Farmers Worry

Farmers only worry during the growing season, but towns people worry all the time. ~ Edgar Watson Howe

I don't know if I believe that.  I think farmers worry all the time, weather, finances, crops, birthing etc.  Right now my worry has been the weather.  So far we rank as the second hottest July on record, coming in with an average of 88 degrees per day.  They saw August will follow suit.  I can't stand it.  It is not normal for this area and is sparking even worse weather.

After several tornado warnings last Wednesday and then a couple of heavy down pours I thought it would have helped the garden.  However Thursday while I was digging holes in the lawn for the 8 foot arbovitaes that the man brought home, I was shaking the dirt out of the grass roots like it was sand.

And then came Friday.  We had a nice steady rain in the morning and temps were wonderful.  I made blueberry jam and blackberry jam..  Later in the evening as we were on our way out to dinner, tornado warnings were once again flashing across the TV screen.  We came home to no electric because while we were gone a tornado did hit the area.  We were spared but across the river wasn't.

We got our electric back early Saturday morning.  We had a wedding to go to that day.  I called the mother of the bride (that lives on the other side of the river).  They had no electric nor did the facilities the reception was to be held at.  But everyone came together, generators were put to use and the wedding went on without a hitch.  It was beautiful.  They finally got electric that night.

Sunday we went shopping and bought all the lumber for a front deck.  The man started working on that while I worked in the garden a little bit. 

Monday was spent making three batches of bread & butter pickles, a batch of apple/blackberry jelly, strawberry jam, apple/blackberry/currant jelly and I did a batch of green beans. 

Tuesday it was still cool in the morning so I baked two cream puff cakes and started painting my bathroom.  It was not the best day to paint.  The temperature might have been lower but it was still very humid. 

Wednesday, #2 daughter left to go to Hershey and will return tonight.  I got to work on the deluge of summer squash.  I made ranch flavored zucchini chips which aren't bad but next time I will take the skins off.  I have twelve zcchini to deal with today.  I have to shred some for bread this winter and I am going to try more chips.

With help from the hose, the garden keeps producing.  Part of me wants to say it is a good gardening year because so far everything looks okay.  Hopefully the recent rains won't make the tomatoes or cabbages split.  I have lots of plans for all the tomatoes, I just need them to ripen.  I have planted some seeds for  fall crops which I normally don't do so we are ignoring the leaves changing color already.  I am blaming that on the lack of rain instead of an early fall and hope that the seeds I planted will produce.

Even while knitting or spinning my mind is on the weather, gardening or canning.  I guess I haven't gone over the ledge yet though since I don't have the Weather Channel on continously. 

A Gardener's Ecstasy

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. ~Lewis Grizzard

Yesterday's heat and humidity failed to exist while I consumed my lunch.  It was nirvana, toast, mayo, a little s&p and a sun kissed globe of decadence.  Juice ran down my arms, mayo collected at the corners of my mouth and I was totally oblivious.  But like all good things it came to an end.  I tried to make it last a little longer by licking every drip of goodness from my fingers but then I was right back in the oppressive mugginess. 

In the last 30 days we have had 21 days above average temperatures...14 of them were 85+.  Sixty two percent of the state is abnormally dry.  For our area they say we are almost 6 inches below our normal rainfall.  Work in the garden is done in the early morning before the sun hits it or in the evening when the sun has gone behind the mountains.  Sometimes there is a lot to be said about living in the valley. 

This morning it is starting out at 70 but with 97% humidity.  Another muggy day in the making.  We had Floridian company who thought our weather was wonderful.  I could not live with this all the time.

I have pulled out the thin kohlrabi and planted fall broccoli.  I pulled out a row of pea's and today I will plant some beets, turnips and parsnips.

The zucchini is starting to get obnoxious and soon I will pull that to allow the other squash some growing room.  I have frozen it, fried it, grilled it, made relish and given it away so that's enough.  The cucumbers so far have just been immediately eaten or turned into a gallon jug of refrigerator dill pickles.  My dill heads are about the size of large dinner plates so I have to get moving on the dill pickles in the crock.

So far I am very pleased with the garden.  The fruit is another matter.  As Cyndi expected the birds got my cherries and they are working their way through my blackberries.  The elderberries are green but are disappearing at an alarming rate.  It does not help that I have a 12 hole bird condominium right on the corner of the garden.  It was put there for bug patrol not fruit demolition.  Next year everything will have to be netted.

