I’m grateful for the easy sourdough pizza crust recipe that Garden Buddy shared, and for cheese. And the right tools for the job.

I’m grateful for several salads with garden lettuce and arugula, as well as extras like toasted cashews, celery, cheddar cubes, pickled onions, and one of the miracle tomatoes from the sunroom.

I’m grateful for occasional store-bought organic chicken thighs with bones and skin. So hard to find any kind of chicken with skin, and it’s the best part! I made a delicious sheetpan roasted chicken and veggies and enjoyed several meals over the next days, including a chicken and cheese sandwich, chicken and veggie salad, and broth for Wren.

Once all the chicken was gone, I still had skin from two of the thighs. Too much fat for Wren, too good to throw away, too tempting to compost, so I fried it and used it for extra flavor in a cheese sandwich, along with more miracle tomatoes.

Plenty also to be grateful for in the garden over the past week, with new flowers blooming daily, lots of bees, bountiful sunshine, and mild spring weather.

I’d been craving fish sticks after seeing this recipe, and so made a few one night and also breaded and baked some wild asparagus with them. The scallions are young perennial onions from the garden, and the tartar sauce is homemade, including the last pickle and onions from a jar of refrigerator pickles I made at the end of last summer and lost in the back of the fridge. I’m grateful for using up odds and ends in the kitchen.

I’m grateful to spend time under the crabapple tree in full bloom and buzzing with pollinators. More from here another day.

I decided to make cheesos with the three leftover fish sticks, but the white cheddar melted just too holey, so I flipped it onto some corn tortillas, then loaded them up.

I unintentionally let the sourdough starter sit out for a few days because I couldn’t find time to start my usual bread. It grew tall in the jar, then subsided. So I looked for a way to use some discard before feeding it again and refrigerating until I have more time. Found a quick recipe for a sandwich loaf, which didn’t use as much discard as I wished, but made a lovely loaf! Despite forgetting to halve the yeast for altitude compensation, and then falling asleep and letting it rise too long, it turned out pretty well.

And so today’s cheese sandwich included avocado, Havarti, garden lettuce, and I opened a new jar of last summer’s peach salsa for extra punch. I’m grateful for a lovely lunch under the red umbrella, reading The Left Hand of Darkness, by master story-weaver Ursula K. LeGuin. I’m so grateful that I can read.

After lunch I potted down the French lilac I’ve been gradually training toward bonsai, from the large black pot into a much smaller pot, trimming more than half the roots, and all twigs except those with flower buds. In another year, I anticipate downsizing again into its final bonsai pot and drastically pruning. I’m grateful that today, I felt better physically and mentally than I have since before the face poison in early December. I attribute this to a number of new health protocols including allergy and anti-inflammatory, and some other lifestyle changes I’m in the midst of making. I’ve been awake all day and gotten a lot accomplished that I’ve been wanting to do.

Before coming in for the day I battened down the hatches, stowing chairs and other loose items around the yard, in anticipation of a potential fierce wind storm tomorrow. I moved the car away from trees. As I write tonight, the wind is already picking up outside with an occasional moan. Things may look quite different around here tomorrow night. This is the most dramatic high wind warning I can recall here. Steady southwest winds up to 50 mph with gusts to 65 are expected. Precautionary and Preparedness Actions advised on Weather Underground include “avoid being outside in forested areas and around trees and branches… People, especially those with respiratory illnesses… are recommended to stay indoors and avoid prolonged outdoor exercise or heavy exertion due to wind-blown dust.” I’ll gratefully stay inside and rest. We’ll know more later!