Cabinet painting...

I love how the sunshine is coming low into the windows with the short, fall days.  I had to click this pic of our applesauce in the glowing sunlight of late afternoon.  My daughters and one of their friends came and we had a big day of making applesauce a week ago.  It was fun and busy with twelve children running hither and yon while we were busy in the kitchen.

I've been painting my lower cabinets for several weeks.  My cabinets are only 5 years old, and were  put in new in 2012.  They were chipping and getting water damaged, especially around the sink, and so I decided it was time to repair them and repaint.  My cabinets were all cream like the upper cabinets.  I chose to go with Annie Sloan's chalk paint in French Linen for the lower cabinets.  I am really happy with the results.  It is not perfect, but it is perfect enough for me.  After priming and painting them with two coats of chalk paint, I then sealed them with three coats of MinWax Poly-crylic in a flat finish.  Traditionally, Annie Sloan paint is sealed with wax, but I chose a hard sealant by using the poly to keep water problems at bay.  The poly was a water-based latex so it was easy to apply, clean up,  and it dried fast between coats.

I'm linking a great little web page here that shows you all of the Annie Sloan colors as well as what they look like when you apply the dark wax to them.  This same site has lots of tips for painting with Annie Sloan chalk paint.   However, I do recommend you go to a store that carries the paint and take a look at their samples.  I was lucky to have a store nearby that carried the paint AND she had many samples of re-furbished furniture and lamps and mirrors that she used AS paint on.  That was great for me because I was leaning towards another color--Paris Gray-- but when I was able to see the French Linen next to Paris Gray, I knew I wanted the French Linen color.  I think it looks very homey and warm in my kitchen, and now I'm breathing a sigh of relief that I am DONE!  I think it will show less dirt in my very lived-in ranch house too.

Thanks for stopping by!

In the garden...

 

Even though we've been struggling through a drought in our area, my garden has been fairly good at producing.  Some things have done better than others, but that's to be expected.  We've had a full summer of daily salads, and we're still nibbling like bunnies at the greens.  I planted a little bit of lettuce every two weeks or so and we've been "eating green" all summer from the garden.  Finally the cucumbers and tomatoes are ripening.  So late.  So late.  But still, we're eating from the garden and I'm thankful for what we have.  The onions are small, and they are real tear-jerkers -- producing tears in the cook's eyes when she peels and dices them.  The garlic is beautiful -- my first crop of it.  I'm going to be planting some of my bulbs this fall for next year's crop.  It's a Siberian hard-neck variety -- a great variety for us northern growers.  As you can see, the pumpkin patch has trailed down the bank and there are gobs and gobs of orange and white varieties on the vine.  The frustrating part is that none of my butternut squash produced.  At least I haven't found any amongst the vines.  The grand-littles are going to love picking jack-o-lantern prospects from the pumpkin patch.

One fun experiment I did this year were the poblano peppers.  I always buy them at the grocery store for chile rellenos  and stuffed, roasted peppers.  They are so mild that we really enjoy them so this  spring I decided to keep a few seeds and started them in little paper pots.  I set them out when they were quite small, not sure they would make it, but they did, and they are really beautiful!  I can't wait to eat, them filled with cream cheese and roasted.  Mmmm.

I've been robbing a few spuds from the potato patch now and then.  I don't pull the plants, but leave them growing while I pluck a few of the potatoes that are close to the surface underneath the straw.  There is just something extra-good about homegrown potatoes.  We had some spuds pan roasted with a little olive oil, butter and Parmesan tonight.  Similar to this recipe, but in the skillet.  Mmmmm!

The last photo boasts of cucumbers.  Actually, my dad gave me some ginormous cukes from his garden.  I really didn't know what I was going to do with them, but decided to dice them up and make bread 'n' butter relish.  I also sliced some of them into spears and make a few jars of dills.  Another experiment I am doing is on pickles.  I have noticed that the Vlasic variety of pickles that are so crisp and delicious have an ingredient that most of us don't use in our pickle recipes -- calcium chloride.  I bought a small jar of Ball Pickle Crisp to try out in my pickles this year to see if I can get the same crunch as Vlasic.  I'll let you know if it works.

We had a very busy week last week.  The men removed old shingles and put all new shingles on our roof and NumberOneSon's roof.  What a TON of work that was!  Everything looks great and it's nice to have that project done before winter.  We also had friends from So. Cal. come visit for a couple days.  It was so nice to catch up with them and have some wonderful heart to heart talks.

Autumn is in the air!  The mornings are cool and crisp.  We wake up and put on jeans and long sleeves and by noon we are into our short-sleeves and I put on shorts.  By evening, we are back to pants and long sleeves again.  Such is fall here.  We've had a few showers of rain which has been good.  At least we know it can rain.  We are hopeful that there might be more rain on the way for us this fall.  It would be nice to put the trees and grasses to bed with a good amount of wetness at the roots.  God knows.  How is your fall going so far?

Canning peaches...

