Springtime in Eugene

Brian Davies wins the best photo of the day award again. Springtime in Eugene!

Storms blowing through, high wind gusts, downpours, with a lengthy sunshine break in between. And that was all this morning. During that break, he found this. Note all the little daffodils reflected in the raindrops. Guy's a genius with a camera.

Just after daylight this morning, during a period of strong winds, I began to wonder how the fabric 'wrapping' on my garden bed was holding up. The weather has been warm enough that while I've been putting the 'skirts' down every evening, I've done it loosely. So I went outside and sure enough, all the skirts were undone and the whole thing was blowing in the wind, attached to the tops of hoops by only a few clothespins. When I reached the garden, I could see that all the corner stakes had blown out, and that the bamboo hoops that are the framework were also bending badly and ready to follow the corner stakes.

So, with the wind still pretty strong, I started trying to bring some order to the chaos. It wasn't easy. Hard to even hold down one piece of it long enough to pin it down. But eventually I won, bit by bit, using all the extra clothespins I had out there, and all the hoop stakes along the sides. I still wasn't sure it was enough, so I decided to go back inside and get the rest of my clothespins.

While I was standing there contemplating this, I heard a loud crack and, knowing what it was, started toward the parking lot. A quick look told me that the tree was falling away from me, onto the roof of the apartment building on the other side of the fence. I think that's the 3rd one that's fallen into one of their buildings this spring. It didn't crash against the building, though, just rested gently. I went back inside, got the rest of the clothespins, made it all as secure as I could, and hustled back inside. There were no more trees within striking distance of me, but I was spooked enough not to want to take the chance. I was out there again a short while ago, and the skirts are all still tied down nicely and the sun is shining once more. Maybe we'll escape further harm around here, and power outages!

I spent all of yesterday cooking, which is of course fun, for me. Went back to baguette shapes for this batch of sourdough, but neglected to score the dough deeply enough to do the job. Those slits give the dough a place to expand as it rises. Two of them blew out the side at or near the seam, solving the problem for themselves.

This one was, I think, one-quarter whole wheat and while it's healthier and all that, I think I'm gonna go back to plain old unbleached white flour again. Because I want to taste the sour without having it clouded by tasting the whole grain.

Still, I was happy with the way the dough expanded nicely and how the loaves had a nice round shape, rather than the flatter ones I've tended to get in the past. I'm figuring this thing out, one batch of dough at a time.

I also made a wonderful Spanish paella yesterday, which I neglected to take a photo of. That's too bad, because it looked pretty good and I'll probably never make it again. Or, maybe I will, who knows! It was delicious, but a lot of work. However, if I left off the mussels and shrimp and just had chicken and some good Spanish chorizo in it, probably wouldn't be quite so bad. If I'm going to spend that much time cooking something at this stage in life, I want it to be something different -- not something I've done before.

I hurt my back in the gym last Friday, and though I rested some, I also have been following my usual treadmill schedule all week, which I think was not a good idea. Standing on my feet most of yesterday didn't help, either. So, with some wisdom and insight into the idea that I'm not as young as I like to think I am, I've opted to rest until the damn thing has time to heal.