Haven't posted lately, so...

I was writing a letter to a friend today and realized that I hadn't blogged in ages, so I figured that the letter might do double duty and inspire me to get going on the blog again, anyway here's my edit of the letter...

"Today I took some Limoncello that I had been infusing (lemon peel and vodka) and mixed in the sugar etc now I’m candying the left over peels I made homemade lemonade with the juice. I also peeled some oranges up to make some Arancello, I think I will just dry the skinned fruit for snacks. I also want to start making fruit type leathers with salsa and other neat stuff. Puppy just made me a lemon drop with the left over simple syrup from candying the peels.

I decided not to pursue my masters degree, in truth at this time I cannot see it paying for itself and the school was being unhelpful. However, I did get word this week that I have been accepted into the Master Food Preservers program through the UC system. This will teach me the science behind preserving all sorts of foods. We had our orientation this week. I am really excited about this!

          The garden is great right now, we have a handful of white sapote ripening, our first crop of these. We picked up a grumichama or Brazilian Cherry and a keshu mandarin the other week. Our dragon fruit are ripening, it has been a bumper year for them. We got about 40 fruit so far, with more blooms coming. This year our squash did not do well, nor did our peas. They were in a new area of the garden and it just did not work for them. It seems that there are rats that have found our tomatoes, while I don’t mind sharing the fruit, I dislike the idea of getting any diseases from the rats. Puppy just harvested our first avocado ever, it is a Reed, which our friend in the rare fruit growers club recommend.

         Last week was Puppy’s birthday, I started the Limoncello for him, picked up some rambutans and fresh pistachios, I found a threesome of flavored Cholulas and some animated videos of Celtic and African mythologies. I also made him banana bread and vindaloo with home grown ghost peppers. We had a few friends over and just hung out.

         I’ve been reading a bunch of stuff lately. I read a book on huna over the summer and a book on the myths of the founding of the Americas I read some stuff by the Andersons on Feri and the first book in the Golden Compass series too, that was great. There was one I read for class last semester on Victorian sexuality and Jack the Ripper called “City of Dreadful Delight”. At the moment I’m reading Drawing Down the Moon which I've been meaning to read for years, lots of interesting little factoids. I am also reading Sky Burial on a Chinese woman who’s new husband heads out in the Chinese army of Liberation to Tibet in 56 and is reportedly killed, she goes looking for him and her journey to find him is the story. I picked up a book on Devil Worship of the Yezidis, which I am looking forwards to, along with a book on Shinto that I just had to have."

Well that's what you get, hope you liked it!