New Beginnings

Yes, I am still alive and kicking. I'm amazed that I still have 'followers' after such a long absence from this space.

Basically, over the last nine months, I poured everything I had into a job, but even so, it apparently wasn't enough as I was fired last month-for the first time in my life. I've always been the star, the go-to person, and now, I am experiencing the other end of that spectrum. The only thing I can do is to move on and to learn from my failings, career and social. I've never been good at playing politics, sucking up to people. My emotions are always on my sleeve, which makes me easy to manipulate. Plus, I tend to think the best about people, even those who act like assholes and jerks. I make excuses for them in my mind, and try to block their influence and in doing that, I allow myself to be blindsided. They win influence, I don't. It is the story of losers everywhere, I suppose, that the victor's side of the story is the one recorded in the books. C'est la vie.

So in my quest of self improvement, I've decided to try to lose some weight and become more fit. This process began two and a half years ago when I stopped smoking after 27 years. I gained 30 pounds from that, and I lost that over the following 18 months, but now I am back on my pre-quitting plateau. I vowed to lose 50 pounds in 2010, and I have lost about 10 pounds with half the year gone. My BMI is close to 27, in the overweight range, but luckily under the obese marker. I just pulled out the Wii and weighed to make sure. I just weighed 199.5 pounds with a BMI of 27.8, up from last month by three pounds. That is where feeding your failure leads! Wii Fit states that my ideal weight should be about 157 pounds, which is where I would be if I lost the 50 pounds I intended with my New Year's Resolution. I have 43 pounds to lose in 6 months, 7 pounds a month, 1.75 pounds a week. That should be a safe loss rate and something I should be able to manage with diet and exercise. I've already given up soft drinks this year, and I am working on swapping out saturated fats for unsaturated fats. I don't believe in 'going on a diet', but I do want to make lifestyle changes. I've used a couple of calculators and figured that my Basal Metabolic Rate is about 2200 calories a day. I haven't been counting calories as to what I am consuming, but I will keep a journal for a week or so just to get an idea. If I can keep my intake between 2200 and 2500 calories, I should be able to exercise and burn off at least 1000 calories a day. One mountain bike ride around the 7 mile 'block' burns just over 700 calories and takes about 45 minutes, so I think with some stretching and a few additional minutes, I should be able to hit that 1000 burned goal. In addition, it is summer, and that means gardening-more calories burned. In a few weeks, I'll need to start splitting wood for the winter-more calories gone. So doing the math, If I consume 2500 calories and burn 1000 from exercise and 1000 from seasonal work, then my net caloric intake is 500, which is 1700 less than my BMR. If I ride my bike or exercise 5 times a week and spend 3 hours a day working, that is 8500 calories a week, equaling about 2.5 pounds a week. Of course, that will be the short term weekly goal that I strive for, not a given.

I want to pass along a few websites that I have found refreshingly useful.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/

From this link you can sign up for daily newsletters concerning topics that interest you. I've been receiving the Diet and Nutrition newsletter and it has a lot of informative articles (like choosing cooking oils) as well as a lot of simple, everyday recipes.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

Nutrition data is just that, but I like this site because it gives you enough information to make balanced choices about food. They feature an Inflammation Factor chart which is helpful if you suffer from allergies or auto-immune disease. Also, there is a glycemic load chart for those who deal with blood sugar issues like diabetes. If you have a few minutes to check this site out, it will be well worth your time.

First frost and freeze

Tonight we should have our first frost and freeze, and tomorrow we should have a hard freeze. I usually subtract 5 degrees from the predicted Calhoun temps for planning. We haven't gone below 45 yet, and suddenly we are looking at 31 or 32 for tonight and 26 or 27 tomorrow. We skipped the low 40's and thirties altogether!

I just came in from picking the last of the beans and tomatoes. I kept about 4 tomato plants alive and kicking until frost, bringing in the first, and last, green tomatoes just now. I got enough Kentucky Wonder pole beans for a meal. Those beans have been producing since the first week of June! A Wonder indeed!

I wish I had a few more weeks for okra as the plants still have flowers and plenty of life even at 7 feet tall. I'll use up the last peppers with tacos and beans tonight, and I might make some fresh salsa with the last tomatoes. It's all good. I finally grew enough beans to freeze and it should last until next summer...I hope. I'm going to leave the remaining butternuts out there for tonight, and bring them in tomorrow. I've never left anything out after frost, so this is a bit scary for me. I usually use squashes and never have any left to leave out, but this year, I have over 30 pounds of squash in storage already, so the remaining 10 pounds or so is an experiment that should be successful since most folks do leave the squashes until after the first frost.

I still have a 32 ft row of peas, half English and half snow peas, but neither is doing well. I've harvested some English peas, but the snow peas are slow. I have some kale to try, and a few plants of collards, cabbage, broccoli, and yes, Brussels sprouts, but nothing is even close to being ready. I may lose most of it after this weekend.

The springs are still running in the garden making it a mucky mess, and a new one made a small sinkhole(about fist sized) less than a foot away from my Mars Seedless grapevine that is 2 years old. Either those grapes will be extra juicy or the vine will be diseased and die. Time will tell. Anyway, I've been moving the carpet strips around just to be able to walk enough to harvest the beans and such. The amount of water we have this year is amazing.

I also stripped the leaves of my Malabar spinach vine, pulled two radishes, and stripped the leaves of a lemon verbena. All the porch and deck plants are in the greenhouse and ready for winter.

I split a fresh load of dry wood this morning, and we currently have the first fire of the season in the woodstove. My daughter and granddaughter are visiting. Life is good.

Ch..Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes

I survived my first week back in the workforce after a year of being at home. I did not have any real problem getting up for work(I know that surprises some of you!), but I am definitely feeling the job in my feet. I don't yet have a desk and have been mostly standing all week long. My computer came in Friday(it is a nice looking Dell), but without a desk or workspace, obviously I can't use it. I thought my foot was 100% healed after the surgery, but I have discovered otherwise. There wasn't too much walking to the job, and certainly no exertion, just standing.

The best part of the 'new job experience' is the people. My co-workers all seem competent and seem to have a good work ethic. I've seen no slackers, no idiots. That's a good thing as I can't stand to be the only one working while everyone else surfs the internet or plays games on their phone or makes personal phone calls, etc. That kind of stuff drives me crazy. It is a good group of folks to work with, and I think that can make or break any job. Even if you love your job, if you can't stand the ones you work with, you can be miserable.

This past week, I've been 'training' with the QC guy. Instead of filling a position, I'll be carving out a niche for myself in the lab. I'll start with taking over some of the more mundane tasks, clerical minutia, that are weighing down the other chemists-things like recording spec data and filing certificates, MSDS sheets, etc. I'll fill in for the QC guy and probably perform some testing for the R&D guys. I'll probably do more bench work as I gain more experience, but for now, I'm
just learning the products and their applications and specs. There are probably 65 or 70 formulas or more, many sold under more than one label, so it can be confusing. In addition, I'm not familiar with many of the raw materials, so there is a LOT to learn before I start mixing anything! I'm still not sure whether or not I will be working more in QC or in R&D, but there is always the possibility of doing both. The company is growing and I'll have options. It is SO much better than the last place I worked. They are like night and day.

On the homefront, I did not make it into the garden at all this past week, so this morning I had lots of beans and okra to pick and process. I got almost two gallons of beans, which isn't bad considering the fact that it is October. I made some fresh guacamole with the few tomatoes I picked, and sliced and froze the okra for frying later. I did take about 20 of the smallest pods and tossed them into a pickle jar. I had a hankering for pickled okra, but since the fridge is already full, I did not want to open a new jar. I had a jar of pickles that only had a few pickles in the brine, so I tossed the okra, some cayenne peppers and some garlic into the jar, shook it, and tomorrow I'll start snacking on the okra. In three weeks, I go back to get my cholesterol checked, and okra is a wonder food for lowering cholesterol. I'll eat a lot of it in the coming weeks. Tomorrow, I'll can a small jar of Anaheims and Poblanos for use in burritos or beans, and I have a 9 cubic foot wheelbarrow full of peanut vines to process. I'll remove the peanuts from the vine, brush off the dirt, and allow them to dry a few more days in the house. They have been in the wheelbarrow on the porch, which isn't ideal for drying and curing, but with the rain last week, it was the best I could do. I did not want to lose my peanut crop to mice, rats, or squirrels.

