Summer Of Drought
4:36 p.m. - 2014-07-02


Even though I hate drought years, it certainly means less work overall. We downsized the garden quite a bit but are still harvesting lots of cucumbers, basil, and onions, and we are managing to keep most of our plants alive. The water company sent stats that say we have been successful at cutting our water usage in half.

Usually I freeze up the fruit to make jam in the fall or winter, but for some reason I had a burst of energy and made the plum and the apricot jam already. Now I just have to make the applesauce and keep making pesto until the basil dries up in the fall.

I knew that the new bookshelves would look a lot better than the sort of 'hoarder bookshelf decor' that was going on before, but I didn't know I would enjoy them so much. All my cookbooks are in plain view and the result is that I am trying out new recipes which is fun and delicious. I am also enjoying how much easier it is to work and walk around in the sewing room. We will always be a work in progress but at least we have accomplished something.

Right now I am making some cotton shirts for the spouse. I made the first one and it was a little narrow through the hips, so I fixed the pattern and am almost done with the second shirt. There are commercial methods for attaching the collar and stand that look great, but for some reason I just can't make it work for me. I am trying to eliminate a lot of the hand stitching that takes so long, though it does produce a nice product. My daughter got her dad some nice lengths of cotton to be made into shirts and gave them to him on Father's Day so when I perfect the pattern I can start in on those.

I have been trying to make the spouse's diet a bit healthier, but this week he showed me an article about how scientists have been wrong all this time about low-fat diets and about how fats cause heart disease, etc. The upshot is that scientists don't know what the heck they are talking about and are wrong about lots of things, so I have relaxed my rule about all the butter the spouse was eating and now he gets to have butter on his popcorn again. One of his skills is that he can make some of the world's best popcorn.

We are going through a stretch of hot weather, so I think I'll go sit in front of the fan.