Sometimes a Chasm Is a Nice Place to Fall Into

 Yes, I'm currently in the timewarp that is Nova Scotia.  (Yikes!  It's been a long time since I've posted and so much has happened in the intervening few weeks, but let's save that for later.)  Each year we get better and better at relaxing more quickly.  When we first started coming here, we'd still be whirring about in our heads about things that needed to be done.  Now, those things still come up, but we're finding it easier and easier to give over to the deep chill that is Nova Scotia.

We now make it a point to come during the last week of August so we can take advantage of the local lobster season.  It did, however, feel at times like it was getting out of hand. I basically was on a lobster murder spree.  We "processed" 16 lobsters over the course of about a week.  Yes, 16.  I know - crazy.  But what is great (and so crazy in its own way) is that I brought my pressure canner and have canned a dozen or so pints of lobster stock.  Oh, how I'm loving the pressure canner, and oh, how I love lobster stock.

We froze some of the lobster meat to use later in our stay, but we did have the traditional lobster boil, lobster rolls, lobster macaroni salad (oh yeah), and chili lobster (courtesy of a NYTimes recipe).  That's already a whole lot of lobster love.

It's also strawberry season here and not surprisingly, we've taken advantage of that as well.  I've made traditional strawberry jam as well as strawberry-lemon preserves, and Liss has made homemade strawberry ice cream.

It took us about twenty minutes to fill eight quart containers.  The pickin' was good.

Lest you're under the impression that it's all about eating, I have read a number of books in the last two weeks including Girl Hunter by Georgia Pellegrini, The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez, and The Sixth Man by David Baldacci (a gift in case you're wondering).  The crafting has been more leisurely, but I'm starting to find my attention drawn more and more to some of the projects that I brought along.  The next post (oh, in about a week or so) will highlight some of the non-comestibles of our stay here.

It is summer, and we all should be taking advantage of the weather, the produce, and the languid pace of life.  Even if you're stuck in, let's say, a subway station in NYC that functions like an underground urine sauna, there's got to be a way to get some air - both literally and figuratively.  Get some sun on your face.