We ended up just getting a light frost Monday and Tuesday, which means only the most sensitive plants were killed. Yesterday I picked a small, ripe tomato and the vine had a new flower on it. Today I picked several cayenne peppers. Friday it was so warm I biked home from work in shorts and short sleeves. Today is so warm, currently 78F/ 25C, I decided to not plant the garlic. The bush cherries have leaves that are changing to fall colors while also flowering and producing small cherries that will never ripen. Some of the arugula is still blooming and I saw a few bees on the flowers. There are a few cabbage white butterflies still about as well. Everyone is confused.

The forecast for the week ahead continues warm with daytime temperatures 60F/15C or higher and nighttime temperatures not dipping below 40F/4C. I’m worried if I plant the garlic today, it will start growing because it is too warm! Looking ahead even further into November, temperatures are forecast to continue warm with no frosty nights in sight. Nonetheless, I worry that if I don’t get the garlic planted next weekend, I might end up with a nasty surprise snowstorm or something. It looks like late October but feels like early September.

On top of the warm weather, we’ve not had any rain in close to two months. Most of the state is officially in drought with some parts listed as severe drought. We are saving water from dishes, laundry, and the shower to pour on trees and shrubs. I’m just glad I don’t have vegetables to water anymore.

Today I worked at digging up overgrown sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes) while James worked on chicken coop roof repairs. The chickens were not interested in what James was doing to their house, but they were interested in what I was digging up. Mrs. Dashwood was ever so helpful, standing on top of wherever I was trying to dig and then pecking me when I would get in her way. She makes the sweetest coos and clucks, lulling me into a false sense of ease, and then comes the hard peck to the back of my hand. I’m wearing gloves, but it still hurts. Then we both got a surprise when I grabbed a sunchoke and it turned out to be one of Mrs. Dashwood’s toes. Did I get a scolding!

Eventually Sia decided she wanted to join in the fun, but she can’t see worth a darn, and just when she’d come up, a sunchoke stem would fall over and she’d squawk and flutter off. Ethel wanted to come help too but she’s such a nervous girl she just stood back and watched. The sunchokes were small but many, and I have a cereal bowl full to add to dinner tonight.

Most of the weekend has been crammed into today because I got my COVID vaccine Friday afternoon. I expected to have aches and chills like last time. Instead, I got a headache and felt like I had a mild cold–tired and a stuffed up head full of wool. And a sore arm of course. So I spent most of the day reading and not doing much else. It had mostly worked its way through by Saturday night and today I feel back to normal. Even my arm is barely sore.

I made the mistake last weekend of putting away all my warm weather clothes and filling my dresser drawers with sweaters. I’m looking longingly at my knitting and other indoor projects and telling them they have to keep waiting just a bit longer. I’m still riding my summer bike, but feeling unsettled about it because the weather is so very wrong, while at the same time enjoying not having to deal with snow and ice. I’ve got my windows open and I’m walking outside barefoot to hang laundry up to dry. I’m grateful neither the heat nor the air conditioning is running. But my delight in these warm days is tempered by grief over the broken climate. This is what life is like now.

Reading

• Essay: Moving Towards Life by Marina Magloire. A fantastic essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books about the friendship of June Jordan and Audre Lorde and how their differences over Palestine and Zionism broke their friendship.
• Poem: Ode to Aging Bodies by Jan Mandell
• Book: Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton. The subtitle is a “novel of food and murder” but it is so much more than that. Journalist Rika is trying to figure out if Kajii really did murder the four men she is on trial for killing. But it’s really about food and desire, weight and societal expectations for women, friendship, fathers and daughters, sexism, and more. It’s full of twists and turns and all sorts of surprises. A most excellent read.

Quote

‘How can I explain it? The yardsticks by which women are measured, I guess? The reason the cooking school received as much attention as it did is the preconception that women are creatures who are forever comparing themselves with one another. But that only happens because men try and use their yardsticks to establish some kind of order among women.’

~Asako Yuzuki, Butter, page 361

Listening

• Podcast: Tech Won’t Save Us: Data Vampires, episode 1 and episode 2. Host Paris Marx does a deep investigative dive into the giant data centers that are proliferating around the world. Looking at their water and energy demands and the damage they do to the often poor communities that live nearby. There will be two more episodes to come, and I recommend these to anyone who cares about the environment and social justice. It is clear from just these two episodes that when water and electricity are in short supply, it’s the data centers that will get first dibs, leaving entire cities to go without.

Watching

• Still making our slow way through 1995’s Pride and Prejudice. Four episodes down, one more to go.

James’s Kitchen Wizardry

Just the usual deliciousness.