Microflora

Or would it be fauna? We've come to really enjoy sourdough pancakes, and I figured I'd spend a few minutes sharing the love because they're so easy to make. Start with a fed sourdough starter:

For each cup, add an egg,

Add a bit of sugar,

A little bit of baking soda and a pinch of salt,

Some fat. Here, I'm using coconut oil which I'll melt before mixing, but you could use butter, oil, whatever

One of the things I like is how bubbly and light the cakes are.

Ready for syrup, or jam that didn't set, or powdered sugar and strawberries.

I've never figured out how to feed a sourdough starter with whole wheat flour, but this one has been robust for a long time.

Once more, with pictures

What they looked like and why I thought they should be transplanted. (See how weirdly sunny it was? Like a Hollywood "spring day" cliche.)

They look sort of small in those big gallon/half gallon pots.

The roots did air prune, just like they were supposed to. I think the mold is a bonus effect.

All lined up. San Marzano in the big pots, Roma in the yogurt containers. Extra ones got jammed in "community pots" when I ran out of individuals.

And then it was time to start all over again, with peppers.

These took a few more tries to get the appropriate ice creamy shapes.

And then I found the sunniest spot of the day to put them. I hoped that putting them on a board would prevent hitchikers from wiggling in the drainage holes.

Turns out they don't fit all that well under the lights, and today I put them out to spend some happy time in the rain. It's going to be in the high 40s tonight, but I'm tempted to leave them out there because, first off, it's dark already, and secondly, they're heavy from being rained on. We'll see if Lazy Gardener Ethics kill all that hard work.

Rain is General . . .

. . . all over my town.

Last night I fell asleep with the last paragraph of "The Dead" in my head, to the sound of continuing rain. Even though I know of at least three places in my house that aren't dealing well with it (not the roof, thank goodness) I'm delighted to see and hear and, yes, feel it.

What you aren't going to be able to see are all the pictures I took of me carefully transplanting paste tomatoes from their soil "blocks" to big pots, using lots of new potting soil. As the day I was doing it had air as soft as a baby's bottom, I felt foolish -- shouldn't I just be popping them in the ground? The next night, I had my answer. The temperature dropped back into the forties, and then the skies opened. I had taken careful pictures, but the camera was loaded with videos of my kids doing something they probably shouldn't, and it took too long to download. Then I mislaid the camera and it hasn't shown up again. Yes, I live in a house where these things happen.

Today is the second day of truly pissing down rain. The rain barrels are filling up, and the things out in the garden already are pretty cheerful, as am I, since I laid sod three weeks ago and now I'm not using bathwater to keep it alive, while prancing around in my jammies.

Alas, I will not be spending the day curled up on the couch knitting with tea in reach. It's Drive Around Like A Homeschooling Parent Day, so hooray for rain gear.

"Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners