Cookin'

I opened the blinds this morning and saw this handsome fellow, preening in the rising sun, on the deck rail outside the bedroom window.

In these two shots you can actually see his flashy topknot.  I didn't see his plain little Quail wifey, but I'm sure she was around somewhere...they're pretty inseparable.  Maybe she was sleeping in this morning, and it was his turn to be the early bird.

It's been a beastly humid day.  I was walking the boys just after 9:00am and within just a few minutes they were panting and I was sweating.  It got very hot by mid-morning, then early this afternoon the clouds came rolling over the mountains and sealed the heat in.  It was like being inside a sauna...built over a chasm into Hell. 

Unfortunately, I still had stuff to do, so regardless of the steam I had to carry on.  I nearly croaked when changing the duvet cover though.  On a good day that's a chore, on a muggy, blazing day it's a nightmare.  Every single time I change the duvet, I swear I'm going to invent an easier way to get the blasted downy inside the cover.  Today I think I might have actually come up with a perfect design.  Course, I could have been suffering heat stroke and my idea isn't feasible.  I'll have to think it through when it's cooler...

I made brownies.  Because why not turn on the oven when it's hot enough to burn toast?  I didn't care...it was too hot to care, and it was worth it.  They are just about the best brownies ever.  (These are the peanut butter swirl ones that I found at the back of a book I was reading awhile back.) 

Then I made the beginnings of an iced coffee stash--I'm really not sure what else to call it.  It's sort of like camp (or cowboy) coffee.  One pound of coffee grounds in a large container, filled with 8 qts of cold water.  Steep overnight.  Pour through sieve with cheesecloth the next day to filter out the grounds, put in fridge.  Have an iced coffee anytime you want. 

I wasn't quite paying attention--the heat was frying my brain by this point--so I had assembled the coffee and water in my biggest pot when I realized this is really a two-man operation.  How in the world I'm going to singlehandedly pour 8 qts of water into another container, through a sieve is beyond me.  I could hardly lift the flaming pot to move it across the kitchen because it's full to the brim, and will be extremely difficult to pour.

Oh, and then there's this:  How much iced coffee did I think I was going to be drinking, anyway?  Seriously.  8 quarts??  I could have made half this amount and it would still be too much.  It's the heat, really, it is. 

I need a brownie.