Catching Up on the Week

70°f/21°C, an odd day of clouds, rain, humidity. Some places had flash floods, but we only had one string downpour and a few showers.

It has been a hard day. I woke too early, but hurting too much to stay in bed. I was outside before 9, doing more stringtrimming,  picking beans, pulling beets and onions, and pulling some weeds. 

This is a mix of Rattlesnake beans,  Tenderette bush beans, and a few wax beans. 

And these are Royal Burgundy purple bush beans, one of my favorites because they're magic! They turn green as soon as they hit boiling water. Plus, they are disease and bug resistant,  and they have purple flowers.  So cool.

My test carrot to see if they're ready, along with beets and a bucket full of new potatoes.

Those green onions. Definitely will grow onions from seed again.

And finally the big tomatoes are starting to ripen! We've had small ones and cherry types, but no sandwich maters yet.

The cucumbers are not doing well: I am not sure if it's bugs or just too wet where we gave them. We are still getting plenty, but some of the vines are dying. The good news is that the seeds I planted the other day are already up, so at least there will be late cucumbers. I found a couple sturdy volunteer tomato plants too, so there will be late tomatoes. A blessing!

Everything is growing so fast now, especially grass and weeds. Larry is behind on mowing, and far behind on weedeating. He seems to have no interest in doing it, and I can't handle his big weedeater. The stuff he usually cuts is hard for my little trimmer, although he leaves more and more areas for me to cut. I have asked my son Derek to come do Larry's weedeating, but it really seems unfair since he has his own large yard to care for. Larry is capable, he just doesn't want to do it.

We said goodbye to our rabbits today. Try as I might, I could not get Larry to handle them properly for breeding, growing out, etc. I bought new, easy to use waterers but he wouldn't put them in. There were 4 to be dressed out a month ago but he put that off too, so now they are too big. I got him a book when we got the rabbits, and signed him up for some rabbitry groups, but he just didn’t bother to read up on how to care for them. With all I have to do, I could not add the rabbits to my list, so I called a friend who came and got them today---and I gave her those new waterers too. 

She is coming back to get our chickens, as they have quit laying almost entirely. I will find some new hens after we get back from our Colorado trip in September, but for now the only critters we have are the dogs and the old cat. This will make it easier for Derek to take of things while we are away anyway. But it does seem odd to have no hens, as I have had chickens almost continuously since I was 19. 

I got the beans all snapped, the beets skinned and cooked and ready to use, and the green onions chopped up and in the freezer. Now I need to get the carrots dug. Tomorrow, maybe. 

Beyond all that, I finished up the big buffet I was working on, so it is ready to go to a booth. That and housework pretty well rounded out the day. Oh, and I cleaned up these chanterelles that Larry found along our driveway. I sautéed them and put them in the freezer to use later. 

I had already made dinner, rabbit in an herb sauce over pasta. I did the rabbit and the sauce in the Instant Pot, which I am trying to get the hang of. It so tasty,  and I will make this again with chicken.

I also made a couple quick breads this week, raspberry banana,  and chocolate zucchini.  So good! Both recipes made 2 loaves so the extras are in the freezer.

And I re-soaked my fruitcakes with brandy. They are still so delicious,  and so rich! Of course we had to have a nibble of one of the dark ones. The light ones look good too, but we didn't taste them this time.

Besides all that food work, I did take time to read. I just caught up on The Assassin's Cloak,  which I had fallen behind on. I am over halfway through it! I have said before, it is a fascinating look into the lives of various diarists, beginning with Samuel Pepys in the 1600s, and continuing until the 1990s, with entries for each day of the year.

I also finished Barbara O'Neal's When We Believed in Mermaids, but wouldn't recommend it. Too many stereotype characters for me. And I finished up The Postmistress of Paris by Meg Waite Clayton. I really enjoyed this novel about an American heiress who helped out in the French Resistance during World War II. It is actually based on a real person, and I though Clayton did an excellent job of research for this story that featured actual people who were workers in the Resistance,  and artists trying to escape the Nazis. 

That is all I have today. I am whipped, and intend to sit here and read the rest of the evening! Leaving with this thought:

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualities are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good silence, and nothing too much.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Open Mic Night

69°f/20.5°C, mostly clear but storms possible later. Still very humid.

Last night's open mic. I forgot to video our featured artist, storyteller Bill Hairston, whom I have known for 30 years. 

We had a fantastic time at open mic last night. I was worried that being so soon after the 4th, people would be worn out and not wanting to come out, but that was not the case.

First presenter was 92 year old Ervin Barr, who had not played any music in about 37 years. He was definitely rusty, but did his best and was much appreciated.

Matthew joined us again with his fiddle. He has been teaching himself to play for about 6 months.

My friend, author Cat Pleska, brought the student she is mentoring in storytelling; Cat read an absorbing essay and her student told a short story.

