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.

if dragons were a thing...

there is a strange game of sorts that is played out every morning in our home. it is sorta like a staring contest... but with cats. the loser is the one who gets the most annoyed by one (or more) cats walking back and forth across their head, so they "tap out" by getting out of bed to feed the furry nuisance. what does the winner get, you ask? they get to smile and carry on sleeping.

he was up late last night finishing off an animatic, while i was getting mildly-drunk on sparkly cider and calling it an early night, so i abandoned any hope of sleeping in late, and climbed out of bed shortly after five to begin the day's duty of lavishing adulation on our furry threesome.

this was followed by the ritual that everyone (including the cats) has come to look forward to at the start of each day: the opening of the doors to this year's balcony garden project. it is—sans doute—the best one yet.

i usually try to document each year's garden, but... you know. we had skipped the usual trip to the nursery to select plants, because... you know... so we ended up purchasing plants online from Urban Seedling. this is a (new to us) nursery located among the riverside parks on Montreal's south shore, where we sometimes go to waste a few leisurely Summer hours, back before... well, you know.

enthusiasm was (understandably) almost non-existent in the middle of Spring, so we selected just the bare minimum assortment of plants, figuring we could use the leftover space for the grill. when the seedlings arrived just in time for planting outdoors, we wondered if we should have ordered a few more.

boy, were we ever wrong! you can barely walk around out there.

here you see Mama Kitty in repose below the thumbelina zinnias. she enjoys a post-breakfast nap among the plants... until it starts to get too hot, then she retreats to the barely air-conditioned living/dining room, where she will spend the rest of the day in adoration of the animator while he works. me? jealous? perish the thought!

Baby Bear was indoors taking a post-breakfast nap, after which she usually returns to the food area to make a second breakfast of any bits that were left over by the other two. is a Hobbit Cat a thing?

meanwhile, the Little One was visibly annoyed with me for disturbing her while she hunted for bugs behind a pot of herbs. good times.

the pot contains mojito mint, Thai basil, and holy basil (which smells very much like a well-ripened blue cheese). we have been using the basils in cooking, and most of the mint will end up being dried for making mid-Winter cups of herbal tea.

the terracotta pot of rosemary, thyme, and oregano will become a houseplant once the season is through. until then, we take snips of the fresh herbs to make delicious food.

it is a criminal offense to have a garden without tomatoes, so we planted a trio this year. we selected a large, medium, and small tomato to encourage a bit of variety in how we use them. the first of the (large) Cherokee purple will be ready to harvest once it turns... you know... purple.

ditto for the (small) black cherry.

the (medium) Montreal tasty are showing the first blush of red. this is a locally-developed variety that is good for slicing or canning.

there is also a Georgia flame pepper somewhere out there, but that has been overtaken by the golden scallopini squash.

there are also strawberry plants scattered throughout the space, but we have harvested very few strawberries thus far. we bought three varieties of strawberries from the pop-up outdoor garden center at our local market... the morning after a late-season frost hit the area. they were so badly damaged by the cold, that we did not expect most of them to survive. but, survive they did.

the frost came days after we planted the garden, and we were afraid that most of the plants would be destroyed. our options were to either haul multiple ten-gallon pots of soil indoors for a couple days until the cold spell passed, or to try to shelter them from the cold... without throwing both our backs out in the process. so, we came up with the brilliant idea of tenting a recycling bag over each pot to form a min-greenhouse of sorts.

it worked, and our plants were saved. then they started to grow, and grow... and GROWWWWW! now, you practically need a machete to get through there come watering time. what a difference a couple months make!

in this lush, jungle-like setting lives the star of this year's balcony garden project. do you see it there in the back corner, threatening to overtake the whole space?

this is the (near-mythical) dragon's egg cucumber. the variety is native to Croatia... which was all he needed to hear. he has already recommended this plant for his (very Croatian) parents' backyard garden next year.

this was the only plant that had taken any damage from the frost.

luckily, it quickly recovered... then it began to spread everywhere. when the cucumbers mature, you can see just how the plant got its name.

him: wow! it really looks just like a dragon egg.
me: i realize that you are an artist, so you have a colorful imagination—which i totally respect and appreciate and stuff—but it pains me to have to be the one to remind you that dragons don't exist. 
him: yeh, but that's what the eggs would look like.
me: how can you determine what the egg would look like... of a non-existent thing?
him: because they'd be shaped like that, with that light-green color. that's exactly what a dragon egg would look like.
me: yeh... if dragons were a thing.

then he muttered something about "you Science people", while shaking his head in pity at my adherence to a crazy little thing called Reality. this, ladies and gentlemen, is my life. every. single. day.

i will give him full credit for the two important things that went into making this the best balcony garden project yet. firstly, he convinced me to incorporate lots more color into the mini-landscape. you will have already seen the spray of zinnias, yellow gem marigolds, and snapdragons...

[random aside: i love zinnias. they always remind me of the flowers in my (maternal) grandmother's front yard back in the Caribbean. there is a picture somewhere of my cousin and i standing in that garden as little kids, with the flowers almost over our heads.]

there is also a pot of nasturtiums, snapdragons, orange gem marigolds, and pansies.

and a firecracker marigold, which is about three feet tall...

and produces the most beautiful, large flowers.

given our limited growing space, i tend toward wanting few (or none at all) purely decorative things. however, given the number of curious pollinators visiting our tiny garden, the flowers seem to be working their magic. plus, some of the nasturtium leaves and flowers occasionally make their way into a salad, so this flowering plant is definitely not a waste of space.

the second (and most important) change was that we covered the whole balcony in bird netting.

this one was entirely his doing. in fact, he had ordered the netting before trying to sell me on the idea. we tied the netting to a long bamboo pole which was secured over the balcony doors, and draped the netting over the whole balcony. we positioned a few bamboo poles along the railing to keep the netting elevated above our heads, and we finished by tying the netting off at multiple points along the railing to keep the edges in place

i remained wholly skeptical... until a day or two later, when i realize that we did not have to take turns waking up before sunrise to be on squirrel-watch. in fact, it has proven to be the single greatest deterrent to the scourge that is squirrels in the Summertime. the netting is too flimsy for climbing on, so the closest they can get to destroying the plants is by crawling along the railing, and reaching through the mesh.

so, yeh... it works!

naturally, i got to listen to him continuously reminding me about this one time he was right—and i was wrong—about a thing. then he ruined said victory by following it up with some highly-comical amateur plumbing... which i will save for another day.