The Promise of Clear Skies...

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...was kept only briefly. We did our usual morning stuff of study and a sugary breakfast, using up some blackberries that were picked a little early..





While I did some clean up, Michael picked as much as he could get to again. A little squash.





Overdue okra. It's OK. We don't want to eat it anyway. And YES! You see grapes! They escaped the evil black rot. I'm not sure which of the 30 varieties these are, but they are french wine grapes. Yummy!





More peppers and cucumbers.





Then, he marked out the melons in our patch... 65 markers, but they only mark groupings, not individual melons. You KNOW what is going to happen, don't you... They will all ripen at the same time.





I put off doing the pickle relish, because it was time to get out and try to catch up on yard work before rain arrived yet again. We have counted 3.5 inches this week.

This is what we needed to tackle first. The tall, seedy grass nearest the herb and flower beds.





We mowed low and raked, then dumped the grass into the sink holes down by the cherry bushes.





Then Michael picked some of the blackberries.





This is looking pretty bad. I could not mow here nor in the vineyard until the berries were all picked and the canes tied up again. This took many hours that we did not expect to spend here.





Meanwhile, the marigolds that I never did transplant into the veggie garden are looking spunky.





And the sunflowers and cosmos look great as well. Too bad I've been too busy to actually go get bouquets.





I think this is poke weed. Natives to this area say you make "poke salad" with it, which is not really a salad at all, but cooked greens. It is also poisonous in a certain form, so I've not pursued this yet. It grows ALL over and gets quite large if you don't pull them up. I mean like small TREE large, and fast!





But moving on to the rest, I had to raise the mower up all the way. We will have to mow again tomorrow, lower, if it doesn't rain again. The mower kept cutting out from all the wet grass.





So here are the blackberries we got today; about 4 gallons.





I used up about 1 gallon making hot blackberry jam with our jalapenos.

Just used a simple sugar recipe. I discovered that the spoon test is to be done with a cool spoon, away from the pot... That would have been nice to know on my first go around.





Kind of a seedy place, here.





I finished the pickle relish and it turned out very well.









And then, while the last of the stew was reheating, I quickly tossed a few peppers into the dehydrator.

Jalapenos and sweet banana.





Habanero and um.... I've forgotten. Not very professional, is it. EDIT - Czech Black.





So we missed our home group tonight, getting caught in the blackberry patch, and I'm ready for bed.

Tomorrow I'd like to catch up before the rain, but I'm not counting on it!

~Faith

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Sewing, Mowing, Canning!

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Today was our Civil War sewing meeting. On our way past the neighbors' house, we dropped off a quart of blackberry pie filling and a dozen eggs from our chickens. The eggs are getting a little dirty, as the hens have decided to forgo the roosts and sleep in the nests. So we've changed out the straw and locked up the nest boxes at night again. Looking forward to sparkly eggs tomorrow. :)

I have almost finished my replacement corset, but got stalled due to the bones I had ordered not fitting.





Gladly, we were able to use them for a dear friend of mine, Elaine. So I spent the whole morning being able to help others.

I must be getting better at sewing, because last week I pulled up some fabric, and spent an hour whipping up an extra corset for Elaine. I amazed myself. My first corset took 4 weeks and 4 people to help me. :-P

After the meeting I made a trip to the hardware store for bones. Yes, extra long and strong zip-ties, or tie-wraps.





I should be able to get those in, then put in the grommets for the lacing next week.

We came home and attempted to get mowing done but, once again, the storms have come and watered us out. The grass is a good 8 inches high and going to seed, so I want to be really careful where that seed goes when we are mowing next to crops and beds.





Yesterday we had managed to mow at least around the house and greenhouse, but had to rake up all the cut grass. Very time consuming.









By this evening we had two of these trailer loads of cut grass. Some went to the compost pile, but I think I will use a lot of it as mulch to cut down on weeding time in the herb and flower beds.





We've still got the crop areas to do and, frankly, it scares me.

Michael began yesterday morning by picking produce again. It's become a daily ritual the last week or so; Michael picks, and I work to do something with it in the kitchen.

So I began working on a blackberry pie filling recipe.









And, in trying to juggle freezer contents, put an old, frozen, half-price pot roast in the crock pot...





With a variety of found veggies, carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, and green beans from the garden, along with one of my favorite seasonings - mesquite.





