Beans and Bears — Janet Szabo

I am not unhappy to see the rain, although the weather makes the husband’s concrete pours more difficult and messy. He had to undress on the porch when he came home from work yesterday and his clothes went straight into the washing machine. The rain is letting me catch up on some inside projects, though, and that’s good.

We were running low on canned beans—specifically red ones—so I dipped into the Y2K supply that Cathy gifted me last summer and put some to soak overnight Tuesday. I ran two canner loads yesterday and ended up with 27 pints.

The total was actually 28 pints, but one jar didn’t seal, so it went into the fridge. I cooked down a ham bone the other day and that jar gives me a good excuse to make a batch of red beans and rice.

Once this stretch of rain ends, I need to think about planting beans out in the garden. It should be warm enough. I am devoting quite a bit of space to growing dry beans just because we eat so many. I have the seed from last year’s crop of purple Kebarika beans and Vermont Cranberry, as well as white ones and the green ones that came from a bag of beans I bought in the Hispanic food section at a Wal-Mart in Spokane. I also ordered Black Calypso and “Steuben Yellow Eye, AKA Molasses Face”—there’s a name for you—from Victory Seeds in Oregon.

We have had our first neighborhood bear sighting. Someone who lives around the corner from us posted on Facebook that they had a black bear on their porch around 9 o’clock last night. It’s that time of year. The chicken coop is electrified, but I’ll need to pay attention when I am wandering around the property.

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I pieced the backing and basted that neutral diamond scrap quilt together yesterday while waiting for beans to process. I think I am going to start quilting it today, although I am having a heck of a time trying to decide what kind of pattern to quilt. I may just stitch in the ditch on the center diamond portion. The quilt also has two borders, a narrow one and a wider one. I’ll probably quilt loops in the wider border. We’ll see. Perhaps inspiration will strike while I am working on it. Finished is better than perfect, though, and it’s not the only quilt top in the queue. I am not going to drive myself nuts over it.

Our pastor has been hosting weekly informal Zoom get-togethers which are great for catching up with everyone. My friends Elaine and Joann were knitting during yesterday’s gathering, and I commented that I need to retrieve my current prayer shawl project from the front pew at church where it has been languishing since March. (I keep it there so I can knit during the sermon time.) I don’t have any suitable prayer shawl yarn here or I would just start another one. The blanket strips I have been knitting for another group project are all done.

Nothing jacks up my anxiety level faster than having to sit still with nothing to work on. I should have grabbed some embroidery.

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I’ve been watching a YouTube channel recently called “Sidestep Adventures,” produced by a guy in Georgia who wanders around the countryside in search of old cemeteries. He has found some with headstones dating back to the late 1700s. His approach is very thoughtful and respectful and the videos are not as macabre as they might sound. Truly, though, stories like the one where a family buried six children in the space of 10 years help put the current situation into perspective. We have little to complain about.