Jultember in a single word...

to be perfectly honest... i briefly considered doing a post-a-day during Jultember. however, as i have been genuinely struggling to find the will to get out of bed some days, said effort was doomed to failure before it even started. so, i took the occasional photo of the random nonsense i got up to over the course of a month that began in one season and ended in another.

this year's balcony garden project has been a literal oasis. beyond being lovely to look at, living like we do in an apartment in the middle of the city, it is especially nice to occasionally harvest something just moments before it ends up on the dinner table.

the inclusion of more flowers in this year's garden meant that there were even more colorful creatures stopping by for a visit. i was (pleasantly) shocked to see a ruby-throated hummingbird zipping around one afternoon (the visit was too brief to get a photo). one almost forgets that there is (non-squirrel) wildlife in the city, and we will definitely be planting even more welcoming flowers in next Summer's garden.

i did have to rescue a visiting cicada from potential death-by-adorable-cat. i formed a human shield between the two, until the cicada eventually climbed back through the netting and  flew away... then i spent the rest of the day threatening to climb a tree to strangle a cicada (perhaps it was the same one) whose noisy antics was driving me up a wall.

the animator was most amused.

him: if you hate that noise so much, why didn't you just let the cat kill it?
me: that would be cruel. they're annoying, but they're cute.

i found myself in need of a quick pick-me-up one random afternoon, so i made some candles. this was my first time using wooden wicks. i am hooked!

the light is stronger than with the cotton wicks, but the candle burns so slowly that it feels like it will last forever. i burned this one for close to twelve hours, and the jar was still near-full. i approve.

i have been neglecting my knitting projects, partly because it was too hot to be bothered, but mostly because i just stopped caring. this top was intended to be part of my Summer wardrobe. maybe next year.

that is some of my own hand-dyed yarn. i will talk more about the genius/lunacy involved in getting this effect on a cotton-based yarn if/when i finish the top.

 

i did manage to (finally) complete another pair of socks (more about that some other day) for the animator, which i started back in April. i also finished spinning the charcoal-grey yarn that i talked about in that same post. there is enough of this to make a whole garment, so now i just have to find a pattern that is worthy of this special yarn.

it is hard to maintain consistency across such a large spin, but i am satisfied with the end result. this is begging to be turned into a comfy cardigan.

i added some new yarns to my stash. i got a sweater's quantity of each color. they knit up into such a beautiful fabric. the fiber is a cotton-acrylic blend that will make for some comfy allergy-free sweaters for me.

i usually avoid wearing browns, but this warm gold was created to be worn next to my skin. this just screams AUTUMN!!!

we consumed a ridiculous amount of iced tea earlier in the month. there was a stretch of a couple-few weeks were the temperature in the middle of the city was hovering around 40°C (104°F), with the "feels like" temperature a few degrees above that. it was... brutal.

this was a particularly hot, dry Summer, so it was a great relief when the rain finally came about halfway through the month. which brings me to the point of this pointless thing...

if i had to summarize this past Jultember in a single word, it would be "tomato".

we got a large box of veggies from his parents' garden, including about twenty-five pounds of tomatoes... because his father is that lunatic. i roasted half of them (like i did last Summer), and the rest were turned into many tomato salads. [random aside: that plate with the chip is older than both of us.]

that particular salad was served along with a heaping plate of Greek-style lemon chicken and potatoes (made by the animator). said dish was flavored with fresh oregano and thyme from our little garden. the leftovers were equally amazing the next day.

we sent a photo of the salad to his dad, who was impressed by my neat arrangement of the slices... then he immediately began amassing another box of tomatoes. you know, in case we were in danger of running out of the stuff.

meanwhile, every now and then, one of us would step out onto the balcony, and return with a handful of freshly-harvested tomatoes. there is presently a large container of fresh tomatoes occupying half a shelf in the fridge, along with three containers of garlic-roasted tomatoes, all waiting to be used up. it is at the point where we are putting tomatoes into just about everything we consume.

the veggie haul from his parents' backyard also included several heads of celery. i chopped a few stalks at a time, and stored them in the freezer for the coming soup season.

we transplanted a couple of the smaller celery plants to the balcony garden project...

and i placed the bottom of one of the chopped up heads of celery into a pot of soil, where it promptly started to grow new leaves.

then, without warning, Jultember was through... and with it went Summer.

now we are racing toward the part of the year that i love most of all. i ventured halfway across town this past weekend to get my first taste of this year's harvest of concord grapes. i actually bought three containers of the stuff, but the first one disappeared within minutes of getting them home.

but the best bit came when the animator was checking the weather forecast earlier today.

him: apparently there is a typhoon forming somewhere in Asia that is going to bring an early Fall to Canada.
me: that must be one powerful typhoon.
him: it's the butterfly effect.
me: yeh, but with like every butterfly on the planet flapping extra hard. 
him: the last three words of this article should make you smile. you ready for this?
me: go ahead.
him: "definitely sweater weather."