We've been eating on this now for two days. :)

Here are the peppers from the morning. I would love to can some, but I don't quite have enough of them to justify running the canner, so I'm being more creative.





The summer squash, which has finally slowed down, went into the dehydrator again, and the cucumbers went into my first effort at canned pickle relish.





Michael also tried his hand at first time melon picking. Always an art form, we figure he might as well begin learning now how to pick them. He hit the jackpot with this first one, I believe it is a Prescott Fond Blanc.













Not so well with his first watermelon. He'll get better quickly.





My first inclination was to dice the veggies for the pickle relish. I soon tired of that; after about one cucumber, as a matter of fact.





So the 3 quarts of cucumbers, 3 onions, and 6 bell peppers went into the food processor, and then were to be soaked in 2 quarts of ice water and 3/4 cups of pickling salt for 4 hours.





When that 4 hours was up, I drained and resoaked them in plain ice water for an hour, drained them and then poured 6 cups of boiling apple cider vinegar with a mixture of 2 cups of sugar, 4 tsp celery seed, 4 tsp mustard seed, 2 tsp ground allspice, and 2 tsp turmeric over them. That whole mixture is in the fridge now, marinating and waiting for me to can it tomorrow morning.

It tastes like pickle relish, so it must be right.

Meanwhile, for a mid-morning snack we eliminated the jalapenos by stuffing them with cream cheese, diced jack cheese and powdered garlic and onion.





They were delicious. But we discovered that, though the smooth green ones are perfect, the older jalapenos, with the cracked skins are hotter than we appreciate.





Another picking, is an unripe spaghetti squash. The best way to learn is to make mistakes, so I know Michael is learning much more quickly by bringing his hard work up, and cutting into it. He's doing great! :)





Adding in freshly picked green beans to the stew...





And back to working on the blackberry pie filling. I got out all our frozen blackberries and there were not quite enough, so I filled in the rest of the berry need with raspberries and blueberries from the freezer as well.





This was my first use of Clear Jell. I got this at the Mennonite market for a good price.





And while I mixed that with sugar and spices...





I went to wave to Michael and see how he was doing.





Stirring the water into the Clear Jell mixture and bringing it to a low boil to thicken it.





And here is the pickle relish, ready to marinate for 36 hours in the fridge. I did not have any red peppers, so it looks a little bland, but the flavor is great.





Putting by a large garden's worth of produce is new to me. I am looking forward to when I can do these things without having to think so hard about them and am much quicker.

By this time it was nearly dark, Michael came in for shower and we enjoyed stew together as we relaxed.

I'll let you know how the relish turns out tomorrow!

~Faith

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We made a successful trip to go get the pool. It's not much to speak of, but it's enough to get wet, cool off, and swim in! YAY! The drive there was a good two hours each way, so we didn't get much done at home yesterday, just the pool and heading to a Bible study at the home of some friends.

Here are those pics of the Swiss chard we hung on the net. I had wanted to get home and bring them in to the dehydrator that night, but we didn't make it until the dew had already settled all over them. Here they are still covered in dew the next morning.









So yesterday we hurredly got them into the dehydrator before leaving for Bible study, then of course, forgot to turn it on. LOL So we dried them overnight and just got finished bagging up a lot of them, and putting the ones that were not dry enough back in, cutting away even more of the stalk.

You really need to remove the entire stalk, so just figure on cutting every leaf in half to remove it. I like folding them over and slicing the stalk out in one motion.

I am not quite sure HOW dry they need to be. Not as dry as herbs, or they will crumble, but I don't know how much moisture is OK before you have to deal with mold. Another learning experience. We are going to know a lot someday. ;)

A neighbor of the pool place was just a little ahead of us on a greenhouse project, so I got permission to go and look at it and take photos.





















Am setting some cuttings from my folks' lavender plants. There were not a lot of good growth areas, I'm not sure the flower stalks will make good cuttings. But I took what I thought was the best of what was there. If they don't work out, I can try again. The nursery downtown was completely bought out.





I tried to buy all my supplies at WalMart late last night for making bread and butter pickles. Most everything was sold out and all other stores were closed. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the cukes. I am not making another trip to town today, and there is no room in my fridge.

And our first sunflower bouquet of the season.





I LOVE having my own cutting flowers again!

~Faith

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