose
russian elm and babbling brook
Happy Winter Days! We are blissfully over a very localized blizzard (What do you mean there is no snow on the West side?!) and horrible deep freeze, lasting over a week and preventing any serious Juniper walks. On one occasion, we were out shoveling, and she had to wee, so she bounded out in her usual happy fashion only to realize the subzero temperatures by walking on her hind legs to spare her front paws from freezing. How is that for funny and sad in one gesture?
Here’s a hoot and holler for my best batch of marmalade, ever! As you hopefully can see, I used orange – blood and navel, lemon, and grapefruit, each of which is discernible, a perfectly balanced medley. I also added slivers of zest, as I only wanted the pith from half of the fruits. Good gracious – the color, the texture, the flavor. I am seriously in love with it. Greg is, too.
Costco had giant jars of nacho cheese at a very nice low, low price, so, of course, this nacho lover had to bring some home. I dolled it up with chipotles and pureed beans, this bit of salsa, and, of course, chopped slices of pickled jalapenos, for the perfect distribution of flavor in every bite. Happiness and memories of paper boats with light bulb warmed chips, layers of glorious glop, and fingers crossed for a generous spoonful of peppers when catching a movie at the Westminster Mall as a whipper-snapping teen.
I have really refined my soap-making these past few years, narrowing down my favorite scents and oil blends, even creating a most fabulous shampoo. Those above even have prickly pear juice from our own fruits, which makes for super nourishing bars. I’ve also taken to adding zinc oxide to both for all the skin and hair benefits (scroll down to Table 1 and take note of topical uses).
Further proof that everything in life is a work in progress, I added a little too much zinc to the standard soap, and it leaves a thin film on the bars in between uses. We’ll see if I can make it disappear, peeps!
Last look and a link to very fine listen of my favorite Thin Lizzy song…
Hello, and Happy day before Thanksgiving for my fellow celebrants! Are you knee deep in preparations? After a bit of blog work, I am heading to the kitchen to make pie crusts, definitely pecan, maybe a wee pumpkin, too.
It is a snowy day, the fifth in the past few weeks, which is a bit excessive for November, just sayin’.
We’ve had a lot of activity, with Greg flying to Florida for a week of biz-ness ( I did miss him!), a weekend visit from Jett and his girlfriend Peyton, a sleepover at Michael and Mary’s. All very good things that have kept me occupied.
Let us begin. Firstly, with a most colorful selection of windfall apples from around the neighborhood that were turned into the equally colorful jelly above. It is quite delicious!
I am a slow adopter of technology, and since the library very frequently only has electronic copies of books in my Goodreads queue, we resorted to buying a tablet for such reading adventures. One day, while browsig the ridiculously vast collection of media on offer, I stumbled upon the Kitten and the Bear Cookbook, a diverse collection of jellies, jams, and scones. This is their apple jam, which, to my mind, is a beautiful and delectable marriage of jelly and apple butter, made extra special by the addition of apple chunks, sadly not made from windfalls, but store bought. You can’t have everything, at least not all at once, peeps.
That dog is super fly…
This was our first snow, which, like the song, went on and on til the break of dawn! Seriously, we got 24″, the icicles pictured below, and a ridiculously long melt time.
As I was out snapping this collection of photos, I fretted over posting too much of the same, a meal made, a Pike’s Peak photo, another ambered leaf in fall, before mildly chastising myself that this is what seasons are, a repetition, two points joining to make a circle. It is also who I am, a person sharing her singular journey. Another year has passed, and I am grateful to have made it, yet again, to this time of intense color and diminishing light, a year older and hopefully wiser. I still make my mistakes, mostly quietly, occasionally with bravado and much brooding over them, before moving forward. Like the tree from bare to bud to green to yellow, orange, or red. It is all good.
Additionally, I would be remiss to not include the best song, sharing the title of the post, from the late and very, very great Chris Cornell for your listening pleasure, or at least mine. Seasons…
