Birthday Extravaganza

 Sunny Peppers!

Yes, the peppers continue to ripen and survive despite cold nights.  It's amazing what a sheet of remay row cover can do to preserve and protect.  I'm not sure about this week with lows forecast in the mid 20's it could be the end, but it's been a great run.  We have loads of peppers now that I need to cut up for the freezer because I don't think we will be able to eat them all up.

I've had a wonderful birthday week with multiple celebrations in honor of turning, as someone said "double nickles".  There have been cards and calls, gifts and dinners and a general festive air all around.

I baked this gorgeous snapper from the local fishmonger on my birthday eve. Along side crispy roasted potatoes, the last of the garden beans and a salad of just picked red bibb lettuce, a nice french white Bordeaux, that was some living brother.  And we polished the night off with a flour-less chocolate torte that I baked for myself as I'd been having a hankering.

On my actual birthday Nov 8th, David went out to Prairie Ridge with me to help band birds. It was another cool sunny day and we had a big time capturing kinglets and many sparrows in the nets and putting the bands on their tiny legs before measuring, weighing and releasing them to fly on about their day.

That night we enjoyed a super dinner at Mateo Tapas Bar in Durham where we sampled 9 different plates and a fair amount of wine.

Yesterday I spent the day at the NC Community Garden Partners Annual meeting.  I am on the education committee and so was on the planning committee for this event.  I think it was a big success, we had over 100 people from across the state taking part in workshops and presentations.  People seemed to be learning lots and networking too, always good.  Our theme this year was sustainability of gardens, not on the ecological level but on the management, business, funding, longevity level. It is great to see the community garden movement growing in North Carolina and so many people interested in getting gardens started and in keeping them going strong.

Best of all- I won the raffle of this gorgeous community garden quilt!  It represents raised beds, pathways and veggies growing, and has a few chickens clucking through it as well.  Colorful and fun.  I couldn't believe it.

And so, I enter my 55th year feeling very celebrated, loved and lucky indeed.

Red Alert- Tomato Emergency!

I planted extra tomatoes this year with canning in mind.  I've always made sauce and frozen it, but last year I also canned pints and quarts and they turned out so well and didn't take up freezer space so I decided I wanted to do more canning this season.  When I made that decision I didn't know it would be the wettest summer on record.  In case you didn't know, tomatoes don't really like humidity and wet weather.  What was one of the best looking tomato patches we've had in a long time; healthy, lush plants loaded with green fruit, has been turned, in the course of three very wet weeks, into this.

This batch of Red Agate romas have lost almost all of their leaves. Not pictured are the Marianna hybrid which are doing a little better but the fruit is only beginning to ripen.  Granted, the fruit set is fantastic as you can see, but the tomatoes are starting to rot before they fully ripen due to too much moisture.  So today I picked everything that was remotely red and brought it into the kitchen. I dried off and left on the counter all that looked like they would make it a few days to get redder. Look close to see the little spots that in a few days turn into black rot.

The rest I washed and processed for sauce.  I have a method that is probably not the most efficient but I like the result so I labor away.  First I remove any spots and the cores from the tomatoes, cut in chunks and put them in a big pot with some salt and cook until soft, 20 or 30 minutes.  Then I put that mixture through the food mill to remove skins and most of the seeds.  In addition, because I like my sauce to be a bit chunky, I peel and seed some of the better looking ones and chop those up.  So the result is two batches, one of chopped and one of puree.

I heat some fruity olive oil in a large heavy bottom pot, cook chopped onions and garlic until starting to soften, then add both batches of tomatoes along with about a cup of chopped fresh basil, marjoram and oregano and a bay leaf and let the whole thing simmer for at least an hour to meld the flavors and cook away some of the water. This yields a rich, thick sauce that I can freeze in baggies for winter pizza's and pasta.

The final product, burbling away

I was at this for three hours this morning between the picking, sorting, peeling, chopping, not to mention washing the dishes that mount in a process like this, but it will be worthwhile in the end.  I hope the remaining tomatoes in the garden are going to ripen up before the plants go down completely so I can actually get some into jars as I had planned.  The weather is finally turning hot and dry this week, with 90+ degree days  forecast every day  I am not looking forward to that very much, but at least we are already half way through July.

