butterfly film - amateur version!

obviously I have no idea what I'm doing....
I'm going to experiment with this today...
can't get good video of the flowers - very sunny today
but here we also have the fountain
because water noises are so soothing!

After the Storm

After Passage of the Front...


I know it could have been much worse; everthing is relative. Saturday morning greeted us with sunlight filtering through the bamboo blinds, blue skies, cool-dry air. Lovely! But sooo wet!!! The Weather Channel the night before went on and on about Shreveport - something like 15 inches in some areas. We only received three inches. But it comes at a bad time for us and I've seen this movie before. The grass we had hoped to cut for hay now stands in saturated ground that would not support the hay equipment even if it (the grass) were to dry out enough to cut, and much less the pickup truck and trailer to haul the bales out of the field. The garden has sections of standing water - I usually hill up the whole field so it will drain during the winter, but this time I was lucky to get the fall cover crop tilled in and another one spread before the rains of last week made it too muddy to work. The last time we had this sort of weather foolishness, there were no strawberries planted, and I can see that happening again. But there is good news as well; the Australian Winter Peas that I spread and was unable to cover have remained so wet that they have worked their little primary roots into the mud and are spouting nicely, along with the crimson clover and sprinkling of mustard and turnips that I spread at the field margins.













Although pictures only a farmer could love, these sprouts promise to cover the field with green going into the winter and ought to pay dividends in the spring when they break down into humus. I wandered across the front of the field where we have planted a modest winter garden for us (modest, if you think two can eat 40 broccoli plants). Of course that is the problem when you start plants like these from seeds; it's hard to resist planting all of the starts - and we really only planted about half of the cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and brussel sprouts plants - and this time gave the rest away before they were too old. Yet, there are flats remaining...

These on the left are more lettuce, some parsley, some cute little violas, and white and yellow California daisies from seed collected and given to us by a CA native - yes, Loree, they are indeed spouting. The flat below is more cabbage that we will probably give away because we are out of room.












But, back to the garden...
Here's a look at the ready-to-munch lettuce and the shot below that is the cutting celery that made it through the dry summer and is now mired in the mud at the wet end of the garden. This is some hardy stuff and I would recommend it to anyone who likes celery flavor.

On the right is shot of the turnips; already thinned
for greens and about two weeks away from nice roots to cook with bacon and cane syrup (a Cajun technique). There are more pics of the garden to come later, but I wanted to post a couple of zinnia and butterfly pictures. With the relatively warm and very wet weather, the yard has a spring look to it and I meant to take a couple of pictures of the giant marigolds that are in full bud, but we will have to do with the zinnias, Mexican sunflowers and fall butterflies. Till next time...Will.

Deer Bones In The Yard

Here we have a hunk of dead deer. If you are already nauseous, just don't read this post, ok?
Poor old Dude, who doesn't get around much, apparently can smell a freshly gutted deer from a mile away. We have neighbors who hunt deer. That's just what they do. Hey - anyone who loves a venison roast should just man-up about this...because this is indeed where it comes from!
So the neighbors (and probably friends) go deer hunting. They clean the deer, and don't use the hind quarters for anything, so they toss them into the nearby brush. Dude wakes up from a nap and thinks "hey! I smell deer!"
So he goes way over to the neighbors property (its not THAT far, but it's pretty far for this old dog). And next thing you know, he had dragged a whole deer leg into the yard.
Will calls out and says 'Hey! Bring a cookie sheet!'...at first I'm thinking...oh no. He says..."we can either let it rot out here or we can roast it!" And then I'm thinking ...'uh...roast it? you mean, like...'
Of course not. He was thinking that Dude will drag it over, but we both know he won't actually EAT it. Not unless it's roasted, of course. I am guilty of roasting meat for this dog on a regular basis! ok, fine.So Will brings it into the kitchen and into the oven it goes! I must say, a venison roast smells yummy. A raw deer leg, not so much. Matter of fact, it smells pretty rank!
In the end, old Dude has three large hunks of deer to much on. I'm so glad it wasn't intended for us because, well, you know.
This morning I took the last one out of the outside fridge, but made sure to take a picture before I put it down for Dude. This probably looks very yummy if you're a dog...ok..I promise...no more blog posts about meat in the yard!

