So Goeth The Day

Decided to bake a blueberry pie with a little bit of difference. Sugar, cornstarch and cranberry juice set to thicken on the stove top, then the washed blueberries added, and when the filling was done, added a tiny bit of almond flavouring. Just a bottom crust this time, because I prepared a crumb-top for the pie, a combination of whole-wheat flour, cinnamon, dark brown sugar and walnuts, crumbled with Becel margarine.

I put on a chicken soup to cook away, and prepared a bread dough for tomorrow night's pizza. Cleaned up from breakfast, and made the bed, wiped up the bathroom, did a quick vacuuming. Went outside to determine the status of my husband's work, and our schedules matched perfectly. He had only to put away his tools for the day. The sun was hot and so was he, perspiring with the effort of his work in the backyard.

We went off with our little dogs to the ravine for our daily round in there. Mosquitoes have been particularly pesky of late. We watched, fascinated, two sets of robins, unwilling to move from where they stood, on the trail. Two of the robins were huge, really immense; the other two slender, not nearly as rosy-hued. Our guess: parents and fledglings. The parents exhausted, the adolescent birds extremely well-nurtured.

A cardinal sang lustily from on high, one serenade after another. We noted the proliferation of ripening raspberries inviting the alert they are ready to be picked and eaten. The lilies are still blooming, right on target. The wildflower meadow of daisies, fleabane, cinquefoil, clover and cowvetch present as a living embroidery over the landscape, the forest behind, their well-chosen backdrop.

Afterward, attended to the weekly chore of shopping for food. Some disappointments, unfortunately, as there are no campari tomatoes to be had. The raspberries and strawberries which are on sale are miserable specimens, too long off the vine, and on the cusp of spoilage. The local strawberries sold alternately which I had bought last week have no taste, no sweetness; too much rain, too little sun.

The red bell peppers are in an advanced state of decay, and the same for the green beans. There are alternatives; packages of mixed bell peppers, and bok choy instead of beans. Now that I need to buy a large 10kg bag of flour, there is no unbleached flour on the shelves. The red grapefruit juice that I usually buy is absent also from the cooling units. When I ask the shelf-stockers they check for me, but none are to be had.

The snow peas and the snap peas that I always buy come from China and that bothers me. The signage above their shelf-storage space reads 'product of Guatemala', which they decidedly are not. In perusing my cash-register receipt later, I see that the cashier has put both through as snap peas and that's unfortunate since there is a 70-cent difference between the two packages.

Later, when speaking with my thirteen-year-old granddaughter, she tells me, excitedly, that she has made a macaroni-and-cheese casserole. This would not be at all remarkable had she used a pre-prepared product, as she has often done, but she has not on this occasion. She has, for the first time, made her own choux, melting butter, adding flour and milk, onion flakes and cheese. She is learning.