Mrs. Swope

We done got hitched!

This is a shot from our honeymoon. It was just too awesome not to share. ;)

Hahaha!

We're still tripping out over being married. I'm trying to figure out how I go about changing my name, and realizing that it's going to take more money/time than I at first anticipated. ::sigh:: At least I know I'm not alone in this paper trail.

The last two weeks have been NON-STOP. And now that we're home: today has been fairly busy from the start. Unpacking, stocking up on essentials, putting up a thermal curtain to keep our living room warmer (and hopefully save us money on electric bills this winter), going through the accumulated mail from our absence. I just got a quilt top in the mail that I need to try and complete by a baby shower on Saturday. Eek! Which I don't think I'll be going to, since I'll be working, but Jack will make it down there, I'm sure.

The house is in desperate need of tidying up and we've only been home for a little over 12 hours... oh my...

I'm so glad to be married, so glad to be home, and so glad to be finally feel that I'm not in a race to get every last little thing done before the 21st!

Well, there's a dozen packaging odds and ends that want to be picked up off the floor and thrown away or recycled. I'd better get to it...

Until next time!

~Mrs. Jaclynn Swope

Today's the day!

I am now a married woman.

Say 'hello' to Mrs. Jaclynn Swope.

:)

Until next time!

Recap

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass was a fine weekend, as always.

The stay on the Gypsy Gal was stupendous.

I saw anchovies swimming in the Bay!

I got to see James McMurtry perform!

The car made it to Sequoia just fine, but then nobody would fix it. Funny how, after all the different catastrophic things that had happened to it, my little Subaru would get taken out by such a small thing as a wheel bearing. Too rusty, they all said. My hopes of hiking all day every day while I was in Sequoia were dashed as I spent all my time dealing with the car repair (or lack thereof).

One of my favorite places, at least I got to hike here twice.

And I was pleased to see big fish in one of the pools.

I had a long drive in Jack's truck back to Crescent City so I could be to work on Friday.

I saw one of the best sunsets ever over Clearlake as I drove.

Back at work, I managed to have enough energy to make it through four days. On a rainy morning, I roved to Stout Grove and finally got to see the otters that I've waited my whole life to see.

One poking its head out of the river at me.

The whole family of four frolicking in the river.

One of the summer's tadpoles had completed his metamorphosis.

Looking up the Smith River

Autumn is beautiful here. This is the kind of weather we were having when we moved up here last year. Which, by the way, it's been 1 year since we signed the rental agreement on our house - October 15, 2014.

Jack will be home in 16 days. I have to drive back down to get him. ;)

I'm working part-time now, and trying to be more productive on my days off. This weekend I've kinda been easing into that - I had a bit of recovery to do, and unpacking. But now things are starting to look more under control. I've gotten a bunch of food cooked/baked and tidied up the house a bunch. Derby is only two nights a week for October, and that means I've got that much extra time for the next couple weeks. I've still got plenty that I want to get done before Jack comes home, which I'm now realizing will be VERY soon. But I think I'll get the more important items ticked off my list.

I'd better get busy - I'm finishing up my last CD of "The Last Olympian" audiobook at the moment. Once it's done I'll start doing some gardening. We just bought a chest freezer, which means I've got plenty more room for frozen cherry tomatoes for Jack! :) Rolly pollies are eating at my roma tomatoes and I need to find some sort of way to combat that...

There will be plenty of canning in the weeks to come...

Until next time!

Oh what beautiful mornings!

The last two mornings have been absolutely wondrous. On Sunday morning I went into work early (because I left early to attend a wedding shower the day before). Pedaling through the cold, clammy fingers of fog before sunrise, I chastised myself for neglecting to put the ear-warmer insert into my helmet for the ride. Luckily I was just going into CBEC, which is a mere 1.5 miles from my house. When I arrived at our ocean-view farmhouse offices I was greeted by a stunning sunrise. I couldn't see it, really, because it was behind the hill, but looking west from the front porch, I caught beautiful colorations on the wispy clouds above the morning ocean.

