With a superfluous pomegranate picture just because I thought it was pretty.

I was ordering some pre-tempered powdered cocoa butter for chocolate making, as one does to help seed the right type of crystal formation, while wondering how summertime temps in transit might effect what I was buying it for… Well I guessed I’d find out.

The baking supplier dangled a half pound of hazelnut praline on my screen, and it wasn’t going to cost me any extra on the shipping so hey why not.

When it came it said 50% hazelnuts and it was sweeter than I would have made it. Y’know, all I had to do was throw toasted no-skins-on hazelnuts in the food processor and an equal amount of sugar (or less, for us) and then I wouldn’t have had to work all the oils back through the heavy substance of the stuff. Done. Gotta admit that is tasty, though. Into the fridge with you.

So here I was a few days later and there was this batch of homemade chocolate, quite dark. We’d just eaten a small lunch that definitely needed more to it.

I wondered…

So I nuked a little of that chocolate for 20, 30 seconds or so so it wouldn’t burn, just enough so that when I smashed it with a spoon it gave way and became stirrable.

And then stirred in a larger spoonful of that hazelnut praline.

And then folded a large number of raspberries in.

I got asked if I could go do that again? Please?

We didn’t quite eat the entire twelve ounces of raspberries but we came close.

Somebody is eleven months old today and cannot wait to be able to take the next step.

I forgot to ask the car repair shop my Prius got towed to to inscribe the car’s VIN on the new catalytic converter. I would have thought there was no real purpose; there was no way it would ever be found, much less returned, should this one end up stolen, too.

Apparently I shouldn’t have been so sure.

Thousands of them piled up, $300,000 in cash. Busted.

It used to be I would see a Black Phoebe maybe once a year, twice if lucky.

This year, with the squabblesome finches peaceably gleaning weed seeds out in the yard rather than at the feeder, there’s a phoebe every day. Every insect on the patio, that member of the flycatcher family is searching for it and it’s going to find it.

A second phoebe showed up today and was quickly shown the neighbor’s yard, and then the first flew back, victorious.

It likes to perch on the tomato cage.

It especially likes spiders, and since I like seeing this bird that was so rare here for so long and that’s not spooked by my being so close by and that has this white heart on its chest with a black bolero jacket above, I haven’t been sweeping the webs out of the awning of late.

It got its snack–but the snack grabbed back.

No worries. The bird landed on the tomato cage and surveyed its territory awhile, and when it left, the clump of spider web, since it was not needed for nest building in July, was left behind.

It was the fingerpuppets.

I was looking through my purse for something and there they were, a handful of those handknit little characters from Peru for making small random children happy as I go about my day. The old guy who got one for the joystick on his motorized chair. Airports. All the times those had cheered up a kid or their parent who just needed to be seen and to be distracted.

In five months of quarantining I had actually forgotten them.

Edited to add later: I’ve spent the last hour watching a livestream of the peaceful protest in Portland tonight. It is powerful and good. They are honoring John Lewis’s memory and admonition of “Make good trouble” as they stand up for our country’s ideals for all of us–joyfully and in solidarity. I just signed off there holding my breath that the Feds will still treat them with the respect owed to all of us as the crowd thins down.

I had something I was looking forward to writing about tonight.

At some point in the middle of the night I will wake up with a jolt and remember what it was.

In case you haven’t seen it yet: the duct tape prom dress and matching covid-19 purse. A corsage one could only dream of, back in May or so. 395 hours of work.

Now that is someone who would have the patience to knit the most intense intarsia you could possibly sketch out.

And on a more serious note, this researcher at MIT thinks early Covid-19 diagnosis is possible based on one’s voice, assuming you have a prior recording to compare to.

And a researcher in Israel has discovered that the virus generates lipids in the lungs to help it replicate from, and that a drug on the market that already has generic versions available could likely stop that. So far, in human lung tissue in the lab, it does.

I noticed the ground was behaving a little better today re my feet and its distance away. Go brain.

So. Zucchini in the third picture and Waltham butternut plants in the first two, all of them repotted late because I couldn’t go buy soil (thank you again for the rescue Ruth and Lyse!) and all I had was hardpack clay, weeds, and snails.

Same dirt, same sun, same fabric pots, same watering, and those two butternuts were started at the same time.

One thing about squash plants: wherever they grow to they’ll set down new roots that will carry on and keep things going till frost after the original roots die off. So, much though I don’t want to encourage the prickly weeds to sprout, after seeing how the one super spreader that’s growing in four directions was doing, I started watering its ends after all, because it badly needed it. I didn’t seriously think I was going to confine that to a pot, right?

I’ve only ever successfully grown one zucchini plant once, so I’m mostly new at this.

