Hello, sunshine!

Silas, Froggie, and Bea

We survived the last week of rain every day, cold, and no sun.  It was horrible.  The sun finally returned today.  I'm waiting for it to dry the yard a bit more (the garden is still pretty swampy), so I can get some power weeding done. I also need to stake some of the grasses that the rain knocked down.  My mood and energy level seem to be strongly determined by the sun.  When it's ugly like that, I just slog through with no energy and feeling down.  It's so nice to have a sunny day today, as I'm so much happier and more productive.

Poor Silas went to the back door every day, looked out, and decided he wanted no part of being out there.  He definitely likes the sun and warmth.  Today was his first day of deck sunning since last Sunday. He's back in the house now, lying in a sunbeam by the side door.  He's going to make the most of the sun.  

I cut back the morning glory vines, and his diarrhea has been totally gone, and he's back to his normal poop schedule, which makes my life SO MUCH easier.  I think that's pretty solid evidence that the morning glory leaves were the cause of it.  One of the challenges with a dog who survived on the streets by scavenging for food, is that he tries to eat and get into absolutely everything.  Almost every walk, I have to pull something nasty out of his mouth that he snatched up from the ground.  He gets into grocery bags, while we're trying to bleach and unpack everything. He will eat anything that is dropped, and he's so fast.  He's a very aggressive scavenger!  It makes me nervous, because his colon appears to be fairly sensitive, and I don't want him to get into something that makes him sick (or causes diarrhea).  I can't really leave him in the yard unsupervised, because there's too much out there that he can eat that could cause him stomach problems.  He's very smart and determined, which makes it even tougher.  

Silas, Froggie, and Bea

Last night I had the oddest dream that he decided to move on and leave me.  He swam away in a little stream with his new girlfriend and dog friends.  I was so sad that he left, but he looked happy swimming with his doggy girlfriend.  That was one small part of a much larger, much weirder dream--none of which makes sense to me in the light of day.  I also dreamed about my dear friend, Patrick, who ended his life in 2017.  While I hope every night when I go to bed to dream about him, it doesn't happen very often at all.  I can count on one hand the number of dreams in which he's appeared since his death.  Each one is such a gift.  Real or not, it restores my soul to see him and spend time with him.

My friend Julie brought me a bag of apples (50 of them) from her tree, so I made a caramel apple crisp this week and a batch of apple sauce.  I still have almost half of the apples left, so I'll be able to do another dessert and another batch of apple sauce next week.  My parents are coming by this afternoon for an outdoor visit, so I made a batch of whipped cream to go with the crisp.

I've roasted a couple more batches of heirloom tomatoes to add to my freezer stock.  We should have at least two more batches--hopefully more.  We harvested another batch of eggplant, and I used that to make a South Indian eggplant chickpea stew that was delicious.  I also made a Jamaican jerk (using soy curls) and coconut rice.  I'm looking forward to having that for dinner tonight.  If I can harvest a pint of cherry/grape tomatoes today, I'll make mac & cheese tomorrow.

We're starting the third week of classes this week, but I still have one class that hasn't met yet. It's really odd to be holding a first class in the third week of classes.  It's a Monday class, and the first week, we started on a Tuesday, and the second week, Monday was Labor Day.