I got a melon!!! I didn’t even see it until the other day.
Really tiny melon, maybe because the plant is dying (unknown cause). I’m not sure if it’s ripe — we will see!The sweet potatoes are super vigorous. The bushiness is convenient for keeping wind-blown trash out. Unclear if I’ll be able to leave them in the ground over the winter. The mint, broccoli, and carrots are hanging on. The remaining kajari melon (care info) is doing well, but I’m not sure if it’s set fruit yet. The tatume squash is just starting to send out vines. I hope there’s enough warm weather left for it to make some squash.
I started the garden pretty late this year, so the plants didn’t have a super long growing season and had to deal with hot weather early on in their lives.
The late start might have also made bug threats worse. The radishes mostly succumbed to some small gray bugs. I was able to harvest three bottoms but the leaves had been sucked dry.
The fence needs some shoring up, especially at the curb. Cars aren’t very careful with their doors and the fence isn’t incredibly sturdy…
We’ve braved going out more now. Especially with the warmer, sunnier weather, others are venturing out too.
That field in the back was so full. I thought at first that picnickers came for a special event, but I think everyone just had the idea in tandem.In the deeper recesses of the park, you can almost not see any buildings.
Early on in the season we saw crocuses and snowdrops, and some grape hyacinths, but the majority of the bulbs in New York seem to be daffodils and tulips.
They seemed to come up quite late despite early warm spells.
Our jack-o-lantern for Halloween. This pumpkin was intended for eating but it starting molding, so it was repurposed. I wanted to put the pumpkin in our window, but J was worried about setting the apartment on fire. Besides that issue, the pumpkin was too small to be very visible over the windowsill.
J and I aren’t going to visit my parents like we’d normally do ’cause of the ‘rona 🙁 Organizing the Thanksgiving meal will be a new activity and, with no established traditions for the two of us, we designed a menu tonight!
J and I moved to New York earlier this year (not a great time, I know). I was here alone for a few months, so I had the opportunity to expand my home furnishings collection! I think J and I might have different aesthetic tastes 🙂
This is a herringbone-woven rag rug I found in Austin during one of my neighborhood’s bulk trash pickup days. You can find all kinds of neat things! This rug is really thick and cushy.This other rag rug was woven by my dad’s maternal grandmother! It was used as a car repair mat (e.g. for laying on) by my dad’s dad for a while and unfortunately had car battery acid leak on some spots. I washed it (it looks soooo much better now) and am in the process of repairing the spots that were partially dissolved by the acid. I’d love to have my dad’s grandmother’s loom, but it disappeared in the multi-generational inheritance process 🙁Free (only in terms of money, definitely not in labor!) bookshelf I got from my mom’s ex-coworker. This is a barrister’s bookcase made, as far as I can tell, in the early 1900s. The co-worker got it from her grandfather, if I recall correctly.
This bookcase (13″ Gunn sectional bookcase) was made by Gunn Furniture Co. in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The manufacturing information includes two patent dates, Dec 5, 1899 and Jan 1, 1901.
Company stamp
This is the 1901 patent, for “knockdown” furniture. I couldn’t find the 1899 patent (My mom later identified it as this patent. When issued, it was not shown as assigned to any company and the Gunn company may have licensed rights or bought the patent later). It would seem that this bookcase was made between 1901 and 1905, when the furniture company was granted an updated bookcase patent.
The top, base, and side panels are oak – according to other sites, quarter-sawntiger oak, which was particularly popular in the Arts and Crafts movement (1880-1920, so this bookcase fits right in).
Shelves are a little bunged up.The plywood backing was a big pain. The layers were warped and de-laminating, so my dad and I glued them back together and parked an RV on top of them while they dried.
The bookcase was in quite bad shape when I got it. Besides re-gluing the plywood and cleaning off lots of spider webs, my dad doweled and glued a split side panel. I disguised some dings in the finish by staining the wood, and tried to fill in chipped areas in the varnish by redissolving it with a solvent and painting it back on, but that didn’t work so well.
Doors installed. The top shelf holds my non-hanging clothes. One of the legs came off in shipping to New York, so I glued the pieces back on and “clamped” it with lots of rubber bands 🙂 My favorite bunk bed from college 🙂 Also oak. I sleep on the top.
I made bread this week from a recipe recommended by (not-college) friend S, whom we met on a Japanese hike in the Bay Area! I share a lot of interests with non-college friend S, like homemade and fermented food, gardening, and sustainability!
This bread has a good neutral flavor – it’s not the most amazingly yeasty, savory bread ever, but it’s good for all your normal bread needs.
Bread
3 cups (390 g) flour
2 tsp (7 g, 1 packet) yeast
1 1/2 tsp (9 g) salt
1 1/2 cups (338 g) water
Mix dry ingredients. Add water. The dough will be quite wet. Cover and let rise in a warm place for an hour.
On a lightly floured work surface, gently stretch and fold the dough several times until firmed up into a loaf, being careful not to deflate completely. Cover and let proof for 15 min.
My dad visited J and me this past fall in California. Unfortunately, he bowed out of staying with us, and didn’t get to experience that studio life!! But we did a number of other fun activities.
Fixing the sofa with dental floss was just one part of getting ready for the visit.Indian pizza with my dad and friend A.Peach Dutch baby (fondly called “the big pancake” in my family) for breakfast, recipe courtesy of my mom. We were too ambitious with the peaches – these are supposed to puff a lot more than this usually… I’ll post the recipe on here sometime and y’all can try it out.Hangar One, completed in 1933, at the Moffett Field Historical Society Museum. Lots of airplanes, old military uniforms, scale models of stuff, etc. There were a lot of interesting older buildings at the airfield. With more time, it would’ve been fun to walk around. Mysteriously, Carnegie Mellon also has an outpost here.The underside of the Golden Gate bridge!! As seen from Fort Point.Lighthouse!Fancy dim sum restaurant! This is Koi Palace in Daly City. J heard about it from… somewhere. It’s supposed to be really good. We got there pretty early in the morning and briefly had to wait in line.Some hiking~We got rid of some bad lamps at Goodwill and picked up a new-to-us one! It’s made by Stiffel, my dad’s favorite lamp company. Apparently they’re normally quite expensive ($300) – we got this one for $25!We also saw this cute replacement shade 🙂Ate at Original Joe’s, a kinda fancy Italian place in SF.
We went to Santa Cruz and saw some old mission buildings. The actual mission was partially destroyed in a mid-1800s earthquake and replaced by another church. A replica was built in 1931. The only original building was used as housing for Native Americans.
As so often happens, J and I had nothing in the fridge to eat. No greens, no leftovers, no beans soaked and ready for boiling. Fortunately, we were able to scrape together some lingering and more robust ingredients to cook.
Korean glazed potato side dish from Maangchi.Korean-style mapo tofu, with some substitutions made (as always)…The final desperate meal. I do believe the avocado half was our last fresh veggie.
Aaaaand we got our produce delivery today, so we’re back to having fruit and leafy greens!
Here are some old projects I found. I think I made them in middle school – I was really into beading and jewelry then.
Collection of pendants made out of polymer clay!This is a waterfall jungle scene, complete with vines and reptiles. You’re supposed to hang dangly things from the bottom holes.Some abstract thing I actually turned into a necklace. It looks kinda like corn…My mom’s grade-school watercolor kit (we did not get rid of it), and her scientific drawing dip pen! Vintage~
Both of my siblings are strangely attached to crayons. Although they allowed many of our crayons to be given away, the compromise was that we had to keep the 96-color set. As sibling C said, “Who knows when the world will end and we realize we need crayons”.