Cover-Cropping...Let's Do It Again!

Of the two of us, only Will takes the deep breath and cranks up the tractor...to mow down the very last of what we have been hanging onto from the summer garden. Well, first of all, only Will drives the tractor, but secondly, it just kills me to see things go - which is why he is the farmer of course.
I suppose if it were up to me, we'd just have a big gnarly mess of old vegetation until it dried up and eventually became compost(!) (with a bunch of weeds). That anything is left at all after August 1st is only because Will is humoring me.

Here we have the last things to go:

italian basil in it's last throes, and huge yellow cosmos as a backdrop...

goodbye to that, right? nothing like a clean slate
(pay no attention to the herb beds at the end of the field -
even Will can't mow down the celery leaf. Next comes the cover crop...

very exciting if you're into that kind of thing. Happy soil, happy plants next time. a few weeks later, and you have the mother of all cover crops!! Knee-high and dense, ready to plow under (if the weather cooperates). Lo and Behold! We actually have time to do it all again! It's mid (to late) October and - hey...two cover crops are even better than one! Out comes the tractor and down go the peas! The other evening, Will was out there walking back and forth, back and forth - with the bag of seed and his little device that spits it out when you crank the handle round and round.
He walked and walked and it got dark and he was still walking. But it was going to rain (and it did) and the seed had to be down. Didn't have time to till it in, but it ought to come up anyway. Pictures later for those of you who think cover crops are groovy.
I promise a blog post about something a little more colorful first. Like, maybe, zinnias!

What Was I THINKING?

...last week of the CSA; we're down to okra, squash, and one more watermelon for everyone. Yeah, hot peppers, but how many of our members want more of THAT? (answer: not many). Week 6, everybody got rosemary jelly as a 'supplement' to their market basket. Week 7, everybody got a jar of Hot Sweet Garlic Pickles AND a container of Dill Dip (very popular!). So, Week 8, Will makes pepper jelly and I decided that everyone would get a loaf of herb bread! Sounds good in theory, I suppose; and I have lots of experience with bread-making...especially this recipe. But 24 loaves of bread????? All having to be baked on Friday so everybody gets it fresh??? Good Grief! Luckily, I have a friend with a counter stand-mixer, so she lets me borrow it. I figured I could just whip out 24 batches of dough on Thursday, rise them once, put them in plastic bags in the fridge, and bake them all on Friday. this also sounds good in theory. right?

NOTE: This is a pretty long rant about bread-making, so if you're not well for it, you can just look at the pictures and get on with life!