This morning I had to ride back for my camera almost as soon as I hit the road because the elk in the morning fog as the sun burned it off the meadow was too pretty a picture. They had moved from their cluster near the road by the time I returned, but I was still able to snap a few haunting shots of their silhouettes in the sunlight. Beautiful.

Last weekend (?) I did a slew of canning operations again. I ended up jarring 1 pint of mixed, chopped garden tomatoes, 2 quarts of mulled apple juice, 2 quarts of apple pie filling (with apples from our tree!) and 1 quart of peach pie filling (with peaches from the CSA boxes).

So why the question mark after weekend? I had a split weekend last week, to arrange the schedule for me to work a solid 7 days in a row (8 for me, actually, since my boss is supposedly going to put me on the schedule for Thursday, although I'm still waiting to see that schedule change made official) along with the other two members of one of the two "media teams". We've been making videos to be released on the park's social media websites over the winter. It's fun, and out of the ordinary, but it's starting to feel like a long week and I've still got a few more days to go.

One of my posts features the rather morbid picture below - a long-dead sea lion on the beach. The point of the post is that if we had condors here, they would've opened up the carcass to other scavengers and it would've been long-gone weeks ago. But since we don't... the sea lion just sits on the beach and nobody touches it. Redwood NSP is hoping to help bring the condor back to the area as part of the NPS Centennial. The project would "start" next year, but the birds probably won't be in the air until 2018 or so. Maybe later. Still, it's an exciting prospect, and I'm excited to make people think. Even if it's with a tastefully disgusting photo and a well-written caption. ;)

Anyhow, I've got two more evenings and three more mornings to get everything ready for my trip to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival to visit Jack and then to Sequoia to stay with him for a few days. I'm SO looking forward to it! But I also have SO much to do! So... I'd better get back to doing it. The washing machine is done - time to switch the laundry...

Autumn Equinox

Antler of Plenty

The seasons are changing. In my crazy life, where jobs start and stop and ebb and flow, and I'm somewhat cut off from the usual holidays due to my work schedule, I'm beginning to find that the changing of the seasons make more sense to celebrate. Yesterday I hosted an autumn equinox potluck. The antler of plenty (because we don't have horns in this neck of the woods) was the centerpiece on the table, which turned out to have quite a good spread. I think there were ten folks altogether, and it was great fun and a great group. Just right for our space, I think. I introduced everybody to the Swedish lawn game Kubb ('u' pronounced like 'u' in 'put'), having made a redneck version of the set from a 4x4 and a closet dowel cut down to something close to the proper sizes. ;) It worked out great, and everybody really enjoyed it. A new favorite, some even declared!

Tomorrow is the real Autumnal Equinox and I've been blessed with the day off. I'm not sure how I'll spend it just yet, but I'm thinking I ought to do something special, even if it's just going out for a hike. As the seasons change my life is about to change a lot, too. The garden is slowing down (although the weeds aren't!) and I'll be pulling up and planting a winter spread soon. Jack is back in the frontcountry and we've been talking on a fairly clear phone connection more or less whenever we want. It's done wonders for our relationship as we've been able to really start communicating again after months of each only half-understanding what's going on with the other. Most folks are finishing up their seasons at work. I've been fortunate enough to have been extended part-time (although I'm taking the first weekend off). Part-time means I'll be off several days a week, which will open up a lot of time in my schedule - time that I've yet to come up with a solid plan for filling. I think I ought to do some goal-setting, though, or else nothing will get done... I have made a list of all the various unfinished projects ("nagging tasks") that need doing and I think I will try to knock out one a day during October until I get them all taken care of - hopefully before Jack comes home, that way. I'll think of some more goals and post them here by the end of the month.