It's that time of year again when the Colorado Peaches show up in big trucks.  OnlyDaughter, JLynn, and I bought a case each of beautiful peaches.  We eat as many fresh as possible, make pie, and the rest we can for the winter months.  Today was the day that we decided the peaches were soft enough to process and preserve.  The girls came to my house for the canning bee.  We got all our stuff organized:  Ball Blue Book (1987 version), clean jars, rings, lids, hot water, wash tubs, sugar, pots and pressure canner, magnetic lid grabber, jar funnel, chopstick (for removing air bubbles) and knives. Between the three of us ladies along with eight children scampering here and there, we got the job accomplished.  Three cases of peaches and 26 quart jars later, we were done!  With time to go outside and play!

To quote my dear mother-in-law, 

"Many hands make light work,"  

And a good day was had by all.

Amen.

Drying tomatoes...

 Fresh halved tomatoes.

 Roasted, dried tomatoes

Well, hi there!  It's been a while since I've checked in.  I'm so glad to be here and wanting to chat with you for a little bit.  I've not been feeling well.  All of us here got the coughing crud, but mine turned into something else.  Finally, after all my home remedies, and not getting better, I drove in to the walk-in clinic (that sounds funny, doesn't it?) and got myself checked.  After just 2 days on a Z-pak, I'm feeling unusually good.  You know the old saying, "I didn't know how bad I felt until I felt good again."?  Well that's me.  Today I'm making up for some of those under-the-weather days.

The garden is coming into its own and producing some nice tomatoes after a round of blossom end rot on the first ripe tomatoes.  The cherry tomatoes, which have turned out to be orange-y tomatoes never got the rot like the larger ones.  Since I'm the only one in the house that eats tomatoes, and since I planted about 12 tomato plants and 4 more by seed, you can imagine that even I cannot eat ALL the tomatoes that are ripening.  So I decided part of my preserving would be in the form of drying tomatoes.  I've done this before and I must say, it's amazing.  The flavor is rich, deep, sweet, and tangy all at the same time.  I dry mine in the oven, but you could use the sun too.

I slice my tomatoes in half or in thick slices, put them on parchment paper seed-side up, drizzle with a little olive oil (but you don't have to) and salt and pepper them to taste.  Or just salt them.  Slide them into the oven that is set at 450* for about 20-30 minutes, depending on how juicy your tomatoes are.  Just check them and pull them out when they become dry and somewhat leathery.  Some folks do this same process, but they set the oven temperature at 250* and dry them over 3-4 hours, depending on how juicy the tomatoes are.  Either way works.  When you are done, you can eat them right away or allow them to cool and store them in good olive oil in the fridge for up to a month or you can flash freeze them on the trays for about 30 minutes or until firm.  Then take them off the trays and store them in freezer bags in the freezer.  Do taste them!  They are SO DELICIOUS!  You will imagine all kinds of ways to use these beauties in your cooking.  I was thinking of how good they would be blitzed up in a tomato soup or on Martguerita Pizza or using them to make a thick tomato paste or spaghetti sauce.  And my favorite way might be to just eat them as they are, or on a sandwich.  It is said that in Italy they dry tomatoes out in the sun on their flat roofs or on plywood over saw horses and keep them out in the hot sun until they are nice and leathery.  Who cares if a bug lands on them?  Right?  The only thing I think of is birds.  They might love to taste the experiment too.  Next time I dry some tomatoes, I'm going to try it without the olive oil and just use salt.  I think they may dry quicker that way.

I chopped down the basil and made a batch of pesto today too.  Another big YUM-O-LICOUS thing.

Thanks for stopping by.  Are you preserving any garden goodies?
..............................................................

"Sometimes when I am working in my garden, when the day is hot and still, I am transported to another world.  The hum of bees seems like singing wires from Eternity.  It is as though a message were trying to come through and I know what it means but I can't hear the words."
~Anonymous

Jammin'....

Fall is that special time of year when you start getting baseball bat sized zucchinis stuffed in your mailbox or trash bags full of very ripe fruit delivered to your door.  My dad, bless his heart, called me first, at least, and asked me if I could possibly use a trash bag full of ripe plums.  Ummmmm.  Well.  Sure!  Yes, I could use an entire trash bag of plums for something, I guess.  I thought to myself, if nothing else, I could feed them to the chickens.

The day arrived when OnlyDaughter delivered them as she picked up her children from a two day stay.  Now it was time to figure out what I'd do.  The first thing I thought of was jam.  I had never made plum jam, but I figured I had the ingredients for at least one batch so I'd give it a try, not knowing whether or not Hubs or I would actually eat the stuff, or if we'd just leave it to age on the shelves of the canning cupboard for years and years and then let our children throw it away once we passed on.  I'll write the year on the top of the jar just for conversation.  I could hear them saying, "Geez!  Mom made this stuff in 2014 and here it is 2044 and the seal is still good!"

