School of Patience

"Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days."~ Henri Alain

It is pretty well known that patience is not one of my finer virtues.  And I have stated how the garden got off to a late start.  So if you put those two together you will know that I succumbed to the lure of the farmer’s market and purchased some produce.

Prices have indeed gone up in one year.  I bought 25# of tomatoes last year for $8 and they are $12 this year.  I better have a bumper crop otherwise there will not be much salsa or V8.  So along with one case of tomatoes, I did pick up some green beans, little cucumbers and hot peppers.  I got 13 pints of green beans canned as a start on this winters vittles. My green bean plants are just starting to flower and they are looking good.

With the hot peppers, I saw a recipe for “bottled hell” and knew the man would love it.  Well not only does the man like it but the guys at his job do too so I made a second batch.  I tend to stick to canning things that we would use on a regular basis.  This is not one of those things but is something that I would throw in a basket of goodies for someone who liked hot food.  It is just something different to tickle the taste buds or in this instance burn them off.

The cucumbers are in a small crock fermenting to be come horseradish pickles.  Why?  Because the man wants them.

And since I had something to occupy my canning itch, I was given some rhubarb, prime example of when it rains it pours.   I made 10 quarts of rhubarb pie filling.  OMG it is so good, why did I not know you could can this before?  I have canned apple and peach so I should have known I could do rhubarb.  Live and learn.

The zucchini is coming in.  I have enough frozen for zucchini bread and I have some fried zucchini frozen (what didn’t get eaten by the children).  I want to make up some zucchini crab cakes and freeze them.  Let us hope the cucumber beetles don’t kill the plants before my plans are finalized.

I made four batches of salsa but still have some hot peppers left so I will make the man a batch of cowboy candy – sweet pickled hot pepper rings.

The blackberries are still coming in and I have juice enough for two more batches of jelly and the rest of the harvest I will freeze whole to throw in pancakes, yogurt, cereal, muffins etc.

I am knitting a scarf, namely the +SSS  albeit with wool and not stainless steel yarn. 

We are still visited daily by the deer.  There are now 2 eight point bucks, a four point buck, a doe and two fawns. 

They are eating like crazy and things they have never touched before like my forsythia and every tree branch that dropped during the various storms was quickly stripped of it's leaves.  Hope that is not foretelling a early bad winter, I have too much to do still! 

So far they are leaving this alone....

Officially my first hazelnut!  Someday maybe there will be enough to make my own Nutella.

The garden is getting a natural watering quite frequently.The humidity is still high but the temperature has cooled down considerably. This all works in my favor.  I had found two reversible cast iron griddles and an 8 in frying pan in my grandmothers and the man was able to sand blast them at work.  I have to season them now and did not feel up to using the oven during the heat....I am too cheap to pay for the AC!  Hey I guess in this instance I did show some patience!