She said what???

Today over at Homemakers Who Work it's something a little different.

My darling daughter is doing a guest post... she claims to not be normal and that it's my fault.... Hmmm.... check it out to see what she says about me. I'm evidently not always sweetness and light.

Independence days- week 19?

Oh yeah, it's Monday. This holiday thing has really thrown me off. And poor K, he was sure that it was only Sunday and that he in fact didn't have to go to school tomorrow. Even after reminding him of what he did on Saturday, he still couldn't remember that day. He remembers going to Old Threshers on Sunday but seems to think that it was Saturday and that he should have another day off. I know what he means, I could definitely use another day off. I have thousands of things that I didn't get accomplished this weekend that I wanted to check off the list. There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day.

But on to my usual Monday check in: the Independence Days Challenge. The idea is to try to do something from this category every day or week. Some are easier than others.

1. Plant something- No, although I have a start of a yucca plant from my parents that I need to get in the ground. They have had yucca as long as I can remember. They have never done anything with it but J15 was excited to hear about it, asking if it is the one you can make soap out of. I don't know what particular subspecies this one is but Dad said the parent plant had a huge tuber/root. V and I have also been talking about where to put the herb garden. I know nothing will be planted this fall but I'd like to figure out where it will go sooner rather than later.

2. Harvest something- Let's see... tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplant, pears...I think that's about it.

3. Preserve something- tomatoes (crushed and diced), mixed pickled veggies, peach/pear salsa, tomatillo salsa.

4. Waste not- Recycled, composted, used cloth bags at the store as usual. Remembered to take a cooler and boxes when we went to visit my Mom, knowing that she would fill them.

5. Want not- 10 lbs of sugar for storage, half a bushel of pears- some for preserving, some for eating fresh, frozen sweet corn from my Mom into the freezer.

6. Build community food systems- This afternoon my friend Jim came over. He lived across the street at our old house and is the unit clerk on one of the units I cover at the hospital. Jim is a gourmet cook but something he had never done was canning. He has been asking me since last year to teach him the basics. So today was the day. I had hoped to have enough tomatoes but we made "End of Summer Salsa" instead. It has tomatoes, peaches, pears, jalapenos, onions and other tasty treats. It seemed like an unlikely combination but was really tasty! I will give Jim some of it but we will have most of it for our stores. It was interesting to teach someone other than my children about canning. He's good at the cooking end of things but his knowledge of gardening is sorely lacking. He tried to pick my ripening paprika peppers, thinking they were tomatoes... maybe next year I'll teach him about gardening....

7. Eat the food- Easy! We had a lovely eggplant and tomato sauce over pasta for dinner. No large slab of grilled meat for our Labor Day dinner, but I can't think of anything better to show off the fruits of our labors. We've had new potatoes, stuffed chilis, tomato sauce and fresh veggies.

This week will be busy. I12 will be starting classes for confirmation at church on Wednesdays this week. I've got eggplant from my Mom that I need to prepare and freeze and some more tomatoes now that I'll need to deal with. I've also now got the half bushel of pears plus a bag of some that were drops that will need to be worked up. Ah, no rest for the weary. I need at least one more day off to get caught up... but that won't happen.... I see many hours of pears in my future.... Followed by apples in a few weeks..... But it's all worth it in the end.

A grand day out

We took a day off this holiday weekend and had some fun! We got up early for our big adventure.

It involved some traveling- but not too far.

We drove about an hour South of us and spent the day at the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion in Mt Pleasant. It is an annual event that last for 5 days, ending on Labor Day every year. This is an event that I attended regularly as a child, partly because it was only about 30 miles from my home and also because my father was an exhibitor (antique tractor) for many years. It is a wonderful way to step back in time. They focus on old time equipment and have multiple museums to explore. We have been several times with the children and we always discover something new.

They have one of the last steam powered carousels.

Complete with steam calliope music!

They have multiple working printing presses- many steam powered.

Horses on a treadmill!

We got to watch the live horsepowered threshing. They had the treadmill driven thresher and also one with multiple teams of horses on a capstan. It was pretty impressive. I LOVE big horses. If we were to ever get a horse (which I doubt would ever happen) it would probably be a Belgian. There were some Percherons who's rumps were taller than even V's head!

The kids investigate the blacksmith exhibit in the museum

I'm often pleased and amazed at my children. I know and have seen many children who balk at spending time in museums. Mine love it. They had lots of fun looking at old farm machinery, washing machines, wood stoves, and even the display of meat processing equipment.

The museum has several working steam locomotives and offers rides.

This year we didn't ride the train, instead taking the trolley system to a part of the grounds that is fairly new (since the late 90's). We spent time exploring in the log village where they attempt to replicate life in an Iowa small town in 1850. We got to meet some lovely Dexter cattle (V still says no), watch a demonstration of rope making, the blacksmith shop, a basket weaver and cooking apple butter over an open fire in a cast iron kettle. Then it was back to the main reunion grounds where we explored among the old engines and tractors. There is a working sorghum mill and they boil down syrup, a steam tractor powered saw mill and lots of other things going on.

Steam tractors big and little

After we were tired of wandering around we hopped back in the car and headed another 30 miles South to my parent's house. We have been so busy since we have bought our new house that we haven't been there since then. It's been way too long.

