Yesterday

Yesterday we went blueberry picking at Joe and Em's house. Here's the haul:

It's hard to tell from that picture, but it came to roughly 30+ cups, after the twigs and leaves and a few rejects were picked out.

I'm planning to make a pie...some ice cream...jam...pancakes for breakfast tomorrow...we'll see how far I get. I have to compete with little (and big) hands taking a few here and there.

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I "put up" (or whatever the term is, if there IS a term) our little garlic harvest.

We have two kinds - one is a hardneck variety, one is a softneck variety. I don't know the names of either variety - we got the garlic from a coworker of Bill's and put them in the ground last fall.

I DO know that you normally braid the softneck kind, not the hardneck, and that the softneck will store longer than the hardneck. In our case it really won't matter - we only have eleven heads of garlic in total. We'll use that up pretty quickly.

Softneck is on the right, hardneck is on the left in the photo below.

I tried braiding the softneck stalks - you can see my feeble attempt below. I've read that you're really supposed to dampen the stalks so they're more pliable. And next year, if I've got more garlic to work with, I'll probably do that. But for this year, this is it.

We're not saving any to use as seed garlic or seed bulbs or whatever the correct term is. I want to order fresh sets so I know what they're called. I like to know the names of things. Plus, there are so many varieties; I'd like to get some that aren't your regular old standard white heads. So we'll see.

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Last night I went to watch the annual night of Ichiban Karate on the Beach in Narragansett.

My sister belongs to Chick Gavitt's Ichiban Karate Studio, and every July they have one practice night on the beach in Narragansett. They start out in clean, white-clad rows on the sand

and end up drenched with salt water and covered in sand.

It's an impressive, hysterical and ultimately moving event.

They've worked hard to achieve each and every belt...

...and beach class is a night to cut loose and be silly.

If you're interested, I've posted all the pictures on Facebook. You can see them here: Part 1, Part 2. If you can't open the links, let me know and I'll do something else.