PICNIC

The stud walls I built over the last 3 days. These are just bare frames, they still need framing for windows and doors, the wheelwells and so on. This piece is the service window. I framed out the big window on a 4 to 6 ratio. What is that a ratio of? 35mm film I now remember. Below the 2×6 will be a display box.

On a walk with the cats tonight Tigger immediately jumped up on the 2×6, Marcus sniffed in the corners, and Gresham huddled up on the end near the street behind some beams and watched the activity on the street.

In the front yard there is a stump from an old pine tree cut down 5 or more years ago. It’s taking up garden space and I thought some kind of removal was called for. In the country, perhaps, trees are everywhere and thus of less value, given less care. There’s always several stumps in the woods somewhere. But in the city there’s no room for that kind of wild growth. A tree is chosen for a spot, allowed to grow, but all it’s little seeds when they sprout we pluck them out of the ground. Tended. There are only certain chosen trees. This tree was planted, allowed to grow tall, then chopped down. In the forest would this be sad? Here in the city with every tree that’s chopped down people stare and feel sad. I used to have five trees in the yard, then I chopped one down. It was big, with a 4 1/2 foot trunk, but badly pruned and not safe. Even so, it was sad to see it go.

Digging up this stump, seeing the roots every day a little more, following them deeper into the ground, it’s like a child pretending to be an archeologist perhaps. I’ve been digging for 3 days. It will probably take another 2 weeks.

I realized and remembered today that I had a big pork leg in the fridge brining. It’s been there for 8 days, so I got the smoker going with some green cedar. It worked great, low temperature, lots of smoldering, and the cedar went nicely with the cinnamon and bay brine. It was so much though, such a big leg, and me and Chris wanted some for dinner, (the smoker takes so much time) so I just cut off a big chunk from the smoker and baked it in the oven. It worked out very nice and was surprisingly red and bloody. Chris was of the opinion that I hadn’t quite reached that pitch perfect tone of ham. Maybe I need to adjust the brine, more mustard and honey. Maybe I need hickory smoke? Well. I’m sure in the morning I’ll see it all differently.

We drove up to Pumpkin Ridge vineyard in North Plains to get some Riesling. It’s late in the year (although the weather is gorgeous) and there was a lot of mold on the grapes. Elly is here inspecting a cluster deciding whether to cut out any sections. Some berries were light green with black speckled spots, some were blushing a light purple, some berries were withering up and were dark purple, and then some were burst open and covered with a green powdery mold. Botrytis? Maybe, but we cut it all off. We were joined by two dogs, one of them named Boomer, some kind of duck hunting dog, who got very excited seeing us. I found a tennis ball and was throwing it for him. The other dog was a collie and would sit quietly watching us cut grapes.