First, there was the washing and then the sorting and pitting of hundreds of little cherry-sized plums.  This was the time consuming-est part of the process, but I pressed on, hoping for the best.  I always make jam to taste, not following a recipe exactly when it comes to measuring out the sugar.  You never know if the fruit is going to be very sweet or very tart so I add the sugar a bit at a time and taste.  One lick of the spoon and I knew this jam was going to be the bomb diggity.  And it was!  I had a glob on some fresh-baked bread and it was to die for!  Then I had JJo try it that evening.  She was floored by the flavor and took a pint home for herself.  I took a jar to JLo's too figuring they might like to try it.  Since the experiment turned out so well, I bought another case of jelly jars and a little more sugar and pectin and made another big batch of jam, and froze the rest of the pitted plums in the freezer for more jam later.  Or perhaps Dad might want some plums for wine making.

The dreaded trash bag of plums turned out to be nectar of the fruit gods.  So far we've had that plum jam on toast and on ice cream, and next I plan to use it as a layer in coffee cake.  Can't you just taste that tangy sweetness and see that beautiful red swirl in the middle layer of morning coffee cake?  Oh yesssssss!

Leaves are falling...

Remember that cold week I told you about?  The one where the low temperatures were hovering around 22 degrees?  Yeah, that one.  Well, it's long past and now it's on to Indian Summer, just what I wanted.  Cool mornings, warm, sunny afternoons, and cool, crisp nights.  It's good weather for me, and it's good weather for leaf-turning.  The poplar tree in the yard is releasing its golden leaves while most of the other trees are just beginning to turn.  Gold is the prominent color here except for some rich red Halogeton which grows in the alkali flats in some of our pastures.  It's pretty to look at, but poisonous to livestock. 

I've been doing lots of things lately.  I took a hike with my son, GentleSasquatch, in Spearfish  Canyon where we went to Community Caves and then to 420 Cave.  (Here's a link to his blog.) Both were steep climbs with high look-outs amidst sandstone rock caves.  It was great fun.  I so loved the varied mountain plants and awe-full views from rock cliffs.  I kept wanting Sasquatch to take pictures, but we both knew they would never turn out just like we saw them with our own two eyes.  S. made the comment:  "The best cameras in the world cannot see like the human eye.  They only wish they could capture what we see."  True.  He does have some nifty fotos on his blog of the views from 420 Cave if you care to take a look.  Here's us (duo-selfie).

I finished up two batches of Zucchini Salsa.  O man!  It was good stuff!  The only tweak I made to the first batch was to add five jalapenos to the recipe for a little extra heat.  The second batch I added more jalapenos for more heat.  The recipe was one of the very best canned recipes I've made.  The taste and texture is a lot like Pace Picante sauce.  Click here for the dandy recipe.

Our local sweet corn grower is calling it quits for the season today.  JJo and I went a couple days ago to fetch several dozen ears of that delicious sweet corn to freeze.  She processed six dozen and I did ten.  By the end of the day, I had 44 pints of delicious corn-off-the-cob for my freezer stash, much more than Hubs and I need, but we can always share it with our kids and guests.

I think I'm done canning except for applesauce.  My dad's apple trees are bursting with beautiful apples so I intend to get some homegrown sauce made and maybe a little apple butter too.  Dad has an apple press; I'm hoping to help him press some fresh apple juice.  Yum!

Our basement, which had the sewer backup problem, is now fixed.  It feels like a totally new place, even though all that was done was drywall repair, texture, and paint, and a new carpet laid in the bedroom and living room, hall, and stairs.  Oh, it's so nice.  All I have left is to finish painting the closet doors and set up the bedroom again.  I'm so blessed to have CarpetnerSon here to fix things up for me.

Now the men are on to a new project -- building a shop that looks like an old barn.  I'm so excited.  CarpenterSon really needed his own space to do his thing and so the men decided to go ahead and build it while we've still got the good weather to get it up.  So far they have the cement poured and the rafters built.  Next the walls will go up and the rafters too.  They'll try to enclose it before wet weather comes our way.

I think that's all that is on my mind for now.  One more thing that I've been thinking about, actually.  From My Utmost for His Highest today, excerpts:

Show to the other man what God has shown to you; and God will give you ample opportunities in actual life.  To be a disciple means that we deliberately identify ourselves with God's interests in other people.  "That you love one another as I have loved you." God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly.

What are you up to these days?

I see the moon and the moon sees me...

Full Moon from August 10

I've thought about stopping in here to say hello and tell you about all the things that are going on, but the days just keep on dashing by and I haven't taken the time to stop and blog.  I took this picture for you on August 10th and here it is now August 18th!

I love the moon and so do all my grandkids.  They can always spot her in the night sky as well as in  the daytime sky.  I think that's cool.  The moon connects us all, in a way, since we all see the same one even though we are in different places and in different situations and in different time zones.  I don't worship the moon, I worship the Creator of the moon, but I do appreciate the moon's beauty which gives me a sense of smallness in the universe.  I think that feeling small is a good thing for me. 

