February Delights

Even a short month can hold delight in every day. That is, if you seek it out. Writing "Today's delights" at the top of a dedicated space on the journal page is a bit like picking up a fresh piece of stationery, getting a nice pen, and writing "Dear Person I Care About" at the top of the paper. (Sidebar: This is a thing people do still actually do, and sending or receiving a letter definitely counts as a delight.)

That is to say, once you've started and you've put it down in writing, that blank spot waits for you to fill it with something.

Early this month I finished reading the delightful book Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Every Day, written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall. The inspiration for the book came out of the earliest days of the COVID era (which we're still in, by the way, along with all the other overlapping eras that create a deep need for small delights in our days). She suggests writing our own lists of 52 things to look forward to, or things that bring us joy (or delight). That's one per week, and surely you can manage to find delight at least once a week.

I build a list of far more than 52 things every month, a few at a time. Some delights definitely come up again and again. I "reappreciate" coffee and good food and chocolate again and again, flowers and trees, sunshine and seasons, birds and mosses, hugs and belly laughs, my body reaching up in yoga, our home of four years and the way we've made it more ours, changing weather, shifting seasons, and the night sky. All right there, gifting me with fresh delight every time I pay attention.

February delights:

1. Good progress on a new jigsaw puzzle
2. Ordering a tin of Cougar Gold cheese as a gift for family who work for the federal government
3. The spinning windcatcher in our front yard rotating fast, twinkling in the sun
4. Snow on the ground when I got up
5. Mesmerizing flakes drifting down past evergreen boughs tipped with white
6. Satisfying ping of canning lids
7. Rich flavor of tayberry jam
8. Bright sweetness of raspberry jam
9. Winey depth of blackberry plum preserves
10. Sitting down after something like 7 or 8 hours of canning
11. Snow frosting everything
12. A storyteller's skill
13. Arriving at the headquarters exactly when two coworkers got there and all of us waving as we walked towards each other
14. Knitting in a meeting--tons of progress, beautiful colors
15. Two couples walking our neighborhood loop at different times, holding hands
16. One of these women saying to me as I left the housing wearing a big teal wrap, "I love that color!"
17. Walking fast in the cold on a downtown sidewalk feeling as if I were flying
18. One of the students bringing ginger cookies to improv class
19. Laughing
20. Waking to a snow-covered world
21. The sound of rain on the roof when I don't have to go out in it
22. Sweet and salty pickled cherries in yogurt with almonds
23. Blue sky peeking out
24. Lush flavors of mushroom soup I made
25. Birds twittering
26. Having all that counter space to do lots of cooking
27. How much light our living room holds on a cold, sunny day
28. Ducks paddling at the shore as waves rolled in
29. Mossy roof of a tiny sign kiosk with a jaunty fern growing out of it
30. Fresh zing of homemade raspberry and tayberry jams
31. Flurry of jays' cries high in the trees as I listened to a podcast interview with adrienne maree brown talking about connecting with the natural world
32. Curving up in Warrior 1
33. Buttery-good mushroom soup with oyster crackers
34. Hot bath
35. Walking with my sweetie
36. Moss-covered tree posed like a dancer
37. My sweetie describing how he'll fix the hummingbird feeder to make it nicer for them to land on with their tiny feet—such sweetness in that thought
38. The beautiful kitchen light fixture my sweetie made
39. Being inside warm and dry when cold rain is pouring down
40. My sweetie making a new bigger platform for Tiggs to perch on so he can watch kitchen action while not on the island or range hood!
41. Seeing Jupiter in the sky from my bedroom window, then Rigel and Sirius
42. Birds in the tree and on bushes doing their bird thing
43. Quiet sense of home stuff moving along while I work: washer and dryer humming and chugging
44. Printer putting out actual page, not weird tiny symbols and gobbledygook
45. Black-capped chickadee, perky on the suet cage
46. Finding the credit card, ID, and transit cards that were hiding in a backpack after a trip
47. Felting with wool for the first time, to fill a small couple of holes in a favorite blue wool jacket
