Do you remember the galimotos that the kids made at Amie’s birthday party? Â They’re all finished now: all heads glued on, legs working (got rid of those second knees) and ready to go to their new homes.
Here’s the motley crew again up close.
Putting Up for Winter
Here’s a little post I’ll return to from time to time to add what I’ve put up. There’s already a lot of frozen beans and carrots stashed away, so I’m started in medias res here.
August 22: sauced Freecycled apples. Result:
- apple sauce: 8 pints
August 24: sauced more Freecycled apples with the tribe (read here). Result:
- apple sauce: 5 pints
August 29-30: canned a lot of peaches, all kinds of recipes (see here). Result:
- peaches in light syrup: 23 pints
- peach pickles: 4 pints
- peach butter: 37 half pints
- peach salsa: 4 half pints
- peach jam: 7 half pints
September 3: canning reported on here. Result:
- summer squash relish: 5 pints
- dilly beans: 2 pints
October 6: 1 bushel McIntosh from Carlson ( blogged here). Result:
- dehydrated 1 peck
- sauced 2 pecks: 14 1/2 pints and 8 pints
October 10:Â Lots of food from our town’s last Farmers Market and the CSA box. Result:
- dilly beans (same recipe as on Sept 3): 5 pints
- zucchini relish (same recipe as summer squash relish, Sept 3, which is delish): 6 pints
October 12-13-14: Abundant apples from Nicewicz Farm, blogged here. Result:
- dehydrated apples: 3 pecks
- applesauce: 9 quarts, 2 pints
October 24: pears from  Nicewicz Farm, blogged here. Result:
- pears in light syrup: 4 quarts, 1 pint
- pear butter: 5 8 oz., 3 pints
Local Lunch and other Food
Pickling summer squash into a relish, using this recipe (which is not an endorsement, just a record so that, if we do like it, I know how I prepared it – {UPDATE: After tasting it, I DO endorse it}), CSA squashes, zucchinis and green peppers colonizing my fridge and homegrown onions. (for the record: I used HOT dry mustard, and a sprinkle of ground cinnamon as my cinnamon sticks went missing). This made 5 pints.
Also, two pints of dilly beans with the best of this morning’s bean harvest, following this recipe (using four small old cloves of garlic and mustard seeds, not dill seeds, but I added some dill weed). {UPDATE: After tasting it, I endorse it}
I’m using the last of the garlic that I planted in Fall 2011Â (4 lbs of local seed garlic) and harvested two summers ago. What a keeper, but obviously at the end of their tether. I didn’t plant garlic last Fall, so now I’m looking at a gap in my garlic supply. Darn. There’s a group of us buying (hopefully) local seed garlic together to plant this Fall, so I won’t let it happen again.
I had already dug into my lunch, with relish,  when I realized that everything on the place (except for the salt, pepper and sugar) is local. Tomatoes,  beans, onions, squash and eggs from the garden, and the applesauce apples from the next town over (windfall from Freecycle).
First Day of School Harvest
Amie was so excited about the first day of school (third grade) that she was awake until 11:30 last night. Still, she was up bright and early and happily went off to school. First thing I did after she and DH had left was visit the garden. I harvested all the beans from the other bed, a big cucumber, some strawberries and little tomatoes. Looks like my tomatoes and potatoes are the only ones unaffected by the blight. The Community Gardens have it bad, as well as many gardening friends in the neighborhood. Even though I didn’t set out to grow tomatoes this year and all these are volunteers and gifted plants, I’m not complaining!
It’s strange to think that Summer is winding down. But so it goes.
The Geometry of a Peach
The tribe canned peaches all day (photo essay by fellow blogger and member of the tribe here). From 10 am to 6 pm, we packed peach quarters in light syrup. I believe the last count was 50 pints. About 90 lbs of peaches. We had two canners going. One person dunked the peaches in hot water, the other peeled and quartered, and the third packed. That was me, I was the packer. Hence “the geometry of a peach”: how to fit as many irregularly shaped and sized peaches as  possible into a pint jar? There are many ways.
I brought the most bruised and overripe peaches home and turned them into peach butter. It’s almost midnight and the rolling boil on them has just started. Â In my basement, another 70 lbs or so waiting to be be processed. I’ll make more peach butter, of course, which is a staple in our house, and a favorite gift.
A Day of Food
In the afternoon I felt better. A friend came over – with three carrots from her garden, instantly eaten – to sort through what turns out to be 160 lbs of peaches. We put aside the ripest ones for canning tomorrow, but the rest will be ready on Friday. We’re going to put up peaches in light syrup first. Then, if there is still time remaining, we’ll make peach butter.