Speaking of my grandkids, I'm on Grammy Duty this week for several days.  M&G brought Bee and Rootie Toot here to stay with us while they take a work-vacation.  They arrived Saturday night and will stay with us until Thursday sometime.  The cousins have been joining us for fun and playing too.  By the end of the day, we've had lots of romping & roping, climbing rocks & picking flowers, making mud cupcakes and birthday cakes.  They've pulled carrots from the garden to eat fresh with their fringed carrot tops on, and they've picked green tomatoes for their potions (which Grammy was not happy about!).  I'm glad we've had nice, warm days so we can play outdoors for the majority of the time. Sleep is sweet at the end of each day.

At bedtime we read at least two books and then sing a couple songs.  One night I started to sing Jesus Loves Me and Bee said, "Gram, sing one of YOUR songs."  It' tickled me that she has now assigned certain songs to me because I introduced them to her and Rootie.  Some of MY songs are:  Home on the Range, I've Been Workin' on the Railroad, Get Along Little Dogies, Hickory Dickory Dock, Hey Didddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle, and more.  All the grandkids are singers.  That makes me happy.  

OnlyDaughter and I spent a day canning Colorado Peaches a few days ago.  We canned 24 quarts of peaches and split them between us.  We also saved enough peaches out of our boxes to eat some fresh.  I baked a peach pie yesterday and boy, was it delicious!  I love those juicy globes of sweet nectar!  

Well, my time is now up.  The wee ones will be up from their naps in just minutes so I'm going to wrap this up and say good bye, and thank you for stopping by.  I hope you are enjoying each summer day.  Soon the days will turn cool and summer will pass.  Look up and see the moon!

I see the Moon and the Moon sees me,
And the moon sees Somebody I can't see.
God Bless the Moon and God Bless me,
And God Bless the one that I can't see. 

God looked down on me from above,
And He picked you out for me to love,
He picked you out from all the rest,
Because He knew that I'd love you the best. 

Fall chores and doings...

 This pun'kin got out of the fence.

The garden has been producing well just now.  It's end of September, but never mind, the garden wants to grow and thrive so I'll let it!   I'm not sure why it waited so long, but I'll take what I can get and be thankful for every bit of homegrown goodness it will give.  Every time I slice a tomato or cucumber or zucchini, I think about what lovely organic veggies my garden has willingly produced.  I know that in a short month or less, I will be fresh out of fresh veggies and will resort to the grocery store bins once again.

Today I picked all of the ripe and orange-tinged tomatoes, all of the peppers and onions, and I gathered up a bucketful of lettuce that I planted in late summer.  The basil came back strong so I snipped it back down to the ground, cleaned, and froze the leaves in a freezer bag to use later.   I'm leaving the carrots in the ground, and I'll pull a few as I need them.  They are quite insulated under the ground until the hard frosts start coming with regularity.  We are expecting a possible freeze tonight and tomorrow night so I'll cover the tomatoes with blankets to guard against the cold.  The high elevations and mountains nearby have a chance of snow while we have good prospects of rain the next couple of days, and as is usual for us, after the chill, there are nice days to follow.  Could it be Indian Summer?  I hope so because I have a lot of green tomatoes left on the vines.

 

I spent part of the day gathering scrap wood from the shed that the fellas are building.  They saw off the short ends and drop them on the ground and I have been picking them up to use as starting wood for our soon-to-be fires in the stove.  I ended up sweeping out the garage and throwing out some junk from certain corners, and then I stacked wood in the proper corner where it belongs.  Gathering firewood is always a fall chore that I enjoy.  I especially like to go cut fallen wood with Hubby.  I like the smell of the chainsaw cutting through logs and the flying chips of wood.  A thermos of coffee goes well with wood cutting.

 

The cottonwoods are turning.  There is one particular cottonwood tree that I always watch every Fall.  It's on the way as I walk to the mailbox.  It starts out like a middle-aged man with a streak of gray coming at the temples, then it gradually progresses a little more and a little more until his whole head is gray -- or golden in regards to the cottonwood.  Finally all his hair falls out.  We have a couple cottonwoods and several ash trees in our yard that always sport autumn gold leaves.   They give the grandkids great joy when they fall and can be raked into piles for jumping into.

I ordered a quarter beef  from the local butcher a couple weeks ago and called them today to ask if they'd keep as much tallow from the beef as possible for me.  I have plans of rendering it down to use for frying.  Here's a good link on the how-tos of rendering.  Nothing much better than deep frying or cooking with good tallow, and it's good for you too!  The clerk mentioned that they have some fresh lard blocks available from recently butchered pork so I'm going to buy a little of that for my freezer.  I'm beginning to do some Fall stocking-up.

 

I've been busy with some painting projects this fall.  I helped my daughter paint the outside trim on her house, and then I helped the newest Mrs. in our family begin painting her Honeymoon Hut so she and J. can move in in January.  There is much more painting left to do there.  I just completed a painting project in my kitchen too.  I'll share that with you later on.

