You Gotta Love Marmalade....

It's a big job, but it's worth it if you really like orange marmalade the way I do. Actually, I would have bought a jar at the IGA if I'd had the money, but I've spent everything I had. I did have, however, some oranges that had been in the refrigerator for about a month and some lemons David left me when he went to Florida in June. Add sugar and the fruit pectin left over from my pepper jelly and I had it made, literally. I dumped out some old relish and some bread and butter pickles to use their jars, though I know they won't reseal. I eat the stuff so fast I don't have to worry about it spoiling in the refrigerator.

So that was my Sunday, along with a redecorating job in the kitchen. I took the doors off the cupboards over the sink and painted out the wood color that had surrounded them. Then I arranged my dishes (attractively, I think) on the open shelves. This meant that I had to find other places for the less attractive cans of vegetables, boxes of rice and pasta, and cellophane bags of dry soup mix the doors had once concealed. It's amazing how limitless are the possibilities of reorganization.
Other activities were a walk with the dogs (I read on a web site that Lhasa Apsos need 20 minutes of exercise a day), and framing my newest pastel painting of the farm in Fall. I gave Patrick a haircut while I was talking with Mike on the phone, good boy that he is, and now he matches Lytton who was shorn a few days ago. It was another one of those precious days with no appointments and nothing specific to do.

The play last night was really great and I was again taken by the talent in our small community. It was a musical, so the actors sang to the accompaniment of local musicians. Just like the gallery, which mimics the galleries of big cities on a smaller scale, the community theater is as ambitous as any New York company. Within the microcosm of this little town, we have our own opening nights, and I have no doubt that we enjoy them as much as any Broadway theater goer. We have as much as New Yorkers, but they don't have as much as we do.

I walked out onto the back deck to check on the plants that are summering there and noticed Demeter perched atop one of the fence posts of the pen. The diameter of those posts is no more than two inches, so her feet were entwined like roots. She may have been feeling trapped, since she didn't move as I approached her, and I had to pick her up and drop her onto the ground. I hope she remembers that before she decides to fly up there again, but it is my experience that the memories of chickens is very short unless food is involved.