elegentry

Yesterday I
-made 3 litres or so of apricot sauce- for the surveying expidition if

sjkasabi wants to use it. It is sweet and flavoured gently with cinnamon and lemon juice. The jam funnel that giddyaunt

sjkasabi gave me vastly reduced the resultant stickiness of the kitchen, yay.
( other stuff )

splodgenoodles

tenbears
Now overnight my back has decided to go out, ow. Hope it improves real fast! Bother. Doubt I will get the plumbago in the ground today as a result. It had better be OK by next weekend or there won't be any putting up of tents.

two high list things for today
-finish sewing hem- then frock will be finished
-deal with the third bag of apricots before they die.

Current Mood: pleased but sore
Current Music: not yet

Tags:

apricots,
garden

I'm awake, I've had my first cup of coffee, I'm at home and I'm not going out. At least not for hours. I have pretty much only been here to sleep this week. All good stuff but it is so nice to be home. Oh I was home Monday night-

villana kindly came over and pinned the hem on the Durer frock before the heat hit on Tues.

I have vast amounts of stuff to potentially do this weekend. Mostly some form of chore. Some are fun chores though. Including turning many kilos of apricots into forms that will last longer. Some will get turned into me I suspect. Even the less fun chores I am looking at fairly kindly today 'cause they mean I can do them AT HOME!

I shan't write a list now, I don't want to give brain space to what I don't get around to doing. I might tell you later what I have done though.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Plaisir d'Amour

Tags:

apricots,
sewing

So what is the best way to get jam/sauce neatly into jars? Surely not the way I just did it which wasn't neat at all. ALL the jars needed washing down after the lids were on. Two I managed to drop into the sauce and so were actually dip filled! I had a more thorough go at sterilising the jars, including the drying in the oven part. As a result, every thing I was handling was HOT. Also the sauce is lumpy which was not helping the ladling process. I need a better pouring large ladle I think. Ah well, there is now apricot sauce to take to

mrsbrown birthday party. This time I have added the lemon as juice and finely grated rind. I liked the occasional hit of strong lemon from the tiny wedges I used in previous versions-but not everyone else did.

In other news
-tum is fine this morning thankfully
-the herb garden is trying out some new veges. This morning I added a rhubarb crown, a capsicum plant, snow peas and carrot seedlings. Finger crossed the snails don't eat them.
-I planted a punnet of primula seedlings in the rose bed. Then I read the label which says they like shade. Oops. So I dug them up and replanted them under the new almond.
-I have pulled out most of what A tells me is onion grass, not the snowdrops I thought I had. Nevermind, more bulbs I can justify getting next season.
-the bluebells are starting to put up flower spikes!
-there are enough freesias now for me to cut a few for the house. Have decided I am not allowed to until I have vacuumed though.

Current Mood: accomplished

Tags:

apricots,
garden

I too have benefitted from the apricot largesse of

splodgenoodles. I went round there last night, helped pick almost the last of them and then sat socialising and got fed dinner by

tenbears, hoorah. I sit here with my toast (budgie nibbling on a bit) pleased that there is 3.5kg of apricots gently stewing on the stove. I write this with breaks to go stir them and make coffee #2. My plan is to freeze them in blocks and cook them into other things as I have the inspiration later. I separated out ~700g of less ripe fruit that should survive transport to bash today. Anyone keen to have them for cooking? did you say you wanted a few more

sjkasabi? or should they just be eaten? This is assuming I get to bash- only if the weather behaves and is cooler today.

Yesterday was 37C. frustrating weather for getting things done. Great for laundry but not cooking or sewing, especially when you need to iron yardage for starters. It got to 36C in my kitchen and sewing room in the afternoon. Think I need to shift the machine back into the lounge for a few months. Anyway, I flatly refused to turn the iron on yesterday. I ended up feeling trapped in the loungeroom with the aircon, having finally admitted i needed it on. It seemed that everything I wanted to do was in other rooms too hot to work in. I drifted around a bit and ended up using the time to talk on the phone with a couple of friends from afar. That was good actually, I am losing touch with my Sydney people.

Apricots are done, now cooling. Kitchen is still 29C. I will sit for a while with the iron but in front of an open west window with lovely breeze. I am planning to press fabric:
-taupe fine wool with a white pinstripe and touch of lycra for a work skirt
-grey/brown cotton/lycra satteen, also with a white pinstripe for trousers
-mad watermelon home dyed linen for a 14thC gown
-scrap cotton for a quilt for monstah and son
-wool for remaining pieces of the heart quilt previously mentioned-that project keeps developing.

Wonder if I have the patience to do all that? And I was looking forward to actually sewing this weekend, seems I am only prepping.

I have a long list of gardening things I wanted to do too. Where does the time go?

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: still too warm house
Current Music: June Tabor, Rosa Mundi