Skyguy spent the day bleaching and pressure washing the deck and the front of the house. He'll probably spend the better part of tomorrow finishing the job. We were going to try to wait until Spring to replace the kitchen window, but I'm afraid it won't last through the winter and I really think we need to replace it now. I think we can get energy credits if we do it before November, too. First is the pressure washing, then the window replacement, then the house gets a new paint job. Next weekend we have a 5 year NWGAA anniversary event here at the farm, and I really did not want our guests to wonder if the algea would attack them while they ate. The house and deck face north, and with all the rain this year, everything is green and slimy. The deck was a safety hazard.

Thursday, Skyguy and I celebrated (and I use that term loosely) 25 years of marriage. We had plans to eat out, but that night we were both tired and decided to just go home and have a normal evening. After all, it was 'Survivor' night, and we had to watch evil Russell scheme and plot his way to through the game. We decided that we would celebrate on Friday and would rent our 'Jacuzzi room' at the Hampton Inn. We started doing that years ago when we did not have TV and had limited water supply. It was nice to take a hot shower of unlimited length, enjoy heat without loading a log into the stove, lounge around in the Jacuzzi, and watch TV, hopefully some boxing or ultimate fighting or maybe a Formula One race. We would try to do that once a year, at least, just to relax and enjoy things that most folks take for granted. Even though we now have satellite TV and a new well so we don't run out of water, we still like to go to "our room"at the Hampton. So on Friday after work, we grabbed dinner at Ruby Tuesday's and went to the hotel to check in. As it turns out, 'our' room is no longer there. Apparently the hotel removed the jacuzzi due to a leak, and now the only room with a jacuzzi is actually a room where the whirlpool is in the bathroom and you can't watch television from the bathroom. It was disappointing, the end of a tradition, but we rightly decided not to waste money on that anymore, so we stopped by Home Depot and drove home where we were greeted by a couple of very happy dogs. I spent a few hours last night looking for another 'Jacuzzi room', and I did find a hotel in Dalton, but I just don't know. It is so tempting to just take the credit card and just buy a damned hot tub for the deck. With that, I never need to leave home. I have dreamed about that for close to twenty years now.

Okra and it's Beneficial Slime

Okra. It is an oft maligned vegetable usually associated with the Deep South. I'm growing it, as are most of my friends and neighbors who have gardens. I have the old standby, Clemson Spineless, and a heirloom variety called Lee. Lee's pods are not as heavily ridged as the CS, and the pods are darker green and smoother. I personally think they are less spiny than the Clemson Spineless. Both varieties are doing well in the garden. Did you know that okra historically grew wild on the banks of the Nile River and was one of Cleopatra's favorite foods? Egyptians were the first to cultivate it 1200 years before Christ. By trade, okra became a popular crop across north Africa to Ethiopia, around the Mediterranean Sea, and even as far away as India and the Americas. By 1658, okra made it to Brazil and New Orleans and by 1781, they were growing it in Philadelphia. African slaves used ground okra seeds as a coffee substitute as well as cooked gumbo. Even today, ground okra is used in Africa to make a soup cooked with fish, and okra as a coffee substitute found widespread consumption during the rationing era of WWII. The words okra and gumbo are of African origin, but this easy to grow and useful vegetable is now known around the world by the following names: Okra, Okro, Ochro, Okoro, Quimgombo (Cuba), Quingumbo, Ladies Fingers, Gombo, Kopi Arab, Kacang Bendi, Bhindi (S. Asia), Bendi (Malaysia), Bamia, Bamya or Bamieh (middle east), Gumbo (Southern USA), Quiabo, Quiabos (Portugal and Angola), okura (Japan), qiu kui (Taiwan). Asians, especially the Japanese and Chinese, treasure okra as a fountain of youth.

Okra has hairy spines that are prickly and irritate the skin like fiberglass insulation. The sensation is easily remedied by quickly washing in cold water. The plant has varieties that are burgundy or purple podded and stemmed. Some varieties are dwarfed, but most grow tall, 3 to 6 feet or taller depending on variety and the more you cut the okra the tall the plant gets. It is an 60 day annual that likes hot weather, from the same Mallow family as hollyhock, cotton, and hibiscus. The yellow flowers on the the okra plant are beautiful enough to warrant growing the plant simply for the flowers alone. Ants seem to like the plant, and can often be found on the leaves and flowers. The immature seed pods we call okra are eaten raw, used for soups, pickled and canned, used to thicken stews, breaded and deep-fried, or simply boiled. The pods are cut from the stem when they are about 3 inches long. If they get longer than about 6 inches, the pods become tough and woody, and the pod is not worth eating but will dry nicely for seed. It can also be used to make cordage or paper. When washed or cut, okra releases a sticky, mucilagenous substance with thickening properties. Many people will not eat okra because of this 'slime', but it is this soluble fibrous slime that is extremely healthy for you. If you just can't take the slime, try it deep fried, pickled, or raw. After you cut okra, store it in a paper bag in a warm part of refrigerator, as temperatures below 45 degrees will damage okra. Use within 2 or 3 days at most, or cut it and freeze it. Washing okra will precipitate the sliming process, so do not wash the pods until absolutely necessary. Okra is alkaline in nature, that's why it goes so well with the acid in tomatoes. They balance each other, and I think the acidity helps reduce the sliminess. When canning okra however, recipes must be either pressure canned or acidified for safety.

Okra Nutrition (half-cup cooked okra)

Calories = 25
Dietary Fiber = 2 grams
Total Fat = 0.2 grams (the healthy fatty acid is Omega 6)
Protein = 1.5 grams
Carbohydrates = 5.8 grams
Cholesterol = 0
Vitamin A = 226 IU (5%)
Vitamin C = 13 mg (22%)
Vitamin K = 32 micrograms (40%)
Folic acid = 36.5 micrograms (9%)
Calcium = 62 mg (6%)
Iron = 0.4 mg (1%)
Potassium = 108 mg (3%)
Magnesium = 46 mg(7%)
Manganese 0.2 micrograms (12%)
Phosphorus = 25 mg (3%)
Plus approximately 7% of the RDA of Thiamine and Vitamin B6
With a glycemic load of 2, it is excellent for weight loss due to the lack of fat and the high fiber content.

According to famous nutritionist Sylvia W. Zook, Ph.D., the following benefits of okra should not be overlooked making okra a staple in your 'green pharmacy'.

- The superior fiber found in okra helps to stabilize blood sugar as it curbs the rate at which sugar is absorbed from the intestinal tract.
- Okra's mucilage binds cholesterol and bile acid carrying toxins dumped into it by the filtering liver.
- Okra helps lubricate the large intestines due to its bulk laxative qualities. The okra fiber absorbs water and ensures bulk in stools. This helps prevent and improve constipation. Unlike harsh wheat bran, which can irritate or injure the intestinal tract, okra's mucilage soothes,
and okra facilitates elimination more comfortably by its slippery characteristic.
- Okra fiber is an excellent probiotic for feeding the good bacteria, contributing to the health of the intestinal tract.
- To retain most of okra's nutrients and self-digesting enzymes, it should be cooked as little as possible, e.g. with low heat or lightly
steamed. It can even be eaten raw. However, if one is going to fry it (and it is undeniably delicious prepared that way when rolled in cornmeal and salt), only extra virgin olive oil, or UNREFINED coconut butter is recommended (this is NOT the unhealthy partially hydrogenated product found in processed foods.) Organic ghee used by gourmet chefs, has the oil and flavor of butter without the solids, is also excellent for frying okra (does not burn like butter), and may be obtained from the health food store or made at home.
- Okra is a supreme vegetable for those feeling weak, exhausted, and suffering from depression.
- Okra is used for healing ulcers and to keep joints limber. It helps to neutralize acids, being very alkaline, and provides a temporary protective coating for the digestive tract.
- Okra treats lung inflammation, sore throat, and irritable bowel.
- In India, okra has been used successfully in experimental blood plasma replacements.

The following are anecdotal stories and studies detailing how okra is helpful in eliminating specific ailments. The treatments were found on the web and should be used at your own risk and with common sense.

Acid Reflux and Constipation
A person, suffering from constipation for the past 20 years and recently from acid reflux, started eating 6 pieces of Okra. Since then, has not taken any other medication. Now, his blood sugar has dropped from 135 to 98 and his cholesterol and acid reflux are also under control.

Asthma
Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. This anti-inflammatory activity may curtail the development of asthma symptoms. A large preliminary study has shown that young children with asthma experience significantly less wheezing if they eat a diet high in Vitamin C. One half cup of okra provides almost 25% of the RDA of Vitamin C.