Today #2 son starts weight lifting twice a week until August 2nd and then football practice is nightly.  Starting the 14th he will be at the field from 7 AM until 6 at night.  It is 56 miles added to my car each day but it keeps his grades up so I am okay with that since he tends to think homework is a waste of time.

In fiber, I finished a third Bella hat, made two pair of fingerless mitts with my multi-color dyed yarn and I am about to finish a textured stocking.  I know this will get put in the back ground because canning season is now beginning in earnest.

Julia Child I am Not

You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients. ~ Julia Child

While I in no way, shape or form cook anything remotely close to Julia Child I do love me some fresh picked right out of the garden food.

The kids are gone this weekend and the garden started to shine.  The man and I cooked dinner together which hasn't happened in a long time.  We ended up with freshly dug baby potatoes, our freshly picked cumcumbers sliced with sour cream and dill, our freshly picked green and wax beans, our freshly picked and then fried zucchini  with homemade peppercorn ranch dressing and pork from last falls pig. The only thing we didn't produce was the flour, mayonaisse, peppercorns and sour cream.

By the time I was done eating the vegetables I was too stuffed to eat the meat.  Even the man, a diehard carnivore, finished his veges before his meat!

It was no culinary masterpiece and was far from healthy with the dressings and frying but it was utterly delicious.  I look forward to many weeks of fresh vege's on my plate...and even more so to a freshly picked tomato sandwich.  Patience is a virtue, my mother always said.

The Gardener's Morning

The robin's song at daybreak
Is a clarion call to me.
Get up and get out in the garden,
For the morning hours flee.
I cannot resist the summons,
What earnest gardener could?
For the golden hours of morning
Get into the gardener's blood.
The magic spell is upon me,
I'm glad that I did not wait;
For life's at its best in the morning,
As you pass through the garden gate.
- Howard Dolf


With the temperatures reaching 90+ each day I have had no ambition to go into the garden other than in the mornings.  I pull a weed here and there, check for bugs and dispense punishment up on the bad ones.  Then if it looks like it needs watering I turn on the sprinklers and go back inside for a while.  I water in the early morning because I do not want to get late blight again.  There have been several cases of it in PA and NY.  I planted in a newly plowed section, started all my own tomatoes, bought seed potatoes, mulched shortly after planting and today I pulled two plants because their leaves were yellowing and one tomato on it looked like it had a bruised area.  They were the only Sheboygan tomato plants I had.  They did not show spots or have lesions on the stems but out them came.  Call me paranoid but tomatoes and potatoes are a huge part of my garden.

Spring in the garden is rewarding because the newly tilled earth is a blank canvas, like a blank piece of paper to a writer it holds endless possiblities.  Summer in the garden is rewarding because you can go out and pick whatever is producing and plan your evening meal around it.  Of course when it is really coming in you get to can it for many meals to come. 

Today's haul was some kohlrabi, squash, pea's, a duck egg, and some chicken eggs.  As it is just the man and I tonight I am going to freeze the kohlrabi and squash. 

Hopefully it cools off a little because next week the garden is going to explode.  The beans are loaded and so are the cucumbers so I know there will be some canning going on.  Till then I will continue to knit.  I finished another hat that looks like Bella's from the Twilight series and I have another on the needles. 

I was going to keep making them for #2's friends but then I got an email saying there was a new Knitty. There were a few things that caught my attention so her friends might be out of luck!

I hope everyone has a great weekend.  Stay cool.

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest. ~ Douglas William Jerrold

We spent the weekend with family, friends and food. It was wonderful.  Saturday while the man was working I ran for feed.  #1 daughter, Sir T and #2 son went fishing.  We spent the rest of the day working around the house and Sir T treated us to pizza for dinner.

Sunday while #1 and I were cooking/baking in anticipation of going to a BBQ at my friend R's house, the guys and #2 son picked currants.  I weighed them and they brought in 10.12 pounds.  I have froze them until the heat wave we are in dissipaits a little. 

After they filled themselves at the BBQ the guys took the kids  fishing and my brother caughter a huge catfish.  The man cooks up some good catfish so he cleaned it and put it in the fridge.  We opted out of fireworks due to the heat and traffic.  Our town will have a fireworks display during its fair so we will see them then.  We finished the evening with coconut pound cake covered in strawberries and homemade whip cream.  Yummy!!!!

