Thanksgiving, the prequel

It's official. Chez Boud, Thanksgiving will be celebrated on Tuesday, since that's the day Handsome Son is free. 

He's doing the shopping as usual, so we simplified things. He has asiago cheese and bread sticks to start. Then heat and eat ready cooked food, his choice, I won't know till I see him, and ginger ale.

I've made the the pomegranate juice to serve in Fancy Glasses and the dessert giant cookie. There will be tea, too, he being a tea drinker, true to his roots. I'll haul out the red cloth and the white cloth to go over it, and the cheeseboard, and I'll polish up the best wine glasses, all the doings.

It will be wonderful. Cleaners coming Monday, great timing, so even the house will be ready. 

And, since we're early with our celebration, I'm getting in early with my thankfulness.

We're both keeping well, up to now, solvent, housed, know where our next meal is coming from.

 His main job, food store, is unaffected, essential worker, though requiring high level of precaution. His part time gig, once his full-time job, is in software, so it's online anyway, continues as usual.

I'm old but keeping well, very capable of living alone and enjoying it, a blessing during a time like this.

Our work to eject the present administration has been successful. Rocks ahead, but not the despair we were feeling just a few weeks ago.

I'm thankful for faithful friends who haven't fallen away when things are tough, neighbors who are fun to be around.

And I'm thankful, too, for the readers of my blogs, long distance friends,  who take part with energy, commenting, advising, suggesting books, emailing me with their own pictures and even sending me things they know I'll like and use. You can't know how much it means to have your friendship and know you're reading here.

Such generosity of support over the twelve years I've been blogging and recording some major and dramatic events in my household. Also some funny ones, where I did not cut a dignified figure, but oh well.

Thoughtful and timely gifts that have kept me going. From lint for art use, cashmere combings for spinning, Kool aid for dyeing, books, all kinds of yarn, fabrics, stitching and knitting materials and tools, handmade books, lace, scarves, ecards, and here's the latest, from dear C

She'd followed the flour tortilla adventure, and thought it would be nice for me to make corn tortillas, too.

But since the official masa harina is available in big quantities, she kindly not only measured out enough for a single person's recipe, but handwrote the recipe, and sent it off like a care package! The note will be inserted into my Big Binder right away, for safety. Is this not a gesture to make a person happy? Yes, loudly!

And yes, it's all a two way street, but here I'm talking as recipient.

Then I looked at my plants this morning and saw this bud just beginning on the white primula.

See it down there, right at the base of the leaves, juuuust visible? Hope in plant form.

All in all, plenty to be thankful for, and I am, I so am.

I wish you all a happy week, coming into summertime for some blogreaders, winter for others. Let's find joy even in dark times, if we can.

Preserve and preserves

Yesterday I went to the Preserve, local small wilderness area, partly desperate for change of scene, partly to conquer nerves at driving new car. Once I started I was fine, really liking the new car. After I remembered how to start it.

And found that a lot of people had the same idea. The normally deserted parking lot, me, park ranger, maybe one other birder, was jammed. Trails mobbed. Had to wait to get a people-free view of the lake!

 Mostly newcomers worrying about getting lost, shouting to each other about where to see birds, funny ,but they had the right idea. I had a brief glimpse of a resident bluebird before a shout sent her flying away.

Last time it was like that was the day after 9.11. Many local commuters never came home. Parking lot at the train station packed with cars which were eventually towed. People reassuring each other by coming to the preserve for peace. The incineration smell from the Towers was still drifting over.  We're less than  an hour, as the crow flies, from Manhattan.

It was lovely to be there, it's been a while since I had enough energy. I don't do the whole trail as I used to, since I may run out of juice a bit soon, but love to walk there. Usually, if you see anyone, it's kindred spirits wearing binoculars, pointing out interesting sightings, casually, not bothering each other.

The virgin beech wood generates its own climate, warmer in winter, cooler in summer.

And on the edge, milkweed for monarch butterflies.

The lake was a quarry, extremely deep, shelving, with many species of fish, and it's running water, so it's self cleaning. A lot of migrating waterbirds rest here a few days each year.  Overhead the newly restored bald eagles, sometimes an osprey, always turkey vultures and redtail hawks.

Peaceful meadow.

This morning, breakfast with cherry and berry preserves, very Belgian, Poirot would approve. He didn't like marmalade. I learned to like cherry jam at breakfast when I was working in France as an au pair.

 And not speaking a word of English for all the months I was there, bringing my fluency up to the point where, on the homeward journey,  Customs insisted I should be in the non-citizen line, until I waved my passport, and we all switched to English.

It served me well in my uni program, where everything happened in French, massive reading requirements, lectures, and, as a competitive program, students from much better preparation than I were together in class. I stayed nicely above water.

But back to the cherry berry preserves. I made it that day I did all the cooking, and it turned out a bit runny like fruit sauce. I saved some for Easter since I like fruit sauce with ham, while Handsome Son stoutly sticks with his manly mustard, Coleman's.

Then after waiting overnight, long enough to know it wasn't going to jell, I poured it back in the pan, with cornstarch, and reboiled it. It's now a passable jam like food. The flavor's lovely, just the texture needed work. It's the first time I tried that. Also the first time my jam didn't jell. So all is not lost if that happens.

Just thinking what to do today. Plain or fancy. Or both. I could be making new towels from the terry fabric I have for the purpose, to replace the thin and ragged ones I keep using. Hand stitching. Plain.Or I could be doing a bit of that silk piecing that's been waiting. Fancy. Or sort the outside storage, continuing the downsizing. Very Plain. Or spin some paper. Fancy.

I'll have another cup of tea and decide.