Weekly Update: 5.17.26
Of Mother's Day, gardening, and miscellany
The first hints of summer drifted over us this week, as the days grew warm and the nights melted balmy. Several varieties of purple thistles have started blooming, beckoning butterflies to their capitula. The crisp morning air we’ve had for months softened into a honeysuckle laced breeze. My sisters have both seen fireflies, though I haven’t been so blessed yet. It’s still spring, but summer can already be felt in every way.
The week began with our Mother’s Day celebration. After Mass, we went with our mom to Big Rock Gardens and Produce in Lockwood. We had heard it was a good, semi-local place to buy plants, and we weren’t disappointed. We plan to detail our visit in a stand-alone-post, but suffice to say — we were impressed with their selection, and we quickly found everything we needed.
We came home and planted the new flowers in the flower bed we made last week. Since the month of May is dedicated to Mary in the Catholic Church, it felt like a fitting time to place and crown our new Mary statue. While we spoiled our own mother, we enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on Mary’s motherhood of Jesus and the Church (Revelation 12:17).
While we were at the nursery, we also picked up a couple hen-and-chicks. They always remind us of our Memaw. Bonnie-Jean repotted them on Monday, which felt fitting, since it was the third anniversary of her passing.
Our main focus this week was our garden. Most of our energy went to breaking up soil and weeding. It’s long and tedious but also satisfying. Our brothers joined in on Saturday. The guys doubled our progress, which was amazing.
When we weren’t working on the garden this week, we were busy with plenty of indoor tasks. We bottled the St. Paul Porter we started on our dad’s birthday in March. We had planned to bottle our cider on the same day, but we ended up short on bottles. Bottling the porter went smoothly — we think the beer is going to turn out well. We are hoping it will be ready to drink by Father’s Day. We ordered another box of bottles so we can finish up the cider in the next couple weeks.
We also did some meal prep for the following weeks. After our dad picked up a large Walmart grocery order in Bolivar, Grace and I prepped 36 pounds of chicken for grilling. We made seven different marinades (most from this blog post), poured them over the portioned frozen chicken, and put the bags in the freezer. We did this a lot when we were camping, but we had gotten out of the habit once we were moved into the bunkhouse. I have to say, the task was much easier in a kitchen with an actual sink.
We also celebrated two different Catholic feast days. Wednesday was the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, so we whipped up Portuguese food — chicken quarters, tomato rice, and green beans. For dessert, we tried milk tarts.
That was the only festivity we planned for the week, but when I woke up Friday, I realized it was the Feast of Saint Isadore. He is our youngest brother’s confirmation saint, and it seemed wrong to let the day go uncommemorated. Since it was raining, Grace and I decided to try our hand at some rosquillas de San Isidro — a sort of Spanish donut. The end result was more like a biscotti than what we would call a donut, but it was still tasty.
It was a productive, multifaceted week. We made lots of progress inside and outside, and we took time for some fun and celebration as well. On one particularly nice afternoon, we ladies spent some time sitting at our spring, soaking our feet in the cold, clear water. It was peaceful and restorative — states we have to be intentional about cultivating around here, with so much always going on. Next week will be as busy as always with the added concern of a possible surgery in our family. We are thankful for God’s continued blessing and presence in our lives — especially when things aren’t easy.