yep. still smiling.

equal parts humor and insanity...

i have been feeling like crap of late, truth be told. life is (unfortunately) like that some days, and i have learned to (try to) take those moments in their stride. this particular bout of crap had been going on for some time before we entered the test-run apocalypse, so now i am redoubling the efforts to keep myself sane distracted.

if you have been here before... it is pretty much more of the same.

isolation is the usual default setting for anyone at my advanced level of  social avoidance, so i did not anticipate that this current situation would leave me feeling genuinely stir-crazy. spoiler alert: it has. intensely. i look forward to getting back to a point where the decision to avoid other human beings is once again a matter of personal choice and not a medical recommendation.

apocalypse aside, life has been (relatively) unremarkable around these part. the Canadian people seem to excel at the art of going with the flow, so the city of Montreal ground to a halt with very little provocation. meanwhile, my favorite animator is busy treating the experience as a study in human behavior, and he has about a dozen scripts for everything from animated shorts to a series of feature-length films formulating in his head.

mostly, he is concerned about the potential disruption to his normal eating habits... like when i made the mistake of asking if there was anything in particular he wanted, as i was putting together a grocery order for home delivery.

him: did you get cheese?
me: we have some random cheeses in the the fridge, but i got a block of cheddar anyway.

he leaned back in his chair at this point, and cast a deep, contemplative gaze toward the ceiling.

him: hmm... i wonder what their Havarti selection is like.
me: what???
him: what? you know i like to make myself a platter with slices of Havarti and whatever veggies or fruit we have.

then i just broke out laughing in something that could be easily described as equal parts humor and insanity.

him: what? what did i say that's so funny?
me: i'm trying to buy groceries... in the middle of a pandemic... and you're wondering what the Havarti selection is like... so you can make platters with veggies and fruit??? and you wonder why i am in a constant state of panic when this is what i have looking out for me in a potential apocalypse. 

i got kicked out of the studio at this point, which—most would agree—made total sense.

and while it may seem like we are making light of this whole situation, that is definitely not the case. we understand the severity of the threat, and we are taking every possible step to reduce the risk to ourselves and to the people around us. with the exception of one trip to the market, we have been in self-imposed lockdown mode for the past two weeks or so. there is not much else we can do at this point.

oh, and we have also been eating lots of delicious food... like the awesome mac-and-cheese i made to snap me out of a bout of over-thinking that was bordering on becoming a full-blown panic attack.

if you squint a bit, you will see that i used farfalle (bow-tie pasta) as that was the only 'real pasta' we had on hand... other than some linguine, which i am saving for the next near panic attack. i also included a bit of sweet pepper, sweet onion, mushrooms, and a couple slices of bacon. life is better with bacon.

this took less than ten minutes of hands-on time to make. i set the pasta to boil in one pot, then i chopped the bacon and put it to saute in another pan along with the (also-chopped) veggies. i added a dash of flour and mixed that with the rendered bacon grease for a quick roux. in went some milk, and when the mixture started to thicken, i cut the heat and added a generous amount of cheese (mostly sharp white cheddar with a bit of parm and a small nub of yellow cheddar i found at the back of the cheese/egg bin). not gonna lie, i kinda wish we had a bit of Havarti on hand at that point.

full disclosure: i grated nothing. i gave all the cheese a rough chop on the cutting board, and i let the heat from the cream sauce do the rest. i tasted the mixture and adjusted the seasoning at this point. next came the pasta, and after a few quick mixes, i shoved the pan into a very hot oven, and waited until it was bubbling away and toasty along the top and edges.

it looks like chaos in a bowl, but it was incredibly delicious. mac-and-cheese is my ultimate comfort food, and i savored every bite (including the leftovers we had for lunch the next day).

it was a tasty distraction.
____________

i am adding a postscript to note that being at eye level with the canopy of a massive old maple, i was really looking forward to all those tiny buds bursting open, which it seems ready to do very soon.

there were even a few starlings that popped in for a visit a few days ago. if you squint a bit, you can see one of them among the branches. i know they are counted among the world's most invasive species—hence the use of words like scourge and affliction to describe a gathering of said birds—but i do not mind a small scourge, especially these days.

i mention all of that simply to point out that we were well on the way to something resembling Spring. until today.

and it is supposed to keep snowing through the evening... because Canada.

totally pointless and incredibly cute...

i was in the midst of chopping veggies to start supper, when i asked him to pop in to the little Asian grocery store to grab a few things that i forgot we needed. he returned a short while later with the required items... plus a two-layer bamboo steamer... and this thing.

it is a plastic owl...
 

and when you remove his/her head...

