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| Lantana Bushes |
We had a freeze warning in effect for parts of my area last night. Most of the plants in my garden did okay, but, the lantana bushes in the front showed signs of frost damage:
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| Lantana Leaves Close Up |
The leaves turn a bronze color for the cold. But, the leaves underneath are still green and the plants will recover:
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| Frost Damaged Outer Leaves |
Today, I over estimated what I could get done! I started off the morning well. I made a list of what I wanted to accomplish. I brought in the trash cans, checked on the garden, removed the holiday cushion covers and washed them, along with the knitted/crocheted blankets, took down the holiday greeting cards and washed the inside of the front door where I had taped the cards, and dusted the living room furniture. However, I haven't put away the holiday linens, yet, and I didn't put away the rest of the laundry, either. Nor did I take down and put away the Winter Village! Instead, I wished a friend for her birthday, emailed a couple of other friends, caught up on another couple of blogs, and checked this week's grocery ads (new prices effective every Wednesday) to look for tuna for Dancer (we are down to 1 can!). I accomplished about half of the things on my list and then, I sort of ran out of steam! Maybe because I only had six hours of sleep last night?
I need to work on my "promptly" a little bit more! LOL! Oh, well, I'm going to focus on what I managed to accomplish and not on what I didn't get around to doing! As they say, tomorrow is another day!
Brunch was leftover rice and curries from the almsgiving:
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| Lunch: Leftovers |
There's rice, and, going clockwise from the bottom left/7 o'clock: sauteed curried napa cabbage, kale mallung, sauteed curried green beans, the last bits of pappadum, cashew curry, and dhal or lentil curry. Lots of vegetables (in fact, the whole meal was vegetarian) and I felt quite virtuous because I don't normally eat a lot of vegetables. Fruits, yes, but, not vegetables.
I ate some (too many!) shortbread cookies with a cup of tea around 5:00 p.m. and I had leftover cucumber salad for dinner as I was not very hungry. Later, I had yogurt with treacle and a few pecan halves. I'll probably eat a banana before I go to sleep.
Today, I am grateful for:
- Working appliances (especially the heater)
- The frost damage in the garden was not too bad
- Emails from friends
- Being able to video chat with my daughter
- Leftovers!
Today's joyful activity was video chatting with my daughter.
Plans for tomorrow include finishing up the tasks that are being carried over to tomorrow and tending to the garden with M.
How was your Tuesday? What are your plans for Wednesday?
I'm glad your plants haven't suffered too badly in the frost. If you accomplished half of what you planned to do that's good, there's always another day. I get stressed if I feel have too much to do so I do what I can and the rest gets done eventually :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Eileen; I'm glad, too! Thursday night will be another cold night for us, going down to 35F/2C. I might get some frost burn on the avocado tree then.
DeleteI have very long to do lists! My daughter says I put down a week's worth of things to do on one day! LOL. For every task I accomplish, I've 5 more I feel I need to do!
Lantana definitely does not survive the winter here, but I brought my big pot of it inside to see if I could overwinter it. I cut it back severely and it is regrowing. I hope this lasts, and I can introduce it back outside successfully this summer. Our summers aren't long enough to get a lot of blooming of lantana when we start with a small plant.
ReplyDeleteOh, yay! You are trying to overwinter your lantana! I hope it works!
DeleteToday i am grateful for big logs we can trhow in the woodstove.
ReplyDeleteReading about your sleep, it urks me , still, that whenever i have missed some sleep, i have to catch up the next night. Do you have to do that? or do you just have one tired day and sleep your usual hours the next night?
Big logs to throw in the woodstove are definitely something to be grateful for, especially in the type of winter you experience!
DeleteI am constantly sleep deprived! I usually get 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night and I know that is not enough! I'm trying to get to bed earlier in the night and try to get 7 to 8 hours. It's a work in progress!
Your brunch of curries and side dishes looks amazing. I usually enjoy leftovers more than the original servings. I am heating black bean soup for dinner. I cooked a big pot yesterday.
