A ton of beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes. Beyond manageable.
Amy added 6 photos to https://i.amy.gy/growstuff/
Incremental improvements to the status quo: good. Incremental improvements to the status quo which further entrench a fundamentally harmful pattern: bad. We all (well most of us, I'm an optimist if a despairing one) want to make the world a better place, and perfect is the enemy of the good and all that, but sometimes I think that people get too caught up in a narrow problem space and forget to step back and look at the big picture from time to time. If you're making iterative improvements to something that is systematically corrupt, flawed at its core, or downright evil you're not helping as much as you want to believe you are. If you find yourself saying that look, you know it's not ideal, you acknowledge the harms, but at least it's not as bad as this other thing (that your thing may or may not be replacing, but is likely just supplementing, realistically), take a break, then spend that all that energy and enthusiasm and goodwill and smarts to do something that is not actively harmful or even actively beneficial instead of slightly less actively harmful.
Being The Lesser Of Two Evils Is Not Good Enough
I had a new world idea a little while ago, and recently I've started to discover some stories in it too. I'm anxious about starting something new for nanowrimo when I have uh several unfinished novels sitting around, but...
Picked lots of apples from the community orchards, chopped, pulped, pressed, bottled. A year's supply of apple juice.
Amy added 11 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
Exploring the post-storm beach. Some stunning skies.
Amy added 23 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Finally finished filling and sanding and painting the nooks in my hallway following the built-in cupboard removal. I mixed purple and green paints leftover from the bedrooms to make kind of a darker more moody purple, managed to not just end up with grey or brown. I like how the dark colours and lack of light in the nook makes the ceiling invisible/indefinite. R helped me make shelves from a stack of decking wood that has been sitting around in his shed for years. Just cleaned it up and cut to size, no finishing.
Amy added 18 photos to https://i.amy.gy/diy/
Two trips to Edinburgh in one week. Socialising with colleagues at Paradise Palms. Then coworking in Leith (not pictured). What is pictured is lunch and lovely art at Face Plant foods.
Amy added 8 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-edi/
Amy added 31 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
You can't tell from these, but it rained a lot this week. My windows leaked.
Amy added 27 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Apple cake at the Community Kitchen, and apple and pear upside down cake at home. Turned a haul of cemetery agricus into mushroom rice. Made a good lasagne using veg from the garden, and fermented more tomatoes and beans.
Amy added 11 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Made peach cobbler at the Community Kitchen (and hear later it was a big hit!). An excellent lasagne at home with tomato/lentil/chanterelle sauce, and entire layers of ceps because we finally found enough to be extravagant. Plus a rather fantastic apple pie with a super simple shortbread crust (was craving shortbread, and had so many apples to use up... and it was way faster than pastry. Will make again!).
Amy added 8 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Made many mushroom pies with ceps and cloud agarics and chestnuts, most went in the freezer. Used my new silicon bundt tray to make a very fancy cake. I started with an orange polenta cake recipe, and substituted almost every ingredient (including orange - with lemon and lime, and polenta - with maize). It was still gluten free and vegan and delicious, and looked pretty too.
Amy added 17 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Fancy pear and almond tart, and beet brownie at the Community Kitchen. Chanterelles in dahl (criminal right, but I've had so many chanterelles..), with inkcaps on top.
Amy added 10 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Went for more parasols. Also to the chanterelle woods for chanterelles and a few boletes.
Amy added 7 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
Many more chanterelles, and a decent showing of ceps in the chanterelle wood (they're so late!) but still not anything like last year. Also lots of really good condition fly agaric... "may cause gastric upset"... I risked it, they were delicious!
Amy added 51 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
Finally it's shaggy inkcaps time! My joint favourite with chicken of the woods, depending on what mood I'm in. The tree in Ravenscraig Park where I found lots last year did not fail to disappoint again, with several flushes. Blewits have started too.
Took the compote that wouldn't fit in the jars, spread it out on sheets in the dryer. It dried out perfectly into a sticky-but-not-too-sticky fruit leather, as hoped, which we can roll up and store indefinitely!
Amy added 5 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
One night and one day in London for coop work. Fancy Mildred's dinner with TR.
Amy added 10 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Tried my hand at chocolate mole because I had this garlic/chilli chocolate cs had sent me from Tallinn ages ago which is basically too foul to just eat. I grilled bread, chillis, tomatoes, garlic and onion, then blended them together and strained them into a saucepan. I melted the awful chocolate in and it made a nice thick glossy sauce. Served with chicken of the woods from the freezer and mixed beans. It was delicious, but not spicy in the end despite the amount of chilli. Bottled the left for future use, it should keep for a while in the fridge.
