Weather or not I should*

It is a ridiculously beautiful day out there: scrubbed clear sky, warm sun, delightful breeze. We would call it a splendid summer's day back in England, were it not the end of January.

The kicker, of course, is that we are to consider not merely weather, but also climate. After the wettest December that most people can remember, we have had the driest January since records began, which is a much longer timespan; and there is small relief in view. Hullo, drought again. I am back to watering the garden, while begrudging every drop. (Water doesn't just fall from the sky, y'know. Not around here.)

Still, I might have to go sit out with a book and a beer this afternoon, just because I can. While m'wife's up in the city with her critiquing group, while I consider the Ballad of Reading Wilde. Between grinding dried lemons into powder and grinding leaf lard to render. Lord, is there no end to the daily grind?


*Nothing comes of nothing.

The daily round, and round, and round again

Several are the pounds of pork back fat that I have sliced, derinded (deround?) and coarsely ground (grinded?):



(Look! It has a smeared halo of special effects! Praise the Lard, and pass the ammunition!)

Now I have set 'em all in the oven to render, and the rinds to crisp and pop:



(Look! A Diet of Worms! Truly is this day blessed with religious imagery...)

And now my own unfatty non-rindworthy back is aching badly, on account of effort and old hurts rewoken by poorly ergonomic workspace (grinder far too low, since you ask: horrid bending; I am too old to bend easily or well). I feel I have earned this beer, these ibuprofens, this sit in the sunshine with a book. (But poor Jack has just been captured! By the Americans! He is most cast down and low in his spirits...)