So I go to the store and load up: 15 bags of flour, four jars of yeast...
I experimented on Wednesday. just to see what happens when you try to preserve dough for baking the next day- the only smart move so far. I made a regular batch of bread, by hand, put the dough in a plastic bag in the fridge. It just kept on rising and rising in the coldness of the fridge! It just wouldn't STOP! At this point, I realized I'd have to freeze all of them first, THEN put them in the fridge for later use. (Note: once they unfreeze, even in the fridge, guess what? yes. they keep rising. That little item I'd find out much later. So I just forged ahead. I had already planned to do this, and it was our only plan, so I had to go with it.
Thursday morning, I pick up from said friend's house the Kitchen Aid Accolade 400! I mean, who on earth decided to name a mixer the Accolade?! That's a car name, or it should be.
First, I just figure I'll do it the way I always do; no measuring, just rise the yeast and alternate hot water and flour until I get the right amount and consistency. Do not try this in a standing mixer! The mixer will have none of it! I wound up #1 with a great glob of goopy mess that of course never turns into a dough ball while using the dough hook attachment! But I had been smart, and knew from reading online conversations about this appliance that the dough wan't ever going to do that anyway. #2, I thought it would be a good idea to wrap the first two I did in wax paper before putting them in plastic bags. big mistake. good thing I didn't continue to do that with the other 21 loaves. more later. #3, I really should have made sure they were all frozen solid before transferring them to the outdoor cooler. I was flying by the seat of my pants. I had ten loaves done by 1:00 p.m. I figured I was making good progress. From start to end on Thursday, I had been on my feet (I kid you not) for 12 hours! I had to drag myself through the last 4 or 5 loaves, because I was ready to jump off of a tall building by then. But, by 10:00 at night, I had 24 bags of dough, once risen and cooled down in the freezer, on the highest shelf of the cooler in the shed.
Friday morning, I figured this would be an easier day. My oven will only take three loaves at a time which is good, because I only have three loaf pans anyway. I go out to the shed and open the door. My goodness it smells like bread in here! Uh...one of the bags had exploded (remember the 'keep on rising' part?) and spilled all the way down the front of all the bee boxes stacked in the cooler. gross. I start hauling all the bags out, crossing my fingers. Although this was the only actual explosion, many of the bags had expanded and popped the ties on the bags...I brought all of them inside and began stuffing them into the two freezers. What now? I only have this one day! I chose three and set them on the table. The goal is to get the dough to room temperature before baking. well, I waited an hour and a half and that just was NOT happening. So I put the first three in the oven. yet another mistake. I buttered the tops at 20 minutes. I looked in at 45 minutes, figuring they'd be ready but the bread just wasn't baking all the way! I left them in for an hour, and the middles STILL weren't done! Patience, patience. Three loaves maybe ruined. One exploded and ruined..AND, the two wrapped in wax paper? Well, let me just say that the wax paper became ONE with the dough and there just wasn't any way to separate one from the other. into the garbage. That's three ruined loaves before baking and three baked loaves probably ruined also (although they looked alright, I didn't trust them at all).
Good thing I am a very determined woman. I hauled all of the loaves from the freezers out onto the carport, put the bags on trays and in bowls covered with plastic wrap and dish towels. The real challenge here is making sure that as they got warm enough to bake, they never came into contact with a fly. With everything covered with tablecloths, I felt pretty confident about that. The day progressed, and every round looked better than the one before. After putting the last three in the oven, I whipped up three more by hand..the baking was done by 10:00 p.m. But I did it!Like Will said, everybody will be excited with a loaf of bread in ther market basket, but nobody will think 'MAN, 24 loaves of bread!' No matter. Here is the basket everyone received on Saturday...Watermelon, Okra, Squash, Pepper Jelly, Bread, and herbs.

Our CSA Members seemed to be sorry the whole thing was over, eager to sign up for next year, and pleased with the whole experience. Hey! We managed to pull it off, beginning to end! Now, as we do every late summer, cut it all down, plow it all under, cover crop...and rest.

CHOPPED!!

...for those of you who have never seen the Food Network show 'Chopped', the premise is as follows: four chefs compete during the hour, making first an appetizer, then an entree, then a dessert. For each dish, the chefs are presented each with a basket. They open the basket, and there are three or four items, sometimes a pretty weird combination, and they must use all of them to make the dish. For example, 'Make an appetizer using....asparagus, Fruit Loops, squash, and ketchup!' Well, it's never been QUITE that strange, but sometimes it comes close....
Last week, week 6 of our CSA, we were a little concerned, because we are now down to the very late summer veggies, and we do like to keep our members happy, but we also know they've seen plenty of hot peppers and eggplant. So, we decided to take the basket we gave them last week, and do our own version of 'Chopped!', just to see what WE would do presented with the same items.
Here is the basket, exactly as our CSA members received theirs last Saturday:
the basket contains:

okra
zucchini
parsley
eggplant
chilis
jalepenos
rosemary jelly
watermelon

We cheated a little bit; we didn't make one dish, we made a complete dinner. By the way, chefs are allowed to use other stuff from the pantry, but other than spices and a 'protein', as they say, (and why can't they just say meat?) we didn't stray. Here is what we came up with:

the appetizer:
jalepenos, stuffed with cheese, battered and fried, served with rosemary jelly
the entree:
stuffed eggplant, with zucchini, shrimp, and chilis
served with fried okra
and dessert:
watermelon sorbet!

after this little experiment, we felt that the basket was actually filled with things very compatible with each other, and everybody was probably pretty happy with their weekly share. On to Week 7!