it is full of those little jelly cups that he knows i absolutely love.

no joke, i buy a large container of these about once every-other year, and i proceed to forego all my meals for the next several days while i gorge on little globs of fruit-flavored agar jelly. [full disclosure: i do the same thing when pomegranates and concord grapes are in season.]

the fruit flavored cups were sadly disappointing in their lack of fruitiness, but the plastic owl is a definite keeper.

as an added bonus, the container has a piggy-bank-type slot at the back of the head...

and a handy string for hanging.

which got me wondering if i could use this to scare the squirrels away from my balcony garden come Summer. be honest... if you were a squirrel, and you saw this hanging on a balcony, would you be terrified?

or would you just have a good laugh before destroying my precious tomato plants?

knowing the squirrels we have around here, i would probably wake up the next morning to find the plastic owl hanging from the highest branch of the old maple tree, with a squirrel standing next to it... openly mocking me.

he says there is also a panda bear version, so i will have to keep an eye out for that next time i am in that grocery store. why? because it is totally pointless and incredibly cute, which is the very best kind of absurdity to be had.

then there was the bamboo steamer.

me: you were supposed to get mushrooms and ginger. how did you end up with a bamboo steamer?
him: i got it so you can make me dumplings and steamed buns.
me: good luck with that.

not gonna lie... the next day i was using leftover roasted duck to make steamed buns. pretty much.

4: the plump became a gaggle...

i was attacked by a pigeon, and i am happy for the experience, as it removed some concern i was having that i might be losing my mind. let me paint you a picture, starting with the deepest, darkest part of the night.

my rocky relationship with sleep is one of the topics in the treasure chest, so i will get back to that in due time. suffice it to say, i decided to try something a little different for a change last night. that being, sleeping like a relatively normal human being in the actual night-time part of the night. and it worked! i was fast asleep shortly after midnight... and awake again by four AM. well, at least i tried.

our life here looks like a nature documentary some days. it is positively Attenborough-esque at moments. not only is there the ongoing clash of the species between us (mostly him) and the squirrels, but there was that time i called the cops to report a potential attempted breaking-and-entering (which turned out to be the work of a lunatic raccoon. then there was the bat that got trapped in our apartment, and the (many times) i had serious Hitchcock-inspired minor panic attacks while gazing out at a thousand (or so) crows at a time coming to a rest in the canopy of the big maple. it is funny now, but the feeling that Nature is out to get me seems to have multiplied since we moved up here.

so, there i was early this morning, sitting on my favorite sofa, laptop on the small table in front of me, taking the occasional sip from my large iced coffee, when i found myself suddenly overcome by the all too familiar "might be losing my mind" feeling.

it was a quick flash of motion, and the distinct shape of a large-ish bird dropping in rapidly from the sky and coming to a rest amidst my little balcony garden... which, by the way, is the randomly-selected topic of today's post. at least, it was... until the pigeon attack.

i went to the wall-of-glass (a.k.a., the ten foot wide double sliding glass doors), and i just stood there... looking. this is the view of the south end of the balcony from said position.

i craned my neck in every possibly position, yet there was... nothing.

so, i returned to my seat, thoroughly confused, and continued to stare in that general direction, wondering if i was "seeing things".

me: [to myself] maybe it was just an extra-large leaf from the extra-large tree?
myself: [responding to me] no, because it was the distinct silhouette of a bird's body. plus, you even stuck your head out the door to have a look, and there was nothing there that could have fallen from the sky.
me: [to myself] then, maybe you are finally losing what's left of your mind.

i was a bit offended, so we did not speak much after that point.

then a short while later, i grabbed my camera to take a few quick snaps for today's post before the sun got too high in the sky. i slid open the door, and the Little One came racing from a different room to go outside with me. she usually spends all of the daylight hours out there, but that door has been closed for most of the past week on account of the heatwave, so she welcomes any brief foray into that magical space.

i was especially eager to get a picture of the rosemary, as it was the same one we purchased last Summer, which we kept indoors during the cold months. i have been wanting to repot this thing since we first got it, but it seems to be completely at home in that tacky plastic strawberry pot.

i had a really rough Winter, and i could not muster any of the enthusiasm i usually experience in the early over-planning stage of garden season, so we opted to go with transplants for everything this year. however, i found a few nasturtium seeds leftover from last year, and i popped them into a grow-bag. so this is the only plant i can claim to have (technically) started 'from seed'.

i always include a cluster of these plants in any garden, as the shape of leaves makes me think of parasols for the tiny mythical creatures that inhabit green spaces... just do not tell anyone that i made such a statement. i have a reputation to uphold, and talk of garden sprites and other such things just might get me banned for life from the International Society for the Advancement of Curmudgeony.

