All in a Garden Green

The turkey soup I made on Monday from the stock (frozen!) from last Thanksgiving is even better today... Mmm... leftover turkey soup.

So... two years ago, I bought an Attar of Roses scented geranium from a wonderful gentleman at the Windham Farmer's Market. It has a beautiful rosy scent, lovely soft fuzzy leaves, and if I ever get it in enough sunlight for long enough, will have tiny little lavender flowers. That bit hasn't happened yet, but I've managed not to kill it with not enough light or ignorance of water in the last two winters, so that's something...

It continues to put out lots and lots of foliage, though a bit leggy. Nice big leaves, though, on the end of long petioles that tend to get tangled in each other. So decided yesterday to do some pruning and repot the poor thing. I have a lovely pink pot that was going to be home to my 'Pink Princess' philodendron, but she is currently in rehab... having some difficulties with the whole 'growing' thing... need roots for that... yeah. So I chopped 3/4 of the geranium back, back to strong stems that are showing plenty of new buds and growth, repotted it into the new, larger pink pot, and pondered on what to do with this mass of green that smelled so lovely.

Remembering things that Mark said when I bought the plant, I went to the internet... Attar of Rose geraniums are lovely to use in cooking. I baked a rose-flavored cake. It is amazing. Take leaves, lay them on the bottom of a greased and floured cake pan, and pour over them your favorite white cake recipe. I used the boxed mix. The oils and scents and flavor of the geranium leaves infuse into the cake, making it light and flowery and springy and delicious. Can't reliably find if the leaves are actually edible or not, so I peeled them off the cake just in case...

The rest of the leaves were added to a pot of water and simmered for about an hour on the stove, making rosewater. Not sure how that's turned out yet, and not sure how I'm going to store it yet, but there it is in a bowl in my fridge...

And spring is truly here. The snow is nearly gone (though quite a difference from last year... last year, the forsythia was blooming, and we'd been a month without snow...), and maybe I can even rake all the leaves away some night after work. I am ready to start ripping things out of the garden again! Death to the wintercreeper and sumac and mostly dead azalea!

- My cats really are perfect gentlemen... they (usually) wait for permission before jumping into a lap, don't play in the garbage, don't beg at the table, don't eat my plants (though Galahad will go after fallen leaves on occasion...). Now if we can just get him to stop his newest trick (horking on cue in the hallway if he thinks he's not getting enough attention RightThisMinute), everything will be good.

- Miso soup mix is amazing. Little packet of powder, funny little white things, and little specks of green. Add boiling water, and I get delicious broth, with big beany-things, and big pieces of seaweed floating in it! Hooray!

- Disappointed that Tazo Tea no longer appears to make 'Om'. Delicious. Green tea, little bit fruity... 'Zen' just isn't the same... I only have a few teabags left.

- Also, cannot seem to find International Coffees 'Mayan Chocolate' drink mix in the local grocery... will try some other stores this week. May have to order online, thank goodness for Amazon and free shipping.

- Recipe for delicious dinner. Take: 1 crockpot. Add: enough potatoes (cut or whole, depending on size of pot, and number of eaters) to cover the bottom, and 1 duck (stuffed with as many apples and onions as you can cram in). Surround duck with more apples and onions, if there's room, and some garlic. Put lid on, set to 'low'. Cook for at least 8 hours. Come home, roast some asparagus, have some friends over, and eat a delicious meal. Then make soup out of the carcass, save some delicious delicious duck fat for roasting potatoes later, and sigh, contented.

- Slowly but surely, the house is getting Christmassed. Candle lights in the windows, little lights on Sam the tangerine tree (our Christmas tree. It's apparently tradition now. And I'm good with it. No needles to deal with!), the skirt went around the pot this afternoon... ornaments will get put up on Monday. Still need to find an outdoor extension cord and figure out if my other sets of lights are outdoor or not so I can decorate the little trees along the driveway. Holding off (mostly), even though I've got permission this year, till after kurlon's birthday, because I can... I'm strong... the Christmas music has come out, though. I couldn't wait any longer for Mannheim Steamroller or TransSiberian Orchestra (who, I note, is not coming anywhere NEAR Maine this year... Boston's too far for a weeknight, and Rhode Island not so much fun either. BAH.).