Atherosclerosis
Diets high in insoluble fiber, such as those containing okra, are associated with protection against heart disease in both men and women, diabetes, cholesterol and obesity.

Cancer
The insoluble fiber found in okra acts as a mild laxative and helps to keep the intestinal tract healthy, decreasing the risk of some forms of cancer, especially colo-rectal cancer.

Capillary fragility
Eating plenty of flavonoid and vitamin C-rich fruits and vegetables such as okra helps to support the structure of capillaries.

Cataracts and Vitamin A support
1/2 cup of cooked okra contains 226 IU of vitamin A. Some studies have reported that eating more foods rich in beta-carotene or vitamin A was associated with a lower risk of cataracts. Vitamin A also helps night vision and of course has anti-oxidant properties, anti-aging nutrients, supports mental health by maintaining brain chemistry, great for healthy skin, helps with blood circulation and liver functions.

Cholesterol
A study (JAMA July 23, 2003) showed that consuming a diet rich in soluble fiber from oats, barley, psyllium, eggplant and okra was as effective as the cholesterol lowering drug Mevacor. Raw okra is a great weapon to lower cholesterol and it also provides some protection against absorption of trans fats.

Depression and Lack of Energy
Okra is a supreme vegetable for those feeling weak, exhausted, and suffering from depression.

Multiple sclerosis (MS)
In one survey, researchers gathered information from nearly 400 people (half with MS) over three years. They found that consumption of vegetable protein, fruit juice, and foods rich in vitamin C, thiamine, riboflavin, calcium, and potassium correlated with a decreased MS risk. Okra is an excellent disease fighter.

Alternative Dialysis type treatments
Take 2 pods of Okra, cut into 3 pieces each, rough crush the pieces, fill glass with water soak the pieces overnight.(do not refrigerate just use bottled or tap water) In the morning before eating,
drink the thick slimy texture, swallow the seeds too. Drink three times a week it clears excess cholesterol and toxins (in bile acids). It removes extra wastes from your blood, does the job of a dialysis machine by helping the kidneys to function properly.

Bugs

Yesterday, while picking tomatoes in the garden, I noticed this interesting looking 'wheel bug', a type of assassin bug, on a volunteer tomatillo. They are considered beneficial, but they do bite. It is more like a puncture than a bite, but it is painful and can become infected. If you look closely, you can see that he has killed a small bee. The nymph stage of this insect is red and black and is what I call the 'backwards bug' because the back legs and raised rump look like the bug is backwards. Earlier in the year, I saw hundreds of nymphs, but have only seen two adult wheel bugs, both yesterday. The other day, I was stung by a saddleback caterpillar. I did not see him when he stung me, but I suspected that was what got me. My forearm and wrist started burning while I was harvesting oregano. I put some crushed plantain on it and took a Benedryl when I came in the house. The next day, I found the caterpillar on the floor under the hanging bunch of oregano. I'm glad I found the fuzzy beast before the dogs did. Apparently I am not as allergic to them as I am to bees as the whelting was gone the next day. If you have ever been stung by a jellyfish, that's what I relate this to. It is a very similar feeling. Anyway, it's too bad that Mr. Wheelbug did not find Mr. Saddleback before I did. It is just my luck that a beneficial insect like a wheel bug would be eating my mason bees.







While I am on bugs, I thought some of you might like to see what we locals call 'Mexican grasshoppers' or Devil Horse grasshoppers. It is a type of Eastern Lubber, and I have never seen them outside of this valley. It is obviously a isolated local population as even people who live 15 miles away in Calhoun are amazed when they seen these grasshoppers on the road. That's where you usually see them, on the road. You can actually hear them crunch as you run over them.





This yellow flowering plant is an unknown that I'm hoping someone can help identify. It looks somewhat like a Jerusalem artichoke, but it shorter and only has 5 petals instead of 12. It is blooming now. For comparison, you can see the JA flowers in the background of squash picture. The leaves are very similar, but the unknown plant only grows to about 3.5 feet tall.

Late Summer Garden Report

I'm still pulling in 5-10 pounds of tomatoes every other day, but blight or magnesium deficiency is taking a toll here. The tomatoes probably have a few more weeks of life. I've got enough tomatoes, juice, and sauce canned, but I think I still need more pizza sauce. I'm thinking of perhaps trying to make some soup as well.

I'm still picking about 2 quarts of green beans a day, freezing most of it now. The Kentucky Wonder pole beans and the Blue Lake bush beans are going crazy, and I expect to still be in beans a month from now. The red field peas that I planted turned out to be half runner types, and the 10x10 area is now about 20x20 and the runners are taking over like kudzu. They've covered my bush cherries, and are threatening the pole beans. I've picked dry pods as I see them, but 98% of the crop is still on the vine. Interestingly, at least to me, the peas look more like what I would call white acre peas than the red field peas I planted. They are small and white. Odd thing.

Round one of sweetcorn was a disaster, so we replanted a short season sweetcorn in mid-summer. We are about a week from eating corn again, but I don't want to count my ears before they are picked. On this farm, anything can happen to corn, and usually does. The Bloody Butcher corn lodged from a downburst in a thunderstorm, but much of it is still alive, even if it is laying over. I decided to leave it alone as when I tried to stand the stalks upright, they broke. I have no clue as to how this will affect pollination. It was planted June 12, so it has a few more weeks as well. My goal for the BB is to get a few ears for seed, one or two ears to roast, and enough to grind for 1 cup of corn meal. It seems like a lot to ask out of what I have in the garden. Can anyone tell me how much corn-how many ears or pounds, does it take to make a cup of corn meal?

I'm nursing along a watermelon(GA Rattlesnake), but it just isn't growing the way I'd like. It is more round than oblong. Another odd thing. I've got squash everywhere, quite a few butternuts still out there(I already harvested 30# or so) as well as acorn squashes. The squash vines are growing on the deer netting, and it looks funny to see acorn squash hanging 8 feet in the air. A few of the hanging squashes have holes bored into them, as if some kind of wasp or squash borer drilled hole in the fruit. I took a few pictures for the blog. The summer squashes are done and gone. Peppers are still producing, and I've canned or dried as much as possible: Anaheims, serranos, banana peppers, poblano(ancho), etc. I've also made homemade salsa, of course. The okra is just starting to really come in strong. I've pickled a few jars of it, and will pickle more. I have taken a liking to pickled okra. Yum! I have sweet potato vines everywhere and expect to get 30-50 pounds of sweet potatoes next month. I never did harvest my Yukon Golds, but yesterday I went out with that intention and found a bunch of new potatoes, beautiful little yellow golf ball sized things. I decided to leave them as seed.

I had to reorganize the shelves and such to make room for everything I've canned so far. I made grape jelly and elderberry jam, elderberry elixir, horehound cough syrup, blackberry jam, fig preserves, and blueberry jam. We harvested over 50 pounds of apples a bit early to keep the deer from getting them, and I've made applesauce and apple chips. I have discovered that if you dehydrate the peelings and mix them with blackberry leaves, blueberry leaves and dried huckleberries and blueberries, it makes a great tea, so I have made a few jars of that to give as gifts. I froze about 5 gallons of blueberries, and gave that many away. We did not have any peaches, pears, cherries, or plums this year, but I still have peaches in the freezer from last year, which was a banner year.

I've planted lettuce for the Fall, but a rabbit mowed it down in one day, so I will have to replant. All the neighbors have noted that the rabbit population is exploding, so it makes me wonder if folks have killed too many snakes or too many coyotes. I have no idea of how a rabbit got inside my garden fence unless the gate was left open just long enough for him to get in, eat my lettuce and my only honeydew melon, and get out. I've also got a few broccoli plants in the ground, some Osaka Purple mustard, several brussel sprouts in the ground, a small patch of kale(I've never tried it so this is a grand experiment in taste) a couple of 15 ft rows of collards, a few cabbage plants, a 32 ft row of intensively planted snowpeas and English peas(both sides of the panel are planted, 16 ft of English peas and 16 ft of snow peas. I have both turnips and turnip greens, and have yet to plant spinach. I also need to decide where I will plant my garlic next year. I need to get busy with all that. I have also replanted carrots, radishes, and beets in my carrot bed. The carrots I planted in the ground did not germinate, but the board trick worked well in the raised bed and the carrot greens are about 5 inches tall.