Please...I Beg You!

NO MORE PICKLES!

one can only take so much pickle-making. A night and a day is my limit of the house smelling like vinegar and spices (sounds good, I know...). Buckets of cucumber slices in the bathtub; the washing of jars, the standing over a pot of pickle fumes stuffing jars...etc. etc. Will rushing around with giant pots of steaming jars - out into the carport - back into the house - he was just trying to be efficient. There were more cucumber slices this morning, in pots on the stove. We were supposed to finish this evening. But I couldn't take it. I wanted my stove and counters back. I just went ahead and finished them off this morning.
done.

Tomorrow - Rosemary Jelly!

4th of July

Week 5 of our CSA adventure...and what a crazy gardening summer it has been: heat heat heat and no rain (except a violent inch and a half last week). Everything in the garden, in it's rush to complete the life-cycle, came to fruition almost simultaneously, or at least way earlier than it normally would have. I answer phone calls all day long from folks who want fresh things from the garden - but our CSA members come first, and I can only turn everyone else away. Our focus now is gathering all of the available produce...cutting okra, hauling in the eggplants, and this week: watermelons! yea! I don't remember when we have EVER actually had watermelons ON the 4th of July! We always try (or, rather, Will does) but it never seems to happen right on time. Not so this year...all of our members will have one for Saturday! Also, Will hauled in the bee boxes this past week. Amazingly, the bees have come through, even in these desperate-weather times. Some of the most beautiful (and bountiful) honey we've ever had. With help from a member family and a friend, we spent two evenings spinning. Everyone also gets their honey this week. fabulous.
Will had the foresight to put in a little bed (relative term) of lettuce late in the season, so we can harvest for this week, and that's a good surprise this late in the game>
In the meantime, value-added days are upon us: this means pickles, tomato sauce, jalepenos, and anything else we can can or freeze or dry. All I've done so far this morning is cut the okra: well, one row of it anyway. Got to get out and water plants and hose down all of the porches etc. Think I'll get to it. They say it'll be 100 degrees today. Oh boy, can't wait.

Father's Day Food!

check out the little jalepenos stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped with bacon!
tomatoes and peppers and onions roasting for the salsa-making: red beans on the stove...ditto yellow squash...salad on the table. yea summer.

Garden Survey

well. I wanted to say the garden is now at it's peak, but I believe we are beyond that point.
Things are getting gnarley out in the herb beds, but we're holding our own for now. The zinnias, planted especially for the wedding, are as pretty as they're ever going to get. The sunflowers have started blooming. The field peas went from this to this in one week!
There's okra, but you have to know that because all of the other vegetables are so distracting!
There are more cucumbers than anyone could possible deal with, and the squash have to picked every single day. Small squash in the morning, giant squash in the evening. I kid you not! The drought and heat wave are taking their toll on the garden and on us, but so far, we're persevering...I figure a high pressure system has to move or break down at some point, although this one has lasted - what - three weeks? four? I guess it's better than 'severe storms' with big hail and 80 mph winds, right?

It Just Does NOT Get Any Better Than This

Purple Hull Peas...that is all.

Braving the Blackberry Patch

...actually, it is a really, really long row - but a gnarley one! Used to be a row - now it is a wide patch of all sorts of stuff, including massive blackberry vines. We kept meaning to get out there and make it oh-so perfect for picking time. But it wasn't meant to be - too much else to do. The berries are plenty accessible, it's just a little creepy. I seem to remember that snakes like berries, and of course we used to pick them from all manner of semi-dangerous environs when I was a kid. This is pretty tame by comparison. Got enough to freeze and last night make blackberry turnovers (but the Filo was very uncooperative!). Yummy anyway. And I was able to send Will to work with a smoothie this morning.
If we were willing to draw down the pond more than we've already had to, we would flood the berries - but we need to conserve and use the water only on the vegetables. Yes, we're in a little drought - in the 95+ degree heat. That's fine, as long as we stay ahead of things and come inside by 9:00 a.m....on to the next thing - sorting tomatoes and putting them in boxes! yea! Glad the garden is so prolific, but MAN, there's a lot of tomatoes!