- Tonight is both the first and last chance to see the Geminid meteor shower... supposed to be cloudy/rainy/snowy for the next several days, so this evening promises to involve a hot tub and some snacks and delicious beverages.

- Winter is coming too, in fits and starts. No accumulation yet, but we awoke this morning to snow-covered ground. Gone now, since it warmed up to 40 degrees this afternoon, but more is coming...

- And I am upset with this USPS. Specifically, our mail carrier. Who did not even make an attempt to venture past the top of the street this morning to deliver the long-awaited package containing the top to my soon-to-be-created Wardian Case. Simply left a 'attempted to deliver' note in the mailbox, and moved on. This ticks me off. We know for a fact that no attempt was made, thanks to the light coating of snow on the road, beautifully smooth and unmarred by any sort of tire tracks, save for right by the mailbox. I will have words (polite ones, not getting upset and cranky at the poor postal worker behind the counter who had nothing to do with the delivery...) when I go in to get the package. Mail carrier needs to do his/her job, thank you very much. I am far more irritated than I possibly should be by this, but what if the package had contained something *important*?? Now I can't pick it up till Friday, thanks to needing to sign for it... BAH, I say.

20 people. 2 turkeys. 1 ham. Leftovers. WONDERFUL.

Sleep now.

A successful evening at the Tyger and Bucket Tavern.

Excellent food (Roast beef, spiced squash, savory toasted cheese, vegetable soup, and apple tarts) provided by Gryff and co, games, carousing, music, games, and fantastic drink with friends, followed up by a delightful fire. Max ran the Tyger and Demitasse, providing delicious coffee and drinking chocolate post-revel, around the fire, accompanied by more song and socialness. A fine day.

I. Love. This. Bar.

And Mickel and I totally planned our outfits together... :)

Note this. August 23, 2010. Turned the heat on in the car on the way to work. I wore a sweatshirt all day. Was almost cold. At least it's finally raining. The trees are changing already; the usual red maples turning across the street from the nursery are right on time, but I pass a sugar maple on the way to work that has dropped over half of its leaves. So. Dry. Garden is suffering.

Onto happier things, though! Wonderful weekend! Puttering around town on Saturday, got word on the Suzuki. She's been declared totaled, but the value was nearly twice what we expected, and the buyback is less than half (and we ARE buying her back), leaving a thousand dollars or so to fix her, put a downpayment on something else, pay the credit card off, whatever. All that aside, I am definitely buying a shiny shiny red bike. Once we get the loan stuff figured out. Hopefully by the end of the week. I want to ride before it gets too cold, again!

kr4sh and mylisant got married on Saturday afternoon. Pictures soon, once I get a chance to go through them all. It was beautiful. Victorian (Steampunk) themed, outdoors, in their lovely backyard. Surrounded by friends and family, and a confetti cannon. Awesome. :)

After the festivities, Max and anna_mickel and I headed to Portland for the first ever Music and Arts Festival, and CARBON LEAF, live in concert! I had no idea where to go, other than 'it's on Free Street!' We found them. In a parking lot. The nice people at the door took our tickets, and through the gates we went. We were not disappointed. They are wonderful. Max said 'OK, you can pick the music from now on'. I think I did good. :) I know I did. They even played another 20 minutes or so past 11, when they were supposed to have been done. Made me very very happy. Can't wait for their new album.

Made breakfast (pancakes, bacon, delicious French Breakfast Puffs) for M&M&J and me on Sunday morning. Was delightful. I got to use the pretty pretty Butterfly Meadow dishes that I've been collecting here and there (need to pick up the teapot/cups one of these days) (Hooray for Marshall's and TJ Maxx that have them on super-duper sale!). Was wonderful, again.

A good weekend, semi-relaxing, they're just never long enough, though.