Monday we all slept in a little.  It was a wonderful slow day.  As lunch time approached the man started preparing the fish. I must say I love it when someone else cooks, but I would love it more if they also cleaned up afterwards.  We vacuumed the cars then decided to go swimming to cool of a little.  As we are in the water an eagle flies over, then starts circling and swoops down and grabs a fish out of the water on the opposite side of the river from us....not 50 feet away.  And where was my camera...at home again!  But what an awesome site.  Two more eagles were flying around but they never got that close again. 

When we got back to the house #1 and Sir T packed up for the ride home.  After sending them off the man and I got ready to go to a friends house for an early dinner.  Steak, shrimp, corn on the cob, potato salad...I am liking this other people cooking alot!!!  We came home about 9.  I called R and she drove over to drop off #2 daughter who had been spending the day with her kids.  While they watched tv we sat outside drinking  a very relaxing white russian made with homemade kahlua.  Relaxed me enough that I came in after they left and went right to bed.

But today is the start of the work week and the man left at 6:30 for his daily grind.  I watered 1/2 the garden yesterday morning and the other 1/2 is getting a soaking now.  I picked a couple of pea's and two kohlrabi....the harvest is starting. 

                                   

Before now it was only lettuce and herbs.  Not that I won't enjoy the chamomile or mint tea later or the didn't enjoy the basil prunings in bruschetta because I did, but I have been looking forward to something more substantial.  Today's peas and kohlrabi are just the tip of the iceberg if all goes well.  The yellow squash and zucchini will be pickable by the end of the week and the beans should follow by early next week at the latest.  The tomatoes will follow soon after.  The potatoes are blooming and I have thought of digging down and getting some small taters but have resisted the urge.

Just in case you think it was all food this weekend, there was also fiber.  I finished a "Bella" hat for #2 daughter but I over estimated my rows and there are not enough color repeats so I  have to make another.  I also plied the yarn I spun on the electric spinner.  I need more practice but I have more roving so now it is just taking the time.

                                   

The heat wave is suppose to be leaving (if you consider dropping down to 85 leaving) by the weekend.  Until then it is putting things in the freezer to be dealt with later, swimming in the river and watering the garden so I can reap some of what I have sown.

                                 

Happy 4th of July

How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy. ~Paul Sweeney

Planning for a wonderful 4th.  BBQ with friends and family and then fireworks tonight.  As #1 daughter and I are getting food ready while the guys and kids are picking currants.  I decided I couldn't let them go to waste.  They just returned with about a gallon bucket of them so I have to figure out what I am going to do with them.  For now they will get washed and put in the fridge until tomorrow.

Hope everyone has a wonderful safe holiday and remember those that gave us this day.

Be like a postage stamp

“Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.” ~Josh Billings

Every once in a while I find a project that I just fall in love with and will work on until it is done.  Such is the case with Saroyan.  Sunday night I was perusing Ravelry trying to find something that would strike my interest since I have not been knitting in a while.  I printed out the pattern for Saroyan and went to bed.  Monday I went to find some yarn which I could play with.  I saw this green and decided that was the color it was going to be eventhough it is acrylic and not wool.  I don't know if that will effect it in the end.

The pattern is quick and easy. 

Without sticking to it like a postage stamp, I am still 1/2 way done.  Love it!!!

And a quick peak at some more spinning-black Finn. Terrible pic but I was too lazy to get up and take a better one!

And for those who would rather see flowers....

Now the kids will be gone for another hour so I am going back to knitting. Hope you find something that holds your attention like this has mine.

Work Worth Doing

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.~Theodore Roosevelt

Oddly enough the man and kids like to eat.  Yeah! go figure!  So this is what sends me out to the garden each morning.  That and I have been told I have to do my part.  So each day I strike out to the garden to put in my time in the hopes that they won't go hungry.  I guess you could consider that work worth doing.

Daily I battle the bugs which think they have more of a right to my produce then I do.  I pick and pick and squash them but the next day they and a couple of their buddies show back up.  The urge to chemically annihilate them surfaces every year.  That's when I break out the cash and pay the kids to search and destroy.   The other vicious bugs which think they have a right to me...these I do use chemical warfare on.

