Two more pints of fresh pickles are cooling on the kitchen counter before refrigeration. Since it's only September I can start a new batch of plants - cucumbers, squash, and things like broccoli, cauliflower, etc. I don't usually grow broccoli or cauliflower - it's slow growing - but did have luck with broccoli years ago. The tomatoes are at this point a large hedge that is still growing - I didn't cut down the existing batch and I see a few fruits forming now. I threw out all of the old seeds so as not to waste time with non-viable stock, so will see what looks good at the neighborhood nursery and plant from seed or bedding plants. It's liberating to be free of the old seed packs that I always thought I ought to give a try, but when they didn't grow, or not many, it was a waste of the growing season.

At bedtime last night I messed myself up with my reading material. Since I had moved over to audiobook versions of a couple of books I've been reading I picked up another, Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. He wrote Junkyard Planet that I know I talked about several times in the past. Anyway, just reading about all of the stuff in the homes of older folks and how it is being handled as they move to senior living or after they die got my brain to spinning about all of my projects here and I just wasn't getting to sleep. During the wee hours I drank a cup of chamomile tea and worked on the new jigsaw before trying again. Reading about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge would have been relaxing, but as an audiobook I didn't want to fall asleep with the headphones on and have to go back over however much I slept through later.

Charmion, I bragged about your rapid-fire move and progress on the new house to a friend of mine who is doing something similar right now. Mainly about going ahead and painting as you first move in. She has furniture that was in a house with a different color and is debating about reupholstering, but it seems it would be easier, faster, and much cheaper to simply paint the rooms that furniture will be in. She's worried about painting in rooms with carpet. (Alas, she's in an HOA and they've already heard through the grapevine that a neighbor has complained about over-tall shrubs in the back yard and mosquitoes in a fountain in the front yard. Note to self: send her information about Summit Mosquito Dunks. I will never, ever, buy in an HOA situation.)

Edited note: Did you have some of last year's chutney or other preserves to pack and bring to the new house? Now that you're in place, will you plan to make a modest batch just to break in the new/old kitchen?