Meantime, the apricot responded to today’s lovely summer day by starting branch number five. You have to squint a bit this week, but probably not next.

And I worked on the ocean afghan. I woke up this morning with a picture in my head of bright single dots of stitches along the bottom edge of the jellyfish’s mushroom cap (whatever the technical marine term may be) and was glad I hadn’t already gotten past that point so I could do that. I’ve got a chart now for the dolphin, and it’ll be just one because the eye likes odd numbers; discernible even numbers of objects feels wrong visually to the viewer even if they don’t know why it’s bugging them, and I don’t have room for three with any kind of scale re the other fish.

So one it is. Curving up at nose and tail or curving down is the only question. It will be partway over the top of the water, so I’m thinking down.

Sudden thought, with certainty as it hit: someday, I am going to have to knit an afghan of an apricot tree. I just am. The only question will be whether I can wait till mine comes into bloom so I can knit that picture.

Sterling asked how I was and I didn’t really answer because I was still trying to figure it out. The nausea and dizziness are thankfully gone. Tomorrow’s another day further away from the concussion, and the day after that and the day after that and I figure this’ll all be temporary just like the other times.

Meantime, Milk Pail offered flats of peaches, ran out, restocked, relisted them for this Saturday morning’s pickup and I grabbed one. I’d passed on it earlier because I was going to drive to Andy’s and there was no way Milk Pail’s could ever live up to his. Plus I was hoping Andy might have a few last Anya apricots left.

That drive to Morgan Hill is not happening no matter how much I want it to. Richard will be doing the local pickup.

My head still just wants to hold still. Walking around the yard, I have to watch my feet constantly because they don’t entirely know how far away the ground is with each step.

Which isn’t really new, it’s just my brain doing Groundhog Day and back at the starting point.

Colourmart had a mill-end sale awhile back and I bought all they had in a deep reddish brown merino. It’s supposed to be superwash, though I’ve never tested that out; I had just enough for an afghan and I didn’t want to waste a yard. (They have one color left in an earthier shade of brown.)

Dear friends of ours–the story is someone else’s in the family to go into detail over, let’s just say I felt I owed them much, and I aspired to knit them an afghan in thanks but then found myself making blankets for three grandkids on the way in a row instead.

In January I found that it was suddenly at the front of the queue telling me that it was its turn now.

Finally! Cool! I pulled out some yarn I’d had in mind.

But I just couldn’t make myself get going with it. Which disappointed me in me for dragging my feet. C’mon, it’s taken you long enough to get to this point, what’s the hold up?

I finally caught on and got a little more humble about it and said a little prayer: You know what they’d like best. I only know what I’d like best. Please help me get this right, because they’re the ones it’s for and for all that effort I truly want to make them happy with it.

I immediately found myself opening the small cabinet I keep some of the best to come tucked away in and going straight for that deep burgundy I’d bought a couple years earlier.

Really? It surprised me. I held a cone in my hands and considered. The color would go great with their living room. It was extra fine merino, which is very soft, but it had a lot of twist to it, which made it less so, although that would cut way down on pills or fuzzing out. Definitely a practical wool: thick, warm, not itchy, cuddle up, wash it, it can take it.

And so I made this afghan.

But with the shelter-in-place orders, neither Richard nor I could quite justify breaking quarantine just for that. Soon, surely, but again and again it came down to, but not now. What if I exposed them? What if I exposed them to the pain of finding out they’d exposed us?

And then, knowing none of this, Sterling asked me to knit his co-worker a baby hat. And you know the rest. One that looked like the logo of their project.

Which he finally got to come pick up tonight. He told me he’d shown the picture to some of his co-workers, including some that were knitters. (I was like, hide those rainbow color changes…!) But nobody had tipped off the recipient. I got to see the sparkle in his eyes as he said, That’s tomorrow.

And nobody had tipped off him.

He reached into the bag, stunned, feeling the edge of his and his wife’s new afghan, and looked back at me and said, marveling, That’s one of my favorite colors!

—————–

Edited to add–I was getting ready for bed when suddenly the obvious hit me and I came back here to say: if we had gotten that afghan to them earlier, Sterling would never have asked me to knit that hat because he would have felt like it was just too much to.

That, most of all, I think is why that waiting had to happen. That hat needed to happen, and that shared happy anticipation on the part of so many on behalf of the expectant parents and their little one about to arrive. I mean, they would have anyway, but sometimes you get that rare chance to help make love visible.

I almost missed seeing that.

Pomegranate tree picture just because. It grows like a yarn barf ball that the cat got into.

Seaching for something at the back of the middle shelf of the freezer in the garage this evening, several things from the top fell down on my head. Because I had just put them back in wrong.

