Where Does the Time Go

I have been meaning to post something for a week or so and somehow something just keeps getting in the way.  While being stuck at home should make our schedules easier, we are both finding ourselves very busy.  I've started to reread a series of books that are really engaging and when it has come time to decide about doing some reading or typing this blog - the reading has been winning.  Of course, it could also be some naps might be getting in the way of writing. 

We have started to enjoy using our new outdoor furniture by having some friends and family over for conversation and meals.  My parents have joined us for brunch a couple of times in which we area actively working to maintain the correct social distance  (the above picture aside - I'm farther back than it looks, just in case it looks like we have thrown caution to the wind) while still enjoying the sunshine.  Most important it has been nice to have some conversations with people besides each other.

Our garden is starting to produce a weekly vegetable haul that has made meal planning more interesting as we try to figure out what to make with the recently harvested goodies.  For the first time ever, we finally had a pea crop that took more than one meal to eat.  This was a nice surprise especially since I had told myself this was the last year I was going to plant peas if they didn't produce a healthy crop.  I have been trying to get a good pea crop for six or seven years back in Milwaukee.  Of course, maybe the peas knew about the threat and decided to not hold back this year.  We have also enjoyed multiple lettuce harvests along with some yellow squashes, onions, beans, radishes, and basil.  While the weeds remain an ongoing challenge at our community garden the produce is nice to have and with my parents in town we now have someone else to share the bounty with. 

Our other big outing recently was to hit a pick your own strawberry farm to get enough for a new batch of strawberry jam - well at least that was the plan (the last time we made jam was 2004 and we are still finishing a few jars of that).  As we could see the end of our jam we figured it would be good to make a fresh eight jars or so.  But as our usual when out picking strawberries we grossly misjudged how many quarts were in our bin.  So instead of making one batch of jam, we had had to make four batches of jam to have any hope of using up all the berries.  Even with that, we still needed to freeze several bags of strawberries (strawberry margaritas and daiquiris are in the future).  Even with the major mistake, we still had a fun day picking, cleaning, and canning.  That and we will be eating fresh jam - probably for years to come.

We continue our daily hikes and are starting to work in biking several times a week either outside or on our recently acquired spin bike to provide some aerobic conditioning.  Yoga is keeping us semi-limber and we have found a means to do some weight training at home.  Not sure when we will feel comfortable back at the gym especially with the current explosion in Covid cases.  Other than that, we are having fun, missing our travels, but catching up on some long delayed home activities.  And yes, Jo is still cranking out sourdough item after sourdough item.  

Doing our Bit for the Economy

While taking 1-2 hour long walks everyday since March 22 has been enjoyable and we have talked about everything under the sun, it wasn't really contributing to our overall aerobic fitness.  Although our gym has recently reopened, albeit with limited attendance and enhanced cleaning (the new buzzword for businesses), we decided given the risks being inside with people sweating and breathing hard that we just aren't ready yet to head to the gym.  So we took the plunge and purchased a spin bike to get some exercise that actually requires us to breath hard.  Of course, our interior decorating plans didn't really count on having an exercise space so we spent a bit of time reorganizing and managed to squeeze it in to a corner (fortunately spin bikes don't require a large footprint).  Fun side note, our plan was to not have any exercise equipment at home so we would be forced to go out and see people every day - even if it was just the gym.  Great plan for normal times, not a great plan during a pandemic. 

We also purchased a bike rack for our car so that we begin to take some bike trips without having to use the crowded downtown bike trails.  This also required bike trail passes and a new front wheel for Jo's bike since she had continued her 2019 trend of getting a flat front tire after every ride.  So you can see we are doing our best to pump funds into the pandemically crippled economy (copyright alert - pandemically is mine).  The addition of the bike rides (inside and out) have started to help us feel like we are getting back into some sort of shape and might have a chance of surviving the carbohydrate enhanced diet we are on due to Jo's sour dough adventures.