Went for a rainy walk in Ravenscraig park and found several times more enormous shaggy parasols than last year, and in more locations too! Some were old and wormy, but many were great. Also puffballs and many cute unidentified wee things. And a stinkhorn!
Amy added 30 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
Grabbed some puffballs from the park on the way into the community kitchen, and did an ad-hoc puffball ID and cooking demo for the volunteers. Battered and deep fried, of course.
Amy added 3 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
I met T in town, and we drove to North Queensferry, then walked over the bridge to South Queensferry. I've always wanted to walk around South Queensferry and somehow never managed to; it's very charming. We had a mid-afternoon meal in a pub, then walked back.
Amy added 12 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
After storm babet battered us for a few days, the beach was entirelly remodelled. The bank next to my steps was washed away, as well as all along the beach, we lost a few meters. Rocks had been moved to such an extent that the drop from the bottom step was nearly two meters down, instead of the small hop it had been. The tide never normally gets that high, so we don't hold much hope of the sea putting the rocks back. Neighbours and I started moving enough to make the steps accessible again.
Amy added 42 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
A new cat appeared on the steps by the garden. It seemed very lost. Some local kids took it upon themselves to visit, feed and cuddle it every day, until its home was found. Heartwarming.
Amy added 16 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
The storm was over, but the waves were still far bigger than normally, so R wanted to surf. I had to hold onto Max and continually tell him to stay as we watched from the beach. He cried the whole time, poor bean. I'm never sure if, when he's seeing a human in the sea, he's upset because he wants to rescue them or because he's missing out on the excitement.
Amy added 36 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Garden catchup. Lowenna visit for beach walkies.
Amy added 40 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Spent two hours with a giant flipchart and markers to prep for nanowrimo. Started with a vague idea and a blank page, and now I have 3 MCs, 3 parallel but interconnected stories, a fleshed out world, some meaningful (to me) themes, and a plot twist. No longer terrified of starting yet another project, pretty excited in fact.
Adventure over the bridge to South Queensferry with T. Went to the Greener Kirkcaldy volunteer harvest celebration. Went out for more chanterelles and a decen haul of ceps and cloudy agaric. Storm babet hit the east coast of Scotland hard. Continuous rain, enormous waves, and no public transport for several days. The beach has been entirely remodelled. Finished painting my hallway cupboard nook, and made shelves for it. Held onto Max while R went to surf the post-storm waves. Made many pies and an orange polenta bundt cake. Some astonishing post-storm skies.
This month has flown by. Worked pretty solidly this week. Went to Edinburgh twice, once to socialise with colleagues and once to work. Made pear and almond tart, and beetroot brownies at the Community Kitchen. Foraged lots of inkcaps. Hallway shelves started going up. Nice walkies with Max. Waves pounded the coast again, but not as bad as before.
Most of the week in Birmingham, for the coop CoGM and OGM. Which went well, but was exhausting, and obviously yielded/highlighted more work to do. Back for harvest and bottling. Finished Dying of the Light. More harvest. Sunrises. Swam in the sea.
Week in review: 25th September - 1st October
It's getting colder. Supposedly back down to 3 days a week now, but I'm still feeling entirely overwhelmed by co-op stuff. All of the W3C drama in the background is passing me by. I just can't. I'm thankful for the sea. Had a new novel idea. Maybe for nanowrimo. Finished Whisperer in Darkness (finally). Started Feersum Enjinns. Watched a lot of Ted Lasso. Plodding through Foundation (it's alright but doesn't make me want to watch lots. That's probably a good thing.) Started Ashoka. Watched The Little Mermaid (the newest one). Swam in the sea twice. Tried my hand at chocolate mole. Made apple cake and did a puffball mushroom demo at the Community Kitchen. Successful fruit leather experiment. Went apple picking and spent several hours processing them into juice. Rainy forage for parasols.
Lots of rain. My windows leaked. Though you can't tell from this week's photos. Flying visit from Dave. Another soggy forage for parasols and chanterelles, a few boletes. Made peach cobbler at the Community Kitchen and rather fantastic cep and chanterelle lasagne, and apple shortbread pie at home. Went to my first meeting of the local Community Council. Managed not to volunteer for anything. Went to London for a day of BODS coworking. Had dinner in Mildred's with TR. Garden catchup, tomatoes and beans. Beach walkies with Lowenna.