I tried not to do a small freak out.

Including half a dozen concussive-type events with actually getting knocked out, I’ve had twelve.

My friend Phyllis’s sister died in middle age after two concussions in fairly short succession. I am a little too aware of the possibilities.

Got dinner done, went to go check on a plant, and was both opening the slider and stepping through when the bottom caught, the top bounced way back, and it smacked me so hard on the ear that after I caught my breath I had to take out the one hearing aid to ask Richard if there was blood. I have these semi-hard things in my ears, y’know, and, yeah. Not that he could see, though, so, good.

Next thing you know I’m trying not to throw up. Richard had me go lie down awhile with his, I have no idea what you call it: an ice head belt? It’s black, it’s like fabric-pot fabric, it has pockets for ice packs, velcro hinge-type things to flip over and hold them in, and sideways velcro to hold the contraption around your head. Good for migraines.

The room was spinning. It’s been worse, but. I was quietly feeling like, don’t leave me. I didn’t actually ask. He stayed with me.

After about 40 minutes, I got up and watered the now-four-branches baby apricot and veggies out of sheer cussedness: those pots dry out fast and I’ve put too much into them not to now.

Then I typed all this out so I would be able to go back later and see what date this was.

And went, but you know? What I really want to do? Is to finish that stupid hat I keep not wanting to work on.

So I did. I sewed on the ears–in a solid line down the sides of the upper face this time. I worked in all those ends and I used them to cover up some of the mishmashed color changes as best as could be done, and-

–wow. Who knew. Sterling was right. That one is a lot cuter than the second try–or just different, but, it matches much better what he was hoping for and it’s a really relatable, cute face now.

I can’t wait to get it to him.

I’m going to let him be the one who’ll drive over here. I’m taking it easy for awhile.

It’s worse than buying a car. At least with a car you get to drive it home.

We’ve been saying for over a year that we needed to replace our mattress. It’s a Stearns and Foster and we’ve had it for 26 years and it’s held up–made all the more marvelous by the fact that the previous one did for all of two before neither of us could stand it anymore–we were totally burned. The current one is still pretty comfortable for me after all this time, but not for him anymore, and it used to dampen movement but really doesn’t anymore. At all.

Which is bad when you’re a light sleeper and the big guy isn’t.

I spent hours, on several different occasions over those months while we debated, trying to learn everything about buying a mattress. The first thought was, go high end again: nobody expects one to stay that good for that long but our expensive one did and it more than paid for itself vs the costs of replacing again and again and again.

And then I read that S&F got bought out.

And a review by someone saying they weren’t what they used to be.

Now, I don’t know if that’s true nor fair but it stopped me–I knew no serious alternative. Not when you want zero off-gassing.

But last night was sleepless. It was time. I went back to Consumer Reports, only I decided not to look at individual ratings–I looked at their ratings of the brands themselves.

And then at the top mattress of their top company, because my 6’8″ husband is not lightweight and I wanted not to have to deal with all this again.

Charles P. Rogers “Estate Lifetime.” Gotta love a name like that, and yeah, it’s all marketing, but–I have a talalay pillow and know how comfortable it is and it is the only pillow I’ve ever heard of with a ten year warranty. (Maybe down pillows do? I wouldn’t know.) The Fourth of July sale was still on, and since Stearns and Foster’s ends tomorrow one can only assume Rogers’ does, too because you know they know who their competition is.

The movement dampening was a particular claim, both on their part and at Consumer Reports.

My sweetie and I talked about it. I asked many questions via the company’s chat.

I walked away, let it percolate for awhile, came back, talked to Richard some more, and then we sprang for it.

And now all we can do is hope.

When I was a kid my dad met a guy who owned a truck. And who had connections to Florida’s citrus groves. Who said that the Page mandarin orange was the best tasting one in existence but nobody ever hears of them outside Florida so you couldn’t get them in Maryland so he would drive down there every winter to bring some back.

Which is how my Dad, working on a fundraiser, found himself commissioning a truckload of those Page oranges to be dropped off in our carport to sell, and the trucker got his, too. People would sign up for so many cases, Dad would place the order, and everybody knew what the delivery day was in case the weather threatened to freeze them–there was no way all those were going inside the house. Come and get’em.

But then one year there was a big freeze in Florida and for reasons of geography or biology I don’t know, but the Pages, which as I remember were mostly growing alongside one river, pretty much all died.

They were not replanted. That variety was particularly hard to grow; why not put in something that was easier, more prolific, and probably a bit hardier so that the farmers wouldn’t have to go through a complete loss again. And Pages are small. The market rules, and families have to be fed.

I read an interview with the owner of a citrus tree grower here a few years back, answering questions about his company and the varieties he sells.

