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Movie Quotes, Explosions, and Aardvarks

 Happy Monday

Do you know what I really need right now? A nice rainstorm. And not just a drizzle, but honest to goodness rain. It’s been so dry here at the Castle since the start of the summer, so it’s not just me that would benefit but the plants and all the animals would benefit too. You can water your plants from a garden hose all you like, but nothing makes plants happier than a good drink of rainwater.

Nareign, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons 
I would like some of that rain here, please.

Some very happy news this week; I am the proud owner of an Instant Pot! (Disclaimer: not a sponsored post!) Look out pot roast here I come.

WIP Update

Do you know what what makes half-stitches so great? They add lovely texture and depth to a chart, while also enabling you to cover a lot of ground very quickly. E.g. :

See? Texture, depth, speedy progress. Those floss colors are gorgeous too. I think the flowers are really starting to come to life. Soon I’ll be back at the entrance to that café, where I’ll make a right turn, then proceed to the bottom of the chart again. The window of the café looks so inviting, doesn’t it? I want to trot in there, order a cup of coffee and watch Paris go by.

Now we will turn our attention to Medieval Menagerie:

No close-up’s this week; I wanted to give you the bigger picture. Look at those dragons! Aren’t they amazing? I love the way this variegated floss just makes dramatic color changes. BOOM! Here’s some deep red. BOOM! Here’s some garnet. The next band is geometric and quite stunning. Being a fan of both geometric and stunning motifs, I’m pretty excited about getting there. But first, the present band still has the rest of that third dragon, and another tree to balance out the tree on the left hand side of the band.

Odds & Ends

Last week I mentioned that I was growing San Marzano’s in the Castle garden. Who knew that there was so much debate about them? Best Canned Tomatoes: Are San Marzano Really Worth It?

We assumed that, unlike peanut butter, there wouldn't be a whole lot of variation among canned tomatoes. One tomato in a can should be like, well, a tomato in a can. But it turned out that comparing can to can was a lot more like comparing apples to, say, aardvarks.

The biggest surprise? Which brand came out on top.

People have the most amazing ideas. I’m signing up for Pride and Prejudice Weekly, and Letters from Watson looks really fun too.

On Substack
What to Read: A treasure trove of serialized classics
A surge of new publications serializing classic novels have appeared on Substack. Inspired by Matt Kirkland’s popular Dracula Daily—a serialization of Bram Stoker’s epistolary gothic novel—these newsletters deliver the story directly to your inbox, as it happens…
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10 days ago · 118 likes · 31 comments

You want some Bach? Here’s some Bach:


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