Another aspect of the equinox, aside from looking forward to the changes ahead, is reflecting on what's happened in the season prior. I've got a lot to be thankful for. I really liked this job a lot, which is more than I can say for last summer. This summer I wasn't begging for mercy and, while I did get a bit of the usual end-of-season burnout, it wasn't all that bad. I was blessed with good coworkers who had their act together and a boss who encouraged all sorts of interpretive experimentation and actually tried to be engaged in his employees and their interpretive programs. Apart from work, I had an excellent outlet in derby, and I really think that the sport has helped me a lot - in learning to work with the multiple personalities of a team, to not take everything so seriously, to fight back when I need to, and to generally stand up for myself a bit more. Not to mention that the ladies there are awesome. I've had a good year in the garden overall: learned a lot, took notes, put up plenty to help spice up the winter cuisine, and worked on my work ethic a bit. ;) And as much as I complain about the care and keeping of a two-bedroom house when you're all by yourself, I was blessed to be in here, to have such a nice home to come back to, to be able to share that home with many-a couchsurfer, and to have a fella willing to pay part of the rent even though he's not here because at the end of the day it's ours. Whether or not he's actually here, Jack's presence is very much felt in the home we've made, which somehow makes missing him not quite as bad because there's so much of him here.

Now before I start to get all mushy I'll leave off, because I think you get the drift. :)

The autumn equinox is upon us. In another month, Jack will be home, in two months we'll be married, and in three months it'll be winter solstice and time to think ahead and behind again! My how the world turns.

Until next time!

Tomatoes (and a gross picture - be warned!)

They said it couldn't be done. They said that my tomatoes would never ripen on the vine. They didn't expect us to have an unusually warm summer here in Crescent City.

But a morning in the garden today filled this colander with ripe sun sugar tomatoes. Then I topped it off with 5 ripe romas, and 4 ripe heirloom "dark prince" tomatoes. Not to mention a smidgen of beans and peas from my seemingly-resurrected bean and pea plants - having perked up after our recent cold snap.

I canned two cans of tomatoes last week. I found a much quicker "recipe" to can them in the pressure cooker, so I think I'll try to knock out another few cans this morning - a couple roma jars and one dark prince jar. All roads lead to the freezer for the cherry tomatoes. That way Jack can use them for cooking and chili-making and whatever else. The greens are going in my dinner today. :)

I haven't posted in around a month. My apologies. Things got a bit hectic here for awhile. I had a surgery to remove several fibroadenomas from my breasts. I'll include a photo at the bottom of this post - those who don't want to see the little fatties can avoid them, that way. No worries - they're all benign, they were just growing rapidly for no clear reason, so my surgeon and I decided it was time to take them out. This being my first surgery, there was a lot of pre-surgery stress and then there was the feeling pooped out and having no energy that follows while my body heals. Well, things are finally back to normal.

The summer is slowing down at work, derby practices have gone "back to the basics" for the off-season, and I'm reigning the house back into control. And the garden. I realized that I didn't do much weeding at all recently. Not to mention that I need to start prepping for a winter garden - pulling out plants that aren't needed, weeding, and planting winter crops. The fall harvest is coming in. I've got some nice squashes and the little heads of cabbage that come after cutting the main head are getting close to solid again. And then there's those tomatoes...

Anyhow, in honor of the harvest, as well as the upcoming autumnal equinox, I'm hosting an Autumn Equinox Potluck & Party at my house on Monday night. Should be fun. I'm making squash soup and cooking a bird in the crockpot, and invited folks to bring other harvest dishes to share. I made some sourdough bread last night to go with the soup, and I'll probably make the soup tomorrow so that it'll have time to sit and flavor-fy. :)

Well, I've got just two more hours before I have to go to work. I'm giving my last evening program of the season tonight. Hopefully it goes well - hopefully there's actually folks there...

Here comes the gross picture....

Until next time!

They had pretty light covers to look at while you waited in pre-op.

