Something missing, surely...?
Apr. 26th, 2014 11:44 amIt rained yesterday, quite extensively, yay. They had promised us storms, but it didn't really seem that stormy.
I came home from the farmers' market just now, and stepped out the back to discard the leavings from a pot of pork stock I'd been brewing overnight - and I gazed in perplexity at our patio, because this was the first thing I saw:

- which, you will allow, is a circle of chairs set around nothing-in-particular, where there should have been a very particular something.
"Hunh," thought I: "has someone stolen our furniture? How odd..."
Then I turned my head to the right (I am natively left-headed, you understand: always look to the start of the line and follow the narrative thrust from margin to margin) and saw this:

- by which time I was beginning to understand. I stepped out into the yard and turned further to my right, and yup:

Hunh. Perhaps it was stormier than I realised - tho' that umbrella has always been a windfarm. This is not the first time it's been hurt in the execution of its hobby.
Anyway. I have set all to rights, until the next time. A more practical man might do something different - or at least lower the umbrella until needed - but hey.
In other news, we have Bryn and Kyle for dinner tonight. I have a duck. I was half-thinking of a classic fesunjun - we are in the land of pomegranates and walnuts, after all - but actually I think I might compound something original, with walnuts and dried pears and citrus. It's a duck: what could possibly go wrong?
Speaking of walnuts, walnut trees are weird. Everything else all up and down the street is in leaf and in blossom, even in fruit already; the walnuts have been conspicuously bare all this time, and I've been increasingly anxious. If I am to gather green walnuts for pickling, I need to pick them before the end of June - viz, in two months' time. So far, there's been nothing. Had they all died? Was there a walnut-plague, or a secret walnut-poisoner...?
Apparently not: this week they are showing hints of green at their fingers' ends. Not buds, not leaves: odd sort of catkins, I'd call them. I shall watch with interest, and possibly record progress.
I came home from the farmers' market just now, and stepped out the back to discard the leavings from a pot of pork stock I'd been brewing overnight - and I gazed in perplexity at our patio, because this was the first thing I saw:

- which, you will allow, is a circle of chairs set around nothing-in-particular, where there should have been a very particular something.
"Hunh," thought I: "has someone stolen our furniture? How odd..."
Then I turned my head to the right (I am natively left-headed, you understand: always look to the start of the line and follow the narrative thrust from margin to margin) and saw this:

- by which time I was beginning to understand. I stepped out into the yard and turned further to my right, and yup:

Hunh. Perhaps it was stormier than I realised - tho' that umbrella has always been a windfarm. This is not the first time it's been hurt in the execution of its hobby.
Anyway. I have set all to rights, until the next time. A more practical man might do something different - or at least lower the umbrella until needed - but hey.
In other news, we have Bryn and Kyle for dinner tonight. I have a duck. I was half-thinking of a classic fesunjun - we are in the land of pomegranates and walnuts, after all - but actually I think I might compound something original, with walnuts and dried pears and citrus. It's a duck: what could possibly go wrong?
Speaking of walnuts, walnut trees are weird. Everything else all up and down the street is in leaf and in blossom, even in fruit already; the walnuts have been conspicuously bare all this time, and I've been increasingly anxious. If I am to gather green walnuts for pickling, I need to pick them before the end of June - viz, in two months' time. So far, there's been nothing. Had they all died? Was there a walnut-plague, or a secret walnut-poisoner...?
Apparently not: this week they are showing hints of green at their fingers' ends. Not buds, not leaves: odd sort of catkins, I'd call them. I shall watch with interest, and possibly record progress.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-26 08:49 pm (UTC)Ours is fastened into a heavy stand and anchored (theoretically) also by the table, but it's under trees, and we close it when it's very windy.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-26 09:03 pm (UTC)