Beans and Holy Unction

Tonight for dinner we had beans. But not just any beans. We had GIANT BEANS FROM GREECE! Fr. Basil introduced me to them a couple of weeks ago. I love them. Sadly, no one else in the house loved them.

After dinner I took Basil on another mini-pilgrimage. Tonight we went to St. Stepen Orthodox Church in Campbell. They were doing Holy Unction. Much wonderfulness.

Bridegroom Matins at St. Herman of Alaska

Last night Anselm, Kathleen, and I (Basil is concurrently enrolled in high school and college and is weighed down with much academic work, so he didn't go.) went to St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church in Sunnyvale for Bridegroom Matins. It's a ROCOR parish so I expected there to be a lot of Slavonic but there wasn't any at all. My little OCA parish in Saratoga, St. Nicholas uses more Slavonic than we heard last night. St Herman has a gorgeous building, and the choir is pretty good, though it is heavily loaded with altos and soprannos. They need some Bassas and tenors, but as Donald Rumsfeld said, "you go to war with the army you have not the army you wish you had". One thing I really appreciated is that all the readers read perfectly: not too fast, not too slow, every word annunciated clearly.

After we got home from church I had lots of homework for my water classes to do. I was up till 2 am. Then I went to bed and couldn't sleep fom the excitement of Holy Week. So at 4 am I took a spoon of NyQuil. BIG MISTAKE! I slept to 1:30. We'll that puts me behind schedule for the day. Have to run out and get the red egg dys (using onion skins is too hard.) atInternational Food Bazaar.

Oh! Why did we go to St Herman last night? Because during Lent and Holy Week we are going on mini-pilgrimages to the different parishes in the area. A few night ago we visted St. Lawrence in Felton and tonight, I think Nativity in Menlo Park is on the schedule.

Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday

On Lazarus Saturday I made Grandfathrs cioppino but since it wasn't a Fish Day we we left the fish out of the recipe. Also, I couldnt find any crabs. Essentially, it was the same recipe but we used scallops, clams, and shrimp instead of all the animals called for in the original recipe. It was still good. And because Lazarus Saturday is the only caviar day during any of the Church's fasting periods, we had caviar. We served it on slices of English cucumber with avocodo and chive. It was the first time in many years I didn't order from Marky's but that's okay. Also, because finances are tight for me (lack of work due to the Covid) I only bought the least expensive edible fish eggs I could find in a local store but it was still very good. The boys and Kathleen enjoyed it. After dinner I had to go to work but Kathleen and the boys went to the festal vigil for Palm Sunday.

On Sunday the boys and I went to church. It was a glorious service. Anselm and I carried the palms branches during the procession around the church. After the service I picked up the paskha and kulich I ordered. I am not making my own this year but bought it from the parish fundraiser. THe woman in the parish who makes it does a good job. Her paskah is better than mine but I think my kulich is better than hers. It balances out. Also, the parish needs the money.

After church we came back home and and I fried up crab cakes and served them with a corn and pineapple salsa as a snack. Then got to work making dinner. THere was a cucumber tomato and red onion salad dressed with soy sause and rice vinegar, grilled tuna steaks, roasted potatoes with garlic cumin parsley black epper and thyme, and a fruit macedonia. While Anselm was getting the coals ready Basilwent out to the garden and turned the compost pile.

Speaking of the garden, here are some pictures Kathleen took yseterday.

Planting and The Great Canon

This morning I worked in the garden. I guess, really, it is two gardens. The small one is right outside the front door. It has three grape vines a lemon tree, rosemary, thyme (It started bolting a few days ago. I don't really know what to do about it. I think I'll just let it so I can learn what happens.), two potted tomato plants, and the green houses which still have a lot of seedlings in them. We just ate a lemon off that tree yesterday and it has dozens more growing. It's only 6 feet tall and, maybe 5 feet wide. I think its going to be one of those house-sized lemon trees so we are going to have to keep it pruned back because the growing area is small. The grape vines woke up from their winter nap and are putting out lots and lots of new leaves and starting to grow over the porch again. There is a jasmine growing up the other end of the porch. And there is a pot of strawberries. I didn't think the strawberry plants would survive the winter but they did.

The second garden is the one I usually write about. Yesterday two neighbor kids, Elijah (6) and Zachariah (4) helped me transplant some tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplants from the green house to some of the beds. Their mother died 2 weeks ago so they live with theor grandmother now, six doors down. The socond garden is just crammed withplants now. The plantings are more dense than we've ever tried in previous years: For example, just one 4x8 bed has 3 bush tomato plants, 3 cherry tomato plants, 3 other tomato plants, 1 spaghetti squash vine, 1 eggplant, a zucchini, and radishes planted around the edge of the planter box. And we have three more boxes crammed with tomatoes, squash, poppies, sunflowers, chilis, eggplants, tomatillos, and radishes, And then there are 2 wash tubs growing beens and peas, a trash can with 7 cucumber vines growing out of it, a watering trough full of tomato vines and radishes, and lots of other pots and barrels growing zucchini, musk melons, spaghetti squash, tomatillos, ceyenne peppers, sunflowers (the first one opened up yesterday.). And along the fence are the two apple trees (i love the smell of the blossoms), sunflowers, poppies, ragweed, bee balm, and otherflowers. It's so much fun just to go out there and watch it all grow. Today I transplanted four more spaghetti squash vines from the green house to one of the beds in the big garden.

Tonight, Anselm, Basil and I went to church for the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete with the Life of St. Mary of Egypt. Wow! What amazing people those two are. What a beautiful service. Sadly, Basil sprained one of his thumbs during a prostration. After the service the priest prayed for the thumb and Anselm immobilized the thumb with an Ace bandage. We are going to try to visit four other parishes between tonight and Pascha. It is so good to be able to be back in church again.

Shooting with Son #3

Anselm Samuel (AKA the little boy) and I went shooting today. I bought a Stoeger Longfowler for myself because my Stevens side-by-side is almost a hundred years old and can't take the pressures of modern ammo. Today I broke in my new gun. It's not as pretty or high tech as the Mossberg Silver Reserve I bought for Kathleen but it is servicable, the price was right, and I don't have to wory about it breaking every time I pull the trigger, like I do with the old Stevens. So, Anselm and I went to Coyote Valley Sporting Clays today. He shot Kathleen's gun and I shot the new Longfowler. It was a lot of fun. He had a good day, hitting about 75% of his clays. I didn't have a very good day. I only hit about 50%. I'll blame it on getting used to a new gun.
I can hardly wait for next duck season.