All but a few more loads of hay have been hauled in to the hay corrals.  Number1Son made a third cutting of hay in a low spot of one pasture.  Unheard of for us.   He hopes to get it baled into small squares, but at the moment, it won't cure.  Not much heat this time of year. 

The pullets are laying eggs like crazy.  I'm so proud of My Girls!  I even have a pullet hen who lays double-yolkers!  So far the raccoons and fox haven't found the door to the coop and I hope they don't.  I really must guard against forgetting to shut them in at night before it's totally dark.  The roosters are going to have to go soon.  I'm thinking about roast chicken.

I'm always sad to see Summer go away.  It seems like such a short season for us here in the North, but I know with the passing of Summer there come new things to look forward to in Fall.  Cool Fall days bring sweatshirts, faded jeans and wool slippers to replace shorts and T-shirts and bare feet.  The hoses get rolled up and put away and so does the mower.  The potted posies are replaced by pumpkins and Indian corn.  Cold salad lunches are replaced with hot soups and chowders.  Air conditioning and fans are replaced with a wood fires and candle light.  The sun fades earlier and earlier and darkness calls us away from our outside work and indoors to each other.  I like that part of Fall best of all.  What is your favorite part of Fall?

Tasha Tudor, simple life...

 

 Happy Birthday Tasha Tudor!

I just love this picture of Tasha Tudor and some children picking berries.  It reminds me of her simple ways.  Above all things, she lived off the land and made use of everything she grew.  And wasn't it a beautiful life?  Sometimes I think the simplest, quietest, humblest things are the very best things.  Picking berries is an art in itself which probably ended in making jelly or jam, and what is better than homemade jam spooned onto a slice of hot buttered toast?  Simple, but good.

Today my daughter, G., and I worked in the kitchen all day making apple sauce and apple butter.  G's hubby picked the apples from their neighbor's tree, a Cortland Apple Tree, which I am in want of now. The Cortland produces the prettiest red blushed apples -- a cross between a Ben Davis and a McIntosh apple.  (I looked it up.)  The tree is beautiful.  I think it would be considered a semi-dwarf which makes it easy to pick and quite compact and loaded with fruit.  The apples are white fleshed and sweet.  We hardly added any sugar to our apple sauce and apple butter.  We could have probably made it totally without sugar, but we decided it added a little more depth of flavor with the addition of sugar.  The sauce is a creamy color and not as gold as the photo shows here.  The grandgirls enjoyed their small bowls of sauce as we had scrapings and left-over globs that did not round out our jars.  G. and I had a piece of hot toast with a sampling of the apple butter scraped out of the roaster at the end of its baking.  Oh, so good!  Even though we did not plan to celebrate Tasha Tudor's birthday with our apple saucing, we did it quite by coincidence, and we honor her just the same.  We honor all those who continue the simple arts of home making that Tasha held dear.

  

For the record, today we made 40 pints of apple sauce and apple butter combined.  More to come since we haven't totally picked the Cortland entirely.  Good for us!  What are your favorite homemaking arts?

Tomatoes, tomatoes...

Just when I'm able to have as many of these (tomato sandwiches) as I want, and just when I am picking tomatoes by the baskets, tonight and tomorrow night we have frost warnings!  Thankfully, I picked every red tomato on the vine today.  I ate some, I gave some to DaughterInLove, and tonight I am making my favorite Tomato Jam.  It tastes something like rustic, spicy ketchup and we love it on a burger or on any meat. I like it on toast too.  Hubs and I covered the tomato vines tonight, and I do hope we save them since there are gobs of unripened tomatoes left to have their lives fulfilled in my canning jars.  It is very typical for us to have an early frost and then have a couple more weeks of warm weather.  We'll see!

Refrigerator pickles anyone?

I received this recipe 31+ years ago from my high school chorus teacher, Mrs. Mollet.  Everyone who attended my bridal shower was asked to bring a couple favorite recipes to share, and this one has stayed in my recipe box all these years, standing the true test of time and approval. The frig pickles seem to last "forever" and you can reboil the brine and pour it over the next batch of fresh veggies you wish to pickle.  These have a bread & butter pickle flavor, but you could add some fresh dill heads to your jar for a dill flavored pickle.  Either way, they are crispy and delicious and so pretty in the jar or on the plate.  Change up the veggies any way you like and enjoy!

Sweet Refrigerator Pickles

4 c. sugar
4 c. vinegar
1/2 c. plain salt (not iodized)
1 1/2 t. mustard seed
1 1/2 t. celery seed
1 t. turmeric (opt.)
6-7 pepper corns
Bring to a boil and pour over...
1 gallon combined:  2-3 cloves garlic, sliced cucumbers, onion, peppers, carrots, green beans, or any other garden veggies you prefer.  Allow to cool on counter and then refrigerate.  Allow to sit 24 hours before eating.  Lasts a long time under refrigeration.

Two things that money can't buy...

