Almost Wordless Wednesday

Good morning! It's noisy on the porch this morning. The woodpecker is drumming, the goldfinches are squabbling, the doves are chasing each other through the trees, the nuthatches are racketing around and the hummingbirds are flying their usual Blue Angels daredevil loops. All's right in bird world. I've had my tea, now let's see what photos  I haven't shared yet, before we leave for the long drive to the Huntington VA.

Window view yesterday morning.

Taken last year on my porch

Out in the garden 

I used to cross this bridge every time i subbed on one mail route. I used to stop here and eat my lunch, as there was never much traffic.

Seen in Lowe's on Tuesday. For a mere $429 these scary guys can be yours. They move too. Very creepy; the tallest is about 10 feet tall.

An auction win, probably made in England 1930-1940.

Another from the auction.

We saw this scary repair job in the hotel parking garage last week.

Definitely didn't make me feel safe!

Sculpture at the Clay Center for the Arts in Charleston,  where the Vince Gill concert was held.

Some ridgetop evening views.

Um, ignore the crack across my windshield.  We have got to get that replaced, soon.

Saw this beautiful guy along Joe's Run last week.

Or maybe the week before.

And finally, just a thought:

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

More Canning, and Other Stuff

Mostly overcast and quite humid day. Feels unsettled, like something coming. High of 80°f but sticky and uncomfortable. 

It was another day in the kitchen for me. I made the elderberry jelly, and it came out beautifully. 

I was lacking a half cup of juice for the second batch, so I added a half cup of white wine. I must say, that batch tasted even better than the first one! You can see the difference in color in tge photo, as the jelly with wine is lighter in color. I ended up with 14 half-pint jars.

Yum! Had to taste test, you know.

Next was a little more corn, which I decided to freeze on the cob, vacuum-sealing it so it should taste almost fresh when we use it.

Last, the tomatoes.  I had a motley mix of pink, black and red tomatoes that needed to be used before they went bad. I had seen a recipe for tomato dill soup, so I decided to give it a try.  I think it tastes delicious,  and could be served hot or cold. 

I had enough to make 7 quarts, plus a pint I put in the fridge for tomorrow's supper.

Besides kitchen duty, I finally got the old radio moved in place. 

I had a stack of suitcases full of DVDs in this corner, so I made space in the large old cupboard to the right for all of those. The suitcases will go to a booth, one more small step in downsizing. The old radio is a temporary resident---it doesn't work and we can't fix it, so I am thinking to gut it, put a new back on it, add lights and shelving and make it a bar cabinet, leaving the old radio dial and knobs in place. Still undecided about the door---remove it, remove just the speaker cloth and replace with plexiglass,  or leave as is? Currently there is a non-working record player in there that slides out when you pull on the door. I think it just looks so cool, so it can sit a while, until we have time to work on it.

We also continued working on this set:

I am not happy with the table top, but it is what it is. It's still slightly messed up from where the former owner left it out in the rain. We tried hard to fix it, but it's not much better. So it will go as is. All that's left to do is wax the top and add feet to one of the chairs.  As soon as we have time, we will get this to a booth.

I had a pretty nice day, all round, but poor Larry spent most of his working on his mower, again. I guess it is heading back to the shop as he has worked on it for many hours over the past week with no luck. So aggravating for him. And of course the grass is quickly getting out of hand. 

Tomorrow he has a doc appointment in Parkersburg,  then Wednesday another one in Huntington,  so there won't be much else happening here at home. I am very glad I worked through all the garden stuff, because Thursday we will be picking tomatoes from our friend's greenhouses, and that means the rest of the week will be spent processing them. No rest for the wicked!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

These July Days

70°f/21°C this morning, cloudy all day. High of 81.

This weekend has been a kitchen kind of time. The corn is ready, the elderberries along the road are ripe, and a fruit farm in Ohio announced that it is now blackberry picking season.

So Saturday morning we started working up the corn. Larry shucked it, and I cut it off the cobs and vacuum-sealed bags for the freezer. Push rewind, as we did the same thing today, ending up with 12 quarts so far. There will be more, but this is most of it, I think.

I had those elderberries we picked Friday evening to deal with too. I stripped the berries from the stems (which takes a long time), washed them, put them into a pot and covered them with water, brought to a boil and simmered them for about 10 minutes to release the juice. Funny how some turned red when cooked, others stayed black. There are some green ones in there too, as the berries don't all ripen evenly, but they won't hurt anything; if anything, they'll increase the pectin content, which is good for making jelly.

Next step was to strain the berries through cheesecloth. I put the resulting juice in the fridge to make into jelly, or maybe syrup, tomorrow.

Yesterday, after putting up the corn, we drove over to Ohio for the blackberries. We picked more than I had planned on, but I'm happy with that! When we got home, I cleaned all leaves, etc, from the berries, then popped them into five gallon bags for the freezer. These too will hold until I can make jam and pie filling this coming week.

We ended our Saturday at the firepit, something we haven't been able to do for a while due to the heat. 

Here I was trying to take a photo of wine, fire, and Mothman potato chips, but this is what happened:

Oh well! 

It was such a pretty evening, a perfect way to end a busy day.

While working on the corn today, I made a quick casserole with veggies from the fridge. I sautéed yellow squash, zucchini,  carrots, celery and onion,  mixed these with leftover boiled potatoes, added what was left of a package of grated Mexican cheese, a jar of Alfredo sauce, and some leftover ham that I cut up. Popped this into the oven for about 20-30 minutes, sliced some tomatoes, cooked some corn on the cob, and that was dinner.

Tomorrow we have tomatoes to deal with, and I will make the elderberry jelly, I hope. 

It's the time of year that the garden does its best to overwhelm us with its abundance, but I think we are keeping up with it pretty well so far. I am not complaining! I appreciate how fortunate we are to have so much, even if it does mean a lot of work. 

When I look back through my blog for posts made around this date, I see the same theme. And if I go back before 2020, the garden posts are intermingled with storytelling research, grandchildren coming to stay, travel and performances. Busy, busy times.

I think back to when I was a child, and how much easier food preservation is now. Back then, we children would be out in the garden right after breakfast, picking whatever we were told to pick. If it was beans, we'd sit under a tree or out on the porch and snap them, often squabbling about who was going too slow. If it was corn, we were the shucking crew; if tomatoes, we had to help peel them or cut them up, depending on what Mom was making.

We lived in town, but every single family on our block had a garden, except Miss Mary next door, whose gardens were let go after her uncle who cared for them passed away. Everyone else gardened and canned. No one had pressure canners, and I am not sure when those came into use. So beans, corn, beets, and other low-acid veggies were processed in waterbath canners for 3 hours or more (which we know now, really wasn't safe, but fortunately we all survived). There was no air conditioning,  of course, so the kitchen windows would be open, with fans trying and failing to relieve the steamy heat. How well I remember Mom's red sweaty face, her apron stained and glasses all fogged up! 

We took Mom's work for granted, of course, being kids, but now when I remember those days I really feel for my mother, working so hard to feed us, and often as not pregnant with yet another mouth to feed. I won't say she didn't complain, because she'd have been a saint if that was the case. But she worked hard, and our pantry would be lined with filled jars, a testament to her hard work. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.