Cool and Delightful

It has been far more pleasant to work outside this week.  We are resigned to getting very few tomatoes this year.  Nobody we know is any different.  In addition to the chipmunks, we suddenly have hornworms for the first time in over twenty years.  Then there’s the weather. The more we like it, rain a couple of times a week and nice cool weather in the 70’s during the day and low 60’s at night, the tomatoes don’t want to ripen.  We are screwed.

I’ve been making whole wheat blueberry muffins with spices – cardamon, coriander and ginger. The blueberries have been too sour to eat with breakfast cereal lately, so I am cooking them into muffins or desserts.  White nectarines, however, have been wonderful and so have cherries. I don’t know how the apple crop in New England is turning out this year.  Flooding damaged a lot of farms and orchards. Melenie buys shares in a local farm, but their crops were wiped out by the torrential rain and flooding.

A carpenter is fixing the sunporch.  It’s a big job.  It’s going to take a long time, meaning we can’t sit out there and the cats can’t go out.  We all miss that, but it has to be repaired, as we learned when that chipmunk appeared in the livingroom

In the cooler weather, it has been far more enjoyable to cook and entertain, besides working outside. Also better sleeping weather.  Natural cool is better for sleep than air conditioning, at last for woody and me.  The cats are livelier.  This week, Woody transplanted the new cucumbers I started, as there is no room for them yet in my garden, where the early drop grew abundantly. Sooner than  usual, it will be time for the paste tomatoes plants to go into the compost. They sure aren’t doing much.  Nor are our Arapaho hot peppers.  The zucchini however are making constantly and so are the patty pans.  The beans have momentarily slowed down, which is not a bad thing – freezing 22 lbs is all we can ait into the big freezer.  I’ve also frozen quite enough pesto. Many, many strawberries and freezer jam. I want to puree and freeze some of the pattypan squash, but I’m not sure there’s room. 

I’m in the process of preliminarily editing and proofing the first 270 pp of THE HOUR OF MY DEATH.  I’ll go forward once I’ve completed my go-through.

Gigi visited this Tuesday.  It was a real treat to see her for two hours. It had been a while.  Her gallery, visiting artist’s studios, setting up openings, hanging shows and taking them down plus everything else like gardening has kept her overly busy.   I know what she feels like.

Melenie arrived around noon yesterday. We had a wonderful day and evening together.  She’ll return in late morning [staying in Ptown] and we’ll have lunch with Tasha and Stephanie, who are fond of Melenie.  Jay is off in Albany in an equity company play there.  He has their cat Pearl with him in the pet friendly apartment where he is staying.  Melenie misses her but she’s going off for two weeks to an island in New Brunswick for a writer’s retreat.

A coming very busy week with many appointments.