Amfora.

I went down to the garden today, thinking I could harvest a few veggies.
You know. A handful of green beans, a cucumber or two.

This is what I came home with:

The beans are mostly Rattlesnake pole, with pretty purple streaks on the pods.

They have purple flowers and are planted together with Scarlet Runners, which makes for a very pretty tripod. Which you could see if I’d had the foresight to bring my camera with me. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

As you can see, that’s substantially more than a handful. And that’s five cucumbers (counting the curly one), with several slightly smaller ones left on the plants. And some portulaca, and a little baby carrot, and the sage is about 1/5th of the plant.

Ah July.

I think we’ll be eating green beans for a while.

I’ve been doing a lot of this sort of thing:

which unfortunately means not so much of the
knitting
cooking (at least not with time to document)
sewing
gardening
…
but I do get to spend lots of time with these toes…

…in knots.

Garlic scapes: spontaneous, not trained to do this!

Nature’s awesome.

This garden thing, it doesn’t actually require all that much time or effort, in the grand scheme of things, but having a 14.3 pound baby strapped to one’s front has quite an impact on one’s ability to plant, water, weed etc.
Still… we’ve been managing.
We’ve got bush cucumbers;

and carrots (that’s the sage planted last year in the background, doing very well indeed)

and my favourite – peas!

There are also pole beans and garlic and asian greens; photos to come.

It starts with having the presence of mind to remove a container of chicken stock made back in February from the freezer. This can be done even while holding a baby.
Score one for mommy-brain.

After that it’s just a matter of chopping some celery and carrots, sautéing in some olive oil, then adding some cubed potatoes and the stock (all done while papa manages the baby), and letting it all simmer for about 15 minutes. That’s just about the right amount of time to soothe a fussy baby.
Score two for mommy-brain.

A few minutes before serving, toss in some chopped green beans, put some cheese on toast or a hearty cracker and call it dinner. This is best done with papa in charge of the baby again.
Score three for mommy-brain.

Now, here’s the good part.

More presence of mind moves a piece of pastured local ham from the freezer to the fridge the same night.
The next day for lunch, heat up the leftover soup with some cubed ham and a few broken up spears of asparagus. This can all be done while the baby has a lovely little lunch-hour nap.
Result:

Full victory for mommy-brain.

Managed a few minutes today to pop some carrot seeds into the ground at the Community Garden. The peas I planted about a month ago are on their way, and last years garlic is satisfyingly tall and green, as is the sage.
Like so (unfortunately my real camera is suffering some kind of lens malfunction so we’ll have to settle for crappy cell phone pictures until the batteries for the backup camera are charged):

I was accompanied by Himself (you can see his snazzy orange stroller in the corner of the above picture), and he managed to refrain from wailing just long enough for a quick portrait of sorts.

I’ve also been working on another quilt. This is more of a “salvage an old comforter and cover the nasty old sofa” quilt than anything else. It’s extremely basic, with squares of various stash fabrics separated by strips of a duvet cover that generously sacrificed its previous identity for the project. The central panel is put together (thanks to the OH looking after His Royal Poopiness for a good chunk of Mother’s Day – hurrah!), and while it’s nothing special, I’m confident it will be more attractive than both the floral comforter I’ll be stuffing it with and the aforementioned nasty old sofa.

(You may notice, if these are the sorts of things that you notice, that I managed to piece it such that no fabrics repeat in a given row or column. Considering the severe case of new-mommy-brain I’m sporting these days, I thought that was quite an accomplishment, though it did require a modest amount of taking-apart and re-assembling to pull it off.)

That is all.

So, this is why I haven’t been posting lately, and will likely be a little erratic for a bit longer.

So, yeah, just a little preoccupied here …

Many little dramas unfold daily between the two cats here; territorial skirmishes, challenges to authority, perceived affronts to dignity, downright taunting and reprisals therefor.

But few things in this household have the power to raise ruffs as does the Sunny Spot. Sometimes it’s that patch of floor in the upstairs hall, sometimes the footstool in the living room, sometimes the tabletop (grrr). But most frequently, it’s the Basket. The Basket in the south window, the Basket with the shearling lining, the Basket with the view of the birds in the bushes and the squirrels on the wires, the Basket that’s just the right size for a kitty to curl up in or even sprawl just a little with a chin resting on the edge.

The following is the pictorial evidence of one epic Battle for the Basket. In which the battle is won, and lost again. Or lost and regained, depending on your perspective/degree of fluffiness. The entire battle featuring not a paw raised, nor hiss uttered. Illustration of the sheer power of intimidation.

Yup, there’s just nothing like a good spot in the sun.

This morning, being somewhat unwillingly awake and not desiring the usual breakfast fare, I decided to make muffins.

First I thought I wanted waffles (thinking of some lovely ones I made for the freezer last weekend), then I thought maybe pancakes, but since we’re out of maple syrup the muffins won out.

Now, a basic muffin recipe is something I don’t actually have in my recipe box, so each time I want to make them I find myself rifling through my cookbooks for a simple recipe to adapt to the ingredients currently residing in my cupboard/fridge, or asking the internet in the hopes of stumbling on a suitable one.

This morning I improvised. I thought to myself “banana bread is pretty much like muffins, and I have a banana bread recipe that I love, so I’ll use that.”

This is that recipe:

I made the following changes:
-substituted about 1 cup of applesauce for the bananas (delicious applesauce my mom made of apples from one of her trees)
-somewhat less sugar (I didn’t actually measure, but I think I used about 1/2 cup)
-added about 1/2 t of baking powder, just because it seemed like the right thing to do (applesauce can sometimes make baked goods a little heavy)
-tossed in about 1/3 or 1/2 cup of chopped dried cherries(leftover from Pie Day) instead of the other options because, well, wouldn’t you?
-reduced the flour (for which I use spelt) by about 1/4 cup and threw in about 1/2 cup of rolled oats, with the intent of keeping a nice grainy chewiness which I like in muffins and can sometimes be reduced by things like applesauce
-at the last minute stuck a banana slice in the top of each one, just because there was half a banana sitting on the counter and I couldn’t resist (it would have been for the irony, but I’m just not that hip)
-baked for 20 minutes as muffins instead of 1 hour as a loaf

And the results?
Delicious.

The texture, sweetness and flavours all just came together in that lucky way that sometimes happens when you really need a good moment to perk up an otherwise lackluster day. The cherries contributed perfect little nuggets of sweet & sour, and the sugars in the applesauce gave an ever-so-slight glaze to the outside, just right for enjoying with a cup of coffee (or in my case a bitter brown roasted barley beverage that is reminiscent of but in no way equal to coffee).

They were so good I had to blog about them. Yup, made my day.

Had an urge.
An urge to make a sweater.
A little wrap sweater.
For wrapping a little baby.
Found a sweater pattern.
Dug some appropriate yarn from the stash (while silently thanking the deity of abandoned holiday gifts).
Looked on Ravelry for caveats regarding pattern and likely-looking mods.
Knit sweater.
Weaved in a whole bunch of ends (grumbling only slightly).
Blocked sweater.

Added ducky and teddy bear buttons (which I may later regret/replace due to fiddly-ness of fastening).

Was nearly overwhelmed by cute.
Had urge to just sit and cuddle sweater for a while.
Resisted that one.

Oh, also had urge for Life Savers, which the OH kindly procured (not as simple a feat as one might think, I guess they’re not that popular anymore).
Consumed entire roll while writing blog post.

Yum.