Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post #3207: Mostly wet, a few spots of sun
I think the photo at the head of this might be the last of my cheery autumn sun photos for the year. I took this on a walk last Sunday – a cold but brilliant day – and shortly afterwards the clouds rolled in.
Food: Just when you think you are done with processing food for the season, someone comes along with a whole lot of hot peppers and then the hazelnuts are also ready! This week I was pickling peppers for a market gardening friend, when I decided to also try fermenting hot sauce for the first time – so now I have 21 tiny jars of pickled peppers and 1 quart jar of fermenting peppers on my kitchen counter. Two kilos of hazelnuts came from one of the farms up the road, and are drying in my pantry until the time when I get cracking! In our house, hazelnuts are used as flour meal and in bliss balls, so my tendency is to shell and freeze for ease of use.
As per my previous weekly posts, cooking and baking are my autumn obsessions at the moment. I’ve recently switched to using fresh-ground flour for my bread (Vancouver Island wheat and the ground in the vita-mix right before mixing), bought an air fryer which has been all sorts of useful, and have been working on expanding my cooking repertoire through extensive use of the New York Times cooking site. The food has been very good around here lately.
Textiles: Got nothing this week on the textile front except the fact that I’ve finished knitting the main body of the Drifter pattern I’m working on. Now for the neckline, the edges, the buttons and buttonholes – another month most likely until I get it done. I’ve just ordered some flannelette fabric to make the new Oversized Shirt pattern by Assembly Line which I’ve feel a strong calling to make even though oversized isn’t usually my style choice. We’ll see how it turns out.
Work: Every once and while I get a union case that doesn’t sit right with me for some reason or other, and I’ve got one right now that just feels off. It’s been preoccupying me this week – and so work has suffered a bit. I made up for it yesterday by going through my inbox and making a bit long task list of all the things that need to get done – and so now I’m sitting here with a daunting list on a Friday morning.
Fitness: This week I unlocked two new fitness achievements. On Sunday it was longest run (ever) at 6 km, which I accomplished with a hangover (I am often foggy after Saturday nights!) I started out in my normal fashion but then decided to run up the really steep/long hill near my house and into a whole different neighbourhood in an attempt to hit 5 km. I overshot a bit, and now I have a new lifetime distance record to build from. Then on Tuesday, a friend who I walk with asked if I wanted to run instead. Running with someone else intimidates me, but I told her that as long as I could set the pace I would try. Turned out to be a blast and we did 5 km, chatting most of the way. Somehow I feel like running with other people makes me a real runner, even if I do slow them down.
Notable: Things are going down with my aging parents these days and I have been on the phone talking to people about home care this week. They don’t need much at the moment – but a little housekeeping and food prep would sure help my mom out these days. We’re going down to Victoria for an overnight visit tomorrow and taking a cake and a lasagna for her birthday. After this weekend I expect we will be very limited to the island for a long time since the pandemic regulations are increasing in the province and I expect that Vancouver Island will get lockdown orders sooner rather than later.
In mycology news – my oyster mushrooms have sprouted! They poked their heads out yesterday, and already today they look more like real mushrooms:
It’s really stormy here this morning, which seems to be a theme this month. I’m hoping the rain lets up for a mid-morning run but I’m not counting on it. November really is a difficult month on the coast with the increasingly dark days and socked in weather – but at least the gym here is still open and I can always work the kinks out there 🙂
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Red Cedar 
Thanks for sharing your week Megan. You’ve been busy, and I love how you write about your daily life. Congratulations on agreeing to run with someone else! That sounds energizing, and an opening to new possibilities. You’ve got me looking at a two-year old bag of hazelnuts that sits in my kitchen. I might as well crack into them one evening and see what is there. I’ve got a big bag of organic coconut shreds that I haven’t been using. ( keep thinking I’ll find some great recipe for gooey macaroons, but that has yet to happen. ). But, maybe they might work well with hazelnut meal and other goodies in a power/bliss type ball. I’ve been finding a new edible mushroom that is just starting to sprout up. Hedgehogs. I’ve discovered a few patches of babies, and Alex V said they can give up to 4″ across, so I’m going to let them bulk up a bit. They’re very cute with their hedghoggy “fur” under the cap. Also finding some fungi that are good for dyeing( Dyer’s polypore for one ), and will pass them on to Heather. I was thinking about what you said that people who do physical work aren’t necessarily in better shape than those who don’t. Is that because the cardio workout aspect is missing? ( I didn’t really finish my thought re Rosheen the other day. She was an incredibly hard worker physically, ate properly, yet always struggled with weight and got out of breath easily, which I remember being surprising to me. And same with myself and the window cleaning. Although arm motion above the chest is supposed to be very healthy for the heart. )
You mentioned bringing lasagna to Victoria. Tonight I’m planning on using up the last two pounds of chanterelles to make a white sauce type lasagna. (from Still Life with Menu by Mollie Katzen )Hoping it works out as I’ll be using gf flour to thicken the sauce, and no-bake gf noodles.
Have a good weekend in Victoria. 🙂
j
Jennifer Nash 250-247-9137
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