The herb garden has been very productive this year, too. I've made several batches of pesto and froze that, too. I've harvested enough kitchen herbs like thyme and oregano to fill several quart jars, and I still have herbs drying in the kitchen. You might be a redneck if you hang your herbs to dry on your antler chandelier in the kitchen. :) Of course, I also use window screens and my truck as a drying oven, as well as two dehydrators, which are running right now(more apple chips today, onions tomorrow) Seriously, I've harvested and dried oregano, marjoram, thyme, sage, tarragon, savory, fennel, dill, lemon balm, chocolate mint, peppermint, 3 kinds of basil, nasturtiums, chives, violets, dandelion flowers, passionflowers, and horehound. I dried all but maybe 15 bulbs of garlic, of which I'm using fresh in canning and cooking. The echinacea did well, so I will be able to harvest that in a few years, too. This year, I planted beans in the herb bed to fill the gaps. Next year, we've decided that the herb bed will support chili peppers quite nicely.

The big plan for this Fall is to plant and grow more asparagus. We have decided to plant a 3x50 ft wide row of asparagus crowns as the little patch I have is 10 years old and just isn't enough now that Skyguy has decided he likes asparagus, too. If will take a lot of ground prep and double digging, as well as mulch to make this happen. Earlier this year, I planted a 8x15 area with Jerusalem artichokes-a gift from Rob(thanks again!)-and they are 9 feet tall and beautiful right now. The blooms are awesome. I'm not sure what the protocol is on digging the chokes, but I figure I will give them a few years, like I would asparagus, before I try to dig anything. I'm super psyched about that.

This year's garden has been the largest garden I've ever planted. I've tried to keep something going all the time. I will continue to do that, but I'm afraid that this might be my last big garden for a while. There is no way that I could have this size garden working full time. It saddens me. It is like giving up a part of myself. I guess I've been spoiled after a year at home. We all have to sacrifice I suppose. This is probably my last extensive garden update before I start working full time. :(

Canning, Drying, Putting By

This is what my kitchen table looks like recently, well, presently. It is quite the mess, but that is not even half the story. I've got the not quite ripe toms ripening, a pineapple for grilling, some bottled hot pepper oil, a few pimentos and Anaheims, an Avocado for salad, tomato seed saving jars, a chair full of books and jellies for Ava, and a ziplock bag for picking beans and stuff.

My best friend is an morning person. If she were a robin, there would be no more earthworms for the other birds. Ava works the way 75% of the world works, she is on a dawn to dusk schedule. By contrast, I am not a morning person. I've got plenty of reasons/excuses, but suffice it to say that I go to be late and sleep till almost noon. It is hard for me to get to sleep, but it would take a nuclear weapon to wake me up. I can get up, but it is difficult and doesn't feel natural at all. Thank God I have Ava to call me and put a boot to my butt to get me out of bed in the summer, because otherwise I'd be working solely in the heat of the afternoon.

Two days ago, Ava and I, partners in crime, went foraging for elderberries and harvested quite a few. We got a few other things, too, rocks, ornamental grasses and the like, stuff from old homesteads and roadsides. Today, we made jam, jelly, and a special elixir.

I have about 2 quarts of elderberries drying on a large window screen in my spare bedroom. They will be for tea or muffins or bread or whatever I decide to put them in. I took a pint of fresh berries and the first thing we made this morning was an Elixir to be taken as medicine in the event of the flu or swine flu or whatever virus comes down the pike. It was super simple. I mashed some berries with the back of a spoon, put them in my pint jar, squirted the juice of a lemon in there, and made a mixture of 2 parts brandy to one part honey, of which I poured that over the macerated elderberries. I did not seal it or anything. Alcohol and honey keep almost indefinitely. This Elderberry Elixir should be used by the dropperful. I got the recipe and instructions from this article.
http://www.wellsphere.com/complementary-alternative-medicine-article/into-the-forest-exploring-elderberry/373317
Secondly, we cooked down 2 quarts of elderberries using the vinegar recipe in the BBB. I wasn't satisfied with the thinness of the jam, so I decided to add half a pack of pectin. It tastes great, but the jam did not set well, so I think I will rework this batch, adding another box of pectin, OR maybe I will just strain it and make syrup. I dunno.

After the elderberries were done, we started on making grape jelly. This was my first foray into jelly making, but it won't be my last. About 3 years ago, I planted a Catawba grape in my garden, and this year, I got almost 5 pounds of grapes from the vine. I was psyched. I planted this variety specifically for juice and jelly, Concord likes NE, Catawba likes the South. It is very Concord like in appearance and use. Anyway, this turned out wonderful-it was so good, I was licking all the utensils, even the plate I sat the spoon on. I saved a swig of juice for Skyguy to try, and he loved it, so the Catawbas are definitely a valuable crop now. I'd like to get 10 pounds from that vine next year.

After the now purple kitchen was cleaned up, thanks to Ava who gave me a break from washing dishes, we decided to finish another project that I had been working on. Ava was fired up and worked like a dog. She's ten years my junior and worked circles around me today and I actually felt a bit old. In my own defense, I've been dealing with this vertigo like dizziness for a couple of days, along with a low grade fever and an ear ache. Obviously, it is an ear infection, else I have some kind of foreign object or bug inside my ear! During allergy season, I sometimes have ear problems, and if I don't stay on top of it, it just gets worse. Additionally, I've had a lot of stress in my life in recent weeks, and that has caused a psoriasis flare AND and RA flare. Today was the first day my jaw(from TMJ) was back properly aligned....but I digress. The point is, that I feel old and Ava was working circles around me. I had started making hot pepper oil this week and had the oil infusing in a large dutch oven inside of a black gas grill. I usually do the straining with coffee filters, but Ava came up with the idea to use the other jelly bag. What a timesaver! So, that project was finished quickly as I already had the bottles ready to go.

After Ava left-I decided that I needed to toss the elderberry waste and hope that I get a tree or two to come up on my property. Thinking 'full sun-moisture', I walked my property and tossed out seeds and seed heads in certain locations. JohnnyAppleseed reborn as Beverly Elderberry. Behind the house, where our greywater is treated(by canna, jewel weed, privet,elephant ears, and now elderberry), I happened to look back over towards the house to the fig trees and see another tree full of golden and purple figs. Ava and I had just picked them a few days ago and she made fig preserves from them. Since I wasn't up for more canning today, I grabbed a bowl and just started picking figs. I sneered at the nearby cardinal family that were yammering on at me while I picked. I came in, removed the stems, and sliced them in half vertically. They are now on the dehydrator. After a few hours of drying, I lightly sprinkled each fig with confectioner's sugar, like it really needed that, but it sure tastes good! So far so good. I'm hoping that I can substitute these dried figs for dates in my date bread recipe. If anyone knows what kind of fig these might be, I'd like to know. I cut one of these open and made an inset so you can see the inside. The quarter, of course, shows scale of the whole figs. The inset, sliced fig, is the one on the left. Anyway, the trees are 40+ years old. I've cut them down to the ground before, and they came back just as strong. I will be hard pruning them again this year. They are on a slope and the trees are taller than the house and it is difficult to harvest. Harvesting will be easier and safer if the trees are smaller.

So then, I realized that I had not been out to the garden today, so I grabbed a few bags and buckets and headed out there. I moved my mother hen and her chicks(only 2) to the chicken tractor, and cleaned up the mess out there where I had them sequestered. There is always some distraction around here first the figs, then chickens,,,,at any rate, I began picking tomatoes and tomorrow I will be canning tomatoes again. It seems to work out that every third day I can tomatoes. This time, I am drying some, along with the figs, the tomatoes are for pizza and whatnot, and will be making a few more jars of stewed toms. There are quite a few slicers in this batch, so I may end up cooking it into sauce, but we will see.

So while I was out there picking tomatoes, I happened to notice more beans that needed to be picked. I realized it had been a few days, so I started picking beans, too. Another gallon, and they are in a lull of sorts, but the flowers are picking up again, so it won't be long until I have more than I know what to do with.

Speaking of that, I am starting to get more and more okra. Skyguy wants fried okra, but I want to pickle it. I tried it for the first time and OMG, I kept eating it and eating it. Okra is so good for lowering cholesterol, and I know the vinegar is healthy. Thanks to my neighbors, Pat and Crystal for bringing me a jar of this wonderful stuff. I'm now addicted! I traded them a bottle of hot pepper oil...good trade, I think.

So after picking tomatoes and beans, and snacking on pickled okra, I blanched and froze the beans, did some laundry, took a shower, and called it a night. Skyguy cooked THE best dinner tonight. It was a Southwestern style grilled chicken salad with our cherry toms, scallions, avocado, romaine, feta, pine nuts, and the world's best lime and olive oil dressing. This salad was to die for!!

