Sunday, July 5, 2020

Beans And Books, Etc.


I guess you can tell what I did today. For part of the day, anyway. First I picked and then I pickled. Six more pints. Forget a pantry, I need a whole damn root cellar. Or whatever you call one of those basements where the good wives stash their jars of preserved whatevers. After this year I may look into getting a pressure canner or I may just continue pickling what I can and freezing the rest. Thank goodness I have a family who does love pickles. I also looked up how to freeze field peas and it appears that they do need blanching and then plunging into an ice bath and then bagging. That's not hard work. None of this is hard work, really. It's just time consuming and once again, I did not get to my list of things that really need doing around here.

I finally threw out Darla's egg. Bless her heart. It wasn't even fertilized. She could have sat on that egg for the rest of her life and it would not have resulted in a baby. I took her off the nest and set her down on the ground where she just sat like she was still sitting on the egg. Finally she got up and started eating. I cleaned out the nests which was made more difficult by the fact that I have lost my nest-cleaning tool which is an old hoe-head blade that I found here somewhere that I've always used to scrape poop with. It was perfect. I know I used it to clean up the little coop where Dottie and Dearie are now staying and I set it down somewhere...
Either I'll find it or someone in the distant future will. Meanwhile I had to use a trowel and although it worked, I like my hoe blade better.

It hasn't been as hot today and while I was picking, a breeze would come up now and then and that felt like heaven. It rained this afternoon and has cooled off even a little more which gives us all reason to live another day. Not to say that it isn't still muggy as hell and buggy too. Mr. Moon and I ate breakfast on the porch this morning and he kept killing mosquitoes on me. I sometimes wonder if this isn't actually a ploy to smack me.
I don't think so. I hope not.

Good Lord but this is boring.

So, okay. I'll tell you something that happened in a dream of mine last night that had never happened before. We were in Cozumel but my dream-Cozumel which is quite, quite different from the one I've actually visited. Since I've traveled to the dream world one so many times however, it is familiar to me now and so much of it symbolizes my guilt about being a tourist there and my general guilt about being a privileged white person in any situation while at the same time loving the ability to stay right on the water and eat in any restaurant we want to.
It is, as they say, complicated.
Anyway, in this dream I was talking to my husband and I said, "I think this may just be a dream. No one here is wearing a mask and I know that they're requiring everyone to wear masks now."
Suddenly, in my dream, everyone WAS wearing a mask. It's like my brain was trying to fix the discrepancy by putting masks on everyone's faces and I said to Mr. Moon, "Yeah. Must be a dream. That doesn't happen in real life."
Oh, dream-world!

Still boring though, huh?

Well, my life is pretty boring now which is not to say that I'm not enjoying it. One of the best parts of my day lately has been reading in bed (which is not new) before I go to sleep and what I've been reading are Larry McMurtry books that I've already read many, many times. I tried and tried to get into new books and I did almost enjoy a few but something finally drove me to the bookshelf where Mr. McMurtry's books are kept and I plucked out Terms of Endearment and read that and now I'm reading the sequel which is The Evening Star and this story of a narcissistic and yet incredibly interesting woman named Aurora Greenway and her maid and true life partner Rosie and her daughter and her grandchildren and her suitors is soothing me and delighting me all over again. I am so grateful for Larry McMurtry. He has brought me more pleasure than he could ever know. I wrote him a letter once. I should write him another.

That's my story for today.

I hope all is well with you.
I'm going to go fry some green tomatoes now. I'm pretty excited about that.

Love...(The Incredibly Boring and yet Not Bored) Ms. Moon



13 comments:

  1. Poor Darla. That made me sad for some reason. My grandmother called it the fruit room. There is never anything boring about your day to day Mary Moon. Love your new header pic 💗

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    1. It made me very sad.
      A fruit room! Perfect! Or...in my case...a pickle parlor?
      I love that new header too because every time I open my blog I see Levon's smiling face.

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  2. Sounds about like my day, except I didn't find time to write.

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    1. I pretty much plan my day around meals, writing here, and going to bed.

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  3. I would love to know what you do to your fried green tomatoes. I love them but I just made the recipe up myself, never have had anyone else's or seen a recipe.
    Also love your header pic; would like to be right in there!

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    1. I just sliced the tomatoes, dipped them in buttermilk mixed with a little water, then dredged them in flour and cornmeal and salt and pepper. There are many ways to do it but this is simple and works for me.

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  4. One of my Neighbors used to make the best Pickled Green Tomatoes, we both moved, I sure do miss the taste of those, never seen them sold anywhere. Love the new Header.

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    1. You can buy pickled green tomatoes around here. They're good!

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  5. Some days we have to meander and just be.

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  6. sounds like my life, boring but not bored. I've been doing a lot of nothing the past week, maybe longer. I checked two books out of the library for two weeks. there was a time I would have read both. now I have two days to finish the first book!

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    1. What IS it with reading and the pandemic? I do, however, eat audio books whole.

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  7. Poor Darla! She DOES try.

    Life is pretty boring now. That's just the way it is. I think all things considered you do pretty well at making an interesting blog post out of life as we know it!

    I read "Lonesome Dove" years ago and LOVED it, but I think that's the only Larry McMurtry book I've read. I should try more. (Not that I don't have a stack of stuff already waiting for me...)

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