Morning Coffee On The Patio

For the first time in 2013, certainly not the last time.  It was so quiet and dewy out there, warm-ish (46 and climbing) and sunny, just right for sitting there with my hood up and a mug of steaming coffee in my hand.  I wandered around with the camera before sitting down to see what's up and what's blooming.  The rhubarb's up and unfurling.  The primroses are up and abloom.  There're poppies (poppies!) and tulips up in the garden (no asparagus yet).  The forsythia's beginning to bud, and the daffodils, squills (thanks for naming them for me, Robin!) and hyacinths are blooming across the front and the grape hyacinths and lilies are coming.  I planted those all-yellow daffodils the year we moved in here when I was pregnant with DS; that'll be 35 years ago come Fall.  Yikes.  I love this time of year when everything is new and fresh and every day something peeps out of the dead looking ground.

I've got a loaf of orange & dried fruit quick bread baking and the house smells so lovely.  I found the recipe earlier last winter and made it as originally written with dates first and we loved it, but I have a few boxes of random dried fruits I bought at Walgreens once upon a time that really need something done with so I started with a box of Tropical Mix (apricots, papaya, pineapple, coconut) and I'm anxious to eat it... ALL if it tastes as good as it smells, although I'm not clear what's tropical about apricots.

Durwood found a recipe for Garden Potato Pancakes someplace online on Friday, we got the ingredients that we didn't already have yesterday on our appointed rounds, and he made them for supper last night while I grilled some chicken.  Those pancakes were very good, excellent even.  They have grated potatoes (of course), grated zucchini, grated carrots, corn kernels, minced onions, a little flour (called for whole wheat but we only had regular so we used that), and a couple eggs.  They get pan fried and we ate them with a dollop of plain fat free yogurt instead of the sour cream called for.  Yum.  We are happy to know that we have enough of both the chicken and the patties for supper again tonight, with a little tossed salad for the first course.  We eat well here at Chez Malcolm, I'll say that for us.  I'd almost go so far as to say we're a form of foodies.

April 28--India, Pleasures of the Hunt.

Fields of grass
green and rippling
in the hot wind.
Bleached denim sky
holds the blazing sun,
threatens to burst
into flames.
Wind like
breath from Hell
scorches the grass,
peels exposed flesh
from powdering bones.
Shade like salvation,
water like life's blood,
heaven in a peach,
a slice of melon
beyond imagining.
~~~~~

Time to gather my pinning tools to go attend to DIL1's pants, skirt, and tank top, then figure out what to do with the rest of my day.  Maybe I'll sit at the patio table to do the crossword puzzle... while I wait for the quick bread to be cool enough to eat.  Enjoy your day, kids.
--Barbara