48. A nearly full moon shining in the early morning darkness
49. Morning sun's rays shooting through tall pines
50. Riding my bike downhill
51. Full moon in the night sky
52. Venus shining over the neighborhood
53. Sun's warmth on a cold walk
54. Softness of Tiggs' fur
55. Holding my sweetie's hand on a walk
56. Spicy tingle of Bengal Spice tea
57. Seeing 3 other people on bikes as I rode to the office on a very cold morning
58. Driver who waited in the slip lane for me to bike past uphill, then waved and smiled when I waved at him
59. Softly falling snow
60. Energy of an in-person meeting
61. Little ferns growing out of the moss on the Dr. Seuss tree outside the living room window
62. Freshly baked bran muffins with melted butter
63. Speedy help from the data/GIS whiz on my work team
64. Finishing slides that are the right length
65. Sweet potato fries with garlic aioli
66. My body's curve as I reach to the sky in yoga
67. Warmth of Tiggs on my legs
68. Fresh homemade oatmeal cookies
69. Rain, gentle on the roof
70. Beautiful results of framing a big puzzle I started over a year ago and finally finished
71. Insistent train whistle in the distance
72. Hot fresh biscuits with butter and local honey
73. How great the kitchen counters look (new, after a big remodeling project)
74. Birds swooping joyously from fence to bush to feeder to tree and back around
75. Being outside in fresh air
76. Bright gold tall yolks of fresh local eggs
77. Satisfaction of pruned raspberry and tayberry bushes
78. Not needing my coat on a walk
79. Mossy sculptures in the woods composed of tree limbs and stumps and trunks
80. Feeling good about finishing a set of slides I need to present to a legislative committee
81. Belly laughs
82. Bright yellow leaf on the path in the nearby forested park
83. "Spread Kindness" on the display sign on the #21 bus
84. Creamy mushroom soup with lots of paprika, eaten fresh after making with oyster crackers
85. Frogs' chorus in the night
86. Crocuses poking up out of a mossy planting strip
87. The deep cushion of moss, not grass, in that planting strip
88. Night chorus of frogs bellowing for love
89. Tiggs playing with an old toy I got out that he hasn't seen in a while, pouncing again and again
90. Smell of wood smoke on a walk
91. Walking with my sweetie
92. Sitting in a coffee shop/bakery with the hum of people
93. Assyrian flavors in lemon labneh, roasted cauliflower steak, zoug
94. Tiny purple flower blooming by the sidewalk
95. Sleeping in, warm and cozy
96. Trying a new recipe that's a keeper
97. Sea salt dark chocolate truffle
98. Coziness
99. Rain on the roof, a steady drumming
100. Flowers blooming on the capitol campus
101. Unexpected scent of lily of the valley on a downtown street
102. Homemade tomato jam and Cougar Gold on crackers
103. Birds twittering on the suet cage
104. Tiggs making that chittering sound from his tower seat by the window where he can see those birds
105. Bird going for a ride on the wind spinner in the yard
106. Hearing a barred owl hooting in the rhododendron park midday
107. The way the blue paint I picked for the bedroom picks up colors in a painting and a framed jigsaw puzzle hanging on the wall
108. Perfect timing to roll through stop signs on uphill stops riding home in the dark (which, by the way, is legal in Washington thanks to Safety Stop legislation enacted in 2020)
109. Biking at night
110. Spring! Blue sky and sun! 60 degrees!
111. Trees budding
112. Flowers blooming
113. Calls of a jay
114. Tiggs fully stretched out in the sunshine (on my puzzle table)
115. Tiggs doing his "roll and scroll" on the living room rug, tipping his head back to look at us, beaming happiness and chirping/talking
116. Glorious warmth of the sun!
117. Flowers blooming in so many places
118. The way the rust orange of a thrift store jacket went perfectly with a top, scarf and hat I already owned
119. Taking a selfie with my mushroom "pinecone" stump friend just because
120. Beautiful glassy water in the bay, ducks floating here and there
121. Stars and planets in the night sky, and being able to see those overhead in our neighborhood

Putting this list together tells me even more about the themes and delightful resonance than I originally thought of when I started the post. Listing them chronologically lets me recognize the way I tune into seasonal shifts. 

And so many! I don't aim for a specific number per day since I can't force delight. It just comes, every single day, as long as I expect it.

Reading this list makes me feel delight-full. What's on your list?