'Tis canning season. Tomorrow, we will be reworking some apple jelly and fig preserves that did not jel well. I should probably take my elderberries down there and rework them, too. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I'll be dreaming of pickled okra and stewed tomatoes!

Homemade Pimento Cheese

One of Skyguy's coworkers gave us some little cherry peppers, AKA pimento peppers. I decided I would make some homemade pimento cheese, or as we say in these parts, "perminner cheese", and attempted to google a recipe. Lo and behold, it appears that pimento cheese is a Southern thing. I had no clue. Who would have thunk that and why would that be so? Surely pimentos grow other places in the country, and surely others eat sharp cheese?

http://www.answers.com/topic/pimento

I had to pause and look around the web to try and answer my own questions and found this site which states that Georgia is the only state that really grows pimentos. That is just amazing to me. I have never grown these little peppers because I thought they were sweet peppers and I am a chili lover, but I know tons of people that grow these things in their backyard. Who knew they were pimentos??? Not I. Who know it was a Southern thing? Not I.

I grew up disliking the stuff, even though I LOVE cheese. My folks would spread storebought pimento cheese on their white bread and I would gag. It wasn't until a year or so ago that my friend from LA (Lower Alabama) introduced me to homemade pimento cheese from her grandfather's recipe. It is really simple: sharp cheddar cheese, grated fine, a jar of pimentos, mayo, (I also add a dash of garlic and onion powder), and a dash of tobasco. Oh my...whiz that around in the food processor and it is heavenly.

So now, I have the real peppers, not a jar, and I scour the internet looking for a recipe and cannot find one. How weird is that? So I took the peppers, removed the seeds and the insides --- saved those seed!!! --- and cut the peppers into strips. I threw them in a small frying pan with just a splash of olive oil and some garlic and salt. OH MY GOD, they were to die for!! I can't wait to make real pimento cheese in a bit. I don't think I will need the tobasco as these fresh peppers have just the right amount of heat. I simply cannot wait until next year to grow these peppers!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6877304

I did find this NPR page, which gives a bit of cultural background in the way of stories. Apparently, it is popular in the Philippines and in Hungary, too, or at least they eat something similar.

But yeah, before summer wanes, I want a big tall glass of milk, a homemade perminner cheese samwich, a huge dill pickle, and some tater chips. Good eats.

I keep reminiscing about summers past and wondering why I would eat only cheese (Cheez Whiz was my childhood favorite, but I don't like it now) and not pimento cheese sandwiches. Man, that was crazy.

Onward

What to write about....what to say...
I have lots to say about the things going on in the world, but since I can't change any of those things, there is no use in writing about it, except to say that contrary to what Nancy Pelosi says, I am one of the most patriotic people I know, and it is my right and duty to protest what I feel is a misstep in healthcare legislation.

I've been busy the last week or so, mostly gardening and canning, but also house cleaning and running errands. I may go back to work soon, and I feel unprepared with a zillion loose ends here that need tying. I really thought I would have heard something by now, and I really hate waiting.

The stress of it all has sparked an RA flare-up, and every joint in my body hurts and is stiff. I keep going, else I will be like the tin man and become stiff. When my RA flares like this, I end up totally exhausted because I don't want to sit down at all. It is too hard to get up. So, I channel the Energizer Bunny and head to the garden. I'm no speed demon, but I can get things done. Today, I planted English peas, snow peas, carrots, spinach, radishes, lettuce, and onions. I transplanted Brussel sprouts. Tomorrow, I'll finish sowing my brassicas: broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, and cabbage. The seedlings of broccoli and cauliflower are not ready for transplanting yet. Skyguy planted more sweet corn a few days ago. It will be a close call on getting it in before the first frost. In the last week, I've also planted more butternut squashes and a few cukes. Those squashes store really well, so if I can put a few in boxes, I won't be too hungry this winter. You just never know what the future holds with the economy teetering on the edge of disaster. One trucker's strike (Hi Trevor!) or a hurricane which disrupts the gasoline flow again, and the stores will be bare within a few weeks. If we all become home-bound due to swine flu, I'll be glad that I can make a nice, velvety butternut soup to comfort me.

About every three days or so, I can small batches of tomatoes. Because my stove doesn't get that hot anymore, and because I am too lazy to fire up the outdoor propane burner just yet, I've been hot water bath canning in my large, flat-bottomed Dutch oven. I can process 4 pints or 3 quart jars, about half as much as the rippled-bottom canning kettle. Because the Dutch oven heats quickly and more efficiently than the ripple bottom kettle, I can process two batches in the same time as one kettle full, so it doesn't slow me down much. I've canned stewed tomatoes, pizza sauce, plain tomato sauce, and tomato juice. The mixture of this year's tomato varieties has resulted in a very tasty sweet sauce, but the pH is right at 4.0, so it is safe to can. Yeah, the chemist tests sauce pH with pH paper strips-what can I say.

I've never grown sweet peppers. I do not like bell peppers, but I just love chili peppers and devote my garden space to the chilis. However, someone gave us a few banana peppers and they are pretty darn good. They smell like the little hot peppers you get with your Papa Johns pizza(I call those pepperoncini), but they are not hot at all. It is the strangest thing because they smell hot but don't taste hot. They are large, some are 6 inches long, and they look waxy like Hungarian Wax Chilis. I'm not quite sure what to do with them. Should I slice them and pickle them as pepper rings, or should I cut them into strips and maybe freeze them for use on pizzas??? Decisions, decisions. I may have to save the seeds from these-they are definitely interesting and not what I am used to eating. I wonder if they are really supposed to be hotter, but due to some soil condition or some other variable, they are super mild? Could that be?

Change of subject...
Snakes are crawling here in valley. Skyguy hit a big timber rattler on the way home from work a few days ago. He drove on home, picked me up, and we went back up the road to get a better look. That puppy had 11 rattles and a button and was as large as my arm. There was another dead snake on the road near here that was almost as large as the one Skyguy hit and killed. There seems to be a lot of snakes this year, but perhaps it is just that the neighbor's logging and tree thinning has stirred them up. The machinery and logging is in an area known for legendary-sized rattlesnakes. Habitat destruction is real and local.

Food in the Future

My new friend Dave has asked my opinion of the prediction of higher energy and food costs, possible shortages ahead, etc. All I can say is that I believe that to be true with every ounce of my being. I've long believed that we would see much hardship in my lifetime. I've tried to prepare by living simply, learning skills, and being frugal. I grow and preserve what I can, we hunt and fish, and we try to live close to the land. I've tried to learn about native plants and herbs in the event that medicines are scarce or non-available. For a while, I raised dairy goats and learned to make cheese and process milk. We've raised rabbits, pigs, goats, sheep and all manner of critters except cattle. Many people have asked why I don't sell my farm products, and the simple answer is that people will not pay enough to offset costs. I justify my own costs with the knowledge that I know what I am eating, how it was grown or raised, etc. I think I eat healthier than most people, even though I eat a fat-laden diet. I know that I am not poisoning myself with pesticides or herbicides.

The plight of farmers is all over the news. California may have happy cows, but the farmers are going out of business. Equipment costs, testing, transportation, and the cost of growing food for the cows all add up to drive the cost of a gallon of milk through the roof. Patented seed and chemicals have made Monsanto et. al. rich and left farmers poor. The rising price of oil and fuel has put a hurtin' on large agribusiness farmers who need specialized equipment to grow and harvest crops, and on the the truckers who transport the food to the processor and then on to grocery stores.

It is a no-brainer that we are headed for hard times. When I was born, the world population was about 3 billion, the US population was about 180 million, and the population of the county that I grew up in was 114,000. Today, world population is 6.6 billion+, US population is about 300 million+, and Cobb County has about 700,000 people. My local population increased five fold, and the world population doubled. By contrast, natural resources are diminishing, not growing. It is a train wreck that will have a gory outcome, and no one wants to think about it. To make matters worse, I believe there will be people, an elite class, that profit from the suffering of the general population. I believe that the decline has already begun. And no, I don't think it has much to do with politics or any particular politician. It is a global problem that no one is trying in earnest to solve. The only thing I can do is to try to reduce my dependence on utilities and purchased goods and live close to the vest. The Earth cannot afford too many of us living extravagantly, and far too many people in this country live above their means, which in the end will only increase their suffering. We have chosen a home away from city conveniences, a home that is modest and heated only by wood. Our water is from a well, and we protect the well because it is the life-blood of this land. Georgia and Tennessee are already battling over Georgia's claim to a spot on the Tennessee River, and that is child's play compared to western states' battles over water. I think, in my lifetime, we will see wars fought over water rights and development rights for production of electricity. Water rights are already a key issue in solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It is a problem which will only get worse. Yeah, I believe that food shortages are coming.