They took out 9 in total; the lower ones are from the left, the upper ones are from the right. The biggest (#9) was from the right. It's the one that started this whole "let's remove them" business.

Pet Peeve

There are several things that bug me from time to time in the work place, but I have to say that I think I have one number-one pet peeve that trumps them all: people who come to work sick. And I mean really sick. People who could barely roll out of bed, but somehow decided it was okay to come to work and spread their germs around to all their coworkers. In some bizarre pseudo-loyalty to the job, they refuse to take a sick day because of the chaos it might cause for their measly selves to not show up for one day, or two, while they wait for the worst of it to pass. Never seeming to realize that the potential of getting all their coworkers sick would cause a great deal more chaos, with the potential for them to have to take sick leave and also with the effects falling ill could have on their home lives.

Today, for example, a coworker who works for the bookstore was helping stock the shelves. She walked over to the desk and grumbled stuffily, "I have a sinus infection and two ear infections." My coworker in the bookstore that day, her cousin, proceeded with my other second-place pet peeve: sympathizing with them for having to be at work in such a state. [WHAT!? They didn't HAVE to come to work!!! That's what SICK LEAVE is for!!!] I said nothing, but backed away and proceeded to have no interaction with this girl, taking note to myself that I ought not go touching the stock today since it was liable to contain the germs from her hands and anything she may have coughed up as she walked around the bookstore. She returned rather quickly to the warehouse. Bullet dodged.

At the end of the day I came downstairs into the bookstore and saw her there again. This time she was behind the desk, "helping" with the closing procedures, putting her germy hands all over everything. I avoided her, and again said nothing to her at all. I put my stuff in a different spot than usual so that she wouldn't come into contact with it. I touched only things that I did not observe her touching (and hoped that she hadn't handled before my arrival).

Go ahead, call me a germaphobe. But keep in mind that I'm having surgery on Tuesday, and if I get sick before then and can't go in, it'll screw up not just my life, but the lives of at least a dozen other people. Also keep in mind that last summer at Sequoia, I was patient number NINE when one of our coworkers decided to come to work sick as a dog and spread that sickness to NINE other coworkers as one by one they all followed suite and chose not to use the sick leave they had stacked away, infecting one coworker after another - and who knows how many visitors! Note also that that sickness stopped when I broke the cycle and chose not to come to work sick. I took at least one sick day - maybe even two. And guess what? Nobody else got that crazy horrible virus after that.

It stands to reason in my mind that only the selfish come to work when they are truly ill, because they don't want to deal with the guilty feeling of calling in sick. Instead they would rather risk infecting their coworkers, their friends, the visiting public, and who knows who else - and never even stop to think that that might be their fault! It is absolutely disgusting to me.

For tonight, I have taken every single immune booster I have in the house. I have been drinking extra water. I have been avoiding sugar. I ate an apple. I will take more immunity-boosting supplements before bed. And in the morning, when I arrive to work in that same space that was this evening occupied and groped over by that sickly foolish girl, I will sanitize the whole workspace as much as I possibly can and use hand sanitizer frequently throughout the day. I will try to be better about not touching my eyes or nose with my hands. I will take more immune-boosting supplements before work, at lunch time, and after work. I will probably not go to the after-party for the derby bout (which I was looking forward to) out of fear that staying up just a hair too late may be what makes me susceptible to this contagion (sleep has proved to have a HUGE role in the strength of my immune system) If there has ever been a time that I can NOT get sick, it's right before this surgery. I don't want anything to mess this up.

I only pray that the sniffling in my nose is still a result of the wildfire smoke in the air, and that the tightness at the back of my throat and the occasional cough is leftover from accidentally inhaling a thick waft of campfire smoke at my evening program last night.

Apples!!!

