My Saturday Chores

I made more grape jelly.

Six more pints of the stuff which was two procedures.  Cooking, canning, washing.  And then I did it a third time and made fig preserves framer home grown figs.

The figs weren't exactly ripe.  Or soft.  But they did have pretty pink insides.  I used the Vitamix to pulverize everything into a mush and then added lots of sugar and cooked it till it "gelled" and then added lemon juice.  It's not pink.  It's very seedy and very very sweet.  Sort of a nutty taste.

I don't eat fig preserves.  So I tasted mine and then tasted the fig preserves in the jar G has in the fridge--from France.  Same-ish.  So I think it's all good.

The only really good things about today--I started the cooking by making French Cabbage soup so I have something to eat.  And the disposal got a really good disinfecting when I poured the huge pot of boiling water down the sink drain.  Oh, and I am done for the day.

Well, I think I can add that the skin around my eye isn't burning and raw today.  Whatever I am allergic to must be "over".  We think it's a mold.  And the cold weather is killing it.  Could also be a fungus.  Among us.

I made myself a very very sweet terrarium out of a blown glass vase I bought across the street (yard sale) a few summers ago.  The hole in the top of the container is just big enough for my hand to fit inside so it was very tricky filling it with stones, charcoal, moss and finally dirt and plants.  I have two kinds of ferns, a moss and two tiny succulents.  I need a tiny animal or a fairy chair or clay mushroom to really finish it off.  Shopping!!!!

I planted four (could have used 5) ornamental kale plants in the front courtyard planter.  All purple and pink.  That's something I will plan on doing again next fall.  With something tall and orange in the center.  My list of things to remember to do is getting longer.

I still have my dahlia tubers to pack up for winter storage.  And the cannas.  And the elephant ears.  The BIG ferns are upstairs in the attic along with the agapanthus (which didn't bloom this summer)  and the pruned fig tree.  Pruned to the nub as they say.  Now I just have to water and wait for the amaryllis to bloom.  The Christmas Cactus have started budding already.  And I am hoping the cymbidium orchids put out a flower spike this year.

So much to look forward to.  And in a few weeks I will be on winter furlough.  Seven.