Related Reading

• January Delights
• Riding Always Makes Me Happy. Yes, Always.
• Go Ahead. Make My Day.
• A Solstice Post: Gifts I Give Myself by Riding in the Winter
• 30 Days of Biking, Day 30: Happy!
• Walking in February: Of Woods and Water
• A Year of Poems: February
• Reruns: February Posts Worth Revisiting

"Sweet Harvest"

A poem I wrote Sept. 28, 2024, after discovering my beds of raspberries included some canes that put out a second late autumn harvest I wasn't expecting.

"Sweet Harvest"

All summer long I harvested
raspberries, ripe crimson jewels,
queen of the berries.

Now in autumn I am surprised
by a late crop on tall canes.
I gather a taste
of sweetest summer,
all the sweeter for coming late
when hope of sweetness had passed.
I pass the bushes one way, thinking
I have found all there is to gather.

Looking back I see that
what I thought was not yet ready
is ripe and beautiful
and asking me to pick.
Asking me to take the sweetness into me.

Canstravaganza! Food Preservation 2024

Shelves full of small jars in various colors attest to the bounty of 2024 and my many weekends of chopping, stirring, and canning. I still have jars left from 2023—salsa verde, piccalilli, chow chow—so I didn't make things I still have on the shelf. Make that shelves: Pantry shelves in the laundry room, more stored inside a laundry room cupboard, and a lot stored on shelving in the garage. We can only eat so much salsa verde and the tomatillos were so, so prolific in 2023 I still have some in the freezer.

On a wintery day in early February 2025 I woke to snow on the ground and we had periods of snow falling throughout the day. I decided it was the perfect day to make the kitchen smell like summer. The first canning of 2025 really represents some of the final canning of the 2024 harvest. Not the final final, mind you. I still have blueberries, elderberries, green cherry and grape tomatoes in the freezer. From 2023 I still have big bags of tomatillos and some chopped leeks I've been thinking I might make into soup, or leek jam/marmalade of some kind (maybe this recipe for Leek and Roasted Garlic Jam). And oh my gosh, just realized I have another two full gallon bags of blackberries still in the freezer after that canning session.

Those snowy Sunday recipes:

• Tayberry Jam Recipe by Chef Heidi Fink. 11 quarter-pints, 6 half-pints
• Classic Raspberry Jam Recipe by Creative Canning. 7 quarter-pints, 7 half-pints
• Blackberry Roasted Plum Preserves by Southern Fatty. 8 quarter-pints, 8 half-pints
• Blackberry Plum Fruit Leather: No recipe needed. Pureed blackberries and plums in the food processor, dropped in dollops about the size of a Nilla wafer on the dehydrator trays, and dried overnight to produce little fruity coins by the next morning. Those went into the freezer.

Somewhat belatedly in summer 2024 I started a tally of what I'd made. I reconstructed it by going back through my journal, where I'd usually noted what I made and the yield, and by reviewing what I'd lined up on the shelves. I hadn't always made a note so it's an imperfect record but still gives an idea of volume and variety.

Tally from 2024 canning that doesn't include a fair amount of jerky (mushrooms, jackfruit, cauliflower) that I also made along the way using that old food dehydrator:

June

• Sweet & Salty Pickled Cherries, 10 half-pints, 3 pints
• Quick Pickled (Refrigerator) Red Onions, 6 quarts

July

• Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, 2 quarter-pints, 12 half-pints
• Sweet & Salty Pickled Cherries, 4 half-pints (these are definitely on regular repeat every cherry season in the future!)

August

• Rhubarb Orange Chutney, 9 quarter-pints, 3 half-pints
• Hot Sweet Zucchini Chutney, 9 quarter pints, 8 halfpints
• Blackberry Apple Chutney, 8 quarter-pints, 4 half-pints
• Canned Apples, 1 pint, 3 quarts, 1 1-1/2-pint container
• Blackberry Vinegar, 7 four-ounce bottles
• Smoky, Spicy, Skillet Tomato Jam, 6 quarter-pints, 1 half-pint, 1 pint
• Citrus Ginger Marmalade, 6 quarter pints, 6 half-pints
• Caramelized Onion Jam, 5 half-pints
• Canned Apples, 7 pints

