One of Those Days

Today was one of those days. It began innocuously enough, curing 13 pounds of pork belly for bacon, needy Joe on my back. While I got the cure going, I rendered some lard, which went great—until I spilled half a jar of perfect lard all over the bottom of my camp stove. Bummer.

After getting all the readily accessible lard, I wondered if the cracklings might cook out some more, so I put the pot back on the burner. Not two minutes later, I had a smoking, horrible mess on my hands; more lard rendered, yes, but darkened, unappealing. Blah.

Phil had taken the truck to get the tires rotated, so in absence of anything much to do outside in the alternating drizzle/rain, I set out to organize my seeds by what would need to be planted when. I divided them by approximate week, so that I will know what needs to go in the ground; the specifics I'll have to figure out as time goes by.

I was surprised to learn about herb seeds. I have several packets ready to go in the ground, and was having a hard time figuring out when they needed to be planted. One book mentioned that herb seeds do not have a high rate of germination, especially without treating the seeds correctly. I sure noticed that with my fall herb bed; I had some cilantro, a bit of milk thistle, and that was it, out of about ten varieties planted.

The important thing, said the book, was to notice how nature treats the seeds. If seeds need to be frozen and thawed, as they would in soil through the winter, then "stratify" the seed, by adding a little water, then putting them in the freezer. Take them out every few weeks to thaw, then return them.

So I spent time today stratifying my seeds. Never done that before

In the meantime, Joe found the CDs and took three out and rubbed them on our linoleum. Did I mention this was one of those days?

When I found him, he had also somehow managed to free himself from his diaper just enough to soak all his clothes. He sure looked surprised! He is low on clothes, as it's now three weeks since we did all our laundry, but I found him something.

Our pork took up most of the space in our freezer, so we have some frozen corn thawing. I decided to make pinto beans. Distracted, I left them, where they boiled quite merrily on high for an hour, until Jadon came and asked what the funny smell was. Scorched beans and scorched pot.

Now I only remember burning one meal the entire time we've been married. So to burn two things in one day was more than I could abide.

I grew so despondent I figured the deer had probably chewed up our orchard. Closer inspection thankfully proved me wrong (I think), and I spent an hour alone, flipping over sod in the rain. I saw night crawlers and little salamanders, and I felt somewhat better.

Until I realized it was 5pm. I had not started any bread, I had not marinated the pork chops. I was tempted to look in the chicken house for eggs, since we're out of that one bastion of convenience food available to us. My pots were scorched and dirty, and the nearest Chipotle is an hour away.

Apocalyptic, I tell you!

So I did the dishes, cooked the chops, made bread for breakfast, and did a "Super-Hard" sudoku with Jadon until we gave up, because it was, indeed, super hard. The end of the day was better than the time that had gone before.