Normal Day

We have about a 30% chance of rain over the last few days-30% everyday-but alas, not a drop of rain fell here. It is overcast, and and at least not stifling hot. I picked tomatoes and beans this morning, as usual, and came in to wash up, as usual. I'd love to know what it is about garden plants-beans, tomatoes, everything, that makes my arms itch! I either wear long sleeves or have to come in and wash with soap and cold water. It is as if there are microscopic fibers-akin to fiberglass-on the plants. Why me? Oh well, that's the breaks.

Today I've been subjected to the obnoxious sound of machinery. They are thinning pine trees across from me-imagine logging sounds-skidders, saws, trucks coming and going...Right now, the view of that treeline is hidden from the house view due to the leaves still being on the trees. I'm almost afraid to walk down there to see what it really looks like-the view I will have in the winter. I hope he is only thinning and not clear-cutting. Logging you say? In north Georgia? Yup. Logging. It is a major industry in this area, right up there with poultry farming..lol.



I painted the chicken coop the other day-it is a nice green color now. I thought painting the coop was a good idea to give me a chance to see how the color would look in this environment before we bought house paint. I like the color-it blends well with the woods and surroundings-but I'm not sold on how it looks with the roof shingles, which are a tan color. It took 3/4 gallon to paint the coop, and I suppose I will paint the old wellhouse with the remainder. If there is any leftover after that, maybe I will paint an adirondack chair or the mailbox. I've sworn off saving paint cans. No mas.

I was outside with Bingo today when I saw an unusual sight: a dung beetle. I've seen one before so I knew there was a population of them, but this is only the second time I've one in action. In the 90 seconds that it took me to get my camera, the beetle had rolled the ball of dung almost 3 feet across the leaf litter. It was quite amazing, and I wondered how the beetle keeps his sense of direction being upside down and backwards to the direction he was moving the ball.

Bingo is growing like a weed, and he seems to be a lot more loving with the collar on. If you scratch his ears, he is your friend for life. When we were out today, his ears looked very cute inside the collar. I tried to catch it with the camera, but the image at right is as close as I came. He is just too cute.



I also took some shots of my seedlings. The image at right is actually Brussel Sprouts. It is my last try to grow them before I give it up entirely. I have another tray like that of cabbage, and a large 72 pot tray of broccoli. I also have some onions. Wish me luck.

Midsummer Garden Happenings

It's been a few weeks since I gave a garden update, and now I have to subject you to a really long post. I apologize. I'll try to get some pics up soon.

We've been quite busy around here with the garden, canning, dog training, etc. This past weekend, we also kept our granddaughter. I'm trying to take it easy and follow the doctor's orders, but it is hard. The sutures are gone, but I still have to elevate my foot 50% of the time, 30 minutes for every hour I am up. Worse still, I can't wear normal shoes yet and am still in the surgical shoe. The incision is healing nicely; there's a nice, raised, hard ridge at the site. The pain is really minimal, more in my pinky toe itself than in the joint for whatever reason. At least now I can take a shower, swim, etc. I've haven't done any heavy garden work, mostly picking beans and such. Skyguy has been picking veggies, watering, monitoring for bugs, staking tomatoes, etc. He tilled a patch and planted more okra, too. I'm really quite impressed with his gardening.
Anyway, I just want to ride my bike. I've gained back about 12 pounds of what I lost, and I am not happy about it. I really should have dieted, but dang, when you are laid up, you get bored, and boredom leads to eating!

Bed 1 is a hodgepodge of plants. I did not get cages around my tomatoes early, so they, like kudzu, have sprawled over the bed and they are taking over! I have about 3 romas and a serrano pepper, a poblano pepper, butternut squash, two eggplants and probably something else in that bed that is lost under the vines. At the east end of that bed, there are a few blue lake bean seeds that have not germinated. That raised bed is next to the chicken run, and in the foot wide space between the bed and the run I've planted sorghum which is about 12 feet tall and almost mature. I've already bend some of the canes over into the chicken run to feed the chooks on the fly.

Bed 2 just has dill in it right now after I pulled up and harvested all of the cauliflower that was in it previously. It was not a good year for cauliflower, but I did get a few meals out of it. I'll replant soon.

Bed 3 has a couple of toms, a butternut squash, and blue lake bush beans that are just coming up. There is a tomatillo volunteer and two Anaheim peppers.

There is nothing in bed 4. I'm hoping it will be ready to plant in the Spring.

Bed 5 has one very large and sprawling yellow crookneck squash and some Tendercrop green beans that are just starting to flower.

Bed 6 is empty and won't be planted until late 2010

Now, for the in ground plants:
Peanuts: I only had about 20% germination, but I left them alone hoping to at least get enough nuts to roast for a snack. If I am lucky, I might get enough for one jar of peanut butter. I had hoped to get enough for 4 jars, but a vole or mouse or something ate the nuts. They are just now flowering, so it will be a while before I can use that space.

I have another large crookneck squash in the ground, as well as a zucchini, and all of my squashes, both winter and summer, are doing great. I've been diligently killing squash bug eggs and it is paying off. For winter squashes I have planted butternut and acorn squashes inside and outside the garden fence in various places. I'm hoping to fill up at least one laundry basket of each type. For the summer squashes, we grill them fresh, I freeze some, and I make squash
casseroles and freeze those. I also make squash bread from both zukes and yellow squash-no use wasting the big ones, I just grate them up and then make and freeze the bread. It is a banana bread recipe, but I sub 2 cups of grated squash for the bananas. I make loaf pans and muffins that I can freeze and eat later for breakfast and snack food.

We are starting to get some okra(Dwarf Lee is the variety) and we have just planted Clemson Spineless. Since it is Skyguys's first year in the garden, he wanted to grow what everyone else grows, so we have hybrid corn, a hybrid tomato, and the Clemson Spineless....

The strawberries are going like gangbusters, but they are a bit smaller than I would like. I think they need fertilizer and water. Even so, they are tasty and I'm picking a bit more than a pint a day. All 3 grapevines(Remailly seedless, Catawba, Mars seedless) have multiple clusters of grapes, and I've been picking blueberries for a week now. The blackberries are in the freezer already. It looks to be a good apple year, but I don't see but a few pears and no plums. In hills
around the garden, in addition to the winter squashes, I have a few pickling cukes, a couple of Georgia rattlesnake watermelons, and scads of sweet potatoes. I hope to have a laundry basket of sweet potatoes as well.

I planted a 10x12 patch of small, teeny-tiny red field peas the way my friend James suggested. I scuffed up the ground, hand cast the peas, and covered them with waste hay. The peas came up great, and they still look great. It takes about 100 days for these peas, and I am right at Day 85. Next year, I'll grow more peas and black beans this way.

I've got 3 areas of corn. The first group was sweet corn planted just after Easter. This corn really has not produced, tassled at only 2 feet tall. No one around here that planted corn early has any-it was a bad year for early corn-too much rain early on, I think. We got a few stunted ears which were delicious, but we only got a few meals instead of being able to load the freezer. However, as bad as the early corn was, the late corn was good. I had a beautiful stand of Bloody Butcher corn that was 6ft tall or more until late last week when a summer thunderstorm downburst flattened it. I'm crushed. I tried to stand it backup, but the canes just broke. I planted this corn deeper than usual, about 2 inches deep, just to prevent this problem, but to no avail. I'm hoping that there is enough corn left standing to at least regain my seed. Corn plot #3 is another plot of hybrid, Early and Often, that Skyguy planted in a dog kennel out behind the barn to keep the distance from the other corn and to protect it from the deer. It is doing well- about 2 feet tall now. This is not the first time I've lost corn to thunderstorms and lodging. I've planted deeper, I've hilled up around the plants..I've ruled out rootworms. I just don't know what else to do. Obviously, my garden spot, which is just a few hundred feet downwind of a ridge, is where the storms dump their downbursts. The storms are uplifted by the western side of the ridge, but once the storm crosses the ridge line, the mountain starts to break them up and in the process they dump wind in a downburst or straight lines. The ridge protects us from super cell storms, but this is the downside of it. Skyguy wants to try allowing the corn to grow up through cattle panel placed waste high, but I don't know. It seems rather silly-no one else does it, but, really, I'm ready to try odd things to save the corn. Maybe I should grow it in small plots and put posts on the corners and then run string around it and through it to support the stalks. Maybe growing it in hills would be better. At least with a 3 sisters style arrangement in a hill, I would not get the domino effect of toppling corn like I saw in the block. I'm open for suggestions. Help.