September

• Salted Caramel Pear Butter, 5 half-pints
• Cinnamon Cardamom Pear Jam, 5 half-pints
• Orange Tomato Jam with Smoked Paprika, 6 half-pints
• Maple Applesauce with Cinnamon and Cloves, 7 pints
• Pickled Pears, 3 pints
• Basic Canned Tomatoes, 1 pint, 2 quarters
• Dried Tiny Tomatoes, maybe 2 pints? (didn't measure; did this any time I fell behind the tomato onslaught)
• Slow Oven-Roasted Roma Tomatoes, maybe 2 pints?
• Raspberry Vinegar, 6 four-ounce bottles (no real recipe; did the same thing I did to make the blackberry vinegar)
• Marinated Dehydrated Tomatoes , ~4 quarts
• Zucchini Tomato Salsa, 10 pints
• Apple Mint Jelly, 4 quarter-pints (made without the pectin the recipe calls for)
• Gingered Pear Preserves, 6 quarter-pints, 4 half-pints
• Tomato Citrus Marmalade, 7 quarter-pints, 4 half-pints
• Spicy Tomato Jam #2, 6 quarter-pints, 2 half-pints
• Indian Apple Chutney, 13 half-pints
• Plain Applesauce, 4 pints
• Chunky Caramel Apple Jam, 7 quarterpints, 5 half-pints
• Apple Ginger Jelly, 7 quarter-pints, 5 half-pints
•  Easy Addictive Tomato Chutney, 3 quarter pints, 8 half-pints
• Chai-Ginger Apple Butter, 4 quarter-pints, 1 half-pint
• Tomato Jam, 1 quarter-pint, 6 half-pints
• Canned Apples, 6 pints

October

• Canned Crushed Tomatoes, 4 pints
• Smoky, Spicy, Skillet Tomato Jam, 6 quarter-pints
• Scarborough Fair Vinegar (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme), 10 4-ounce bottles
• Pickled Hottish Peppers, 3 half-pints (I can't swear that this is the recipe I followed but Chili Pepper Madness is a great site)
• Green Tomato Chutney, 14 quarter-pints, 16 half-pints
• Lacto-Fermented Green Cherry and Grape Tomatoes, 3 pints
• Dehydrated Seasoned Green Tomatoes: Not going to link to because they weren't good enough to repeat. I'm hiding them in batches of soup until they're gone.

Thoughts on the season:

1. I'd make almost every one of these recipes again. (The Chunky Caramel Apple Jam was a bit disappointing; I might grate the apples and amp up the caramel if I repeated it.)
2. I don't need to repeat all these next season, though, because those shelves are packed full!
3. I give some of this bounty away every so often, apparently not often enough.
4. No wonder September 2024 is sort of a blur in my memory.

I blogged along the way to capture recipes I found and those I created. I'm glad I did; it will make it easier when I do buckle up for another ride on the canstravaganza train.

• Blackberry Apple Chutney Recipe
• Green Tomatoes. So Many Green Tomatoes.
• Apples, Apples, Apples!
• Zucchini Tomato Salsa (Everyone Needs Salsa, or, What to Do with a Really Giant Zucchini)
• Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!
• Pears, Pears, Pears!
• Future Marmalade

I'm a Citizen of the CaffeineNation

I love coffee, and coffee loves me back, by which I mean I'm a fast metabolizer of caffeine so I can pretty much drink all the coffee I want all day long. Given that my superpower is sleeping, this means afternoon coffee doesn't disrupt my trips to Slumberland. Years ago while working at WSU Spokane I learned from one of our nutrition researchers that some unfortunate folk are slow metabolizers so they have to cut themselves off from the magic bean. So sad.

Coffee culture entered my life many years ago when I lived in Coeur d'Alene, where I tasted my first latte at The Roastery on Sherman Avenue, since closed. A 16-ounce latte with flavor was $1.85, o best beloved, and I felt so big-city sitting in the space with its wooden floors and high ceiling, the banging of the barista knocking grounds out of the little metal cup, the hiss of the steam. 

I was broke enough that I couldn't indulge as often as I wanted, given that I was divorced with two toddlers and doing freelance copy editing client by client for a living. I'd put $2 cash into a jar when I had the urge to get a latte. Saving those dollars meant I'd have money for a latte or for something bigger, like going to a restaurant with those toddlers and being able to tip the wait staff.

Then I went to grad school and got that job at WSU Spokane, with enough salary to get coffee when I wanted it. I started practicing yoga at a studio right next to The Rocket on Main Avenue. That particular Rocket is also no longer there. For a while that spot was home to Boots Bakery with its fantastic vegan baked goods and comfort foods and good coffee as well. Boots has moved just across the street into the Saranac Commons so that block still has great coffee hang-out vibes.

