2018 Life Logs, Day 138—Eating Weeds
Date: Friday, May 18, 2018
Weather: Overcast, Windy, and Cool; High 59, Low 46 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I’ll get to the ‘eating weeds’ part of this log a little later. First, I will walk through the day that ended with me eating weeds. The cool, overcast weather today did not encourage active, outdoor activities, but that is good when you have a lot of indoor activities that need to be done. Today was the day that I promised to get my IKEA wardrobe transformed into a pantry with sturdy shelves, and got it done. I think I have been putting this off because doing it required skills that I have rarely had to use. That is because I always let Mark do all of the building projects with me as a helper. Now that it is just me doing the whole project, it takes me a bit to convince myself that I can do it. But do it, I did today. I removed the IKEA shelves that I had already put in place with the flimsy IKEA plastic pins. They were supposed to hold those shelves in place . . . just not with any weight on them as I quickly learned.
I replaced the pins with metal brackets and screwed those in place. This took lots of measuring and drilling, and then screwing them in place. I put the shelves back in place and filled them with containers of food.
Sounds easy, but it took me most of the day. Nevertheless, I am proud of the results. I then spent time organizing the rest of the third bedroom where the IKEA pantry is located. It is full of furniture that will go to the East Falmouth Elementary School yard sale that has been postponed from tomorrow to Sunday due to rain, as well as the bit and pieces of things that have not fit in somewhere in the house. I took those things down to the basement and as soon as the extra furniture is out, I can put together this room that will serve as a pantry, playroom for the grandkids, office, and who know what else. We shall see. I then moved outside and filled two more 4 x 4 foot raised beds with the garden soil purchased at Costco.
My, those bags are big and heavy! And I just didn’t have the energy to get the 4th bed filled. There is a 5th bed across the walkway, but I have remove the sod inside that one before filling it. Another day.
I switched gears and took off for Heather’s with more of the little plants I have been growing indoors to transplant in her garden. First, I checked on the bean plants I transplanted yesterday and the news was not encouraging. Two of the three are very wilted. So, I didn’t transplant the rest of the beans and the cucumbers. I did plant four zucchini plants and then headed back home. I’ll wait for warmer weather next week to continue transplanting. But before I left, Heather gave me a bag of dandelion greens she picked while weeding yesterday. She knows how much I value eating spring ‘weeds’ as their nutritional content is off the charts. Did you know there are over 250 different species of dandelions? All are edible and there are no poisonous lookalikes, but there are lots of lookalikes. One way to determine a true dandelion is to run your fingers along the main vein on the underside of the leaf. If it is completely smooth, you have a true dandelion. I think the bag of ‘weeds’ Heather gave me might have been lookalikes as the vein felt slightly prickly, and if so, that meant they would be slightly bitter. My mother always said that when you eat spring ‘weeds’ you should mix in a little bacon grease to remove the bitterness. I fought this for many years as an unhealthy practice, but I now agree with her. So, I fried a couple of strips of bacon and then stir-fried the dandelion greens in the same skillet. They were delicious.
