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It is the fifth of April. Google Photos, which likes to cough up old pictures labelled things like "One year ago today" and "Sunday Spotlight" and "Remember this Day?" has shown me that for about the past five years, by this time, the winter aconite was blooming in my yard.
It is a very short plant possessed of considerable dispatch, but it is sure not blooming any time this week, being buried in snow and unlikely to emerge until the several days of warmth that are forecast have passed, and perhaps more.
There are a few small signs, however, that I am cherishing. The neighbors' ancient peabush hedge has buds on it, despite several of its trunks' having fallen, as a few do every year, into our front yard. No neighbor in the entire history of our life here has ever done anything with the peabush hedge other than to try to corral it on their side with some paving stones. It is not a native shrub, but the birds seem to like it. In terms of alarm and annoyance, it pales beside the Japanese knotweed, which once caused both Jon Singer and Teresa Nielsen Hayden to blanch and cry out for Roundup, which neither of them ordinarily would do.
A few robins always seem to stick around all winter -- you can see them eating hackberry berries in February, an amazing sight as they hang upside down in below-zero weather -- but the other day a huge flock of them was darting about three or four back yards visible from the second-story windows of our house. They seemed to be finding something to eat. They used to eat rose hips from our yard if the cardinals, unabashed year-round residents, hadn't gotten them all first. But the roses went on strike last summer, so there are no rose hips. The red maples are blooming, though, so maybe robins can eat either something living in them or the buds or flowers.
House finches have been singing loudly for a couple of weeks. I haven't heard the "cheeseburger!" yell of chickadees yet, but there has been some shouting from the cardinals. Gray squirrels have been frisky on and off. And the house sparrows have come to squabble in the hackberry outside my bedroom window, occasionally on the windowsill itself. This phenomenon and the fact that the neighbors have started letting their black and white cat outside on balmier days (I wish they would not) has provided a lot of entertainment for Saffron. She seems aware that the windows should really be open by now, leaping impetuously onto the narrow sills whenver I go to look out or raise or lower a blind.
The other night I became obsessed with the idea that I could not change my plans to make lasagna, and must must must have vegan mozzarella. Cub was out, but I put together a quick Wedge order. There's a new liquid vegan mozzarella that allegedly browns, bubbles, and firms up when heated, rather than being filled up with stabilizers that are good if you want to shred or slice it, but make most current vegan mozzarellas go weirdly gritty or crunchy when heated too far. I got that, and enough other stuff to provide free delivery. I got texts about the progress of the order and finally an email notification that it had been delivered. This was perplexing, since ordinarily there's a text with a photograph of the bags sitting on the front porch. We are still doing no-contact delivery when feasible.
I went downstairs and looked around the porch. No bag. I checked the porches of the neighbors on either side -- groceries have been delivered to both of them by accident. No bag. I used my phone to tell Instacart that my order was missing, and entered into a lengthy chat session during which I was finally asked to please "check the perimeter of the property," since Instacart had decided the groceries had been delivered to the right address. A few days before I'd have laughed, as the property was encased in snow and ice. However, there had been some stealthy warmer weather, so I thought I'd just look outside the back door; and then I saw that the path to the garage was mostly clear. In my sweatshirt and sneakers, as opposed to layers of winter garments and boots with ice cleats, I ventured into the the dark yard. The temperature was in the low forties, heading down; but the bite in the air present when the forties make a visit in January and hastily retreat again was missing. I went along around the side of the garage. The driveway was still snowy, and there were no bags of groceries soaking up the wet. I went back in and reported this. The customer service representative offered me three different kinds of refund, since it was too late to dispatch anybody else with my vegan cheese and I didn't want it tomorrow, I wanted it now.
I said I'd like them to credit the account, please, and as the little ellipsis showed they were doing that, I realized where the groceries probably were. We have a large plastic tote on the front porch for the protection of outgoing parcels. Delivery people often put things on top of it; they don't really like just plopping things down on the bare concrete. But they rarely put anything in it unless it's pouring rain. However, there was my bag of groceries.
I apologized for bothering the customer service person, and was thanked for my honesty. That's kind of dismal to consider.
As a nice ironic postscript, I will reveal that when I went to make the lasagna, I saw that I didn't have a new box of noodles, but four remaining in an old box. I had thought of getting more noodles but not actually done it. A quick search revealed a bouncing happy website that was sure you could substitute pretty much any other kind of pasta for lasagna noodles and it would all be perfectly fine. I ended up using penne pasta. It was a pasta casserole or bake, not lasagna, but it was fine. The bouncy website thought the best substitute was manicotta, boiled, cut and flattened, and I thought this was ingenious; but we didn't have any manicotta, whereas being without penne pasta is very rare for us.
Later on I searched further and found a recipe for lasagna made using wonton wrappers. I mean, they're flour, salt, and water, and flat; but I thought they might not need as much cooking as actual pasta and might disintegrate. I might try this one day.
The liquid faux cheese tasted good, but the bottle discourages liberal application. I will ignore this next time. Also, covering the pan with foil so that the noodles will cook properly prevents the cheese from browning. This can be adjusted as well.