Fast forward to living in Seattle, where coffee places abound including (shocker!) many that aren't Starbucks. My final job interview for the Washington Bikes executive director position took place at Grand Central Bakery in Pioneer Square, which became a favorite lunch spot when I got that job. Alas, it closed during the pandemic and didn't reopen, although they have other locations (and I'm now living in Olympia anyway).

Once again I had a good job and could latte up whenever I wanted to, and I did. For a while we lived in the heart of downtown and every Saturday I took whatever I was reading to a coffee shop just down the street for a baked goodie and a latte and sat and read a while. I checked recently and that place has changed hands. Since that's happened to most of the coffee places I went to regularly I'm beginning to wonder if it's something about me.... 

But Zeitgeist is still open so no, I'm not a coffeeshop curse. Very near the Amtrak station, it's located in a building attached to the one where my WSDOT office was (next job after WA Bikes) so it was an easy choice on days I didn't explore farther afield. Great spot for a change of venue when I needed to take my laptop to a different space to shake up my thinking.

Jump ahead in time again to the first years of the pandemic when all I wanted was to be able to sit in a coffee shop with the gentle buzz of people around me, but people around me meant danger and possible death. Those third places matter (and the concept of the third place itself is closely tied to coffeehouses).

I now live in Olympia, with a downtown that offers plenty of good coffee and zero Starbucks locations. I don't make as many coffee-shop visits on my own as I once did, although my sweetheart and I regularly go for coffee on our weekend walks. When I'm in a coffee shop now, whether on my own or with someone, I pay attention, the way I did when I was broke and it was incredibly special. What makes it special now is the memory of how the pandemic took that social space away from all of us.

My relationship with tea hasn't been as consistent. I've always associated tea with my Grandma Humphrey (she of the rocker), who came from England to Canada on a ship when she was four and grew up in a tea-drinking British immigrant family. For Christmas I would pick out tea samplers to give her: Earl Grey and English Breakfast and Orange Pekoe.

I enjoy herbal infusions a great deal. To the purist these are tisanes, not tea, because they don't have actual tea leaves in them. They're my hot not-a-coffee cup when I need a change: Red Zinger, Bengal Spice, Lemon Ginger, Throat Coat if I'm under the weather. I have some delightful Scottish Highlands tea thanks to my sister-in-law's travels and it sometimes shows up as my morning cuppa. Millie's Sipping Broth is a more recent discovery, like bouillon but better and contained in a tea bag to make it quick and easy without those crumbs of undissolved stuff in the bottom of the cup. 

None of these are coffee, though. Last year we watched "Spaceman," with Adam Sandler in a very different role as a bearded, morose lone astronaut who encounters an alien. The keeper line from that script: "The hot bean water. It is a ritual."

All this and the annual coffeeneuring rides organized by Mary Gersemalina, too. Bike to a bunch of places and drink coffee too? I'm all in.

No matter what your hot beverage of choice, it comes to your cup by way of a million million actions, to which Michael Cope pays homage in "Tea Ceremony". I'm serving up a few cups of coffee and tea poetry for you below.

"Tea Ceremony" by Michael Cope

To this tea, I pay homage.
To the growth in the bud,
to the cells exchanging
air, water and light, I pay homage.

"Tea" by Leslie Harrison

The tea leaves in their white paper pouch
in their skyblue mug—I’ve brewed thousands of cups

"When My Mother Makes Me Tea" by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

.... There is kindness
in the way she unwraps the tea bag,
my favorite earl gray, the bergamot
floral and strong. 

"Coffee Break" by Kwame Dawes

and the cool air off the hills
made me think of coffee,
so I said, “Coffee would be nice,”
and he said, “Yes, coffee
would be nice,” and smiled

"Recipe for Happiness in Khabarovsk or Anyplace" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand café in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups

"These Days My Music" by Mary O'Connor

when I can’t pray or think or read or make a decision,
I want to be burrowed in a corner with a cold half-cup

"In the Company of Women" by January Gill O'Neil

Make me laugh over coffee,
make it a double, make it frothy
so it seethes in our delight.

"I Allow Myself" by Dorothea Grossman

Charmed as I am
by the sputter of bacon,
and the eye-opening properties
of eggs,
it’s the coffee
that’s really sacramental.