After temps in the 60s and hitting 70 all week, it's actually spring today. Happy Equinox! And happy Anniversary to Max and anna_mickel! Strangest. Winter. Ever. Never worn short sleeves outside while it was still winter and enjoyed it.

The four of us got together here last night, for the first "entertaining" meal of many at our wonderful home. Thanks to the weather, I was craving BBQ chicken, and kurlon did not disappoint with our wee little grill. The kitties were even mildly social, which was nice.

I got to sleep past 6:30 this morning. That was wonderful in itself. Woke up to sunshine, blue sky, and just a few white puffy clouds. I can see trees through the skylight in the upstairs where my computer is currently set up. I want to turn the area up here into the book room; we've got the space. Can't decide if I want to keep the computer up here or not; If I set my little tiny speakers up a bit, music will fill the whole house from here. The acoustics are wonderful.

On the docket today: Laundry, and raking!! SO EXCITED to find out what I've got in the yard/pseudo-gardens here. Then perhaps over to Freegate for fencing and/or archery and/or socialness. Hot tub would be nice, I think, after all the work.

Tomorrow, depending on what the weather does, I want to paint things. This upstairs nook is going to be light blue when I'm done. May keep the white trim, I may not. The bottoms of the walls themselves do need trim, but I'll get as close as I can to the carpeting without also turning it a lovely light blue... We found the living room paint downstairs in the basement, if it mixes up well, I will fix all the gazillion nail holes in the walls there, and do some touch-ups. And if I'm playing with spackle, I may as well try to repair the kitchen wall where the dog chewed it, and think about paint for there too. I've got the color picked out, just need to decide to do it.

Might even get photos up this weekend. Who knows. :)

That is still spinning!

100 minutes war was awesome and fun, and the guys were great to travel with (entertaining, at least), and we're all gonna go back and kick butt at K&Q Rapier in February in the same area. Woo! Took some photos, was too busy fencing and having fun to do much more. I got to show off a bit with Christovau in front of Her Highness and Her Majesty (using cloak! wheeee fun!), the capture-the-flag scenarios were fun and silly, and we dragooned Lucien and Morty into the Guard for court when it seemed there weren't going to be enough of us... the Royalty was well defended for that court, let's just say that... Photos soonish, now that I have my computer monitor at home back.

Slept till noon on Sunday. Wonderful. Puttered, relaxed... I'm apparently working on repotting all of my plants... I didn't plan to, but that's what is happening, bit by bit. They need it. Wrong time of year, technically, but they need it. Finally have some nice looking and happy philodendron again. And there are THREE flower buds on my mini amaryllis that I just picked up this year... so cool.

Got together with Max & anna_mickel last night for dinner, we were in the area. Max makes a darn fine corned beef. Delicious, with strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert (from the store... but tasty).

Have tomorrow off, yay! Going to clean the apartment and prepare it for family invasion on Thursday. The turkey is thawing, slowly, in the fridge... There will be lots of tasty foods, perhaps even some Rawking Owt. We'll just have to see.

http://stilltasty.com/

Site that gives guidelines for how long food stays good. Handy, even though I don't leave pizza out overnight.

Took out the tomatoes, at least, today. They're done. Have been for a while now, but I haven't been here to take care of it, and there's always that last little bit of hope that they'll still do something, because they're still green... nope. Done now.

Pulled the basil and parsley that had gone by, cut back the chives, chopped the seedheads off the garlic chives so maybe I won't have gazililons of them next year, chopped the lemon balm and the rest of the potted herbs, and pulled up 95% of the mint that was planted between the box and the apartment... I may have a problem next year... I found a mint runner growing up inside the box when I pulled out the Tomaccio... oh no. Hopefully I can keep up on it, and will have something besides a box of mint next year. Eep! I think I may be able to find and dig it out when I turn the soil over after it's completely emptied.

For the moment, though, I still have peas and lettuce and carrots that are perfectly happy! Delicious delicious peas... Picked 8 pods, a total of 12 'Pineapple' tomatoes at various times, a handful of an old variety of mint, one carrot, and one little round lemon cucumber.