On the whole I was glad that the reluctant spring had yielded up safe surfaces for my quest for missing groceries, since braving ice for such an aberrant lasagna would have been unreasonable.
Winter aconite from other Aprils:
It is a very short plant possessed of considerable dispatch, but it is sure not blooming any time this week, being buried in snow and unlikely to emerge until the several days of warmth that are forecast have passed, and perhaps more.
There are a few small signs, however, that I am cherishing. The neighbors' ancient peabush hedge has buds on it, despite several of its trunks' having fallen, as a few do every year, into our front yard. No neighbor in the entire history of our life here has ever done anything with the peabush hedge other than to try to corral it on their side with some paving stones. It is not a native shrub, but the birds seem to like it. In terms of alarm and annoyance, it pales beside the Japanese knotweed, which once caused both Jon Singer and Teresa Nielsen Hayden to blanch and cry out for Roundup, which neither of them ordinarily would do.
A few robins always seem to stick around all winter -- you can see them eating hackberry berries in February, an amazing sight as they hang upside down in below-zero weather -- but the other day a huge flock of them was darting about three or four back yards visible from the second-story windows of our house. They seemed to be finding something to eat. They used to eat rose hips from our yard if the cardinals, unabashed year-round residents, hadn't gotten them all first. But the roses went on strike last summer, so there are no rose hips. The red maples are blooming, though, so maybe robins can eat either something living in them or the buds or flowers.
House finches have been singing loudly for a couple of weeks. I haven't heard the "cheeseburger!" yell of chickadees yet, but there has been some shouting from the cardinals. Gray squirrels have been frisky on and off. And the house sparrows have come to squabble in the hackberry outside my bedroom window, occasionally on the windowsill itself. This phenomenon and the fact that the neighbors have started letting their black and white cat outside on balmier days (I wish they would not) has provided a lot of entertainment for Saffron. She seems aware that the windows should really be open by now, leaping impetuously onto the narrow sills whenver I go to look out or raise or lower a blind.
The other night I became obsessed with the idea that I could not change my plans to make lasagna, and must must must have vegan mozzarella. Cub was out, but I put together a quick Wedge order. There's a new liquid vegan mozzarella that allegedly browns, bubbles, and firms up when heated, rather than being filled up with stabilizers that are good if you want to shred or slice it, but make most current vegan mozzarellas go weirdly gritty or crunchy when heated too far. I got that, and enough other stuff to provide free delivery. I got texts about the progress of the order and finally an email notification that it had been delivered. This was perplexing, since ordinarily there's a text with a photograph of the bags sitting on the front porch. We are still doing no-contact delivery when feasible.
I went downstairs and looked around the porch. No bag. I checked the porches of the neighbors on either side -- groceries have been delivered to both of them by accident. No bag. I used my phone to tell Instacart that my order was missing, and entered into a lengthy chat session during which I was finally asked to please "check the perimeter of the property," since Instacart had decided the groceries had been delivered to the right address. A few days before I'd have laughed, as the property was encased in snow and ice. However, there had been some stealthy warmer weather, so I thought I'd just look outside the back door; and then I saw that the path to the garage was mostly clear. In my sweatshirt and sneakers, as opposed to layers of winter garments and boots with ice cleats, I ventured into the the dark yard. The temperature was in the low forties, heading down; but the bite in the air present when the forties make a visit in January and hastily retreat again was missing. I went along around the side of the garage. The driveway was still snowy, and there were no bags of groceries soaking up the wet. I went back in and reported this. The customer service representative offered me three different kinds of refund, since it was too late to dispatch anybody else with my vegan cheese and I didn't want it tomorrow, I wanted it now.
I said I'd like them to credit the account, please, and as the little ellipsis showed they were doing that, I realized where the groceries probably were. We have a large plastic tote on the front porch for the protection of outgoing parcels. Delivery people often put things on top of it; they don't really like just plopping things down on the bare concrete. But they rarely put anything in it unless it's pouring rain. However, there was my bag of groceries.
I apologized for bothering the customer service person, and was thanked for my honesty. That's kind of dismal to consider.
As a nice ironic postscript, I will reveal that when I went to make the lasagna, I saw that I didn't have a new box of noodles, but four remaining in an old box. I had thought of getting more noodles but not actually done it. A quick search revealed a bouncing happy website that was sure you could substitute pretty much any other kind of pasta for lasagna noodles and it would all be perfectly fine. I ended up using penne pasta. It was a pasta casserole or bake, not lasagna, but it was fine. The bouncy website thought the best substitute was manicotta, boiled, cut and flattened, and I thought this was ingenious; but we didn't have any manicotta, whereas being without penne pasta is very rare for us.
Later on I searched further and found a recipe for lasagna made using wonton wrappers. I mean, they're flour, salt, and water, and flat; but I thought they might not need as much cooking as actual pasta and might disintegrate. I might try this one day.
The liquid faux cheese tasted good, but the bottle discourages liberal application. I will ignore this next time. Also, covering the pan with foil so that the noodles will cook properly prevents the cheese from browning. This can be adjusted as well.
On the whole I was glad that the reluctant spring had yielded up safe surfaces for my quest for missing groceries, since braving ice for such an aberrant lasagna would have been unreasonable.
Winter aconite from other Aprils:
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