one's priorities really do show

[kareina]

I commented here yesterday that today I ought to look at the comments from the reviewers and do whatever it takes to get that manuscript revised to suit them. I even went so far as to add it to my calender. Did I do that?

Let's see:

I started the morning by discovering that we have way more red current bushes than we had thought. Last year we found the few red current bushes on the west side of our field, right next to the sharp bend in the property line. I had picked most of the berries from those bushes the other day, but one of the plants had a bunch of berries that weren't completely ripe yet, so I left them. On that day we had also walked down to the bottom end of the property to see how the black currents were coming along, and on the way back noticed another red current bush at the south edge of the field, but since I didn't have a bucket with me then I had resolved to go back later, and today was later.

I picked the few remaining berries from red current bush location #1, then went to location #2, picked those, then saw another bush a bit further into the trees, and picked those, which led to another bush, and so on till I got to the little shed down there (where the previous owner's horses went when they needed shelter). That is about where the black current bushes start. There is a rather good sized chunk of land down there which is now mostly nettle and black current--the current bushes had been planted as a small scale commercial venture some decades ago, and have been left to run wild for at least a decade (though one can still see the hints of rows in google earth).

Given how many red current bushes I had found scattered here and there among the trees I suspected that over on the other side of the black currents I might find more red currents, so I continued working my way down the property, and went all the way to the water's edge. I did, in fact find more red currents ready to be picked, and, even more exciting, I spotted some åkerbär. They are not yet ripe, but they are showing a hint of colour, and you can bet I will be checking them pretty much daily from now till they are ready to eat--their flavour is worth crossing through the mosquito rich portion of the property!

I spent nearly 1.5 hours picking berries, and wound up with two full liters of red currents to put into the freezer. On the way back up to the house I also discovered that we have a few high-bush blueberry plants growing between the red current location #1 and the change in slope from the field to the level the house sits at. I had never actually seen high bush blueberries before, but I knew they existed, since I had a field assistant from Bulgaria with me when I did my field work in the Brooks Range for my Master's degree; when he saw the tiny low-lying alpine blueberries I was happily eating during the last half of that field season his reaction was "you would bend down for this?". He then explained that back in Bulgaria blueberries grew on bushes at waist height.

Therefore, when I saw bushes at waist height in my own yard that contain clumps of berries in various states of ripeness ranging from whitish pink to full dark bluish purple, I happily started eating the dark ones. Yum! Even better, when lord_kjar got home and I showed them to him he tried one (he had never seen high bush blueberries before either) and said that he isn't all that impressed with them, so I get them all to myself!

After the berries were picked, washed, and into the freezer I curled up with a book and lunch. lord_kjar got home for lunch just as I finished eating mine. I checked the wall we had scraped yesterday, and it was dry (despite yesterday's rain), so I had him raise up the tractor scoop and I went to work painting the next bit of the wall while he went in and had his lunch. I managed to finish before he had to go back to work, which is a good thing, since, left to its own devices, the tractor scoop will gradually lower itself.

This wouldn't be a problem if not for two factors: 1) the way the hinges are set up for moving the scoop one can drive right up to the wall, start raising the scoop, and in the process the scoop becomes further from the wall. Therefore it is necessary to then drive further towards the wall if one wishes to stand on the scoop and paint the wall. Therefore, if one were to just let the scoop sag over time it would also come a bit forward in the process, and would thus eventually hit the wall. Strangely, we don't wish this to happen. and 2) in addition to simply lowering, the scoop also rotates as it ever so slowly sinks. This means that when we raise it we angle the base of the scoop, where we are standing to paint, nearly flat, but tilted such that were we to spill water (or paint) onto it, the liquid would flow towards the back end of the scoop. However, over the course of the hour it took me to do the painting the tilt gradually changed, passing through horizontal, and ending with a slight lean outwards. Not enough to make anything sitting on the scoop fall off, but enough that were water spilled it would run off the front of the scoop and land on the ground below. Needless to say, if left to do this long enough, eventually the solid objects (including the paint bucket) would fall off the scoop. Since I don't know how to drive the tractor this means that I can only use the tractor as scaffolding when he is home to lower the scoop when I am done. (...and to be available to make minor re-adjustments to the position of the scoop if needed. This wasn't needed today, but yesterday, when we were both standing on the scoop it did that slow sink a bit faster due to the extra weight, so he needed to take the ladder down twice to go re-lift and tilt the scoop to a better position.)

