Things I did today: – made a batch of experimental pancakes. The blueberry sauce helped make them a bit more like breakfast and less like raisinless oatmeal raisin cookies. Caitlyn didn’t like that we told her she couldn’t have syrup on them. – made some colby cheese. This cheese was less than 6 hours from initial pot sterilization to cheese in press. Either this recipe was simpler or I’m getting better at this. We’ll know in 2 months after this one is done aging. – finished assembling 3 dozen confetti eggs. Must remember to take a picture of them all …

I’ve stolen some time that I should have spent doing other things to work on another quilt project. This is the other quilt we have that Ian’s mom made: The center panel is printed to look quilted, and it’s torn. The edges are pieced from old jeans and some shirts, I think. But it’s definitely related to the other one I repaired recently. Figuring out what to do with the center panel has been a challenge. I didn’t want to take it out since nothing about this quilt is truly square; removing the center would structurally damage the whole. But …

We had a beautiful morning earlier this week. The clouds were hanging out over by the edge of the sky and the night’s rain lingering on the plants made everything sparkle in the sunlight. I went for a bike ride before breakfast and discovered these on the way in the back gate: I have a pear tree full of baby pears! Last year, we had one pear on the whole tree, until someone reached over the fence, picked it, bit it and discovered that it wasn’t mature – then threw it back over the fence. I don’t know if I …

I opened up one of the half-rounds of the Monterey Jack cheese I made in March. It doesn’t taste anything like Monterey Jack cheese. It’s not bad, just dry and crumbly and on the extra-sharp side. And it’s only been aging a month. I don’t know if I over-heated, or heated too fast, or over-handled the curds. It could also be the effect of letting it sit in the press three extra hours, but I doubt it. I seem to remember thinking that it was pretty dry when it went into the press. Also, there was some mold on the …

Does anyone know how to find a good home for a tree? It’s getting to be time to let go of my Norfolk Island pine. And just thinking about it almost makes me cry. This tree has been part of the family since 1991, when Kathryn gave it to me as a Christmas present. We were in AP US History, juniors at SLVHS, and I still remember how spindly the poor thing was. Kathryn had hung an ornament, not a large one, just a red ball, probably ping-pong ball sized, on its one branch; the weight pulled the whole tree …