Star of Bethlehem (white flowers), violets, and bee balm (pointy mint leaves), which looks like proliferating this year.
Out early to Mass, where Father noted that yesterday was the halfway mark in Lent --- today's collect speaks of our salvation, "drawing ever nearer." There still seems to be an awful lot of Lent left, with no solemnities to relieve it, but we are around the corner. It's also quite chilly this morning, though the high is supposed to be in the mid-60s. As much as I don't want the weather to be hot, I'm tired of being cold.
Came home and put a second round of dandelion wine on to simmer:
I'd picked another quart of dandelions yesterday and, after snipping off the green calyxes, made a tea of the petals in about a half-gallon of water. I let that steep overnight, then when I got home from Mass this morning, I strained out the petals (put them on my planters to compost), added a halved orange and lemon, squeezing out their juice, a handful of raisins, and about 2 cups of brown sugar, because according to my research, you can (and many people traditionally have) used brown sugar in their flower wines. As brown sugar is what I had, and I didn't want to have to go to the store this morning, in it went.
I have learned that many professional wine-makers (as in grape table wines) use grape-juice concentrate for their sugar --- that in fact this is an industry standard. I presume that one could use white grape juice concentrate for the sugar in a flower wine, and I might try it at some stage. I just really need to label what sugar I've used in each bottle --- I have some from several years ago that have honey instead of white sugar, and those are a good deal dryer and tarter, possibly because I didn't use enough honey. The amount of sugar you need is really . . . more than you'd think. But the yeast eats it all, which is the point, and you generally end up with a much dryer product than you would expect, given the amount of sweetness you think you're putting in at the beginning.
So I'm going to let the tea with the citrus and raisins simmer for a good long time, then remove the big pieces of citrus, let it cool a while to roughly bathwater temperature, and add a packet of yeast. The recipe I mostly use calls for special winemaker's yeast, but I just use ye olde active dry yeast such as is used in bread-baking, and it seems to work just fine. I think people traditionally used whatever yeast they had, which would have been that very non-specific active dry yeast.
I need to stir day before yesterday's wine mix --- it's hissing away in its bowl, ferment ferment ferment.
Really I wish I'd made wine last year. I was busy and the season got by me, and I regret that now. Next year is when we're seriously going to regret that I didn't make wine last year --- flower wines need to age for two years, so there is a knock-on effect if you miss a year, and you can't make up the miss. I might try to make blackberry wine this year, because I think fruit wines don't need such a long aging period, and that way we'd have some homemade wines for next year after all. I wonder if you can make gooseberry wine? We should have a lot of gooseberries . . .
The rest of today's agenda:
*walk the dog
*lift some weights
*write another essay
*sit in the sun
*call my mother
*think what to make for dinner
Wearing today:
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Smock dress (S/M) in Grape Wine, bought fall 2024, last worn March 16. Wears in 2025: 7
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Bay tank in Oatmeal, bought February 2025, first year of wear
*Secondhand Eileen Fisher silk-blend cardigan, bought February 2025, first year of wear
*Snag merino tights in Sand Dollar, first year of wear
*Secondhand Birkenstock Rosemead clogs, third year of wear
Default ponytail.
I'll lose the tights by midday, I imagine, but it was cold when I went out this morning, and I was glad I'd put them on.
I know I say this about many things, but gosh, I love this dress. It's one of three I own in this specific design, but it has more modifications than the others: a v-neck and waist ties. It's cool and easy all by itself in hot weather, but its moody dark purple makes it a fantastic dress for the transition into fall, when it's still hot but I'm tired of feeling like summer. It layers beautifully. I've worn it happily all through the winter with tights, boots, and various sweaters and cardigans. Here, I love it with the little earthy touch of natural linen at the neckline. And it harmonizes better than I would have imagined with my blush-pink cardigan.
Just really suffering with my Lenten penances here. In this house, it's all self-mortification, all day long. Actually, I do sort of miss my other clothes . . . and for my travels next week, I might put in my Emerald-Green Smock dress to wear for my big reading, because it's become my Public Reading Dress, and it will look good with my purple cardigan. The midi length is a little chic and smart, and I always feel confident wearing it, so I am going to relax my "nothing but purple and neutrals (and accessories that go with purple and neutrals)" rule just a little.
Welp, I am mulling what clothes I'm going to take on the road next week, but I had better get on with the day actually at hand.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Know what smells really great? Dandelion-wine/brown-sugar mix boiling dry. On the bright side, I've finished all my essays for next week.