I harvested another 2 1/2 lbs of haricots verts from one bed – the mosquitoes prevented me from getting the other bed as well. I’m freezing most of it, eating the rest for dinner. I’m hoping those two beds may give me a third round of beans. New flowers are developing, so with luck… I also got the last elderberries, some of which are going into tonight’s ice cream, drizzled with honey. Elderberries are the only food with some bitterness in it that Amie will eat.
Also, a wonderfully sweet cucumber, not pictured because I ate it on the way in, and more tomatoes.
And figs. The purple ones were tiny but very sweet.
I’m baking a roll cake (“heat wave cake“) for “the tribe” at tomorrow’s canning party.
What day is not a food day in August?
Crafty Debranding
Today Amie and I had planned to go on the first leg of the Energy Exodus march, but a nasty and (f0r me) unusual allergy attack had me up till 4 am, when I caved and finally took that Benadryl. I never take those because they knock me out completely. I woke up late, still drowsy, and told Amie we wouldn’t be going. She was disappointed. She really wanted to march and say her piece. We had made a great sign for her to hold:
The Exodus is a five-day walk, though, so we’ll try to hop on in the middle, or meet them at the end.
In between sniffles, relishing the cleansing sweat in the hot sun, I watered the thirsty garden (by hand; the irrigating tote has been empty for a while now). I also put the two poor pullets back into their little coop. The poor things were exhausted from hiding in dear and being pecked on, and then when one broke an egg they were so hungry – the hens hadn’t allowed them to eat much – they went for it. Not a good thing! Maybe I set them back to square one by pulling them out, but perhaps they just need to put on a little more weight. We’ll see.
Back inside Amie and I turned to her old school backpack. It’s the one she used the year before last year, a hand-me-down that is still in very good shape. Amie wanted “something new,” though, so we decided to decorate it. She made the designs and we applied our considerable sewing skills (ahem) to it. At first she wanted to keep the brand name visible, but when we talked about how it is now really her backpack, she asked to cover it up. Voila, debranded!
She is so proud of it. As she sewed, she kept chattering about how her friends will be SO AMAZED. They’d better be!
Yes Peaches
A canning buddy picked these up at a local IPM Â farm today. I had pursued the farmer for over a week, asking for his seconds. I called him almost every day and each time he reported he didn’t have ’em. Then he took pity on me and gave us these firsts for just a fraction more than he’d ask for seconds ($20 for 20 lbs). So here they are, 160 pounds of prime peaches.
I’m so happy they’re not too ripe yet, because tomorrow Amie and I are joining a group from Wayland to march in the Energy Exodus. We’ll be canning on Thursday. Peaches in syrup, peach butter, peach salsa, pickled peaches…
What’s Been Happening
I laid down the first three rows of the brick wall for the earth oven (more on that soon). It didn’t have to be pretty (we’ll cover this with mud in the end), just strong. Though I got in a groove, I decided to wait to open another bag of cement and put down another three layers till this has dried and I can see that it works. {UPDATE} next day: I kicked it and it didn’t budge! Three more rows coming up, today. Then fill it up and add another three rows, and cap it and we’ll have the base.
With two friends, I sauced and canned a little over a bushel of local, organic and free Freecycle apples. The apples were delicious but very small and therefore a pain to peel, but time flew as we chatted. Â We’re getting four bushels of peaches soon and will can those together as well.
I’m happy, overall, with the buckwheat (all those white flowers) in the Community Garden Plot. In places it grew waist high and smothered most of the weeds. It’ll be a lot of biomass to till in when it’s time to sow the winter rye. Finally some good news from that garden!
I admire my birthday present – the Gransfors Burks small splitting axe – every day. I swung it a couple of times, but feel I need some mentoring.
More elderberries (they go into smoothies), tomatoes and pole beans, LOTS of them suddenly. Good, because the bush beans were done too soon this year.
We put the two pullets in with the four hens. There is no mixing as yet, but there was less pecking and fighting today than there was yesterday. In the evening we still had to pick them up and move them into the coop and onto the roost.
Berries
A ten-minute visit to “the pit” – the bramble-infested front of our property, at the bottom of the slope – yielded a handful of raspberries and a handful of elderberries. Amie loves the former and even the latter, raw, if very ripe and black.
Don’t worry, we did NOT consume the other berries in the picture – the ones still attached to the leaf for easier identification. Though yummy-looking, they are toxic, being berries of the climbing nightshade. Those we tossed.