The tree we actually got last Sunday, and put it up right away, but it was nearly dark and I wasn’t finished the laundry, so we decorated it last night. P has always made a fresh cut with a hand saw, but this year, I had the Pwrincess of Power saw, so I did it.
It ended up being 70F yesterday, and it’ll be in the mid-60s today. The Tornado Honeysuckle has a few blooms left on it in spite of the cold we’d had a few weeks ago. Not mistletoe, but I’ll take it!
My sole accomplishment yesterday was clearing the dead stuff out of the south flowerbed. It doesn’t look nice (of course not), so I didn’t take a photo, but I might after I get dressed…dunno. Heh. I sneaked around the corner in in jammies. Too bad if the neighbours noticed. Anyway, ugly, but hopefully pretty next spring!
I did accomplish one other thing…I dried and ground the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion peppers that C gave me. I cut them up (wearing gloves) into thin strips, then dried them on a cookie sheet in the oven on “warm”…150F because that’s as low as our oven will go.
I was going to use the coffee grinder, but remembered I own a little mortar and pestle, and there wasn’t a lot to grind, so I used that.
C had warned me that these are HOT, but just for the hell of it, I picked up a tiny fleck the size of a black pepper grain, and touched it on my tongue. She was right! Even that tiny fleck burned! This will be my special present to the trash pandas…I’ll make them their own, yummy suet cake! Cayenne apparently didn’t faze them, but that’s 40-50,000 Scoville units when it’s freshly ground. Moruga scorpions are roughly 1.4 million. Enjoy, you fat little bastards!
In the evening, P got out the lights and decorations, and we did the tree. Nova Scotia balsam fir from Naugler’s, and it smells wonderful.
P also found something wonderful when he did his supply run…the strawberry cream cake that comes to Aldi straight from heaven!
OMNOMNOM! Pass me a fork!
Last night, I also found two things for which I’ve searched on and off for the last 20-plus years! The Turkey Song, and Dashing Through The Stores! Dale Baglo of Vancouver is responsible for both, but I hadn’t known that until I decided on a whim to search for, “I’ve been invited for Christmas, as a turkey I am blessed”. That one was on YT, but I ended up buying both of them on CD Baby. $1.98 well spent; MP3, MP3 at 320, and FLAC.
