Some Updates

July is winding its way down and I thought it would be a good time to update some previous posts.

Volume #5 of my commonplace books

That commonplace book I started two weeks ago? The first quote went in on July 16. Francesca Wade, author of the book Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars, had this beautiful observation about cities, although her comment could apply to many communities:

Cities are composed of roads and buildings, but also of myths and memories: stories which bring the brick and asphalt to life and bind the present to the past.

 

The book was superb, incidentally.

Sourdough doughnuts

I continue to live in a sourdough world, as I first noted in April. Every weekend I feed the starter; every weekend I come up with a different use for the discard. This weekend I made sourdough doughnuts, a repeat from an earlier weekend. I'm still working on the glaze (I want something that hardens better) and I bought a new cooking thermometer because I doubt the veracity of the one I have been using, but they are pretty tasty all the same. 

Some of them went to the family of four who are neighbors on one side, some of them went to the elderly neigbor on the other side, and we ate the rest. Pete (the elderly neighbor) texted to say they were very good; Alice (who is almost 5) came springing across the lawn to say (from a safe distance): "Thank you for the doughnuts, April. They are DELICIOUS!" 

Alice expressing her doughnut delight

On the garden front, after a slow cautious start and then my announcing the first tomato and first zucchini, we have sailed past (way past) keeping track of the harvest. I am slicing and freezing, baking and eating, and will be making tomato sauce in a crock-pot (and then freezing it) for the first time ever. 

Some of the tomatoes. Some. 

And some of the zucchini. Some.

We harvested the cabbage, which went from tiny starts to behemoths. One we know tipped the scales at 5 pounds, 10 ounces, because our neighbors (Alice's parents) weighed the one we gave them. Another huge one went to Warren's daughter, Elizabeth, for ham and cabbage soup, and we kept the two "smaller" ones.

Three of the four. Note the tomatoes photobombing the shot.

We continue to shelter in place, with both of us still working from home. It suits us both well most of the days. Warren and I have had workday lunches together more in the last 4+ mounths than the last twelve years...and for the last nine of those years we have worked within two blocks of each other's offices! 

Stay tuned. August is closing in fast. 

One Finished, One Starting Soon

Somewhere back in the annals of this blog, I wrote about the fact that I collect quotes. I'm not scrolling back to find it (and my labels do not include the word "quotes") but I probably wrote about my love of writing down (or photocopying and taping in) quotes and excerpts that moved me at the time and important to keep over the years.

"Years" is an understatement. My current collection dates somewhere from the late 1980s, looking at what it contains. I did not start dating the collection until somewhere in the middle or end of the second volume, when I realized that an occasional chronological reference was useful. Even if I  take 1990 as the start point, I'm holding 30 years of quotes.

I had an earlier quote collection, one I started in the 1970s. It is long gone but I remember (vaguely) one quote in it was the beautiful observation by Christopher Milne (yes, that Christopher) about the original Pooh and friends being donated to the New York Public Library and having to explain that he had no attachment to those stuffed animals. The quote was something along the lines about he did not want them to be reminded "here was fame" and certainly didn't need them to be reminded that "there was love." 

My first book starts with this observation by Sarah Orne Jewett, a late 19th century Americn novelist, from her novel In The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896): "More than this one cannot give to a young state for its enlightment; the sea captains and the captains' wives of maine knew something of the world, and never mistook their native parishes for the whole instead of a part thereof..."

The book I finished filling last night ends with this quote from Love, Roddy Doyle's newest novel (and the first one I have ever read): 

—This place hasn't changed, he said.

He pointed at a line of old photographs.

—The dead writers are still dead, he said.

How could I not include that quote? 

Book 5 is waiting. I can hardly wait to see what it will hold. 

Firsts

It's that time of year.

Firsts.

The first zucchini. 

The first tomato.

In the coming weeks, the numbers will grow (I'm already up to eight zucchini harvested in one week) but for now, I am savoring the firsts.

This was just a blossom a few posts ago

A Super Sweet cherry tomato was the first one

Observations about June Money and Pandemic Groceries in General

Back in early June, looking at our May groceries expenditures, I made the optimistic observations that our June expenditures would "drop off precipitously." 

Pardon me while I roll on the floor in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. 

Okay, let me add this clarification: our June expenditures would have come in below the $180.00 monthly target (at $169.18) had we not done a stock-up shopping through Aldi on June 25. Cost of that (all food, no household items)? $115.37. Total June expenditures? $284.55, of which $25.00 represented household items and the rest food. 

Year-to-date monthly average? $232.17.

Yeah.

So what was that end-of-the-month Aldi purchase all about? It was about the latest pandemic numbers nationwide and in Ohio, and our realization that we probably need to hunker back down in our household with as little going to stores, even including getting groceries delivered, as possible. Warren and I did a survey of our freezer, cabinets, and pantry, made a "stocking up again" shopping list, and, $115.37 later, considered ourselves stocked. (Well, except for the July 1 complete-stocking-up at Kroger. So now we consider ourselves stocked.)  

Musing on pandemic grocery shopping, that may be the way this year goes. I wrote as much in May, but was more optimistic in predicting the pattern would be alternating lean month, heavy spending month. Instead, looking at my year-to-date figures, the pattern seems to be two heavy spending months, followed by a lean month. 

I want to make a prediction for July, but my crystal ball, faulty at its best, has indeed gone dark. It should be a lean month per my last paragraph, but at only three days into it, who knows? 

On the bright side, the Hej garden has taken off with a flourish and there are blossoms on the zucchini as I discovered when we went to water it this morning. No ripe tomatoes yet, but we're getting close. All the lettuce in the planters has bolted and withered as the summer heat comes on, but the Bibb lettuce is still going strong, and we are eating fresh salads daily while that fortune lasts. 

Onward through July. 

The Hej garden two weeks 

The Hej garden this morning 

Zucchini blossom

Still green

The Bibb lettuce bed