Lemons, Lemons, Lemons

When the gardeners pruned the lemon tree, I ended up with about eight gallons of lemons. This is a serious number of lemons. Last night I made seven pints of preserved lemons and now I only have about two gallons of lemons left.

It's really easy to make preserved lemons, which are from Morocco and are traditionally used in chicken tangines, or stews. You slice a lemon almost into quarters, leaving the four pieces attached at the stem end. Then you stuff kosher salt into the cuts, about a quarter-inch thick. Drop the lemon into the canning jar and cover it with lemon juice. It took four or five small lemons to make enough juice to cover two salted lemons, using one-pint wide mouth jars.

Then you let the jars sit in a cool place for a month and the preserved lemons are ready to use. You take the lemon out of the salty juice, rinse it off, and chop it fairly finely. Drop the rest of the lemon back into the jar for later. Use this anywhere you need a bright lemon taste. I put it in tuna salad, for example.

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

We had a dramatic bit of nature happen in our courtyard yesterday. A roadrunner killed a small bird and carried the body off. All that was left to show this had happened was a few spatters of blood and some feathers. The roadrunner came back three or four more times after that, probably looking for more prey. We think the roadrunner has a nest with chicks nearby.

This is the part of nature that Walt Disney didn't show in the nature shows. The hero character always escaped the predator. When we were on photo safari in Botswana, we saw a pride of lions pull down, kill, and eat a Cape buffalo. Only it wasn't quite in that order. It was more like pull down, eat, and kill. It was horrible to see and hear, but it was an important and regular part of nature. Predators kill, prey gets eaten. It's just that it usually doesn't happen right outside the sliding door.

Rainy Nights in the Desert

Our weather has been reminding me of that song about Camelot, where the rain may never fall 'til after sundown... The last two days have been just like that. It was cloudy on Thursday, but it didn't start to rain here until about 2200, well after dark. Friday had scattered clouds, mostly white and rainless until late afternoon. Again it didn't rain until well after dark. We got almost an inch of rain on Thursday night and a whole lot less on Friday. Then it was very cold Saturday night.

Gordo the Collie hates the rain. He doesn't like getting his feet wet at all and he's not at all fond of having drops of water fall out of the sky onto him. As a result, all of his expeditions outdoors on both nights were hard on both of us. He'd go out, take a few steps, and stand there for a while, then turn around and come back in, without doing what he'd gone out to do. So he'd come in, lie down, and then get up, go back out, on and on and on, thereby keeping me awake for hours. Fortunately, I think we won't have rain again for a while, so we can both get back to normal.

Just In Passing

This is totally not one of the subjects I write about, but it's an important warning.
This blog has excellent information about a very deceptive Trojan horse that may attack your computer. It is entirely safe for you to click this link. Of course, I'd say that anyway, wouldn't I? But it's true, it's just a blog.

Socks Photo

Here's the photo I promised, showing the first seven pairs of socks I knitted. Actually, there's another pair, made with the same yarn as the baby socks, that I didn't get a photo of. I gave the socks to my cousin and forgot to photograph them. I managed to get a big pair and a little pair out of one ball.


The purple socks on the right end are the first real pair of socks I knitted. My sister-in-law, for whom I made them, says they're great and fit perfectly. I'm proud of that.