Heatwavin

As I type this, I am bracing for a heat dome to swing our way. On last night's walk, I felt like the sky knows it's coming, too...

We are so lucky to live in a city and yet have this huge open space available to walk in! But also, to have had some cool days to enjoy before the temps go up. 

I took advantage of one of them this week to make a stewlike thing I found on The Mediterranean Dish, on an adventure day with cute fresh mini eggplants - chickpeas, tomatoes, and eggplant braised with bell peppers, onions, and a whole lotta garlic. 

In the absence of the actual spices called for, I used garam masala, but I regret this. The initial aroma from the peppers and onions was so bright, I would play that up another time with fresh herbs from the garden. Chives and lemon thyme, plus rosemary all chopped up and bright green, swoon.

What I really loved though was just roasting some eggplant slices tossed in olive oil and some lemon thyme. Wowza, delicious hot, cold, and scattered over salad. Definitely doing that again!

(note: I have no photographs of the eggplant on these journeys. they came through the door looking super cute. cooked: not so much.) 

Here's a nice creek picture instead.

I love the ravine park so much. Apparently it was at one time a wealthy man's personal estate, not unlike the grounds around a country home in England. He donated it to the city and I am glad because trespassing woulda been a drag, ha! 

Three guesses what I've mostly been doing this week, though. Yep, it's REVISING. It takes so long to finish a first draft of a 300-page novel, and then after that you have to revise it like, eight times. Knitting and sewing things are so much faster... I almost miss designing knits, because it's almost instant gratification. 

My right arm disagrees, however. It's telling me that as long as I'm going to play games that require moving my index finger over a screen, it will not let me knit with impunity. So I am keeping my eyes on my writing until I finish the path to a polished manuscript... 

... and come fall, hopefully I will have weaned myself off all these stressors sufficiently to start a new sock. Maybe one with a cool patterned ankle? I mean, it's the least I can do. 

Hope you have a lovely week ahead, heat or no heat. Thanks for dropping by and I will see you next Saturday! 

 

Some Pretty

Today in the continued absence of anything crafty - though I did remember a shirt I have to mend before ignoring that cue - I am sharing a discovery from earlier this week:

Ravine path! It's my new favourite way to come down from the high bit to the low, before dragging myself back up to a second high bit. I mean, who needs a gym membership when you can get in your cardio among the trees?

Here's the view from just over the fence:

Most paths in this part of the ravine don't have any kind of protection, so when I saw this guy, I figured there was a reason for it. Falling down here would be an Owie. Much better to follow the trail.

 

This route should be passable well into the early winter when all the leaves are gone, but right now everything is ultra green and bursting! Check out this unrelated flowering plant I also pass while walking:

I am very lucky to live in a place that is more than just concrete and billboards. Even if that includes coyotes. I haven't seen any lately but in a chat with neighbours the other night coyotes were mentioned, and also our local hawk. Who, unbeknownst to me, took a liking to a family down the street and regularly left half-eaten offerings on their back deck. Glad I'm more aligned with the crow.

Speaking of whom, it's been hanging out down the street from us and poopin' on the sidewalk below. Maybe that's where it's roosting when I hear its random call in the morning? Nobody else seems to be as enamoured as I am, which may be related to said poopin'. And also the random squawky call, which does start quite early.

In the absence of the crow I've been enjoying the antics of this year's litter of squirrels in our front and back gardens. There's a little family of five tearing around, some grey and some black. You can tell they're babies because even though they're full-sized, they are playing instead of gathering food, and they stick to their group instead of dividing off into twos like last year's grey squirrel and black squirrel, ahem. 

It's so nice to see these guys having fun before they hunker down to the business of being grownups.

You know what else is nice, and doesn't make me *at all* jealous even though I have the same plants at home and they still haven't filled in this much? The bed of wild geraniums next to the aforementioned flowering bush.

Isn't that gorgeous?

I'm going to leave you with a pic of today's breakfast graze tray. The radishes aren't very matchy but, delicious!

 

Thanks again for spending a little time with me. Hope you have a wonderful day and a great week to come! 

 

 

Light reading

Jane Austen did needlework - just sayin'. I was thinking about this while deciding what to write about today, when all I've been doing lately is writing, and rereading Emma. 

Also, simultaneously, reading Little Dorrit! If you're only going to read one Dickens in your life, I recommend it, or otherwise Bleak House which is much greater in literary riches than one might guess from the title.

Things are very lush and green around here, as one might expect in June (how is it already June??), both indoors, in the form of the plant I've kept alive the longest, and its cutting, from when it got too big for its original pot...

and outdoors, in the form of a weed tree in our neighbour's yard that will probably knock our fence over if we let it get any more weight onto our side. 

I hate to trim this guy every year, because the birds and squirrels love running around on the branches in there, but I remind myself they also love running across the top of the fence.

Meanwhile, I'm writing a new manuscript while letting the last one cool its heels before another revision.

And not knitting, because I have only so much arm capacity still and am trying to focus my energies on typing and building some muscle, as one keeps hearing is essential for anybody over, like, twenty. 

I comfort myself with the thought that Jane Austen managed to write and do needlework too, though it wouldn't surprise me if her needleworkings were most energetic in the realm of Cool-Lookin Clothes which isn't such a pressure for me now as it was when I was, like, twenty. I must also temper the comfort with the knowledge that I am not Jane Austen.

Nonetheless, I'm confident I will get back there some day! Not to twenty, but to needleworkings and maybe even Cool-Lookin Clothes too. For now I hope you're here for my and whatever nonsense I decide is worth sharing, because if you're here for the crafty bits you may be disappointed and that would make me very sad. I do hate to disappoint!

In the absence of visually creative work I've been leaning into healthy breakfast tray art, using one of the Emma Bridgewater tray-shaped plates I picked up when we vacationed in England a few years ago. 

The trays are still sold, but in tin, if you want one too - mine are melamine, and my fave breakfast one is covered in images of chickens, slowly revealed as I work my way through greens, nuts, and fruit, in that order. Apparently dates are quite good for you and as it's Saturday, I included some today... normally I have them with tea in the mid-afternoon, paired with pecans, in lieu of cookies. I can recommend this treat as highly as I did the two Dickens titles above.  

I hope you've got a lovely weekend lined up? and that you get to do all the creative things you'd like to, over the course of the week. With luck we'll be having those things in tandem till I see you here again next Saturday. Thanks so much for spending this scrap of time with me!