The majority of the heirloom Rainbow tomatoes are jarred up!  I saved a few for my daily tomato sandwiches (toast, mayo, thick sliced tomato, salt & pepper).  I hope that my own tomato plants will be ripening up soon so I can continue my sandwich routine.   Aren't tomatoes in jars the prettiest?

Tomato Memory...

One summer night a couple of friends of our kids were here.  It was one of those late summer sleepover things.  A. (our eldest child) and R. (his friend) were out in the garden.  I'm not sure if I had sent them there to pick or if they were just out looking around at the varieties of tomatoes.  (Ha!)  G. had her girlfriend over who happened to be R's sister and the girls were upstairs in G's bedroom playing and taunting the boys below.  Don't ask me where I was.  

You know how sisters can sometimes be.  Yelling out the window, making faces at their brothers, giggling, taunting.  The boys couldn't take one more minute of  those girls from the high bedroom window that overlooked the garden.  It became irresistible to them -- wanting to give those heavy tomatoes in their hands a heave.  At their sisters.  The tomatoes were flung and the girls were their targets.  I honestly don't know how many tomatoes were thrown at that window, but there was a lot of cleaning up to do.  The boys had to hose off the house and clean every bit of juice and seeds away.  I can't remember if the girls had to help them or not.  It WAS a mess.  That's all I remember.  I had plenty of tomatoes that year.  The incident  didn't seem to affect my canning production.  I'm sure the girls had to help can tomatoes the next day -- a chore my daughter despised.  Sweet, motherly revenge.

Now I leave you with my favorite summer song.

Homegrown Tomatoes 

by Guy Clark

Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden

Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one

Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes

You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with eggs, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the site put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle

If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes

Bread & Butter Pickles....

We stopped by our friends' house yesterday.  They said they had lots of cucumbers.  They weren't kidding.  I didn't even take half of what they offered me, but I did get some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, green peppers, a watermelon, a cantaloupe and some okra.  What I will do with okra, I'm not quite sure.  Anyway, I commenced to begin with the cucumbers this morning making bread & butter pickles -- the family's favorite from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving.  My book has a copyright of 1987 (almost an antique like me).  Do you think 11 pints is enough pickles for the winter?  Yeah.  And there's more.  More cukes, that is.  We'll eat as much fresh as possible, but then what?  Relish?  How much pickle relish do two people and their guests need?  I'm so happy with my fresh goodies, but a bit overwhelmed.

Check out this bounty will ya?

My wish for homegrown tomatoes has come true!  How do they do it?  They have a greenhouse to start these fine tomatoes. See the colorful ones that are yellow, orange, red & orange?  Those are called Rainbow Heirloom tomatoes.  Oh, so mild, sweet and ever so pretty.  These babies are bigger than the palm of my hand.  I think they are of the Beefsteak variety.

Don't we have some good, kind friends?

Yes, we do!

I also bought a box of Colorado Peaches to eat fresh, make pie with (one in the oven right now) and to preserve.  I'm going to be busy in the kitchen this Labor Day Weekend.  What about you?

P.S.

I only just picked one tiny Sweet One-Hundred tomato the other day from my own veggie patch.  It's a beginning, even if it is a meager beginning.

Around Home....

The late bloomers are coming out to play this summer.  I 'm always bothered by people who think that late blooming children are "slow."  But no, they aren't.  They bloom when they are designed to bloom just like my gladiolas.  This is the first glad to blossom and I have several more to go.  They are so cheery in the veggie patch.  My mother-in-law always planted a row of gladiolas in her veggie garden, and I sometimes plant them in my veggie patch in her memory. Gladiolas remind me of her.

 The coneflowers, sometimes called Mexican hat flowers, are very abundant just now.  I especially like the red and yellow ones.

Then there is the purple prairie coneflower, also called Echinacea, which is just beginning to bloom in my garden. I like how the center of it starts out spikey and orange.  Who would have thought to put purple and orange together?

 Friends --very nice friends--offered to let me pick their cherry tree last Sunday, but instead, I "picked up" the cherries that they had already picked for me.  (See, I told you they were nice)  They gave me five gallons of sour red cherries.  Aren't they just beautiful?  They also loaned me their cherry pitter.  Oh my, what a nice device!  It's every bit as good as my apple peeler/slicer/corer which I adore.  My friend said that the cherry pitter is worth as much as a husband.....in help, that is. I am definitely ordering one of these for myself. Find it here.

I made six quarts of cherry pie filling and then froze the rest of the cherries in quart sized bags.  I turned out a cherry pie that was deeeeee lish eous!

The Fourth-born, S., had his tonsils and adenoids removed on Wednesday.  Things have sure changed since 20 years ago when our First-born went in for his tonsillectomy.  The tonsillectomy was a whopping 15 minute procedure.  Within two hours after the surgery, we were gathering up our stuff to drive home.   Many say that having tonsils removed as an adult is much harder to bear than it is for young kids, but our 21 year old is doing just fine -- eating lots of ice cream, drinking cold drinks and eating fairly well for a guy with a major sore throat.  (Pain meds sure do help.)  We had smashed potatoes and hamburger gravy for supper and he did quite well eating it.  He even tried a little popcorn this evening.  His doctor said he could eat whatever he felt like eating.  So far, so good.