ReplyDeleteOur high in New York was 55 degrees (f) today. You may have to come east to warm up!
I am working less and less and plan to retire by autumn. I worked from home today. My dogs are used to it but daughter’s cat didn’t like it at all. She variously sat on my computer, files, notes and she did a huge tail swish across the camera during a Zoom meeting. 🤦🏻♀️
I hope your plants bounce back from the frost. We don’t keep anything going outside during the winter. I always get antsy in the spring waiting to plant lettuce and tomatoes.
😊
Thank you, Taconix; I, too, like leftovers. :) I don't think I've had black bean soup, but it sounds tasty. I'm thinking of making some soup, once I finish the leftover curries. I have a ham bone in the freezer and some ham and split pea or bean soup sounds good, doesn't it?
DeleteWell, if you are in New York, I can understand why you said that California is a long way away, if your daughter takes a job here.
I hope your retirement plans go well. I've been retired for five years now and one of the things I did to prepare for retirement was figure out what my retirement income would be and see if I could live on that for 6 months. Cats like to be where the action is! :D
We have another cold night in the forecast - tomorrow night is supposed to go down to 35F! The garden will have to cope with it! I'm not planting any winter vegetables, this year; I'll wait until spring and see how things go.
I think you accomplished more than enough! And staying in touch with friends is most important. I'm glad the lantana will survive, its so pretty in bloom. I've never heard of curried napa cabbage, and is sounds delicious! I've made curried spinach, would the process be the same? I hope the freezing weather there is past.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Celie. :) Yes, staying in touch with friends is important. Putting away laundry is not that important. :) To be quite honest, I'd never heard of curried napa cabbage, either, but, I was given two napa cabbages as part of the imperfect produce we were given and I've cooked regular cabbage, and as far as I am concerned, cabbage is cabbage! I cut up the leaves very finely, added curry powder, salt, curry leaves, etc., and sauteed it in a little bit of oil. I'm not sure how you make curried spinach, but, I think that recipe would work for the napa cabbage, too. :)
DeleteThere is another frost warning for Thursday night - supposed to go down to 35F. We shall see. :)
That is a sad Lantana so I am glad that it has some green leaves to recover with. Your veggie curry meal sounds and looks delicious. We had Butter Chicken yesterday, no veggies in it but I did make a salad. I cheated and put a jar of Butter Chicken sauce into the crockpot and added cut up chicken breasts and let it all cook itself. It turned out delicious. Our son had found a sauce he finally liked and had given us a couple of jars to try. I cooked rice and also thawed and warmed some commercial naan bread. DH was in heaven!
ReplyDeleteI think as long as the roots of the lantana are warm (and the ground doesn't freeze where I am), the plants will recover.
DeleteThank you; I had another vegetarian lunch, today, too. I think Honor Min would be proud of me! :) Your butter chicken sounds good - I'm all for jar sauces (very often, my spaghetti sauce comes from a jar or even a can!) if it tastes good to the person eating it. Glad your DH found the meal to his liking. :)
I imagine a frost is a rare thing for your area. I hope your plants recover well. I think you are right about the lantana bouncing back fine.
ReplyDeleteYour plate of food looks wonderful - such variety!
I made some broth with carrots and greens in it, flavored with soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and sriracha sauce that I then cook pot stickers in for a soup. We've been eating that the last few days.
We usually get a couple of nights with frost warnings in January and February, most winters. One winter, it was really cold and snowed in an adjacent city, which was very unusual.
DeleteThank you! Almsgiving food usually has an assortment of curries; even if we didn't have a big almsgiving with several monks and lots of participants, we still made a variety of dishes and one of the monks commented that we had taken a lot of trouble to prepare a feast. :)
Your pot stickers soup sounds lovely and very warming! I want to do some cooking, tomorrow, and maybe I'll make a soup as well as the mackerel curry and coconut roti I want to make. :)