Unscramble that heading, if you will! I admit it is a puzzler. But the fact is, I have a long list of things to accomplish on this day, some having to do with strawberries, and so I spend zero time in my flower fields. I've gone from total immersion to total abstention. For the day.
I do run out to the barn in the morning. It's smokey once again and this would appear to be a broken record, or at least a broken weather system, but lo! We go from unhealthy air quality in the morning to good in the afternoon! Patience will be been rewarded!
But, here's the still slightly smoggy morning walk:
(This bed is heavy on yellows in late spring, when the yellow peonies are in full bloom, and then completely purple in the fall)
Our plan for this day was to (finally) catch Pancake -- the most recent feral that has adopted the farmette as his hangout. He'd been so skittish that we didn't dare try earlier, but we think he'd trust us to go into a carrier with food, and he really would benefit (as would the planet) from being neutered. Maybe he'd engage in fewer battles. Too, he could get some shots to protect him from the evils out there.
Pancake, however, can read minds. He did not show up for his morning feeding. That is so unusual that one would almost worry that he got mauled somewhere by something, except he is a restless sort and most likely within a few days (or a few hours) he'll be back.
Pancake catching abandoned, I go out to Madison Sourdough to pick up a cake for dinner (and pastries for breakfast). It's lovely to be eating their fresh cinnamon rolls, but we do this inside. Cool and smokey out there. Warm and cozy in the kitchen.
And then we attack yesterday's strawberries. The best use of them is to cook up our own version of strawberry jam. We still have some jars of it from last year's efforts, but hey, if we add to it a few more, we should be set for life! Or at least for the next few years.
Jam done. So, is that it for the strawberries? No! I was really tempted by the strawberry cake recipe that popped into my mailbox from the Smitten Kitchen a few weeks ago. It uses up a whole pound of berries and it is exactly the type I like: great with coffee, in the morning or afternoon.
And then it's just a rush to get things organized for Sparrow's birthday dinner: the little guy turns seven today!
(sibs follow)
Oh, that boy! He is clever, sensitive, affectionate, and with a sharp, if sometimes befuddling sense of humor. And he loves Legos, so of course, this was an easy birthday to shop for.
I always ask the kids for their birthday cake preferences and he said he wanted all brown, which I understood to mean chocolate, but not deep and dark, with frosting of the buttercream type. A perfect request for Madison Sourdough.
Dinner first.
And then -- Happy Birthday, sweet Sparrow!
As for my to-do list -- well, there's a lot carried over for the next day. We'll see how that goes!
with so much love...