there were also the tomato plants, which were doing great when we first planted them. then the pre-heatwave cold-spell hit, and they took a bit of damage, but they seem to be bouncing back. this variety is Sweet 100, which is a cherry tomato. it is usually highly-productive, and this one has put on a ton of new flowers in the past few days alone, so i am looking forward to many little tomatoes this Summer.

this one is Madame Marmande, which is a beefsteak variety that produces fruits up to ten ounces... each! this one is already almost the size of my palm. and the plant has developed lots of clusters of new buds in the last few days.

there is also a Grape Cluster tomato, which lives next to this lovely spray of Genovese basil. we squeezed some of this basil into a few pots, as i am a firm believer that 'it is not Summer without fresh pesto'.

there is also plenty of Thai basil to inspire all sorts of colorful culinary adventures. i found a small pot of it in the produce section of the supermarket, which i divided and planted in two different locations to ensure that there is plenty of it to go around. it was seeded very densely, so i will thin the plants gradually and use the thinned bits for cooking. there may be a beef with pineapple, sweet pepper, and thai basil stir fry on tomorrow's dinner menu.

the pepper plants took the worst damage during the late-Spring cold-spell, but i am keeping my fingers crossed that they will recover. still, barring another microburst or some similar insanity, this may just be the best season yet for the Balcony Garden Project.

i then turned my attention to the last few plants at the far end of the balcony. i wanted to take some photos of the sweet potato plants, especially to show the lovely vines they put out, which is why they tend to be such popular additions to large potted arrangements.

we had a couple sweet potatoes that were forgotten, and they eventually started to grow. it felt like such a waste to put them in the trash, so we buried one at either end of one of the troughs that are suspended from the balcony by means of some nifty iron braces his dad made for that purpose. if you ever come across a retiree with a garage full of building equipment, and an eagerness to put them to use at the slightest provocation... get as close to them as you possibly can without breaking any actual laws.

and, yes... we did wrap the top of the trough that contains the two sweet potatoes in a protective layer of chicken wire. i will give you one guess why. yep...squirrels.

which reminds me... where was i? oh, yes... the lunatic pigeon.

so, there i was... camera in one hand... delicate end of a sweet potato vine in the other... when the Little One brushed past my leg, headed in the direction of her favorite corner, behind the big container that houses one of the squash plants. [it also housed a couple cucumber plants... both of which died in the late-Spring cold spell. good times!]

the last two years' attempt at growing zucchinis ended in many blossoms (which were delicious), but no zukes, so we decided to give this variety of butternut squash a try, as it was labeled as being ideal for container gardening.

less than half a second later, there is this flurry of sound and action, and the cat that weighs all of about five pounds almost knocks me sideways in her haste to jump back inside.

i was not sure what was happening at this point, so i started to bend toward that corner to investigate (as that cat tends to be something of an over-energetic lunatic)... and that is when it happened!

it leapt out at me, feet first, wings flapping wildly, as though it intend to claw my eyes out while slapping me senseless at the same time.

now it should be noted that our balcony is not an especially large space. it is about ten feet by four feet. this is the South end (with a cat)...

... and the North end (with the same cat).

there is just enough room to squeeze through with a watering can, or for the cats to sprawl out and nap. it is a no-frills part of our home that is wholly dedicated to one express purpose... to house the Garden Balcony Project.

what it is not dedicated to is angry pigeons. and, while i recognize that i was not in any real danger—as i am fairly certain that i can take a pigeon in a fair fight—i was startled enough to scream and follow the cat in beating a hasty retreat back through the open door. that my camera did not end up in pieces down on the sidewalk is something of a miracle.

i attempted to take a photo of the hostile intruder, but it is near-impossible to convince a pigeon to stand still when (s)he is looking for a fight. just trust me... that is a pigeon, and it was engaging in extremely antisocial behavior. i guarantee you this bird does not get invited to a lot of parties.

still, this attack was not nearly as bad as that time a plump became a gaggle, and we had to run from a park to save our lives. true story.

he and i were sitting on a bench, admiring the pond in front of us, including the plump of geese floating on the water near the opposite edge. they were accompanied by a small raft of ducks who, we later learned, ran recon missions for the geese.

the ducks paddled across to where we were, studied us briefly, then paddled back across the pond to the geese... who then started paddling over in our direction... flanked by the ducks. we figured they would stop when they got to the edge, but they climbed out of the the water, and kept coming. that is when the plump (geese on water) became a gaggle (geese on land). and, when it was apparent that they were intent on an attack, well... that is when we picked up our stuff and ran. he had to go back to get the handbag that i had left behind on the park bench in my haste to escape with my life.

so, while this morning's attack by pigeon was not nearly as potentially dangerous as the ambush by geese (and ducks), it was definitely equally hilarious. i mean, i did get attacked by a lunatic pigeon, but as least i know i am not losing my mind.