Autumn Gluttony

Gluttony takes me over in the fall. I just want to cook, eat and sleep. In between, I take long walks in the woods and work in my yard. Free from chiggers and ticks, I bask in the clear, dry days, I even lie down in the cool grass.
I walked up the mountain today. I don’t go there in the summer, too steep, close, buggy. Tree trunks felled ten years ago in hurricane Fran still lie like corpses striping the hillside, granite boulders breach through a sea of brown leaves, lichen patterns their surface like barnacles on a whale. Oak and hickory seedlings and low bush blueberries crowd the path, acorns crunch under my boots.

A chain saw growls from the Peabody’s side of the mountain, the sound of hammers on wood cracks through the air from the site of our newest neighbors’ soon to be house. As I walk along the trail I lose my way at times, the fallen leaves camouflage the path. The top of the mountain is covered with towering oaks and jutting granite rock outcrops. I sit to rest, breathing hard. It’s still shrouded in leaves up there, in another month a view to the east will be unveiled that includes the dome on the Moorhead Planetarium and the steeple of the First Presbyterian Church on Franklin Street.

The architecture of the forest also begins to reveal itself. The height and drama of tree trunks come back into focus, the lay of the land apparent again, a rise here, rutted road bed there. The trail follows a ridge down from the mountain. Before it drops down to the creek bottom, there is an old fire ring made of stacked stone, set low in the center of a group of large boulders. I like to picture hunters 50 years ago, or even Native Americans 500 years ago, camping there and staying warm in that protected spot.

The dry rocky creek bottoms fill with brown leaves. On the way back home I cross the pond, the beavers are building a new lodge in the face of the dam, with a long tunnel that stretches out into what little water is left. White throated sparrows and kinglets are back and they call to me from the witch hazel thicket at the marsh end of the pond. They flit through the round-leaved shrubs, teasing me to try and find them.

At home I’ve been busy with the activities of first frost and tonight possibly our first freeze. I’ve made green tomato and lemon marmalade, green tomato and apple chutney, and green tomato and chile salsa. I made one last batch of pesto and roasted and froze three dozen poblanos and a big bagful of serranos. It’s dangerous for me to go to the grocery store. The fridge and freezer are overflowing with food and I just want to buy more.

I ran in just for some milk yesterday. I already had a fridge full of chickens I bought on sale, waiting to be cut up for the freezer and their backs turned into stock. I bought two packages of boneless beef short ribs, reduced for quick sale, and two packs of mushrooms. I imagined how rich and good that would be on a cold night, cooked together in a broth of red wine, with a few late season red tomatoes and fresh herbs. I threw in a package of egg noodles, thinking that a perfect accompaniment.

Our garden still looks phenomenal. Despite the drought, we have watered the vegetables from the well so they are lush and green and tender. In early November we are eating beets, spinach, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, arugula, carrots, Swiss chard, kale, turnip and mustard greens. I am holding out hope for the broccoli, heads now the size of a ping pong ball and the cabbage, about the size of a baseball, even though they were chomped by a groundhog during their formative stage, they are trying their best to make. The Brussels sprouts, planted late and also devoured by the woodchuck, are less promising, the petit chou are only the size of a pin head.

I’ve been slowly planting shrubs that have been waiting in pots in the nursery, some of them for years. Some we bought, some are seedlings and many my sweetie pie started from cuttings of other plants. Thanks to a three inch rain last week I can actually dig. I spend as much time reveling in the day as I do working. I get lots of exercise walking back to the shed for a forgotten tool, and switch tasks frequently to provide my out of shape muscles with a little variety.

Get some tools, dig a hole, shovel a load of manure and dump it by the compost heap. Gaze at the trees and sky for a while. Plant the shrub, get a load of mulch, put some on the shrub and take the rest for the compost heap. Get a drink of water and do some “yard yoga” maybe a little warrior or triangle pose. As I lean forward and twist, my right arm reaching towards the sky, I see two hawks circling, they look like dragonflies they are so high up. Carry water from the rain barrel to the shrub. Cut back the dying tomatoes into small pieces for easy decomposition and layer those into a new compost pile with the wheelbarrow loads I brought down earlier. It’s a dance, waltzing from one task to the next, blue sky above me, leaves swirling down.

Daylight savings time is over, so by 3:00 the light is long, by 4:00 it begins to feel dark and by 5:00 I’m thinking about supper. What delightful combination of rib sticking item will we pair with what green veggie from the garden? How will we wile away the evening after the meal has been savored? Most likely loitering on the couch with a book or TV, until it’s late enough to justify slipping into the sheets to slumber until next light.