What caught my eye was his saying, And to fill out your collection, I’d get the Page–it’s my favorite.

Why to fill out…why not just get it first?

And so I did.

Where I planted it that summer six years ago turned to be a terrible spot sun-wise in the winter–the fences were just wrong. I was advised to dig it up and put it in a pot to contain the roots to let the top recover, and did so.

The next year I planted a Gold Nugget mandarin, the only variety that doesn’t need heat to get sweet and that can go down to 26F. It went in the ground (avoiding that bad corner) and is nearly to the top of the fence.

The Page, by comparison, grows very little. I don’t think its twice its original height yet. It buds out a bit in the spring and then they all fall off and die, every year. The best I got was a green dot before it let go.

Its rootstock is the one that shot out those fast spiky barbs that I cut off that are now successfully protecting branches of my peaches from birds and critters. That part wants to grow!

There’s a reason those trees are rare.

But for all this time I’ve just kept on watering it, even though I’ve long since given up on getting anything out of it. A little citrus food. Doesn’t care. Stays mottled. Oh well.

I didn’t see it till a few days ago: hidden in those leaves? Wait. Where did that come from? After six years, the first fruit, and that big–how was I completely oblivious that that was there? That’s way bigger than the ones on the Gold Nugget! (Well, to be fair, Pages are for Christmas and the Nuggets are for spring.)

I didn’t think it would or ever could, but it wanted to do what it was meant to do and now hopefully it’s just getting started.

Especially in a pandemic, and we don’t. Wipe it off your fingers with a paper towel. It’s a messy process and it does use a lot of them.

Meantime, what with our air conditioner having gone out during a heat wave–all fixed now–I found that all the chocolate in the house had become untempered. Same taste but grayed a bit and it just didn’t have that snap to it, and then gradually the last of the homemade chocolate, the best stuff around here, just…somehow…vanished. Go figure. Right?

Bless my sweetheart, he proclaimed himself fine with my running the melanger these past 24 hours despite a migraine. The man is a keeper.  Grinding cacao nibs between granite stones is not an overly quiet process.

Last time I poured it out we filled eleven molds–but to be fair, they were shallow silicone ones.

He poured this time, though, and the newer lucite molds are deeper, so even though I processed a half pound more than we ever have, (@Afton: 2.5 lbs) there are five molds cooling over there. There was one particularly deep one which he’d filled to the tippy tippy top.

The smaller the pieces the less the guilt, but not this time. We’ll just have to live with ourselves.

Edit: Oh wait. I *am* tired. There are eleven bars in those five molds, that’s right, just some of them have quite a bit more to them this time. Alright then.

Two days ago there was the first sign of what appeared to be a new branch on my apricot seedling. Now there are two, and I could see a definite difference between this morning and this evening. Go little tree go!

I put it in a much bigger pot two weeks ago–I can still turn it around to keep it balanced re the sun, but barely–and was surprised at how big the root system was on such a tiny plant.

Clearly it’s very happy about its new digs.

I’m trying to picture how high off the ground that first branch will be someday when the tree is really planted, and failing. I have no idea. But for now I’m keeping its young leaves out of snails’ reach.

I do know I gave the more vigorous seedling to my friends so that they could have a payoff faster, and because I’d prefer my tree to be naturally dwarfed, which by comparison it seemed to be.

However it turns out. There’s going to be a lot of satisfaction in watching this one come into its own.

John Driver, the guy who traveled Silk Road countries, sometimes in war zones, in search of what an apricot should be, brought home 1500 Dept of Agriculture-approved kernels and developed the Anya and Yuliya varieties from them,  naming them after the women who’d shared their best fruit with the interested American.

It appears he couldn’t make a living selling his apricot trees to commercial orchards, doubled Brix counts or no, and he ripped those out and planted almonds. It’s clear to me that it was simply that nobody knew apricots could be that good and the market didn’t catch up in time. He did preserve some for his family, and I kind of feel like it’s the Bradford  Watermelon all over again. (I have two of those growing this year.) But let’s not wait 170 years for them to be rediscovered.

I’d rather buy a tree from him because he earned it, but that is not an option. Yet. One can hope. I sent him a note that if he wanted to sell to individuals, the rare and great with a great story like his behind them and a high price will always have a market that will seek for the unique and best.

Said the art dealer’s daughter.

But this is what I can do.  So for now I watch my Anya-parent seedling grow and wish it all the best–and saved every kernel from the ones I bought from Andy’s two weeks ago. They’re in the fridge.

I came across someone’s comment that they refrigerated theirs for a month, (me: that’s all?) took them out and sprouted them and grew them under lights through the winter and on into spring, and boy did they get a jump ahead on mine!