Speaking of sour dough, Jo's starter continues to bubble and plug away in the back of the fridge while Jo plots and searches the internet for new things to she can make out of sour dough.  Recently, Jo tackled another round of English muffins, which continue to be excellent and tasty, and added also added a new item to her repertoire with bagels.  While not as perfectly shaped as the ones from a store they came out nicely dense and the sour dough provides an interesting flavor.  So another hit for her baking skills and another hit to my waistline.  We realized we have plowed through over twenty pounds of flour since the start of our quarantine.  I really need to biking more...

The other nice change for us is that our patio furniture finally arrived.  We had ordered it back in early March but the manufacturer had been shut down for a month or so due to the Covid closures.  We can now enjoy our outdoor space a bit more and have already taken advantage of it for some lovely dinners looking at the lake and Capital.  

Dreams of Vegetables to Come

Sorry - lots of pictures this week, so not quite the usually organized layout that I prefer.  But the good news, it is stressing me out more than you probably - but that is the fun of OCD (or as I prefer - CDO since the letters should so be in order).  Anyway I diverge, the weather is finally turning warm and with the spring rains we are starting to see some growth in our garden.  The peas are starting to climb their fence, the lettuces are getting settled in and, most importantly, the beans are starting to pop out of the ground.  It is always such fun at the start of the season to see your hard work result in green shoots.  Certainly, come late September I'm always ready for the garden to be done as I do tire of the weed pulling.  But as they say, "Hope springs eternal" every May as for now all I see is the potential of a large bounty to harvest later this year.

As Wisconsin begins to open up this week, we are continuing our home bound hibernation which means no gym visits for us for quite a while.  We are still enjoying our daily morning walks to make up for the lack of gym time and I thought it would be fun to share the social distance reminder signs that the UW has installed on several of their walkways and paths.  It is always good to know how many milk cartons (twelve) and pink, plastic flamingos (apparently four) you need to keep between you and strangers.  One scientific and cautionary note, we have not independently confirmed that twelve milk cartons, four plastic flamingos, three terrace chairs, or one Paul Bunyon rivalry axe actually add up to six feet.  So please use caution when laying out your milk cartons (or flamingos, etc.) when spacing yourself for your social interactions.

Jo is continuing her quarantine driven, culinary explorations with sourdough and this week's treat was home made, sourdough, hamburger buns.  They both looked the parted and tasted great when combined with a well grilled burger (thanks to our Christmas purchase of a food thermometer) and, of course, some good Wisconsin cheddar.  We are continuing our work on expanding our waistlines and enjoying the season by starting to make home made ice cream on a regular basis.  

Sourdough and then Some More Sourdough

As everyone else in the country is doing, Joann started some sourdough starter several weeks ago.  We have made several loafs of sourdough bread, but once you have the starter you need to keep coming up with things to make with it - since there is no way my frugal wife is going to through away starter whenever it needs to be fed again.  Therefore, we have a couple rounds of sourdough pancakes and are about to try sourdough pizza dough.  But this week's sourdough event (yes we are having almost one of them a week) was sourdough english muffins.  The good news is that they turned out looking and tasting better than store bought english muffins.  We still need to work a bit on the right stove temperature to balance cooking them all the way through without burning the outside, but I'm guessing there will lots of opportunity to experiment since the starter remains chugging away in the refrigerator.

The enforced isolation has provided lots of time to experiment in the kitchen and fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your thoughts about waistlines and blood sugar levels) many of the experiments have involved desserts.  Last week, oatmeal cream cakes were on the agenda and it was a smashing success.  Certainly one of my top favorites, but that could be the buttercream filling - short side note - sometime I think we should just make a big vat of buttercream icing and keep it around to improve various foods (e.g., apples, bananas, kale?).  We have also made two batches of home-made ice cream already including our favorite chocolate variety.  I may be shooting for a Covid-38 instead of the more mundane 19 pounds many people are talking about.

We did manage to get outside for some garden work which helped the waistline, blood pressure, and stress levels to get all of our garden seeds in the ground.  We already have a lettuces and peas coming up so now just need the weather gods to cooperate and provide the optimal amount of sunshine and rain.