mumbling and fumbling my way through backyard restoration
LET’S NOT TALK ABOUT THE RABBITS.
Anything else will be fine. Quite nice, even. Calm, peaceful, restful…
NO RABBIT TALK.
Unfortunately no rabbit talk means no talk of edamame, green beans, crimson clover, jalapenos, and now my beloved okra…
We call it “the h-word” around here…it’s a no-no…
I HATE RABBITS.
Let’s talk of nice things…
beauty…
humor…
kindness
life…
joy…
rabbit stew…
What does one do when one has this much basil?
Dog photo bomb free of charge.
Well, as far as I know, there’s really only one thing to do.
Call Ina.
And if she’s too busy and important to come, just use her recipe.
My only riff on Ina’s is that sometimes I’ll toast the pine nuts and walnuts…but only if I’m feeling especially punchy. Otherwise this recipe is pretty much like Ina: Hamptons perfection.
I have messed it up once when I left the food processor running for too long, and it aerated the basil way much…turns out brown basil is not super appetizing.
But as long as you go easy on the processor, this freezes so great that it’s the perfect hit of summer right in the dead of winter. Just top it with a thin layer of olive oil in whatever container you’re going to freeze it in. {My fave is ice cube trays.}
I’ll leave the quality of that olive oil up to you…but I’m just sayin’…she’s watching…
Yes, Maddee’s awesome. No, you can’t have her.
The bitties have a wee problem with idolatry. If I had a nickel for every “No, I want Maddee to do it…”
On second thought…keep your nickel. Gimme a pellet for my new pellet gun…dadgum rabbits…
She’s crazy smart. If only she wasn’t so cool.
There’s been zero gardening. There has, however, been blackberry picking, rabbit-cursing, swimming, Christmas card pic-taking, a little banditry, and lots and lots of Rolling Stones. So much so that this cutie who was totally flirting with her at Urban Outfitters {sorry, Madd, he was…} probably headed right out and bought himself a download. {But I think he had skinnies on, so actually he probably bought himself a vinyl.}
What can I say, she likes pamingos.
We’ve had lots of talk time. And, as it turns out, high school is still high school.
*sigh*
I just want to grab her shoulders and shake her and say don’t peak here.
Not here here, but here as in high school here. Madd, don’t peak here.
{Madd’s sweet friends A & A: don’t peak here.}
But to such funny, talented, smart, thinking girls, maybe the message really is: don’t want to peak here.
Remember all the voices of high school? They’re still there. Remember all the pressures of high school? They’re still there, too. Remember all the idiots of high school? Yep, them too. {And now they’re on INSTAGRAM to boot.}
*double sigh*
I’ve got 20 years on Madd. That’s 20 years to make sense of the nonsense. And there is so much living ahead, so much life. And it gets so. much. better. And so much easier, and so much freer, and so much more sensical.
One message, Madd: the exchange of your record for his. The just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned and just-as-if-I’d-done-everything-right-all-the-time of justification in Christ alone. Romans 5:1-5 is the only equation that will make sense of the nonsense.
faith –> grace –> hope of glory
pain + suffering + exchange of shame = endurance, character, and…wait for it…hope
The bitties are obsessed. I think she could use a little breathing room. And I thought only the phrase “hey mama” could get a little much after the 408th listen in 3 hours. Turns out “hey Maddee” can get ya too.
The first task on our agenda is to buy a pack of coyotes to take care of these rabbits.
At least my vocabulary is bound to get one hundo percent tighter this week.
“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
Mark Twain said that.
There are some things I won’t forget.
David said, “I love what you’ve created back here for our girls. It’s like their own science center, and they’re going to grow up learning about all of it.”
Two months. Aaaaaaaand go…
