Those moments

Usually when I'm working (except sometimes when I'm in the bush) I'm super unaware of my self and my body, maybe some level of dissociated.

Today I'm working from home after staying up until midnight last night bringing in a ton of garden stuff and then finishing some apple canning (all 4 vanilla applesauce batches done, 2 different caramel applesauce batches done, lime apple jam and saskatoon apple jam done, slow cookers on pause a couple days for apples since I'll be canning dilly beans, cucumber pickles, and maybe maybe jumble relish of some kind tonight). I had a listen-only meeting and had skipped breakfast to finish a little more canning, so I fried up some fatty coppa pork chops, then sliced a couple corn muffins and fried them in the pork grease, then made a cup of dark coffee-substitute (I can't do the caffeine but love bitter and roasty flavours).

I had lunch on the couch in a slightly chilly room, clothed head to toe in good smooth wool with the cool of the room just outside it. The sky is dark and threatening and wind is tossing the silver undersides of the aspens around and making them sing a silvery static song that turns the shifts in movement of air into sound. The pork was crispy, juicy-fatty, and salty. The cornbread was crunchy, moderately sweet, and warm with that particular taste of grain corn. Cutting through both sweet and fatty was the dark hot roasted bitter flavour: everything warm against the room's coolness, the whole a moment of indoor stillness as the perfect counterpoint to outside's constant windy motion.

What a lovely moment.

Outdoor pepper update

I didn't get everything potted up, and didn't get anything into the ground. Still, this is what fruited best:

chimayo
sugar rush peach
my saved pepperoncini
matchbox, always
my matchbox/hungarian black f1
sarit gat
Shishito

The rocoto peppers fruited but were very slow, I'm interested to see how they do if I overwinter them and start them again

My doe hill were stunted, and early jalapeno didn't do much
Scorpions etc were very slow
Ks White Thai was not stabilized, I got weird stuff out of it
Sugar rush variegated is pretty but didn't make many fruits
For some reason I didn't plant any hungarian black this year and the one didn't wake up a second time this spring

I've moved a ton of pepper plants indoors for the winter and am working on getting lights up, etc.

Devotions

Luxuries:

Coffee substitute that removes the decision of caring for my emotional self vs my sensory self

Matching long underwear set: clothing that fits, is the same brand, and is the same colour. I couldn't afford these now but it's amazing to have them. Imagine having the money to buy two new items of fancy clothing that match at the same time like that! And good quality wool that doesn't mess with my skin. As a kid I would never have been able to imagine this happening to me.

A bounty of apples, and fancy spices from far away to enhance them (do folks say "elevate" nowadays if it's food?)

The ability to take a hot shower when I'm cold.

Sleeping in the room with its own thermostat.

Having five blankets on me anyways.

Snuggly animals.

The ability to keep my phone's ringer off.