Yesterday evening I borrowed my next door neighbor's 10-foot (?) ladder and picked a bunch of apples from our apple tree. I think I would've filled a bushel basket if I'd-a had one. It was definitely more than a peck. I chose six apples to give to my neighbor to say thanks for lending his ladder. There's still plenty of apples up there, still, too. Ones that I couldn't get to, and that I figured I'd just leave for later. Either they'll fall off or I'll get creative. I need one of those trash grabbers, that would extend my reach... I'm so excited to have SO MANY apples! I hope they keep well... and I hope they make excellent apple butter, apple jam, and apple sauce. Mom says I need to let them sit for a week or two before I start making things with them.

So instead of canning, I'm keeping busy with bread-baking today. I made pizza yesterday and fed my sourdough starter afterwards. This morning I got the sponge going for my bread. I think I'll make one loaf and turn the rest into rolls. I'm not going to let the sponge proof for very long - I just got it made around 8:30, so I'm thinking by 1 or 2 o'clock I'll make the dough and start letting it rise. Then break it up for the second rising at 2 or 3 and have it in the oven by 3 or 4. That way it's plenty taken care of by the time I have to go to derby at 6 tonight.

I've turned off my couchsurfing again until further notice. I hosted EIGHT people in the last two weeks!!! Crazy... It's definitely a busy time. I had requests from at least six more, too. But I'm prepping for my upcoming surgery next weekend, so I don't want to have any folks around this week. I need to focus on getting the house in tip-top shape so that my friend Jenna will have an enjoyable stay, and so that it won't matter that I do nothing in the way of housework for the first few days afterwards.

Audiobooks have been the order of the day lately. I've barely watched any Netflix at all. I listened to the first book in a series, finished it Sunday night, and downloaded the second book and listened a third of the way through it yesterday. I'll be turning it on again as soon as I'm done with this post. I love a good story. Yesterday I knit the whole time while I was listening. Today I think I'll try to get some housework done, too. I fell behind a bit on my index cards (as I do every week), so I want to get ahead on those again.

It's a smoky-smelling day this morning. Hopefully it "burns off" by noon - if not sooner. The smoke makes my sinuses act up very unpleasantly and it's giving me a little scratch at the back of my throat. :P I'll be glad when these wildfires are out finally. I'll be glad when the rain comes again.

Twenty-two days before Jack comes out of the backcountry and I can talk to him on a landline again. Hopefully the next three weeks fly by quickly.

Until next time!

Chomp!!

That's the noise I heard coming through the open window in my bedroom just after I got out of bed this morning. I peaked through the blinds and saw and elk at my apple tree. Thinking fast, I threw on a dress (in case the beast would require me to go outside to scare it off), grabbed my camera, and opened my blinds...

She was startled. She started to leave on her own as I ran over to the sliding door in the kitchen, pulled aside the binds, and opened it. I stepped out onto the porch and snapped another picture as I yelled, "You trying to eat my apples!? Get out of here!"

I got a respectful trot out of her. She returned to the road. Had she come here before to eat the apples? Had past residents simply gawked and let her go on? At least she wasn't in my garden - Roosevelt Elk are so big that she could've merely stepped over our puny little fence.

My next door neighbor (whose house you can see in the background) has a nice tall ladder - the kind that opens up and balances itself - and said I could borrow it when he gets off work tomorrow so that I can pick my apples. I don't know whether she was eating apples from the ground or actually pulled one off the tree, but I think it's time to harvest anyway. I ate a fallen one the day before yesterday and it tasted ready. I think an elk in my yard eating my apples only strengthens my thought that these apples are ripe for the pickin'.

I think I know what I'll be canning this weekend: apple sauce, apple butter, apple jam....

Until next time!

Creek Constitutional

I tried to find a synonym for walk or hike that started with a 'c' so I could alliterate. Constitutional is apparently a daily walk taken to maintain health. I think I knew this. I think I usually associated it with going to the bathroom, though...

Anyway - here follows some of the photographs I took when my coworker Brad and I hiked down Mill Creek itself last week Tuesday.

