If you are anything like me, yesterday you scarred your pumpkin with your grandchild’s name, you made rhubarb ice cream last night, this morning you made your first loaves of sourdough bread and, this afternoon, harvested your lavender.

• 

• 

Under the careful tutelage of our recent guest, I learned how to make a sourdough starter. To be fair, he did all the work and now I have the ability to make sourdough bread forever more, but we don’t need to dwell on the details. It is enough to say it is delicious and that we are big fans of daughter’s fella.

The rhubarb ice cream is made without churning or an ice cream maker. You just need the whipping cream left over from recent entertaining, some fresh rhubarb from the garden and a can of sweetened condensed milk. In our little world ice cream is much prized and for today, at least, I am most definitely in E’s good books.

We are adding to our solar panel system. We have ordered four more panels which will give us a total of 3400 watts. Our first year here we had 80. We need the new panels to be more specifically targeted to the winter sun. E’s first plan was to hang them off the cliff under the perch. His second was to hang them under the window seat. Both plans were thoughtfully evaluated and considered for the best solar angle and then we decided on where I agreed it would be safe to install. Neither.

For the first time since we moved here and throughout all of the renos, he agreed to wear a safety harness on a project. I stopped nagging years ago as he always deferred to the advice of the previous owners. “If I start to go off the edge, I’ll just push off to improve my chances”

But while he drilled holes in the rock at the cliff ledge he wore one. He has now cemented posts into the cliff and a solid frame is now waiting for the panels. They will be well secured.

The peas are finished, the garlic is harvested, rhubarb finished and we are eating fresh beets. Just waiting on the eagerly anticipated tomatoes and then

canning can begin