Sunday, I pulled up, peeled, blanched and froze carrots. I julienned some for salads and stirfries, and I used the small ends in some pickled jalapenos for color. I'm going to try and replant the tops, too. I need to now amend the 12 foot long bed and add some soil and in a few weeks I will replant more carrots. There are a few chard plants left in that bed, and I'll cut them back, too. In addition to more carrots, I'll plant some radishes and beets. Also next week, I'll move some cattle panels around and resow some snow peas, turnips, and English peas for the Fall.

Also on Sunday I canned some jalapeno peppers with some carrots. Soon, we will make cucumber pickles. I grew up with a certain kosher dill pickle recipe, but Skyguy wants to experiment to see if we can find something more crisp. We bought one of those Mrs. Wages mixes, and I'll make a pint plain, and then mix and match the ingredients to see what he will like and think works best. Some jars will have grape leaves, some will have garlic, some will have dill heads, some will have dill seed and weed, and some will have all of the above. I already know that the jars with everything in it will be my favorites, but he wasn't raised in a canning/gardening family and he is enjoying the experimentation of it all, so since we have plenty of cukes, why not? Some of the best discoveries in the world were accidents. Viagra did not help the angina of Welsh miners, but hey, we all know what is does help!

Beans...I've got a million beans, but because I was trying to get rid of old seeds, I have a little bit of a lot of things. Some were old and had poor germination, some just did not provide enough plants. Long story shorter, I haven't canned or frozen any beans yet, but we are eating good every night. I did give some away, too. We've planted the equivalent of a 100 ft row or more of blue lake bush beans and they are just now breaking ground so two months from now, I should be able to can beans. I'm still getting beans, but that should wane over the next few weeks. The wax beans are in a lull, the Roma II bush beans are waning, the KY wonder pole beans are hitting stride, the yard long beans are starting to flower, and the Royal Burgundy bush beans will be ready to pick within the week. It's a lot of beans.

And now, the tomatoes....finally, I am starting to get some ripe cherry toms. Some of the Romas are ripening, but only one of the slicing toms is getting ripe and that is Skyguy's Better Boy. However, in a week or so, definitely by two weeks, I will be canning and making tomato products. I expect to be doing that for the next month or so. I've started washing mason jars and getting everything ready. I washed and sterilized the Victorio strainer, a device I use to make the paste and sauces. It's a good thing. I don't even know how many tomato plants I have -more than 50- and probably 60% of them are paste types(Roma, Sausage, Oxheart, etc), 10% are cherry(Super Sweet 100 and Husky Red Cherry), and the rest are slicers/sandwich tomatoes (Brandywines, Caspian pinks, Mortgage Lifter, Abraham Lincoln etc.). I'll be making tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomato juice, V8 juice, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, chili base, and a bit of salsa in addition to stewed toms. I still have some salsa from last year, but I might make a bit if I get overrun with peppers. I'd really rather dry the serranos as I use those in guacamole.
Speaking of guacamole, I've started about 7 or 8 avocado trees. I know I won't get avocados here, but hey, they make nice houseplants and I can always hope for a miracle. Who knows what global warming will do, right? There's got to be an upside to it, and if I could grow avocados, I'd be super happy!

It is time to plant and plan for the Fall crops, and I started that Saturday. I planted the following in those little peat pots to be transplanted later:

72 broccoli plants-Green Goliath-a new variety I am trying
25 cabbage plants-Danish Ballhead-seeds are from 2007-yikes
25 Brussel Sprouts-Catskill-it's the last time I'll try growing Brussel Sprouts..I mean it this time.
22 Red onions, with more to be planted in the ground in mid August

Next week, I'll plant Snow peas, English peas, radishes and carrots. The other big job I need to do is to dig potatoes. I have different varieties in multiple places that would amount to about a thirty foot row. I really hope that the Yukon Gold produced well.

Mid August, I'll plant more carrots collards, kale, beets, salad greens, spinach, turnips(both the root and the greens), Osaka purple mustard, and of course the brassicas and plants I sowed today will go to the ground. Neither of us have ever eaten kale, but I'm hoping it will be a green we can harvest all winter. Skyguy is the one who wants all of these Southern greens...I personally don't care for collards or turnips(the greens are okay though), and I like beet greens better than mustard, but we are trying to find things that we can harvest in the winter that we both like and that would be healthy for us. At some point after that, I will sow some Aquadulce Fava beans as a cover crop in the spot where I'll grow corn next year.

A month or so ago, I planted a seed packet of Artichokes. There were 8 seeds in the pack, and I got 7 plants to transplant size. Unfortunately, between the heat, the puppy, the chicken, and just bad luck, I only have one plant left. I'll be sowing more, I think. I've grown fond of artichoke hearts and perennial vegetables are king!

The other major garden venture that we have in the works is a plan to expand the asparagus bed. Now that Skyguy eats it, we need more, so I'll be tilling and double digging an area near the water line to the barn, along the outside of the garden fence-essentially a 50 foot double row. The water line presents a problem in the initial dig-I'll have to be super careful, but it should not hamper the asparagus' growth and the extra mulch feeding in the fall should help insulate the PVC water line from the cold.

So that's the plan!

Baking Day, Part II

My foot is good and swollen tonight after two days of standing in the kitchen baking. Today, I made 3 more pizza crusts, some cheese breadsticks (see picture), a zucchini nut bread and zucchini pecan muffins. I did not get around to making the saltines. The cream cheese pound cake I made is excellent, but the vanilla one is overcooked. I sliced off the crusts and have saved the guts of the cake. I'll freeze it for a special occasion, then make some type of tort dessert, layers of pound cake, berries, and whipped cream.

At any rate, I like batch cooking, especially batch baking. I find that if I know I have 2 dozen muffins, then I don't crave them. By baking my pizza crusts in advance, I can make pizza in less than 30 minutes for a quick dinner. I made my own pizza sauce, too. The bread machine does all the hard work, and in less than 3 hours, I have 5 crusts ready to load up with good food, a head start on 5 dinners. Other big advantages to batch cooking, in addition to simply saving time and for the convenience on a night when you are too tired to cook, is that you can have a ready meal when you are too sick to cook for yourself. I make and can homemade soups just for this purpose. Also, by baking cakes and making casseroles in advance, you just pull something out of the freezer to take to a neighbor's house in the event there is a death or they need help cooking, etc. It's a good thing.

Skyguy and I miscommunicated on dinner this evening. He was being sweet and brought home KFC, but I had already cooked spaghetti sauce with some grated squash added, not to mention the breadsticks. I suppose we will eat that tomorrow for dinner. I haven't had KFC in a while, mainly because we don't eat out much, and secondly because the local KFC has been closed for remodeling after a fire. It just reopened a few weeks ago. It has probably been a year since I ate KFC fried chicken, and maybe it is just me, but it wasn't good. The extra crispy crust wasn't crispy at all, nor did it have the flavor I expected. I don't know what kind of change they've made, but Harlan Sanders would roll over in his grave if he tasted that. My favorite is Church's Chicken, but there isn't a store near here. Bojangles will have to do, because I certainly don't want KFC again. I probably should just start frying it at home. I did pretty good on the last batch, but I just don't fry that much. I do love fried chicken though, and I know that I can do better than the crap we got from KFC tonight.

Skyguy also picked up a couple seed packets of bush beans since we had low germination on the Blue Lake and Contender beans from 2006. I think we have just enough time to get another batch of beans in before frost. We are getting beans, and this morning I finally picked enough to can, but I think I will freeze them instead. Hopefully, in a few months, we will still be eating beans from the Royal Burgundy and the Asparagus beans so I will be able to can the Blue Lakes I will plant tomorrow. Pressure canning is such a pain for me because my stove doesn't get hot enough and because pressure canners scare me. I usually do this on the propane burner outside, just in case of an explosion. I can do 7 quarts at a time, and canning like that, in the heat, just drags on and on. Blanching and freezing is much faster, and I actually have room in the freezer for a few quarts of beans. But, I've been trying to can more and freeze less, so that I can eliminate one of my freezers and save on the power bill and reduce my demand for energy in general. The other day I came across a list of things you can do to save money and energy, and I'd like to pass them on to you.

1. When you buy gasoline, make your purchase at night. At night, temperatures are cooler and that makes gasoline more dense. Since the pumps measure gas by volume, you will actually get more gas—it will be cheaper overall.

