November 3, 2016
6:43 a.m.
Attila let me sleep until almost 6 a.m. this morning, so that my routines are offset by about an hour. It is dark outside, and impossible to tell what weather the day will bring. With my chair in its new position, I can watch the morning sky brighten.
Attila now leaves for work in the dark, but arrives home before darkness falls. There is psychological benefit to spending time at home in daylight hours. Yesterday afternoon when Attila arrived home from work there remained enough daylight that he could saw off a dead branch on the tree in the back yard, section it, and bundle it for the upcoming yard waste pickup. We don’t take wood removed from trees to the Rideau Camp, in case it harbours harmful insects, like the Emerald Ash Borer. I would prefer to burn it in situ, but there are bylaws in this town against burning on one’s property.
The fallen leaves are mulched by our lawn mower. When I was here by myself two autumns ago, I just mowed over the leaves and left them where they were. By the time the grass grew in the spring there was no sign of them. Attila gathers them as he mows them, in the bag at the back of the lawn mower, and into the compost pile they go. We have a compost pile for yard waste in a corner of the yard, and a black plastic compost bin for kitchen waste. Since we eat a lot of vegetables, the kitchen compost is almost full, and will soon need to be emptied. Perhaps we will need a second compost bin.
7:11 a.m.
I am sitting with my morning coffee, wondering why it is that I can’t regard things as disposable. With some exceptions, like fingernail clippings and used toilet paper, I feel everything is worth either keeping in case it will be useful, or giving away to someone who can use it. Not everyone feels this way.
The sky is still dark through the living room windows. Dawn won’t be long in coming now.
7:25 a.m.
I glanced up from this screen to find the faint silhouette of the branches discernable through my windows. I love trees. The day has arrived without fanfare.
9:15 a.m.
The rain is coming down slow and steady. The Tamarack needles have turned a bright yellow, though none have yet fallen.
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7:00 p.m.
The day slipped by without incident. I went for a walk during a break in the rain. I tried something new for my lunch, pressed cottage cheese and pineapple, dismal failure, ate it anyway. I collected the newspaper in its plastic bag from the end of the driveway. You get the drift, the smallness of my moments overwhelmed the day, as they do on all the best days.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
11°C
Date: 7:00 PM EDT Thursday 3 November 2016
Condition: Not observed
Pressure: 101.7 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 10.6°C
Dew point: 7.3°C
Humidity: 80%
Wind: NW 12 km/h
Quote
“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
Pablo Picasso
1881 – 1973
Pressed cottage cheese and pineapple? I don’t know about pressed but a bowl of cottage cheese with pineapple pieces on top and some pineapple juice was always a favorite of mine.
Your tamaracks are so pretty. I love the fine needle-like leaves.
We seem to be having almost reverse weather, lately. We had heavy rain throughout most of the night, but come sunrise the clouds were gone and we didn’t have clouds again until about 5PM.
Our new grass seed is finally starting to enjoy the rain we’ve been getting. There’s a green skiff of fine grass across our front yard. Oddly, the grass is growing better on the old, stale looking soil than it is on the new black soil that we bought!
Teri, I enjoy cottage cheese and pineapple, but the tubs of cottage cheese with curds is very high sodium, I cannot eat it. The pressed cottage cheese has very low sodium, it tastes similar but not quite the same.
The weather seems very changeable right now. It is nice though that temperatures are remaining above the freezing point for the most part.
Congratulations on the success of your grass seed, some of it at least. Interesting the difference soil can make!
I’ve never heard of “pressed” cottage cheese. But I have noticed that the regular kind is usually pretty salty. We don’t eat it much. I like it but Paul doesn’t. We were buying it for the dogs for a while but not anymore.
Your tree picture is fabulous! Would make a nice “background” gif for a web page!!
Bex, the pressed cottage cheese is very dry (just the curds in the tubs I think pressed together) and I think it is the same thing as paneer. I am trying to use it as a substitute for cheese in general, it falls a bit short, but it is low in sodium, which is what I am after.
Thanks Bex about the photo, I love Tamarack trees, they are beautiful, can’t really go wrong taking a picture of them.
I was just looking at the amount of salt in various cheeses. It was very interesting that cottage cheese is considered one of the lowest in salt. Finding that out made me look at other types of cheese. OMGosh, they have a LOT of salt!!!
I did find it interesting that it seems ricotta has about the least amount of salt of most cheeses. Ricotta can be very much like cottage cheese. You might look it’s nutrition panel some time.
Yours is one of my favourite blogs precisely because you share those small moments.
Teri, good call on the ricotta, I bought some at the same time I bought the pressed cottage cheese. It has a sweet nutty taste, much better with pineapple!
Thanks Kate! Advice to writers is to “write what you know”, and it is a full time job exploring what I do and do not know, 🙂