Beginning of the creek (or at least where we started).

Along the way.

Creek scene.

Freshwater mussel shell - they're a pretty rose/mauve color inside.

Human evidence... That's Brad in the background.

Howland Hill overpass...

Slug love.

Frog.

A nice river bar.

This tree grows downstream.

Vine Maple 

Live freshwater mussels! 

Chunk of redwood bark - really richly colored.

Fallen giant.

Dark-veined leaf.

Growing on top of history.

This looked to me like a redwood had gone swimming and left its bark hanging on the line... whoops!

The end of the creek! This is where it comes out to join the Smith River. I'm holding a car antenna that I found in the creek. I also found an iPhone in the creek...

Clintonia (?) berry-looking things. I hadn't seen these before.

It's here!

$14,705...

Starting in summer 2012...

Finishing by August 2015...

Technically within 3 years...

The goal was 4 years...

And now the day is finally here...

That's right: today I made the final pay-off amount for my student loans! Yippee!!

I probably would've gotten this done sooner if it weren't for the life circumstances that came up and consumed by savings, keeping me from making those end-of-season chunk payments like I'd hoped. But another life circumstance did come along to help: Jack wanted to help me pay off my student loans so I would be out of debt (he doesn't have any debt himself) and we could just move forward financially. He made a $600 payment on my account over the winter, and now (as you can see) he made another $600 payment this summer. With that, I was left with $634.69, plus interest. I had just got a little chunk from my separating from the state, so I figured: why not? Why not just pay it all off right now and be done with it!?

No reason.

So this morning I scheduled the final payment. From here on out, I get to start saving my money again.

Hip, hip, hooray!
Hip, hip, hooray!
Hip, hip, hooray!

Until next time!

Couchsurfers

I would like to take a moment for a brief testimonial about how awesome couchsurfing.com has been to me this year, but particularly this summer. Over the winter we hosted a handful of passers-through in our humble abode, including Ben and Silja, from Germany, who we really clicked with as couples. Is there a word for couples who are friends? Our time hosting them was so pleasant that we invited them to stay an extra evening, and they accepted! So thoroughly did we all enjoy each others' company.

Then Jack left for the summer, and I found myself alone in a house for the first time. And it's lonely. Grandma Tillie, I really don't know how you do it. I suppose it comes with practice and time, but I find myself feeling so utterly alone at times - and it doesn't help that I'm still working on developing close friendships in this town. Enter couchsurfing. I turned it on after a few weeks of lonesome homemaking, desperate for someone to occupy the same space as me, and that very day - that very hour! - I got a request from Rebecca. She was awesome, uplifting, positive, exciting, and enthusiastically traveling the West Coast as part of a lengthy road trip. Just what the doctor ordered. After her there was Daniel, Marcela, and Bento - a family of three (Bento at just a couple years of age!) who were traveling from Brazil and planning to go all the way down the west coast and into Mexico. They used to run a food truck and Marcela cooked me AMAZING food the two nights that they stayed with me. I nearly didn't host them, because Nikki was in town with her family and staying with me, but they left and I changed my mind and said they could stay after all - the house was too quiet after my nephews were gone. After the Brazilians left, I had a request from Vito, the Australian who works seasonally for parks in Tasmania and with whom I swapped all sorts of philosophical musings around a campfire. As well as some giant grilled pork chops. I initially told him no as well, asking him to use me as a last resort because I had just hosted my sister's family and then this Brazilian family, and I needed a break! But no one else offered to host him, and I couldn't leave a fellow parkie hanging, so I said 'ok' and actually had a very relaxing time with him. Then came Anna, the exuberant Austrian exchange student, trying to see the U.S. before her student visa ran out. She arrived on the bus and put in a solid 12+ miles of hiking and walking around both town and the redwoods while staying with me. Much to both our surprise.

