Cilantro and Ceilings

The garden survived the high winds of last week very well.  My basil was having problems, though, and the name of their problems was cilantro.  Since I enjoy basil much more than dish-soap-flavored green stuff, I decided to turn most of the cilantro into pesto. 

Cilantro, by the way, is a very hardy plant.  I planted some last year in a very shady spot in the hopes that the spot was not so shady as I thought, and that I might perhaps get some delicious Mexican Parsley, that vital accompaniment to so many dishes, out of it.  Well, the spot was indeed the shady, but a rather leggy three plants of cilantro grew, became coriander, was harvested ... and became the parents of several dozen volunteer cilantro plants in the shade, plus some transplanted into my new garden, and my mom's garden, and some gardens in other towns.

The ones in my sunny garden were about 30" tall when they decided to lay down and gently cover my entire basil patch.  Armed with scissors, I went out and snipped all the main stems and brought them inside. 

Cilantro

Abigail and I went through the pile a stalk at a time, removing the leafy bits and leaving the stems and seeds for the compost pile.  This pile became 2 cups of pesto, with the addition of some olive oil and a bit of parmesan cheese. 

The sour cherry tree is bearing nicely this year. There's a pie in the fridge, jam in the cupboard, and many more cherries on the tree to pick.  If Filia and Filius get more picked today, I will probably make another batch of jam.  It is amazing to me how varied the jam recipes are.  One recipe called for 7 cups of sugar and 2 pouches of pectin for 3 pounds of fruit.  The one I used called for 3 cups of sugar and one pouch of pectin for 4 pounds of fruit.  And it is yummy! 

Not exactly before, but not after either

We're also on the brink of a living room remodel. Sometime in the hopefully not-too-distant future, a team of drywallers is going to come in and put some nice smooth drywall on our living room walls and ceiling.  In preparation for that, all the trim has been taken down.  We may be taking out some lathing, too ... fun stuff! 

Knitting is going on in the background of life.  The next thing I really should be doing, knitwise, is write some patterns... but I would rather knit than write.  And since I don't have much in the way of a knitting queue, all sorts of other things are getting done around here.