A busy day in the garden and kitchen

Let's see here - it was quite the day. After making scones for scrottie and myself for breakfast and seeing him off to the airport this morning, I rode back over to my house. Then I set to work: first I watered the backyard and the chickens (especially when I spied them checking out the tomato plants again). Then I hung up some sheets for extra shade for the chickens. Hopefully they're helpful. Then I removed dirt from half of the worm bin, with some help from some attentive assistants, the chickens. It was nice to have the company, seeing as I wasn't about to eat all of the grubs that were squirming around with the worms by myself. In fact, I wasn't going to eat any of them. I don't know what they are, but I've heard similar reports of the grubs from other people living in the southwest. They are flies or beetles or something. In any case, the chickens don't seem to care what they are, they just want to eat them, and so they did. Hilarious as usual.

After harvesting the dirt from the worm bin, I played "dirt fairy" and awarded the worm dirt to a subset of the garden plants. It's wonderful, rich stuff, but supplies are limited. I also saved out a ball of worms for a friend who had requested them. Then what? Oh yes, I started to shred up some more newspaper for the bin, but I didn't get all that far because the shredder was badly jammed. Have you ever watched an electronic appliance destroy itself in front of your very eyes? It's pretty disconcerting. It wasn't catastrophic, but the shredder started bulging oddly and eating its own little plastic teeth. That's what I get for buying a $5 shredder from Goodwill, I suppose.

Subsequently, I dropped off a bucket at the bike co-op (I'd inadvertently borrowed it), and then dropped of the worms at the friend's house. I also helped her move a defunct stove from her backyard out to the alley. Nothing like throwing a stove around in the middle of a hot Arizona summer day.

Then I went over to the hardware store to follow through on a longstanding project: fixing up the screen on the front screen door. My cat had busted completely through the bottom of it in her efforts to attack her mortal foe, Howie, who sits outside and taunts her. When I pulled the door down to take a look at it, I discovered that the spline I'd purchased eons ago was too small for the screen. So 'twas off to find some wider spline. Well, I didn't bring a sample of the spline with me. You can see where this one is going. The dude at the store insisted that nobody ever used wider spline for screen doors, so I'd be all set with the second-narrowest stuff. I bought it and headed home. When I tried it out, it was still too narrow. Yep.

So I decided to make my next errand a double-errand: a trip to the Indian grocery store for spices, plus a trip to a second hardware store for spline of the proper size. This time, I brought a sample piece with me. I also happened to remember that I needed to pick up more air filters, so I did.

Once I got home again, I finally fixed up the door. Then I set to work in the kitchen. This afternoon/evening, I made:

-A loaf of sandwich bread
-A double-batch of pita bread (I never knew pita were so easy to make!)
-Vegan chocolate cupcakes
-Two batches of peach preserves (the peaches had been frozen, so prep was reduced)
-A curried wheat berry/quinoa salad for dinner tomorrow with the Scrabble Society
-Chickpeas, also for tomorrow's dinner
-Two batches of hot tea, to put on ice for later

Yeah. I ate some old leftovers for dinner. Now, I will go to bed, because I'm pretty much exhausted. I don't think I'll do much additional cooking this week, either. That was plenty for the time being. I'm excited about the curried grain salad, because it looks like it will be a good way to use up wheat berries, AND it's a satisfying dish that's good for the summertime because it's not hot. I really need to work on my not-hot cooking repertoire this summer.