A nice 56 this morning, and a beautiful day with a high about 77. Windy and sunny. We could use rain, again. Everything is so dry.
Larry picked what pears he could reach with the apple picker and brought them in for me to wrap.
Our pears are the old-fashioned Bartletts that must be stored a while before they ripen. For the past few years my Octobers have been so filled with storytelling that I had no time to deal with the pears. How sad is that, when we both love canned pears? So this year I'm taking care of them, wrapping them individually to ripen. We have about a bushel--which became two bushels once all the paper was added.
I finally got this little set ready for the booth yesterday, opting to retain the original, beautiful wood finish and just cover the chair seats. The table is about 36" square, and when the leaves are down it's only 12" by 36" so it can be stored away easily without taking up a lot of space.
I spent most of today working on ebay listings and setting up a 30 percent off sale in my ebay store. I hope that stimulates sales; I've been doing pretty well but would like to reduce my backlog of inventory. So fingers crossed.
And I cooked. A few days ago Larry shot two rabbits that had pretty much ruined my late cabbage. No kraut because of those two--so today, one of them was dinner. I made it like I usually make squirrel: I cooked the rabbit in water with onions, chicken broth, salt, pepper and bay leaves. I left it to simmer for about 3 hours, to get the meat nice and tender. Then I removed the bay leaves, picked the meat from the bones and put it back into the broth while I made a roux with canola oil and cornstarch; then slowly added the broth and meat, some mushrooms, rosemary and thyme, and cooked until it thickened into a nice sauce.
I cooked some homemade noodles to go with it, along with green beans, and fried apples from a few fallen fruits from our trees. Delicious and pretty much all from our land.
I love to cook like this. There is just something satisfying about knowing that your land is providing for you, isn't there?