After the Party

I cannot BELIEVE that I took no pictures this Saturday morning...week 2 of our CSA!
Many members came to help - they picked yellow beans, green beans, helped pull up ALL of the strawberry plants (that's a pretty big deal)...helped pack baskets, sort potatoes. A crazy time, to be sure. Lots of kids, lots of sweaty hard-working people. It's beautiful, I must tell you. But it never occurred to me to get the camera; I was just too busy. This time, I tried to get out earlier. I woke up at 5:30 and was in the garden at 6:30. It took me two hours and more to cut and bag all of the herb orders and flower orders: next week , I don't know - maybe I'll wake up at 5:00.
A great success, all in all. We are lovin' this CSA thing!The cats are hot (big heat wave here) and they lay around a lot. The Crazy Cat is very very sociable, and likes to mingle with all of the folks on Saturday morning. Last week he got ahold of some woman's purse and he was NOT going to let it go! But the others are close at hand: here is the Kitty Witty trying not to move very much:
And the Crazy Cat just daring Will to pick up his farm hat: This morning (Sunday), we heard the driveway alarm, and Will calls out: "Hey! It's Claire and her Dad!" And they're on horseback!" Claire is the daughter in a CSA family, a hard-working young lady and very smart to boot! She was the very first helper of the season, coming over to weed strawberry plants way before the garden was even planted. Here are the horses tied up for a moment on the fence. And so we begin another week...let's have some voodoo from out there - we are need of rain.

Remember the $64 Tomato?

Those were the Brandywines, last year...well this is kind of the $64 Tomato Redux. Heirloom tomatoes can be a wonderful thing. In fact, there's a man down the road who grows all manner of interesting and beautiful ones...Purple Russians, that sort of thing. He gives them away. He grows them 'just because'...This time, it's a packet of free seeds from one of the seed companies. Uh - I can kind of see why they're giving the seeds away. An interesting tomato, to be sure, but not only are they way-ugly; it's hard to get any actual tomato to eat from one of these guys. We made a salad last night, and Will said he'd just use one of these and 'they better be good!' They were ok, but nothing to write home about. Give me a giant creole tomato anytime.

Attack Of The Vegetables

It's THAT time...well, this particular job wasn't that big of a deal; Ian and Senna (son and girlfriend) sat around with us on Sunday and helped shell all of these Horticulture beans...so it was only a matter of blanching, dunking in ice water and bagging...THIS, on the other hand, is a different story! I remember a really funny Garrison Keilor story from way back about his childhood and all of the excess vegetables, mainly tomatoes, from the garden (and of course leaving bags of zucchini on people's doorsteps in the middle of the night - I totally get that). 'Canning' tomatoes is daunting in it's way. First of all, the ones you work with are the ones with imperfections - holes and little soft spots and such - and you stand at the counter and cut and throw the good parts into a really big pot and dunk the other stuff into a bucket at your feet. This goes on for a long, long time. Yesterday, I wound up with two huge pots of cut up tomatoes simmering on the stove. Then you wash the jars. Then you boil the jars. Then you line up the jars. Then you boil the lids. Then you haul the pot of tomatoes over to the jars. Then you fill the jars and continually wipe up the spillage. Then you wipe off the tops of the jars with a paper towel dunked in boiling water; Then you put lids on the jars. Then you figure out which pots you have left to set the jars in...then you set the jars in the water bath and then you let it come to a boil and then you let it go for ten minutes and then you pull the jars out and listen for them to go 'click',,,'click' - that's the sealing.
And then you realize that you never sterilized enough jars to begin with and here you are with half a big pot of tomatoes. Then Will comes in and offers to do 'Round 2'. That's a good thing, because by that time, I was just done in. I need an attitude adjustment...it's way to early in the season to feel overwhelmed by this kind of thing. The result is a beautiful thing, though!
And I still can't figure out why they call it 'canning' when in fact you are putting stuff in JARS.