Gosh, I’ve gone past my magic hour of 5 pm! I’m staring down 5:45. Good thing we are late diners. Supper won’t be ready for a while. So what should I talk about today? Our province’s new Covid cases for today is 236. It’s no small potatoes. It’s not that there’s nothing we can do about it. There are! We can wear our mask when we go out. We can avoid crowded and hot spots like bars. We don’t have to wait for the gov’t to close them down. We can choose to be responsible without a government order, can’t we? Some businesses have. All of us need to step up.

Enough ranting already, eh? Let’s get on with the show even though I don’t have much to show. The morning went, just like that. I did a bit of chopping and throwing things into the Instant Pot for lunch. I thought I would deal with my Jerusalem artichokes pickling down in the basement for awhile now. Then I would have a sit down with my cup of tea. As it turned out, it took longer than I thought. A lot longer. Isn’t that how it is always?

The pickles were in a bit of a pickle. It’s not a complete disaster, but I could have done better. It was my first time so I have to be easy on myself. I should have done a smaller batch. I should have used dried pepper flakes instead of a whole fresh chili pepper. The chili insides sort of melted into a white slime. It didn’t make the brine look delicious. Some of the sunchokes were a bit soft and mushy because they bobbed out of the brine. I took everything out and threw out the soft mushies. I discarded the brine and rinsed off the chokes. I put them back in a clean jar and filled it with a new 3% brine solution. I covered them with cabbage leaves. A teacup on top of that to weigh everything down. It was a bit of work leaving me not much time for sipping tea. Then it was lunch time.

My day seem so short, filled with messing around and cleaning up. But I did have a short ski up and down our back alley a few times. After many, many years, I’ve finally got out those long ago skis I got at the Ski Swap. I’ve only tried them out twice ever, if that. It was a bit of a challenge getting everything snapped on. I fell down immediately. Had a hell of a time getting up. So I just laid there and the guy finally had to pull me up. I got better with the second fall, though my foot came out of the boot. That made it easier. I felt pretty good after a few more times up and down the alley. I think we’ll try the park next time. I’m sure the falling downs will have softer landings.