I turned off my host status after that to allow for Jack's visit to be uninterrupted. And then I forgot about couchsurfing amidst my own travels, doctors visits, and a house that seemed impossible to get clean and tidy again. Until this past week.

I decided as part of my happiness project to start hosting again. I turned it on and had a request immediately from Pablo, his brother, and a their friend. Argentinians who would arrive late and could be out in time for me to leave for work in the morning. They were suave, spoke their Spanish with the fluid accent of Argentinians, and I managed to keep up conversation (albeit somewhat haltingly) for maybe half an hour before I decided that 11:30 at night was much too late to try and speak Spanish. In the morning I found my Spanish was even worse... but they bore with me and were out before I left for work without a trace - except for the box of spring rolls they forgot in my freezer.

Tomorrow I'm hosting another threesome - this time three girls from Austria traveling down the west coast. They'll be arriving by bus in the evening. On Saturday I'm scheduled to host Italo, an American with a Peruvian father who lives in Florida but visits San Francisco and the Redwoods every year. He's going to cook me dinner. Huzzah! I've got some Spaniards booked for mid-September and another couple who sent an early request for the end of that month.

In short, I've got my pick of the litter here in Crescent City. Everybody is passing through. I've said no to just as many, if not more, couchsurfers than I've hosted. They don't rub me right in their profile or I just have a bad gut feeling or the timing is just wrong. But every one I've hosted has been great, and provided just the sort of feeling of cooperative space that I desire with my fellow absent from the house. I hope they feel the same.

Well I'd better get to sleep - I've got to spend some time tidying up the house and doing laundry in the morning so things are ready for my couchsurfers tomorrow night!

Until next time!

Busybody

This is going to be a photo-driven post.

A single day's harvest that wen into a delicious (if not a bit too spicy for me) 5-serving meal.

My cherry tomatoes are scary big!

Seriously - look at their height in comparison with the size of the screen door! (I chopped a bunch off both my larger tomato plants after taking these photos.)

The miniature eggplant plant has the prettiest flowers...

... and produces the cutest little purple jewels!

Spinach seedling!

Arugula seedling! (I collected these seeds myself from the bolted stalks I tore up a few weeks ago, so I'm extra pleased to see them growing. Now if only the similarly collected cilantro would start to grow...)

A healthy carrot with very green roma tomatoes behind - these tomatoes just started to change color in the last 24 hours - there's hope for them to ripen yet!

Bok Choy "Toy Choy" sprout - I just planted these last week.

My Walla Walla Sweets had all gone limp, which literature says means they're ready to harvest... but sadly all very small. I pulled up a semi-limp cluster of red onions, too, but left the rest in the ground as that was clearly too early.

Cherry tomatoes from my garden, wilted greens from my CSA box, and bacon, nuts and cheese from the grocery store. Plus a blackberry dressing made from the cupful of blackberries I picked coming through to my side of the neighbor's fence. Yum!

One of my happiness project action items: surprise Jack. I decided this week that would be a poem, although he probably would prefer new bandanas like he asked for... I'll have to get those out to him next week, though. For all I know he'll get them at the same time, anyhow.

Another happiness project item: bake something every week. Today was a twist on the classic chocolate chip cookie recipe - I halved the sugars, swapped out 1/3 c of flour for coconut flour, swapped out the shortening for coconut oil, added a couple T of cocoa powder, 1/3 c of grated coconut, and 2/3 c of quick oats. The result is pure deliciousness and very satisfying.

My zucchini plant has produced many beautiful flowers this summer. Unfortunately every fruit has been snipped off by something or someone before it could reach anything close to maturity. :/ But I keep hoping! At least the winter squashes are putting on good little fruits.

Potato plants - in need of more dirt, which I unfortunately don't have at the moment. I will try to get some and cover them over again before they start to bloom. Beneath, you can see the tops of beet sprouts - so glad they came up this time!

Well that's all for now - I have to eat and bike to work!

Until next time!