2. On long trips, keep your windows closed at high speeds—drag from open windows reduces a car’s fuel efficiency by 10 percent. If your truck gets 15 miles to the gallon, you could get 16.5 miles to the gallon. Over a year's time, the savings add up.

3. Cleaning 100 pounds of junk from your car will get you up to 2 percent more miles per gallon. That is like getting a free tank of gas over the span of a year.

4. If you are going to be baking at 350 degrees, and the oven is not packed full, wrap and bake some potatoes for quick meals, lunches, and snacks. Or, use stale bread to make and freeze garlic toast for those nights when you just want bread with your pork chops or salad. Just as you should run full loads of laundry and dishes, try to fill the oven as well.

This N That

Monday I went to the doc to have my bandage changed, and while I had hoped to convince him to remove the sutures in my foot, I will have to wait another week. Note to self, work on powers of manipulation, cast magic manipulation spells, and perhaps sex up requests using the word 'please'. Yeah, that's the ticket.

While in Rome, we checked out the new Cycle Therapy bike store. They've moved to the center of town and are sponsoring a local Sprint Triathlon, the second annual Navigator Triathlon to support Cancer patients in our area . Kate and Jon have decided to attempt the triathalon in September, so it should be a lot of fun to watch. Skyguy might even try it. I can't because my foot won't be well enough to train in time for the event. This is an abbreviated competition consisting of a 500 meter swim, a 12 mile bike ride, and a 3.1 mile run.

http://www.navigatortriathlon.com/

It's being held at a nearby state park. We are already riding 12 miles over hilly terrain, so that would be the 'easy' part for us. Running would be the hardest leg, and these races are almost always won on the run. A good runner can make up for being a mediocre swimmer. Skyguy and I decided it would be a lot of fun to complete one of these things, but we would have to take it slow and train well, making sure not to overtrain and risk injury. Neither of us deals well with high impact activity like running, so it would be a risky venture, but don't you think it would be a cool thing for a couple of geezers like us to do? I do! Anyway, we went to the bike store to look at road bike tires and I noticed that they had all of their womens apparel half off. I'd been looking for a pair of riding shorts since before we went on vacation. They are padded, and wick moisture away from the body. The tight fit compresses muscles, reducing recovery time and bruising. I'd been looking at the various styles of riding shorts, but finding them in my size is daunting. I'm still overweight, and in case you had not noticed, most serious cyclists are rail thin. Usually I see Small and X-Small, maybe a Medium, but nothing designed by Omar the Tentmaker. However, I suppose it was my lucky day at Cycle Therapy as I found a skort in an XL that will be great for riding. (I'm 5'11 and 190#) It is a Shebeest Cycloskort like the one on this page:

http://www.bikesomewhere.com/bikesomewhere.cfm/product/391/3743/31592

Don't freak on the price...no way I could afford that, and I paid less than half of that price. Anyway, for a woman of my age and shape, I think this was a good choice in shorts. If I had to, I could swim in it as well. But for now, I can't ride or swim or run. I can do tai chi though. The doc said I could ride a stationary bike on Monday. Woot!

Tuesday, in addition to my David Carradine Tai Chi tape exercise 'workout', I clipped more herbs from the herb garden and hung them to dry. I harvested some more oregano and marjoram, as well as lemon balm and horehound. I also tore up and jarred up some mullein that was dry. After washing and hanging the clippings, I decided to make a cough syrup from the fresh horehound. I stripped the leaves and buds from the stems and put it in the food processor to chop it and bruise the leaves. I probably had 2 cups of crushed horehound leaves and 1/2 c of mullein leaves. Both are expectorants. Then, I added it to about a cup of lemon juice and a bit of water. I brought the concoction to a boil, then allowed it to steep for a few minutes. I separated the plant matter out by straining it, and then added 2 cups of locally produced honey to the 'tea'. When the time comes to use it, I'll probably doctor it up with cayenne pepper and garlic, too, depending on how I feel. Adding some dried lemon balm might make it taste better, too. Horehound is good for making cough drops, too, but I don't have a candy thermometer at present and I did not feel like standing at the stove all day. Mullein is a great herb that grows wild almost everywhere. Not only is is a good expectorant, but it is good for the respiratory system in general. It can be smoked in a pipe to counter asthma or pneumonia. Some companies use it in their herbal cigarettes, replacing tobacco.Its tall yellow flower spikes and fuzzy leaves make it easily visible on roadsides for wild collecting. These pages have a lot of good info on mullein, but they are by no means complete:

http://www.herbcraft.org/mullein.html
http://www.prodigalgardens.info/march%20weblog.htm

While I am no expert, I do consider myself somewhat of an herbalist. Additionally, while I would not characterize myself as a person of faith, I do believe that there is great wisdom in the Bible. I found this quote from Psalms: "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man" Psalms 104:14a Pretty cool. I really like the Psalms. Another of my favorites is: "The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display His marvelous workmanship." (Ps. 19:1,2)

Yesterday, my friend Ava and I picked the last of the blackberries from Patch #1 on the mountain, and we both ended up getting chiggers for our trouble. New bites, and I still have sores from the last time I picked berries before my surgery. I did get enough berries for a cobbler or pie, but there is yet another patch, my Secret Patch, of blackberries to pick, and hopefully I can get another quart or two. It has been so dry lately that the yellow jackets are sucking the juice from the berries. I'll need to start picking blueberries soon before the wasps suck them dry, too.

Speaking of berries, I got about a quart of strawberries from my plants yesterday as well, and we enjoyed them mixed with some sugar and a few blueberries over angel food cake last night. Berry good!

Save the Lightning Bugs

I live in the boonies where there are lots of woods and pastures, but I grew up in a woodsy subdivision in a suburban area. As a kid, I caught lightning bugs and put them in a pickle or mayonnaise jar. (Remember that smell of lightning bugs in a pickle jar??) It never took but a few minutes to catch enough to fill a jar. Now, even though lightning bugs, AKA fireflies, exist here in large populations, I don't think I have more here than I did 75 miles south of here as a kid, and I think, due to all the grassy pastures in this area, I should have more. I've read a few articles on the subject of fireflies and I'm not alone in thinking that there are fewer lightning bugs now than there were 40 years ago.

Old timers and youngsters alike enjoy being outside and watching or catching lightning bugs in the summer. It is almost a ritual among kids, and a sign that the day is drawing to a close. If we were playing outside, we knew, without a watch or cellphone, that it was time to go home when we saw the first lightning bug flash. These little buggers seem to transport us back in time into a majestic world-a world without troubles or worry. It doesn't matter how old you are, if you catch a few lightning bugs, you feel like a kid again. Watching a jar light up a dark room is as memorizing as a watching a bonfire or watching aquarium fish. It is magical, and I would bet that doing this on a regular basis, like petting your dog, would lower blood pressure.

We moved here in October and that first summer was one that I will never forget. We had not bushhogged the pasture yet, and since the property had been rented before we moved in, I can say that it had probably been more than a year, perhaps as many as four years, since the pasture had been cut at all. Obviously, during that time, fireflies reproduced and their populations exploded. One night, after a summer rain at dusk, we went out to inspect the electric fence for shorts. Out in the pasture, just above the waist high grass, were millions of lightning bugs, and to my amazement, they blinked in unison. It was an unforgettable sight, one that I will remember for the rest of my life.

That experience made me do a bit of research on the insect that I thought I knew so well. During the daytime, fireflies, their larvae and nymphs live in the grass or soil (for larvae) where they can extract the moisture they need to survive. Drought conditions can really affect firefly populations. Until I moved to this rural location, I had never seen the larval stage of the firefly beetle. They are commonly known as "glowworms" and you can see them in the grass near dusk. Their bioluminescence lingers a bit, giving them the 'glowing' appearance. Because these beetles and their offspring spend the daylight hours on the ground, they become victims of lawnmowing and lawn chemicals, pesticides and herbicides. In neighborhoods where the lawns are kept short and green, you may not see lightning bugs at all. These little guys find their mates by flashing. The males fly around and flash and the females flash back from a branch or tall grass perch. If you caught only the flying lightning bugs, chances are you caught predominantly males. The behavior of flashing in unison is apparently part of that mating behavior as it has been observed in Smoky Mountain National Park in the month of June. Some scientists believe that light pollution from patios and street light hampers mating due to light overload, leading to confusion in locating the opposite sex.

If you want to learn more about lightning bugs, try this link:

https://www.mos.org/fireflywatch/about_firefly_watch

If you homeschool, there is also a great science project for the kids.