P I C N I C

I dropped a rhubarb pie off at my neighbor Ernie and Marge’s this weekend. They had some friends visiting from Arizona and we chatted for a little bit. This Arizona friend on Tuesday dropped off the pie dish and gave me some of his lemons and grapefruit which he grows in his backyard! It’s hard to see, but the topmost lemon is quite gigantic. I think some lemonade and some kind of lemon zest cookies will be called for, it would be a shame to waste any little bit.

Kate heard the buzzing first. We were tilling soil and shoveling mulch in the front yard. Our neighbor Dan walked into the street and stared at the roof of our house, it was a giant swarm of bees. There were thousands of them all buzzing in one dense cluster above the house. They settled down in the backyard on a branch and I called Jim Barlean, a beekeeper who I hung out with a few times last year. He showed up with a bucket on a pole and a little hive box. He climbed onto the roof of the shed, without a suit or any protective gear, and shoved the bucket under the swarm. Suddenly they were buzzing around him and attacking him, biting him dozens of times. We were pretty scared. But he climbed down the ladder and outfitted himself with the hooded jacket you see him wearing in the photo.

Bertha has a baby! Ze sits in the squirell house staring out at the world from the attic door, occasionally running around the tree. The first time I saw the baby it was mother and child sitting up in the tree, side by side. I’m excited that the squirrel house turned out to be a good place for raising kids.

Also, a new kitten has shown up in the neighborhood. He’s a very cute unneutered tabby, a little skittish but nonetheless very hungry and eager for attention. As much as I would love to keep him, I think I’ll have to put him up for adoption. Tomorrow he goes to the vet to get checked out.

My next door neighbors went to Kelly Point Park on Easter to hunt morels. That sounded like a good tip, so I drove over there this morning and found about 2 pounds after an hour and a half of foraging. Off the main path are little trails into the woods, they look almost like deer tracks, but the continuous series of empty beer cans, dirty underwear, towels, and other trash would seem to imply they are not. The trails must also have been used pretty heavily by other morel hunters, as I saw many more snapped stems then full grown mushrooms. It was wet and raining and I was soaked by the end. I’ll head back there Sunday, todays rain followed by some warm weather might encourage more growth.

I’d never been to the park before but it looks like a great place to go in the summer. Near the point are open fields with dozens of picnic tables.

I filled out and sent off the paperwork for the Multnomah County Environmental Health department. It was fun making the floor plans, planning out where everything goes down to the inch, but I need that independently of the application. Writing up a description of how I’m going to cook everything was less fun. Some sample sentences: ‘Ham will be prepared from raw ham. It will be brined for up to 4 days, then hot smoked, then baked, then cooled over ice.’, or ‘Jelly will be made from fruit juice, sugar, and pectin. It will be boiled, then allowed to cool in sheet pan racks…’ I threw a few preparations in there that I might want to make but as yet have never done. ‘Soy milk will be made on site. Soy beans are soaked in water in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, then blended (with a robot-coupe) with water. The water is strained, boiled, then rapidly cooled.’ This is for the soy milk lattes and also for tofu. I bought soy beans today to try that out. Maybe I’m being a little ambitious trying to do so much in the cart? What will the health department say about my plan to sprout alfalfa seeds? To make cream cheese? To stuff sausage? I’m supposed to get a response in two weeks.