 

The adjusters came to look at our homes and buildings here on the ranch and decided we had more loss from the hail storm than we thought at first.  The roofs will need to be replaced among other things.  Sounds like  lots of work to me.  We had another big cloud come through tonight and the weather folks said we were going to get another round of hail, but no.  I'm sure glad it was nothing but wind and a little rain.  It likely hailed on someone out there.

Summer sure seems to be flying by, doesn't it?  I hope you are enjoying every minute of it.

Preserves...

Remember the Tea Party I talked about in the last post?  Well, my friend's dad has the most magnificent gardens just outside of town, and he grows everything.  Everything!  Including these amazing grapes.  They are Concord grapes, I think, and oh boy, were they sweet and good!  From my two gi-normous banana boxes of grapes, I shared with Only Daughter, Daughter-in-Love, and my dad who intends to make a Mogan-David style wine with his allotment.  I hope it turns out just as he has envisioned it.  Anyway, with my grapes, I chose to make some grape jelly using crab apple juice that I had on the pantry shelf to mix in with it.  Crab apples are very high in pectin and therefore are excellent used in jelly-making.  My MIL taught me to mix half grape juice (or any other juice) and half crab apple juice for the best jelly consistency ever, and she was right about that.

(I didn't realize it until now, but you can see my reflection in these grapes)

My first try at the jam without the crab apple juice was a total bomb.  The jelly turned out like sticky taffy.  The flavor was there, but that batch went to the chickens.  The next two batches were good, but did not jell like I wanted so I poured them back into the pot and reboiled them and then got the perfect jell.  I was prepared for the worst, but was so happy to see it jell as I wanted.

The next canning venture I had with the Concords was sweet grape juice.  This is SO easy and is such a treat to drink.  All you do is put 1 cup of washed grapes into each quart jar. Then add about 1/3 to 1/2 cups of sugar to each quart (more depending on how sweet/sour your grapes are).  Pour boiling water over each quart, leaving 1/2" head space and process 10 minutes in boiling water bath.  After a week or so of sitting on the pantry shelf, open a jar, strain out the grapes and sip.  It's deeeee-lish!

I gathered up quite a few more tomatoes from my garden -- some green, some orange, some red and decided to make something my dad fondly remembers from his childhood -- tomato preserves.  I have never eaten nor made tomato preserves before, but I thought it would be fun to make for my dad.  Besides, I am always game to try a new recipe.  I found Aunt Della's Tomato Preserves recipe online and it sounded similar to what Dad had described to me.  The reviews on it were good too so I figured it was worth a shot.  I left out the cinnamon, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly.  Dad didn't recall any spice flavor in the tomato preserves he had eaten so I didn't add the dash of cinnamon that the recipe calls for.  It also calls for a very thinly sliced lemon, so I used my mandolin to do that job, and then I quartered each slice.  I didn't want the lemon slices to overpower the tomato.

On the far left side are the scrumptious tomato preserves.  If you like marmalade, you would love this!  It is a perfect balance of lemon and tomato all in a sticky, lovely, jammy mess.  I wonder though if the old recipes that our grandma's used had lemon slices in them?  I'm not sure if having a few lemons on hand at canning time was common or not.  What do you think?

I've been eating preserves on toast for two days.  Mmm mmm.  I was meaning to take a picture of my preserves on toast, but I ate it so fast I totally spaced-out taking a picture.  Sorry, you'll have to trust me on how good it is.

In the middle of the picture above, you'll see my deep purple jars of grape jam and to the right-front is another new-to-me recipe called Tomato Jam.  It, however, is not a marmalade, but instead it's more of a thick, spicy-sweet, ketchup-y tomato jam.  You can't believe how good this stuff is!  Really!   I can imagine eating it over a thick hamburger or on a moist piece of roast chicken or dumped over a good, soft cheese.  I made just a couple changes to the original recipe.  I used half the sugar and added in 1 tsp. dried onion flakes and 1/2 tsp. of celery seed and 1/2 tsp. of dried yellow mustard.  I found the recipe for Tomato Jam  at the Food in Jars blog which has become a fast favorite.  This girl cans just about everything.  I am now anticipating the Clementine or Little Cutie mandarin oranges coming into season so I can whack up a few jars of those as Miss Marisa does here. 

I hope that I might find just a few more pounds of homegrown tomatoes so I can cook up some more of that Tomato Jam, but the season up North is coming to a fast close.  There are still good apples hanging on the trees and my friend's dad has bushels and bushels and bushels (really, he does!) of apples and it's tradition for us to take a day in October and make apple sauce and apple butter together.  The canning cupboard is getting nice and full.

September preserves...