After the bugs is the endless battle with the weeds and some plants which I naively planted.  They have gone haywire.  I once gave Cyndy Jerusalem Artichoke and she cursed me.  Now I curse myself as I planted the same... and mint... and comfrey.  If you even think of getting rid of the comfrey it senses this and makes every effort to reproduce like a rabbit on an endless supply of viagra.

Then there is the battle of the weather.  When you want a little rain to save yourself having to water everything, it pours for days.  Before you can get back into the garden the weeds have taken their cue from  Jacks proverbial bean stalk and are reaching for the sky.  When it has rained for days and you want it to dry out and warm up you find yourself trying to machete your way thru the garden gate in 90 degree temps with 100 % humidity.

Exiting the garden, I stumble thru the door, finger nails ravaged from pulling weeds, hands blistered from hoeing, nearly blind from sweat running into my eyes, face filthy from trying to wipe the sweat away.  My morning cup of coffee has long since been spent and I am dehydrated.  I am either unable to stand straight from being hunched over or my knee's are caked from crawling between the rows to weed.  On top of alllllll that I am  red from sunburn or bug bites. I open the fridge and freezer to find no ice cubes and the ice tea container empty.

When something has finally beat the odds and survived all of the above, it has to be canned which is a whole 'nother battle.  And I do this all for the happiness of my family.

NOT!  I can not even pretend that I am overworked and under appreciated for that is just not the case, I am spoiled rotten.  If there came a point where I did not want to bother with the garden or canning, the man and kids would never say a word.  And if the man ever told me I had to do my part he would be the gone.  So until the time comes when I am to old to deal with it, the man will till when I need it tilled, (his fault for buying a tiller to big for me to control) haul manure, keep enlarging and do a walk thru even when all he wants to do is go sit down.  I tend the garden because I love it and the family loves to eat.  The man tends to me because he loves me and loves to eat.   Yes it is aggravating at times, but so are my kids and I love them...even when they do empty the ice trays and the tea container.

And when I am not outside tending to the garden, I get to do this....

Oh yes I have been spinning.  I even cracked out the electric Babe that I bought 2.5 years ago.  I had tried to use it once and thought it was too fast.  Of course that was my fault for pushing the pedal like I was driving the Indy but now I am doing better. 

This is my first bobbin so be nice, it's a learning experience.  I also forgot I don't have the woolie winder on this one.

Some might say none of this is working hard or worth doing, but I think if you enjoy doing your work you don't consider it hard and something that makes you and your family happy is worth doing.

Sending a hug up through the opening.

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” ~Eskimo Proverb

It is one year ago today that we lost my mom.  It has been a rough year.  All the "firsts"...my first birthday without her baking my cake (yeah I was spoiled and still got that), her first missed birthday, the first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first garden without any input or help from her. 

You would think it was the big holidays and things that were the worst to deal with but it wasn't.  It was the everyday things...Not going to have coffee with her in the morning and watching the grass fill in the pathway between our homes OR seeing that a store that we had shopped at and had been around for years with a closing sign and thinking I had to tell her only to remember I didn't have to do that anymore OR baseball season starting and eventhough I am a Yankee's fan, not printing out the Mets schedule so she could watch every game.

The grandkids all stopped after school every day and they have missed running to her house to get what ever she baked to celebrate their first day back to school.  They would eat and talk at the same time telling her about their teachers, schedules and getting lost stories OR bringing home the report card/candy order form for her to see OR her waving to them from the audience at their band/chorus concerts/sports. 

I was sitting in the car the other day and watched an older woman walk up a flight of steps, both feet on every step.  I remembered what a defining moment it was when my own mom started to do that.  I started crying now because she would not have approved of crying then.  Knowing she had cancer and seeing it's effects on such a simple act was totally different.  Then I had to laugh because that woman was just as stubborn as my mom and would not walk the ramp, use a wheelchair or take the elevator.

She was not a huggy kissy mom but she showed you in a thousand other ways.  She never had much, lived most of her life in the trailer my dad and her bought in 1965.  She never went to college, never had a job that paid $10 an hour, only ever owned one new car and never traveled far.  She never sought the spotlight but was a constant behind the scenes helping out with whatever needed to be done. For such an unassuming person she left a huge whole in our lives.

