Therapy Cats
Our other cats are trying to make us feel better about Jammer. They’re trying to distract us with their wrestling matches and enjoyment of sunbeams and such. Carl is keeping us busy, making sure we’re on track. …
Author: Leslie Kimel
Cabbage Salad with Ramen Noodles
Last Sunday when Jammer was still with us, when he was still resting in his little bed next to my desk in the Little House, we harvested a couple of fine cabbages, glittering with raindrops, and we made a cabbage salad. We’d check on him, …
Candid Jams
I thought I’d post some candid shots of Jammer, most of them taken by Rob, just so I could remember and think about how funny Jammer was and how he liked to spend his days. He liked to “take the air,” as we used to say when he’d lie in the breezes on the screen porch. He liked to drink water from a clean, just-filled bowl. He enjoyed cuddling with Josie, hugging her with his front arm and with a long white foot too (it would be draped softly over her small back). Sometimes he’d go and sit in Rob’s wardrobe and we’d say he’d “moved into his bachelor’s quarters,” because it really did look like he’d taken up residence in a well-appointed cat-sized apartment.
A Remembrance
Jammer, great Jammer, died on Monday morning. He was almost 17. After he died, Rob and I spent the day talking about him and looking at pictures of him. I found his kitten pictures, and I said, “See, he always had sad puppy eyes, from the …
Homemade Marmalade
Last week, we had our first big freeze of the winter. The weatherman predicted it would get down to 18 degrees on Tuesday night, so that evening Rob and I went out and picked all our kumquats—20 pounds of kumquats—so they wouldn’t be damaged by the cold.
Since we had 20 pounds of kumquats sitting around the house, we decided to make marmalade. We’d never preserved anything before, so this was a pretty big deal. Sunday was entirely devoted to marmalade madness. We didn’t know what we were doing, so we had pots boiling over all day, and sugar caramelizing on the stovetop, and we kept contaminating our jars and having to re-boil them. The floor became unbelievably sticky, and kumquats were rolling around underfoot. The air was perfumed with burned sugar and citrus.
But in the end, it worked! We made marmalade, and it is so delicious! It’s sunny and sweet and tangy, and it has the power to turn ordinary toast into a wonderful, exotic dessert. I wish you could taste it.
Vegan Lasagna
We made our favorite vegan lasagna on Monday. It turned out so delicious. The key is the walnut paste, which holds everything together and is so rich and oily and delightful! Sorry about the poopy picture. It was dark by the time we finished cooking, …
These Balmy Winter Days
Yesterday was so warm, it sure didn’t feel like January–and it didn’t really look like it either. There haven’t been any freezes yet this winter, so our summer vegetable garden is still producing. We’ve got shiny hot peppers galore, and we even have an eggplant coming along (pure white and still as small as a chicken egg). There are roses blooming too, and the daffodils and paperwhites are all confused; they think it’s spring.
I spent the whole of yesterday weeding, which is really my kind of living. I got to crawl around in fragrant pine needles and admire my plants up close. I picked kumquats whenever I got hungry, and listened to bird talk, and I dreamed about planting a camellia forest and a pawpaw patch.