September usually brings my pressure-canner, ball jars, wash pans and plastic tubs out of storage and into the kitchen.  The tomatoes are ripening beautifully in the garden and I am eating as many of them fresh as I possibly can.  The rest I am gradually preserving as they ripen.  Today I made 3 quarts of salsa and then  gathered up all the grape tomatoes I could find and decided to oven-roast them.  These babies are so incredible done this way.  Simply put, you sprinkle olive oil over halved tomatoes (laid out on parchment paper), lightly sprinkle on salt & pepper and throw a couple unpeeled cloves of garlic onto the pan and slip them into a 225 degree oven for about 3-4 hours.  Depending on the size and juiciness of your tomatoes, the time can be adjusted, but the tomatoes should come out shriveled and chewy.  I like to eat them "as is," but you can use them on salads, in dressings, or any way you would use sun-dried tomatoes.  When they are cool, if you don't eat them all at once, you may store them in a mason jar with more olive oil over them and put them in the fridge for about 2 weeks.  For more information on slow, oven-roasted tomatoes, check Smitten Kitchen, where I first learned how to make them.

The girls and I have been canning the Colorado peaches we bought by the case this past week. Only Daughter and her friend came out one day and we processed their peaches, and this past Wednesday  Daughter-In-Love and I canned up her case and my case.  The pears were still too hard and unripe to process, so the three of us girls may work on our pears together this weekend.

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We had a little mishap this week with one adorable little grandangel and a ball point pen.  Hubs took me furniture shopping earlier this week and we chose a nice leather sofa and matching chair and ottoman.  The day we brought the furniture into the living room was the day I had Hazel Peach come stay.  Needless to say, no one was watching as she created a large masterpiece of circles all over the top of the ottoman with a ball point pen, and then she added a few small flourishes to each seat cushion  and swished a couple curlicues on the chair arms.  She was so proud of her accomplishment that she called in her Uncle JoeJoe to show him what she had done!  Imagine his utter surprise (and mine) when she showed him her pen and ink art!  I remained calm, but clearly brought home my disappointment with her drawing on Grammy's furniture.  She was quite sniffly and sorry, I knew it, but I made her sit on the couch and watch as I painstakingly worked at getting that ink out of the furniture.  I hope my unfortunate circumstances might save you one day down the road, so I will share with you how I accomplished this feat.

Removing Ink from Leather Furniture

1.  Tackle the ink as soon as possible.
2.  Get a roll of paper towels (or rags) and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
3.  Soak a paper towel (to dripping) with alcohol and lay it over the ink.  Allow it to penetrate and you will see the ink come free.
4.  Once ink starts to come free, remove the inky paper towel and add another alcohol soaked paper towel to the area.
5.  After the initial ink is up, continue to lightly blot and rub the ink from the leather.  (By the way, this works on fabric too, but don't soak the paper towel to dripping when using it on fabric.)
6.  Continue the process until most of the ink is gone.  After I had the ink up and the leather was dry, I took one more step and cleaned it with saddle soap.  You can usually buy it where you buy shoe polish, or you may use leather lotion and clean it following the directions on the label.  Both products will clean and replenish the leather. 

I am happy to report that the majority of the ink came out!  However, if you look closely, you can see some of the lines that were pressed in and some of the remaining ink that is so light that it looks like the imperfections that naturally occur in leather so I am not too bothered by them.  All in all, I am grateful it all worked out and I am again reminded that stuff is just stuff -- even if it is new stuff.

Weekend things....

Mowing, trimming, pulling weeds, and spraying dandelions....

...checking in on the baby robins.

They've really grown some feathers in the past few days

and their mouths pop open when I rustle in the tree.

It's rhubarb time!  Mine is still fairly short, but these stalks were harvested

from my parents' plants.  It's huge and juicy!

I decided to make a rhubarb pie (our favorite)

and chopped up the rest with some frozen strawberries for 

Rhubarb-Strawberry Jam (or sauce, if you please).

I love this stuff on just about anything,

but especially over vanilla ice cream!

MMMMmmmmm

Spring on a spoon!

Just in case you'd like to try the recipe, 

I made it up, using bits from various recipes.
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Rhubarb-Strawberry Jam

5 cups chopped rhubarb

1 cup chopped strawberries (you may add more)

2 1/2 to 3 cups sugar (depending on your tastes)

juice of one fresh lemon
*red food coloring (opt)

Combine all ingredients in a large stainless steel pot.  Allow it to sit at room temp for an hour or more to allow the sugar and fruit to juice up.  Bring the pot to a good boil and continue it for 10 minutes and reduce heat to medium-low to simmer.  Simmer and stir until it is thick, approximately half an hour or more.  Ladle into clean jars, add lids and set aside in a non-drafty area to allow the jars of jam to cool and seal.  You'll hear a *pop* when they seal.  When you press your finger on the top of the jar lid, it should not move if it is sealed.  If it pops up and down, your jar is not sealed.
Any jars that don't seal, put into the fridge and use first.

Serve over cakes or ice cream,
over hot cereal, on toast or biscuits.

*I sometimes add a drop or two of red food coloring for a little extra color, but it is not a necessity since the strawberries add color.