Canning Jars

Since I am done mulching the garden the next step is to prepare for the canning of the garden. Hopefully I haven't jinxed myself and it will produce something!  But I digress, I have been organizing jars.  Normally they just get taken into the basement and put willy nilly on a shelf.  So I have been sorting them into pints and quarts/ regular or large mouth.  I have also been condensing what jams/jellies/beans/etc sare till left on the shelves from last year.  This will determine if I bother with somethings.  For instance I still have some jars of currant jelly.  I moved the currant bushes this Spring.  I didn't expect a large harvest and now it doesn't matter.  They are now off the priority list.  If they get picked, that is wonderful but if there are 1000+1 more things that need doing I won't be upset if the birds take them and save some jars for something I don't have.  On the other hand I only have one jar of hot pepper mustand and three of salsa so I know I have to make even more this year.

If I remember I canned over 600 jars last year so I need to know I have enough for this year.  Not everyone is nice enough to return the jars.  They just toss them into the trash.  I found this poem that will be attached to all gifted jars from here on out....

My Canning Jar~
To some it's just a little jar,
To me it's so much more.
I have to go in search of these,
From store, to store, to store.
I fill them up and give them free,
With fruits and so much more.
I wish that I could get them free,
But canning jars don't grow on trees.
I've worked real hard to fill them up,
And it has been such fun.
`Twould be a special gift to me,
If returned when you are done.

I don't know who wrote it but kudos to them!!!  I love getting calls from friends asking if I would be interested in canning jars that their cousin, sister, uncle or friend found in the basement, garage or barn  Heck yeah!  I never turn down a canning jar...or recipe books.  In the boxes there usually ends up being old mustard, coffee or mayonaisse jars.  I know the screw bands fit on the mayo jars but I don't trust them so I take these to recycling.

Sometimes there are old juice jars.  I tend to keep a few of these on hand and take the rest to recycling.

Other times they end up being the old jars with the wire bales. 

I don't use these to can with but I do use them to store buttons, marbles, baking soda/powder, cocoa etc.  If the jars are very old, or colors like blue or amber I keep them for storage also and use the zinc lids with porcelain lining that usually come with the boxes of jars.

So far as cookbooks, I read recently that you need to have cookbooks written prior to the 1970's to find things made entirely from scratch.  Luckily I have been given or bought at yardsale and thrift stores alot of them.

I may not make use of some of the butchering part of most of the older cookbooks but they do still have some good recipes.

The older canning books have a lot of great recipes and you can see how preserving has changed over the years. And boy have they changed since 1918!  I use the newest editions (2009) to give me precise cooking times and best ways to preserve but keep the old for some information in them that is not available in the newer books.

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Each year I learn more and more about canning...and cooking for that matter.  This year I want to learn to can more soups so on busy days I just have to pop a lid off.  I would also like to learn to can some meat so I can lower my electric bill by turning off one of the freezers.  Actually, I remember seeing a turkey in one of the freezers so I think I might start with that.  No time like the present to learn while it is still cool out.  And if you have jars put them on http://www.freecycle.org/  as there are plenty of people like me willing to save them from the dump.

Fungus Amongus

“The Smurfs are little blue people who live in magic mushrooms. Think about it.” ~ Unknown

I use to love the Smurfs, Papa Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Smurfette but I don't know anything about magic mushrooms.  Actually I don't know anything about mushrooms but I have to learn because I now have this...

Yes I know it is a log.  A and #1 son are building a house.  The men folk spent a weekend clearing the area of all the trees for the house, garage and lawn.  We (my brother and I ) will make use of the wood later but a friend of his wanted to make use of the wood now.  From what I have read you can only innoculate freshly cut logs.  My brother loaded up some four foot logs and took them to his friend.  Said friend belongs to a mushroom club.  The other day my brother showed up at my house with this log.  If you look close you can see rows of holes that were filled with spore and then covered with bees wax.

I have been given instructions to bury this log 3/4 of the way and in two years I will have shitake mushrooms.  From what I have read so far, once it starts, this log will continue to produce for five years.  The man loves mushrooms and I had always thought of getting one of the kits so we are excited about this.  A long wait but then years of dining...similar to asparagus.  Now these babies I don't have to wait years for, just a couple of more weeks....

Oh I love me some tomato sandwiches, salsa, tomato soup.  Patience is a virtue.