Grown-up furniture

We recently bought ourselves some proper grown-up bedroom furniture, and I am finally getting around to showing it to you. This is the dresser; it comes up to my shoulder, so it is quite tall. And it is much better than the cheap particle board one we had been using for years. So far, I have managed not to clutter up the top with my bits and bobs (they are all in that square cubby instead).

We also bought matching nightstands. This is mine. The red cup is not for me - it is the cat's, and I cannot get rid of it. Two of the cats pretty much refuse to drink out of bowls on the floor, preferring the cup on the table. That's not really a problem, most of the time, but they do occasionally spill it, and they tend to like to get drinks while I am sleeping. I have been woken up by incredibly loud slurping right by my head, or by a cat walking across me to get to the cup. I am hoping that the spilling at least will be cut down now that I have a more stable table (the old one was rather wobbly, especially when a cat jumped off in haste). The drawers are nice - I can corral all the various pens and pencils and little bottles that I had sitting around.

It feels a little strange to have grown-up furniture now. For some reason, it feels even stranger than buying the house in the first place.

Pesto and Tomatoes and Collard Greens

Our garden is doing well, despite just emerging from the driest May on record. This weekend, I pulled out the peas, broccoli and romaine lettuce, since they had all finished producing and were just providing food for bugs. The broccoli and romaine remains went into the compost bin to enrich the mix for next year. Removing them also gives us some space to plant ... well, something else. I haven't yet figured out what exactly. Maybe lettuce for fall. Anyway, the rest of the garden is still doing well. For the first time, our carrots are actually growing and are edible. The tomatoes are starting to ripen - there have been 4 ripe Early Girls so far - one eaten by a worm or something, one stolen from the deck, and two eaten by us. The Arkansas Traveler heirlooms are doing nicely, and we should have a couple of those ready by the weekend. We should have tomatoes for at least a month, hopefully two or three (a girl can hope, anyway).

Last night for dinner, we had one of our favorite wraps - Caribbean Beans and Greens, which is basically black beans and Collard Greens with rice, in a tortilla. The greens all came from the garden, and we left plenty for later. While we were harvesting the greens, I noticed that most of the basil was starting to set flowers, so I trimmed all the plants back. When I got it inside, I realized I had enough basil in hand to make a batch of pesto. So I did. We'll probably have that for dinner Friday or Saturday. Yum.

In addition to all the berries - strawberries (which are just about finished for the year), blueberries, and blackberries, our farmer's market has had peaches available for the last couple of weeks, so I have been eating quite a few of those as well. They are not freestone peaches, alas, since those come later in the summer, so I can't dehydrate them or can them, but I can definitely eat them. Plain, or with yogurt, or in a smoothie, or in a fruit salad, or baked up with blackberries into a lovely cobbler... I don't know if I will get any peaches dried or canned this year, since the freestones come ready about the same time I will be adjusting to motherhood and sleeplessness, but you never know. I hope I do, since peaches in the winter are a wonderful way to break the gloom of a December day.

Friday Cat Picture

Creamsicle wants you to know that it is Friday, time to relax and look forward to the weekend.

A few days ago, the temperature hit 95 or 97 - the hottest day so far this year. Today, after a slight cold front blew in, it is not yet 70. Bliss.

It appears that we have a tomato thief. Yesterday morning, there was an almost perfect, almost ripe tomato on the vine of one of the deck tomatoes. The first edible one of the year (we had one other one, but it had been ruined by bugs). I left it, thinking a little more sun would make it absolutely perfect. When I got home in the afternoon, it was gone without a trace. Some critter - squirrel? blue jay? - came and took my tomato. They were smart, and chose the one day this week that Miikka was locked in the house instead of patrolling the yard. We might have to put the bird netting over those plants, like we did with the blueberry bush. Grr!