12 Oakdale

Sourdough and Mango Jam Made By Me  Three and half months into this sequestering, I’ve succumbed to the sourdough bread making craze. It is amazing that an idea that I think started on Instagram has gotten to me, and yet, I only read the newspaper. No social media, no TV news, no friends sending me pictures of their latest loaves. Is the need to bake floating through the air like the virus? I dutifully mixed up my starter and waited for it to bubble. I’ve done this before, once even buying 50 pounds of organic, stoneground speciality flour that I used to make a special warm-brew bread. I’d forgotten what a commitment (pain in the ass) sourdough is. Always wanting attention, threatening  to go pouty if not fed right, just like a new puppy. Fun but a lot of work. One day, before it was active enough to make good bread, I used extra starter for some sourdough pancakes. As I struggled with our stove to get the perfect pancake cooking temperature, I realized I’d never used ...

My Pumpkin Plant   I wanted to show you my plant that I grew from a seed. After this meeting*, I am going to plant it in my garden. That’s what I am doing while I wait out this pandemic. I am not watching TV or being on social media. I get my news by reading 3 newspapers. One liberal, one conservative and one local. Even with that, I almost missed the most important statement made last week by one of our government officials. On Tuesday, July 15 th , Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, “If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really do think over the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.”  Think about that. “If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really do think over the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.”  Let’s use the longest time: eight weeks, that’s about 2 months. If we started today, just t...

Mangos! As our day blend together, this one will stand out: we had not one, but two new events. After our bike ride, I knocked on the door of the house where there is a mango tree in the front yard and mangos lying all over the ground. I wasn’t hopeful for a response because I’ve never seen anyone home, and a car is sitting, covered, in the carport. Surely, a snowbird happy to not be in Florida now that we led the nation in new coronavirus cases each day. But Vincent answered the door and told me I could take all the mango I wanted. The tree was from Jamaica, and he planted it when it was only 2 feet high. Now it’s huge, and covered with mangos. He warned me they were stringy. They look like the ones we had in Naples. He usually puts a wheelbarrow full of mangos by the street and invites all the neighbors to take as many as they like. This year he hasn’t felt up to it. I biked home for plastic bags and cleaned his yard. Tomorrow I’ll go back and offer to put out the wheelbarrow. ...

1986 Purgatory, Colorado After living together for about five years and having our first child, we, actually I, decided to get married. Grant had been lobbying for years. But I was still hurting from the loss of my first marriage. He’d been divorced long enough to know hearts heal. I took a while to learn that. Plus alimony was my major source of income. I had to be practical .  We were married on the back patio of my house. With the hope of keeping it simple, my girlfriends Sally and Marjorie made much of the food. Grant cooked chicken Marsala, and, to my dismay, his mother Hazel laboriously peeled all the tomatoes for the salad. I don’t think she ever ate a tomato skin in her life. Our extravagance was a crazily expensive, absolutely delicious raspberry-filled wedding cake from By Word of Mouth, a little restaurant no longer around. July 10, 1988 The Rev. Kit Howell performed the service with vows he’d browbeating us into writing, Larry Bensen played the piano, and b...

Potato Vines   Using my preferred technique of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, I’ve gotten back to my ab workout now that I pulled my lower back while weeding. One would think that by the time one were 70, one would know that to keep one’s back from hurting, one’s abs need continual strength training, but one would be wrong. Two days of drugs and rest got me through the worst part, but not the frustration and embarrassment. Now, two weeks later, I’m in the habit of daily early morning ab exercise. What has made it easy is RPM, or Rise, Pee, Meditate. A benefit of our continued no-contact world is being able to attend the mindfulness-based stress reduction program presented by a couple from our former congregation. They had offered it previously but my schedule didn’t fit their timetable. Now...my schedule is more flexible. In addition to attending 8 weekly meetings and an all-day workshop, they ask us to meditate daily and listen to their guided body scans. ...

Another Bunch of Bananas   Our banana plantation along the canal is fruiting. We harvested 3 stalks, each with 5 - 6 hands of bananas,  and at least 4 plants are in flower or with small banana already showing. Banana bread, banana smoothies, banana daiquiris, bananas on cereal, bananas just by themselves, a lot of bananas in our diets. These are small, but not finger-sized, yellow ones. I am going to find other varieties to add to our crop, perhaps even plantains, if they will grow this far north. Unfortunately, like so much else, the Rare Fruit and Vegetable Council sales are shut down because of Covid-19. The rest of our gardens are on hold. Too late for spring planting; too early for fall. My few okra are hanging on. Something ate the eggplants. I’ve learned to start seeds inside. Grant has kindly turned the compost pile twice, adding the bucket of horse bedding I got when we picked Clara up from horse camp in Mount Dora. I need a closer source. Nehrling House Art...