If the weather were a couple of degrees cooler this morning, I couldn't sit out here without a sweater.
Today is Friday, the one day of the week when I don't really have to be at work at a specific time. For that very reason, it is hard to get my rear end in gear on Fridays. So I'm going to sit here and drink an extra cup of coffee and enjoy the quiet for a while.
Within my line of sight is a raised bed in which I have tried for several years to grow vegetables. It doesn't get quite enough sun for things like tomato plants. Right now, the bed holds a moderately successful patch of greens that I thought was lettuce. One night last week, while craving a salad but having no lettuce in the refrigerator, I came out and cut some leaves from what I thought was lettuce. I washed them and chopped them and tasted them, and they turned out to be turnip greens, not lettuce. Here's something I didn't know: raw turnip greens are SPICY. I did not make a salad that night.
Coming up with something for dinner every . . . single . . . night . . . is such a chore. The first thing I do when I come home from work every day is open the refrigerator and/or freezer to see if anything jumps out. Yesterday, a package of frozen deer burger meat literally fell out of the freezer. For over a week, it has fallen out every time I've opened the door. I'm not all that crazy about deer meat, so I've been stuffing it back in, only to have it fall out the next time. Yesterday, I decided to cook it to stop that nonsense. All I knew to make with it was chili. So I thawed it and sliced open the package and . . . yuck . . . game-y smell. With other cuts of deer, I've soaked them in water until the smell diminishes, but I had never done that with ground deer. I decided to give it a try, and it worked. After rinsing it several times and draining it in a mesh strainer, it didn't smell so game-y. I cooked it, slow and low, with garlic, onions, and spices, then added tomatoes and beans. It was good!
Tonight, we shall have chili dogs with the left-overs. :)
I made good progress yesterday with my tote-bag project. Only three more bags to go. I'll knock those out when I get home from work today. Hopefully, I can get them in the mail to my friend next week, along with a couple of surprises. I think she doesn't read this blog, so I'll tell you about one of the surprises.
My friend raises Golden Retrievers. She regularly has four dogs living in her house. A week or two ago, she was complaining that they were all blowing their coats at the same time, and she was having a hard time keeping her house free of dog hair. She said she vacuums up enough fur to make a whole dog every day. One time, when she and I were both interested in felting wool, she sent me a freezer bag full of dog hair. I used it to make some felted dog-hair beads, which I then used to make a bracelet and some earrings, and I sent them to her, mostly as a joke. Incredibly, she actually wears them to dog events. Yesterday, I ordered her a drop-spindle and will tell her that she can use it to spin yarn out of all that dog hair. ;) She'll probably try it! I just hope she doesn't turn around and mail me a skein of dog-hair yarn. If she does, I'll knit a hat and mail it right back to her.
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