K got to drive Grandpa's little tractor (older than I am!)

Please notice the 'skunk' hat that he got at OT!!

I got to pick pears.

We were only there for a few hours but I ended up with about half a bushel of pears, two big bags of tomatoes, 3 eggplant a buttercup squash and half a hubbard squash (it was HUGE!!!)

I also got 2 dozen canning jars. A dozen pint jars and a dozen pint and a half jars that Mom says are from WWII when instant coffee first came out in glass jars. My grandmother saved the jars and she and/or my Mom have been canning in them ever since. What a great sense of history. I was actually quite honored that Mom would give them to me. She said that at least I would use them. That made me feel quite good about the choices we have been making in our lives and that Mom approves.

V and my Dad

It was a beautiful day, we had fun, saw lots of great things, V and K bought some trains, we ate lots of good food, drank home made cream soda from a glass gallon jug and got to see my parents who gave us approval for our undertaking on the acreage. That was worth more than anything else. It was wonderful to have a day away with my family, laughing and having fun.

I hope you all get to have as much fun this weekend.

The last of the tomatoes

I spent several hours today working up the last of our tomatoes. Oh, there are still a few that we will eat fresh but they won't last for long. I got 5 quarts of crushed (I didn't cook them down enough to count as sauce) and 16 pints of diced/chunked. That takes the total to 40 quarts, 20 pints, plus the 10 pints of salsa. Not too shabby, but it's probably not even half of what was out there. But, all things considered, I'm glad to have what I've got. While I won't miss canning, I will miss having fresh tomatoes to eat. I've got two plants that still look OK. A yellow cherry tomato that appears to have some resistance and I planted one of our Campbell's super secret tomatoes in a big pot away from the garden to hopefully save some seeds. I'm not sure if it will breed true so I thought I'd limit the pollination options. That will be the one tomato I will be saving seeds from this year.

I talked to my Mom this morning and she told me that she still has tomatoes and jars and will can some whole tomatoes for me if I want. While having some extra wouldn't hurt, I hate to ask her to do that for us. My parents are both getting up there in age and I don't think need to be doing any extra for me. Oh, Mom has made some pickles for us and frozen some corn but I hate to think of her on her feet canning even more tomatoes than she already has. I know she cans for my siblings who don't do any canning of their own but I'm not about to ask her to do that for me.

But I will take her up on her offer of winter squash since she says they have lots and that's something I didn't get planted this year.

Tomorrow is a grand adventure for us but you'll have to wait to see what it is.

Of pots and potatoes

We dug our potatoes this afternoon/evening after I got home from work. All 5 of us went out to grub around in the dirt, some of us more willingly than others. Now is one of those times that I really wish we had a produce scale. We harvested nearly a wagon load of fingerling potatoes. Now to figure out where to lay them out to cure....

Ticket sniffs the Swedish Peanuts

I love our old wagon. V pulled it out of a dumpster when J15 was about 2 years old. It wasn't new but we didn't have a wagon at the time and it has served us well through hauling around 3 children and a host of other duties.

And V had a surprise for me as well:

He hung my pot rack!

You know, sometimes it's the little things that brighten your day.

Devastated

My tomatoes are all gone!!! I last was out in the garden on Sunday afternoon to pick tomatoes. (I know, bad Judy for not going out to the garden for almost 3 days) It looked like the mold that had begun after the 6+ inches of rain had stopped. But then I went out tonight to pick- and there was something different. Probably 95% of my tomatoes have been affected by the late blight- they look awful! I'm going to have to pull them all out and hope it hasn't spread to my potatoes already. Fortunately, the potatoes are up slope for run off and up wind from the prevailing winds. But I see some potato digging in the very near future, even though the vines haven't died yet.

So, there will be no more tomatoes from my house. I guess I'm fortunate that I've gotten as many as I have. With picking them as they just start to ripen (to save them from mousey predation) I've got enough ripening in the house for maybe another 8-10 quarts of sauce. Or maybe I need to do some pints of diced tomatoes since I use those in several recipes. sigh. And just when they were starting to ripen fast enough that the mice weren't able to get to all of them. And my paste tomatoes were just starting to really ripen.

I've never had this problem before out here. I guess, from my research on-line, that it thrives in the type of weather we've been having- very wet and with moderate temps (60-80). We had over 14 inches of rain in August with temps generally in the mid 70s. Definitely NOT typical Iowa August weather!

Again, I'm counting my blessings that I got what I did before this hit, unlike many in the Northeast. But it is a great disappointment.

The canning fires of Mordor

Well, maybe not that bad but that's what V has started calling it. It's been another after work canning marathon this evening. I've got the last batch processing now. That will make it 6 pints of salsa and 10 quarts, 2 pints of tomato sauce for the evening. Yeah, I've got over my goal. And there are still lots of tomatoes out there. And since it's dried out (Thank you!!!) the creeping rot has slowed down. I'm up to 35 quarts total now, close to the 40 I did a few years ago that seemed to be about the right number for us. But a few extra never hurt anyone- especially since I12 has turned into an eating machine, seemingly overnight. I hate to see how much he's going to pack away in a few years- EEK, I'd better up production next year just to keep up with him.

Oops, I hear my timer calling.

Good night!