Hey all… time to snoop through Noah’s diary again. Why? Because we can.
Tuesday, October 7, 2025, 10am: Every molecule of my body is killing me today. Aside from jamming with the band, I’ve been jamming in the kitchen… well, it’s pear butter, not jam, but close enough.
The backyard orchard me and Frank planted a few years back is bearing fruit. Lots of fruit. Too much fruit. Last month I was whipping up apple pies by the dozen for the freezer and foisting them off on everyone I know since apple pie really only keeps in the freezer for 4 months.
This weekend it was Pear-pocalypse. We got 6 recycling bins full of pears and I borrowed 4 slow cookers so as to have 5 pots of pears boiling away with cinnamon, honey, cloves, and allspice to make 60 jars of pear butter. It’ll keep in the freezer for a year, and each one when opened lasts 3 weeks in the fridge, and I do use it to make pear cinnamon swirl bread kinda regularly ‘cause it’s one of the few kinds of bread Ursula will accept for toast, so I kept 20 jars and gave away the rest.
Frank got 12 because he likes pear butter but also he has to hide it from Agnes ‘cause of the diet she put him on, so it’s tucked away in the back of the garage freezer behind the pot roasts. Duke likes pear butter, but he makes his own ‘cause he has a pear tree too. Adam got 12 for use when he’s bulking. And the rest got spread around the band dudes… except for Howie because Howie only likes Nutella on his toast ‘cause he’s a child even though he’s 56.
Then there were the three dehydrators I borrowed so as to have 4 dehydrators on the go making pear chips.
Which Ursula won’t eat because they have fruit in them and therefore are the same as health food.
She also hates pear cookies for the same reason. Especially since she found out I make them with brown sugar, which she thinks is somehow the sugar version of whole wheat.
Ugh… I dunno, man. She also hates pies because they’re “stealth mode salad.”
Little does she know, I put zucchini in her chocolate cake. I do have to peel the zucchini first, though, because after she turned 5 she stopped believing me when I told her those green bits were special sprinkles.
This is also why I can never agree to her demands to be homeschooled: I need her out of the house to sneak veggies in her treats or else she’d really have a crazy meltdown.
Also why I keep my real recipes written in Danish on pieces of paper stuck into an old algebra textbook. She doesn’t know Danish yet and she hates math, so I think I’m safe for now.
Fortunately, she still believes me when I tell her sweet potatos are bad for you and Ruth plays along, as do her brothers, so Ursula does like sweet potato fries ‘cause the thinks she’s fighting the health food system or something. I dunno… make it make sense.
Anyway, the cover band is jamming tonight. We have a gig next Friday and I hope Howie learned the 3 new songs and didn’t get any ideas about adding extra guitar solos… but I know he didn’t and he will.
Brian’s bringing the beer and John’s bringing the snacks, so I guess that means Pilsner and beef jerky sticks. Gotta make sure I eat an extra helping at dinner so I don’t starve at rehearsal.
