hudebnik

Yesterday shalmestere brought in the year's harvest of tart cherries. There are 22 of them -- which won't make much of a dessert recipe, but it's 22 more cherries than we got last year, when the baby tree was busy putting out leaves.

We've gotten about half a dozen raspberries so far, but there are a lot of unripe berries on the bushes, and we expect to be drowning in raspberries in a few weeks.

There are three or four ripe-looking sugar snap peas, and a few more not ready for picking yet. Haven't seen any green beans yet, but two of the pole-bean plants have climbed to the top of their six-foot trellis.

There are also three kinds of basil, one cilantro plant, two Thai-pepper plants, and two wild-rose cuttings that have been in water for a week; I moved one of them into a flower pot yesterday, and should do the other one Any Day Now.

I started a batch of sourdough bread dough Friday evening, and was persuaded Saturday morning to use it for croissants rather than bread, so I worked in a stick of butter that wouldn't normally have been in a bread dough. But the croissant recipe I was using as inspiration has four sticks of butter, rolled into a plate, chilled, and folded repeatedly inside the dough. I wasn't convinced I could do the full rolling-chilling-folding-rolling-folding-rolling-folding thing at this point, and it had leaked a lot of butter out the edges the last time I tried, but I sliced another stick of butter into pats, arranged them in the middle of the rolled-out dough, and folded both ends over it, then rolled it out again, rotated 90 degrees, and folded both ends over the middle again for at least an approximation of how they're supposed to work. The croissant recipe also calls for sugar, and I left that out. Eventually I used half of the dough to make half a dozen croissants, and shaped the rest into a smallish loaf, which will presumably be very buttery bread. We'll see how they turn out.

Spent an hour or two yesterday raking and mowing the front lawn, and moved a couple of potted plants (one Thai-basil, two Thai chili-pepper) from the back yard to the enclosed porch before it gets too cold for them.

shalmestere and I hung up a couple of posters in the recently-renovated office. We still have to triage and re-shelve about a thousand books in the office, and there's some wall space still un-covered with artwork, and we still have to install the wooden blinds in the windows (they're just propped up in place now). And we need to get the radiator fixed or replaced, because when I turned it on after the contractors moved it two inches out from the wall (to clear the new window frames) it leaked water on the floor. And while we're at that, we should get the radiator in our bedroom fixed: for at least the last five years it's been very reluctant to heat up, and only one end at the best of times. I sent out a CFP on Angie's List a few days ago.

And we had an hour and a half music class yesterday afternoon, on "ornamentation for wind players". We didn't get a lot of specific advice we didn't already know, and we already have Ganassi, Ortiz, Conforto, etc. but the teacher had dug up a lot of fascinating textual references -- people in the 16th century advising one another how to or how not to ornament, describing particularly compelling or offensive performances they'd heard, etc.

I spent an hour or so helping with shalmestere's construction of the #capecult Edwardian cape that all the historical-costume-vloggers are doing this year. Having previously gotten at least one piece inserted backwards, she wanted to be reassured that all the pieces were in the correct orientation, and I concluded that the shell pieces were correct (albeit one sleeve two inches longer than the other), but the sleeve pieces of the lining were swapped left-for-right. (This is an easier mistake to make than it sounds, because the sleeve pieces of this cape are basically rounded triangles, almost-but-not-quite equilateral.) Fortunately, they were only pinned in place, not stitched, so I pinned all the lining pieces to their corresponding shell pieces in the ultimate orientations, things matched up pretty well, and she was able to put the thing on with all the pieces as a sanity check. So I think it'll be sewn together by the end of today.

This morning I'm scheduled to pick up a CSA farm share, followed by the usual angst about how to fit it all into the fridge, then to donate blood mid-day, then we have a music class at 3, then another music class at 6. It'll be busy.

The raspberries, after producing at least half a cup per day for several weeks, seem to have slowed down. And coincident with that, the neighborhood robins have discovered that raspberries are yummy. We expect another crop (from the other half of the canes) in a month or so, but now we're trying to figure out how to protect them from bird predation. The leading candidate is some kind of netting with 1/2" mesh, propped up on bamboo stakes or something: I went to Home Depot yesterday, asked several Friendly Sales Associates about bird netting and got no help, found the 6' bamboo stakes on my own, and eventually found the empty shelf bins where bird netting should be. So at least I know where to look next time.

We've had yellow squash blooming for a month now, but I've only seen one actual fruit, which as of yesterday was about 6" long. We should probably harvest it before the squirrels or robins or somebody else does. I don't understand: from my limited experience (forty years ago) with growing squash, the problem was always too many squash, not too few.

The green bean plants are producing 1-3 beans per day: we've had one meal that contained a normal-sized serving of beans for each of us, but mostly they just accumulate in the fridge until they're in danger of going bad.