And regulars Barry and Fred were there. Bless their hearts,  they helped me set up my sound system, which I got back from my son to use here because we really didn't have one after Corey had to stop organizing the open mics. His music career is beginning to take off, so he is focusing on that. Since I wanted the open mic nights to continue, I have taken on the organizing, booking, promoting, etc, until Corey can do it again. Not something I expected to be doing but oh well.

We had a full house, ran out of chairs. This photo captures about half of the crowd. Not a huge crowd, of course--- this is a pretty small venue---so 40 or more people is a lot. The staff were hopping to serve all the tables. 

Bill did a great job and I am sorry not to have a video of him telling stories of a freed slave who became an integral part of a WV community at 12 years old because of his mathematical genius, a story about a church mission he went on in Russia, and ending with a funny tale that had us all laughing. In his first two stories he wove in two spirituals, sung in his deep, rich voice. He was quite a hit with our audience. This is the promo pic he sent me. Wish I had taken at least one photo last night though! 

Larry couldn't come with me, as his treatments have made him the color of a lobster and he didn't want to go out like that. I can't blame him! But I missed his company.

Today, back to the routine. Sure was nice to have that break last night though.

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

Projects, Cooking, Fire, and an Old Photo

69°f/20.5°C, showers,  then cloudy, then rainy, then clouds...a steamy day but not too hot, only reached 81°.

Since it has been too hot to work, or even sit, outside, I have been busy with inside projects. These needed to be done, for sure, as they were clogging up my kitchen terribly.

I intended to sell this little table, but decided to keep it and eventually use it as a coffee table, as soon as I can figure out where to put the old chest

I am currently using for that purpose.

For now it's in place under the window. I like the drop leaves, which will be handy at holidays or other times we have visitors, as poeople will have a good space for plates and cups. 

This big 'ol boy is about done, just needs another coat of poly, then waxed and new pulls put on.

This wardrobe took forever! The reason? The door hinges. The mirrored door came off in my hands when I was cleaning it up to paint. Apparently the seller just tacked it on to hold for a little while. Ugh. Then we realized the hinges were bent, had the wrong screws in them in the screw holes were wallowed out. Getting all that straightened out, and then getting the doors to close properly again, was more work than you would think. In the end, I decided to keep this one too, for Larry to use in the bedroom. The d$%^&d doors still don't close properly,  and I didn’t want to sell it like that. Aggravating thing.

I have been doing some cooking too, since we gave been home for the past 4 days. And that wardrobe is out of my kitchen! Yesterday I made more banana raspberry bread. Today I focused on using up the plethora of zucchini and peppers from the garden. I chopped up a lot of the zucchini in the food processor and Larry gave that to the chickens and rabbits. Then I ground some and drained it well, to make zucchini bread tomorrow. The rest went into a stir fry with chicken, onions, and the peppers, making a big enough batch for several meals. I used up the green beans in a huge batch of beans and new potatoes cooked with a ham bone. So delicious. I put some of that in the freezer, as it was far more than we could eat. I also cooked up some beets, and sliced a bowl full of cucumbers for snacking. So now I am caught up with the garden, for the moment anyway, and haven't had to can anything yet!

In other news, my friend Billy-Jo posted this little happening at her place (used with her permission):

Amazon driver: Knock knock.

Me: Hello

Driver: can I please use your phone or your wifi to call someone? My van is stuck in the mud up the road.

(There’s zero cell service out here)

Me: Sure but you want me to just pull you out with that Bronco?

Driver: That would be awesome but I don’t know if it will be able to and I don’t want you to get yourself or your vehicle muddy.

Me: 🤔😎 Ah……it’ll be a walk in the park compared to what I’m used to!  😂😂😂

I get to where he is stuck and I start to pull winch line.

Driver: Ma’am I’ve never used one of these.

Me: No worries. I got you! 

After I get him pulled out backwards and then yank the van  back around to head back down the road. 

Driver: Ma’am you’re my hero! 

The ol Bronco never even had to come out of 2wd.  Good job Bronco! Good job!

Billy-Jo is a wild child! She loves to go muddin', as they call it around here, and has some pretty cumbersome antique cars too. Her story, though, reminded me of the early days here, where we sometimes had to use a winch to get our vehicles unstuck. Happy to never have to do that again though!

The big news story around here right now is this huge fire in Parkersburg, about 40 miles north of us. A friend posted this photo on Facebook:

As I write, this fire is still burning, and there is considerable concern over what chemicals are in the smoke and ash. The governor declared a state of emergency for the area, and there is a shelter in place order as well. The smoke and ash are not drifting our way, but are affecting a very large area to the east of the city. I have not heard of any casualties,  thank goodness,  and the community has poured out generous support for the many, many firefighters on the scene. 

As I was sorting out a drawer today, I found this old photo of one of my English great-grandmothers, on the Wilson side. How it came to be in that drawer I have no idea, but it may have been in an old book from my parents' home. Pretty sure I have bever seen it before. I wonder what she was carrying in the bucket?

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