Beltane Moon of the Summer Solstice
Slowly getting back into cooking using NYT recipes. A tomato and pomegranate salad I made Sunday received an encore performance for Kate’s quilting group. The eight women that showed up left only a spoonful to take home. The best kind of praise.
Today I’m marinating leg of lamb to make Jerusalem shawarma. This one required some herbs and spices we didn’t have so I had to go to a spice shop. A fun place.
I used to cook a lot and enjoyed it; but, after Kate’s retirement, we slipped into a habit of her cooking. Rectifying that requires some rearrangement of my day since I normally work out around 4 p.m., a good time to cook supper.
Learned last night that Seth and Hannah will not be taking the logs from the backyard. Seth’s done a lot of fire mitigation, too, and has plenty. That means I’ve got to figure out something to do with a hell a lot of wood. It’s work I would have had to do if they hadn’t been in the picture, but I’d hoped they would relieve me of a lot of it. Not gonna happen. Still noodling this one.
The flow of work, Latin and novels and reimagining, has slowed to a trickle since late March: Asia, Vega, iconetectomy on Ancientrails, then wildfire mitigation. This week or next, probably next, I’ll start up again.
Like restarting workouts I’ve found it’s best for me if I start slowly, build toward a full morning of work. I’m excited to return to intellectual work though I’ve enjoyed the hiatus.
Physical labor has its own rewards, not least among them a mindfulness required when using sharp objects and lifting heavy weights.