The quince trees have a reasonable number of fruit on them, but I haven't cut one open in a while to see how badly worm-infested they are. I've been using sticky traps (with sex-pheromone bait) and parasitic wasps since they bloomed in April, and caught a fair number of moths in the sticky traps.

As of yesterday, there are green beans. Probably half a dozen or so in the front yard; haven't spotted any actual beans in the back yard (where there's more sun). Not sure when to harvest them, other than "just before the squirrels do." Where's that resublimated thiotimoline when I need it?

The quince trees have lots of fruit on them, a few of which are misshapen and apparently infected by OFM larvae, but I've been throwing those away when I find them, and many of them look OK. Continuing with the sticky trap baited with OFM sex pheromones. Continuing with the microscopic wasps that allegedly parasitize OFM's. Trimming every week or so to keep the trees from blocking the front steps or the light to the vegetable patch.

The squash plants in the back yard are coming up well: there are two visibly different kinds of leaves, but I don't remember where I planted the yellow squash and where the delicatas. The ones in the front yard aren't doing so well, presumably because they're shaded by the quince trees.

The green-bean plants in both back and front yards are starting to produce blossoms, although again the ones in the front yard are unhappy about shade from the quince trees. I think they had a lower germination rate than the squash plants, so there's some bare, bean-free soil in which I put a second round of seeds a few days ago.

The raspberry bushes produced a berry a few days ago, and several more yesterday; I expect that in two weeks they'll be roaring away at a cup a day. No sign yet of SWD's, but I should put out some traps for them.

1. Are you an Essential Worker?

Not really, but (a) I can easily work from home, and (b) my work-for-pay is tangentially related to CoViD-19. To wit: I work for Google Maps, which in the past month has dealt with tens of millions of "temporarily closed" businesses, tens of millions more changes in business hours, the invention of new kinds of business hours like "senior citizens only", the invention of new kinds of geographic features such as "CoViD-19 Testing Center" (some of which the local government doesn't want publicized because it would be swamped), etc.

2. How many drinks have you had since the quarantine has started?

Two to four times a week we have a chocolate avocado milkshake at bedtime, including 2 oz. of some kind of liqueur (one "drink") in a milkshake that serves two people. So, one to two "drinks" per week.

3. If you have kids... Are they driving you nuts?

No kids, two dogs, who are LOVING the increased time with us and the opportunity to walk in the park in the middle of the day.

4. What new hobby have you taken up during this?

None, really. We have a bunch of long-term construction and home-improvement projects that are progressing slightly faster under Stay At Home than they would have otherwise.

Oh, I've planted some bean and squash seeds in the front yard and in planters in the back yard. I figure green beans and squash are both almost impossible to kill, and will produce a bunch of food with minimal tending.

And I've been lifting weights more often than before -- probably every other day.

5. How many grocery runs have you done?

Probably two a week, although we're trying to keep it down to one. The limiting factors are milk and salad greens. My mother is horrified that I'm going out that often: she goes shopping every two weeks or so under normal circumstances, and is down to once a month now. We've had a couple of grocery deliveries, mostly specialty stuff like sausages from a German butcher; haven't yet hooked up with an ordinary grocery store that can promise delivery before May.

6. What are you spending your stimulus check on?

Not expecting to get one, because we're in the top 5% of the U.S. income distribution. Revisiting our annual charity list to make extra donations to especially CoViD-impacted organizations (Meals On Wheels, City Harvest, Red Cross, etc.) Employer's matching limit has been raised for this year.

7. Do you have any special occasions that you will miss during this quarantine?

A bunch of summer early-music workshops have been postponed or cancelled. But the people who would have been running them are instead running early-music classes by Zoom, which usually works OK unless you want to hear one another in real time. Pennsic may or may not happen, and if it does, we may not go because the thought of staying in a dense tent city with dubious sanitation and people converging from all over the world is terrifying at the moment.

8. Are you keeping your housework done?

No better than usual.

9a. What movie have you watched during this quarantine?

See this post. No others that I recall.

9b. What are you reading right now?

Too much news.

9c. What video game are you playing?

Turn-based civilization-building or empire-building games like FreeOrion, FreeCiv, FreeCol. Entirely too many hours.

10. What are you streaming with?

FiOS, which comes with phone and Internet as well as a few hundred channels of TV. We haven't historically watched enough TV to make any of the strictly-TV services worth the cost.

11. 9 months from now is there any chance of you having a baby?

No.

12. What's your go-to quarantine meal?

One thing I've been making more often than before (because I have more time between waking up and work-for-pay) is custardy oatmeal. Boil 1/2 cup of water, add 1/2 cup of old-fashioned rolled oats (plus salt, honey, cinnamon, whatever), and cook for a few minutes while beating an egg or two and microwaving 1/2 cup of milk. Drizzle the milk into the egg, beating constantly. Add to the oats and cook for a few minutes more, stirring constantly until it thickens into custard.