After he lowered the scoop and moved the tractor away I had time enough to also paint the part of that section that one can reach from the ground. Soon after I was done and had cleaned everything away for the day it started gently raining. After it had rained for a while I checked the wall, and was delighted to discover that none of that rain was actually hitting the wall. The overhang of the roof is just wide enough that such a soft rain, falling exactly perpendicular to the ground, completely misses the wall. Now this wall is more than half done (since it turns out the tractor scoop is a bit over 1/4 of the width of the wall. Hopefully we will have a few more windows of painting opportunity in the next few weeks.

After I cleaned up the painting mess and got a shower it was time to play in the kitchen. When we were in the grocery store last night I was delighted to see some beet greens (with beet roots attached), so I bought them. By this afternoon the greens were looking kind of wilted, so I cut them off and put them soaking in cold water to perk them up a bit while I made a beetloaf with which to restock the freezer.


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The beet loaf recipe:
4 c grated beets
1.5 c grated carrot
1.5 c grated potato
1 cup rolled oats
1.5 c canned chickpeas, drained and minced in the food processor
1 c chopped walnuts
1/2 c chopped pistachios
1/2 c chopped sunflower seeds
1/4 c flax seed
8 eggs
1 c milk
garlic
spices: pepper, coriander leaves, ground coriander, nutmeg, rosemary

I used the food processor both to grate the veg and to chop the nuts and chickpeas. I added the garlic and spices first to the eggs and milk, which I beat together before adding the rest of the ingredients (in a very large mixing bowl!) and mixing it all together by hand. Then I pressed it all into the very large baking pan (in Sweden ovens come with baking pans that are so large they don't need to sit on a rack--the slide onto the rack-holding things on the side of the oven--if you don't have one I would guess this much food would fit into two 9 x 13" pans) and baked it for about 35 minutes at 160 C.

While it was baking I happily cooked my beet greens in garlic butter and enjoyed them (ok, I let lord_kjar have half, since I love him. However, it didn't make very much--all of those greens failed to fill the soup bowl I put them in after cooking. I think that most of the greens that those beets grew were separated from the plant long before they arrived in the store. I have met enough people in Sweden who question the idea of eating beet greens that I rather expect that the people in the store assume that you won't be eating the greens, so they only leave on a token amount to show that the roots are fresh.
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The beet loaf was delicious, and holds together really well when sliced. We ate a slice each straight away, and the rest of the slices have been packed into two ice cream boxes and put into the freezer to be eaten whenever we are hungry but have no time/energy to cook, or want something easy to take with us.

Then we went out and bought a second hand double-bladed plow he had seen advertized on blocket (the Swedish on-line source for second hand everything). He had been wanting a better way to smooth out the field so that, eventually, we can host Medieval camping events, and this should do the trick. The plan is to plow the field both north-south and east-west, then use the other tool that he has from his dad to break up the plowed earth into clumps, then he will be able to drag some sort of smoothing device (perhaps made from logs, perhaps one of those long stones we bought) to level the field off. It will be interesting to see how much of that list he can accomplish between now and when we need to return the tractor to his dad at the end of the summer, given that we also want to work on the earth cellar and have other projects, too.

After we got home I also mixed up and baked some oven pancakes to put into the freezer. With all of the hot weather we have been having we had run out of the last stash--I rather enjoy getting out a slice of frozen pancake and gnawing on it while it thaws. It is a nice, cold snack, and usually lasts more than a page or two into a book (unlike the thawed version).

So, nope. No uni work today. Perhaps tomorrow.