Oh, and I've been baking a loaf of sourdough bread every ~5 days, up from every ~10 days before the pestilence.

13. Is this whole situation making you paranoid?

No. I don't see any evidence that anybody's out to get me or us in particular, or even that there's much of an intentional conspiracy, only a rare confluence of greed, corruption, mendacity, and incompetence that was bad news even before the pestilence.

14. Has your internet gone out on you during this time?

Nope.

15. What month do you predict this all ends?

Some face-to-face businesses will be able to reopen in a month or two, with restrictions, but we won't be back to the status quo of six months ago for at least two years. On the bright side, the next few cold-and-flu seasons may be less bad because everybody has developed habits of hand-washing, social distance, and mask-wearing. Also on the bright side, the economic shutdown may have bought us a few weeks' delay in global warming.

16. First thing you're gonna do when you get off quarantine?

Dinner out and a concert.

17. Where do you wish you were right now?

Actually, I'm pretty happy where I am right now.

18. What free-from-quarantine activity are you missing the most?

Dinner out and a concert.

19. Have you run out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer?

No. We had a decent amount of TP, and installed a "hand-held bidet" a month ago that has reduced demand for it. We didn't have hand sanitizer before, and still don't.

20. Do you have enough food to last a month?

Perhaps, including all the dried and frozen stuff. It would get a little weird towards the end of the month as we got down to the ingredients in the backs of the cupboards that we'd forgotten about years ago. Storage space, particularly frozen, is a limiting factor. We seriously contemplated getting a small trunk freezer last fall, but it would have required calling an electrician to put in a new line, and we didn't get around to doing that before the Pestilence.

21. Anything else?

We're basically enjoying the stay-at-home situation. The air is cleaner than usual, the streets are quieter than usual, there's less traffic than usual, and we're not spending hours a day on mass transit. We're both still employed and doing something resembling our usual jobs, so we're not suffering economically, and we're both sufficiently introverted to be not suffering socially. Feeling a bit guilty about not suffering enough.

As of yesterday morning, there are about three tiny little green leaves on the top branch of the potted pomegranate tree that lives on the enclosed porch. I won't swear they weren't there the previous week, but they certainly haven't been there all winter. Happy Candlemas, or Brigd, or Groundhog Day, or whatever!

This tree started in a pomegranate we ate on New Year's Eve, 2008-2009. We put a few of the seeds in moist paper towels, a few of them germinated, we moved them to small flowerpots, and the one that survived popped its head above ground on Obama's inauguration day.

We bought a pomegranate to eat with our festive dinner on New Year's Eve 2008. Pomegranates have lots of seeds, so I put a few of them in between damp paper towels to see if they would sprout. Several did, so I put them in a small pot of soil, and on Barack Obama's inauguration day, two of them emerged above the surface.

One died fairly soon, but the other grew into a two-foot-tall, gracefully cascading mini-tree, looking sorta like a weeping willow. Which died last fall. I didn't get around to throwing it out, and occasionally watered it in the vain hope that it wasn't really dead.

And it's not: as of yesterday morning, there are little green leaves popping out at all the joints. Deciduousness is a thing.

On the other hand, the African violet (or something like that) that we were given at the door on the way out of last year's Easter service appears to be really and truly dead. Death is a thing too.

shalmestere had left some pieces of paper lying around for me to see. I picked one up and concluded it was a recipe, written in 19th-century English, for compost -- in the gardening sense, not the preserved-root-vegetables sense. In fact, looking at the others, I realized there were at least a dozen different recipes for varietal composts, presumably for different garden conditions. And each one ended with a series of "if" statements and a list of book titles. At length I realized that the "if" statements were actually conditional-compilation directives (if the C preprocessor had been based on 19th-century English), and the book titles, all by the same 20th-century female author, were effectively include directives: if you ran the whole thing as a script, you would get the full text of all her novels, with the compost recipe inserted at all and only those places where it was appropriate to the setting.

Last fall I posted this about our quince trees (which have just come into bloom in the past three days -- yay!)

Update: from the Web research I've done so far, this is probably two separate infections: a primary attack by the Oriental fruit moth (the closely-related codling moth would have gone straight for the seeds, rather than honeycombing the flesh), followed by an opportunistic brown-rot infection.

Oriental fruit moths overwinter, and then go through three or four generations in a summer: the first generation eats leaf shoots, leaving them wilted (which we did see last year), while later generations eat fruit. There are a variety of control mechanisms: parasitic wasps (Glabridorsum, Trichogramma, Macrocentrus); pheromones that disrupt the breeding cycle; a new virus brand-named Madex HP; bacteria-based pesticides Dipel (Bt) and Success (Spinosad); chemical insecticides methoxyfenozide, chlorantraniliprole, and flubendianide. I'm calling local garden stores to see what they've got that makes sense on my scale, for an orchard of two (2) trees.