That Time of Year

64, cool and so nice. Some cloud cover has kept it comfortable so far. Yesterday reached 86, with a couple showers. We need more rain; it's getting very dry.

It's time to start cleaning out most of the gardens, sadly. Larry brush-hogged the garden that had the first onions,  potatoes, peas, and early corn so that one is finished. He will soon clean up the tomato and late corn garden, after he cuts the corn for shocks.

Here's some of what we gathered yesterday. 

The small peppers to the left were given to us by our friend Tamara; we are constantly supplementing each other's veggies. The broccoli on the left is producing tinier and tinier spears, but still delicious. I must learn how to encourage larger shoots next year. This has been our most successful broccoli year ever, so I am very pleased.

There were more squash, but we had them for dinner. The main plants died back, but some stems rooted themselves so we have "new" plants. So cool. I will string the cayenne peppers to dry later today. The tomatoes are fading fast, but a few stalwart cherry varieties are hanging on, thank goodness.

The last tomatoes from the big patch. They did terribly this year.

The large peppers were also from Tamara; she bought too many so gifted them to me. I am making stuffed peppers for the freezer with them. Our banana peppers have done gangbusters, and there are many still in the garden. I will make pepper mustard with some, freeze some, and stuff the larger ones for the freezer. So handy for a quick meal.

I started these mums in June, from tiny bit picked off some of my plants. So easy to start! Now I need to get them planted.

We didn't plant any pumpkins this year but had several plants come up from seed. We have harvested 13 of them. Considering that we did nothing at all to get them, I am a happy gardener! Beside them to the right is a maple tree I will plant soon; it and the wee hibiscus in the same pot both came up from seed in a flowerbed.

And of course, since I was in the garden, I picked a few small bouquets. 

We spent Tuesday with my cousin Tom and his wife, who will soon be moving to North Carolina, and my Aunt Georgette, Tom's mother. She will be 90 on her birthday but still gets around fairly well, although she said she is having balance issues. She still has a pet bird, and lives in a nice assisted living facility about 2 hours from us. As the nearest family, Larry and I will be "on call" whenever she needs us.

The past two days I have not felt up to snuff, probably just tired. So I took it fairly easy, just canned some Corn and Potato Chowder and some more grape juice. I also worked on data entry for the booths' records, and priced a few totes of items. But I did a lot of just sitting, resting, and even (shocker!) napping. I feel a bit better today, thankfully. 

Here's the recipe for the chowder, should you want to try it. It does not have to be canned, of course, but I like to have it on hand for quick meals.

As you can see, it has been a well-used page in the cookbook!

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

Rainy Saturday

69 this morning, with 90% humidity. A bad storm came through around 3pm, with wild winds and heavy rain. Our second planting of corn is now laying down flat, but that seems to be the extent of the damage, that we can see. It is still spitting rain at 7:30pm.

You would know that I heavily watered my big flower bed this morning, because the storms this week have been so unpredictable it is hard to know who will get rain and who won't.  Most missed us, so we have watered here and there because the heat is drying things up so quickly even if it does rain.

But the heat here has been nothing like what so many parts of the country, and indeed the world, are experiencing.  It has reached 90 a few times, but generally stays in the low to mid 80s, and nights in the 50s and 60s. So we turn off the AC at night usually, oy turning it on again in the afternoon. The kitchen gets a little warm if I am canning or cooking, but not unbearable. We have been getting the garden work done early in the day, and staying out of the sun and heat.

It has been, as always, a busy week. We picked the first corn and got it into the freezer, 

and I canned dill pickles, green beans and faux pineapple today.  Need to get this stuff marked and into the cellar tomorrow.

The beans and lettuce I planted Monday were already up on Thursday, as were the cucumber and cabbage seeds I started on Tuesday. Amazing to see them all sprout so fast. This morning I planted some celery plants given to me by a friend in the space where the lettuce was. I am hoping the storm didn't smash them to bits. I also did some cleanup in the flowerbeds and planted some Shasta daisies, zinnias, and another canna lily in the biggest flowerbed because there isn't much blooming in there now---and the plants were half price. Looks better out there now.

Wednesday was doctor appointment day in Charleston, to schedule my gall bladder surgery, which will happen August 1. I am trying to get the gardens in good shape before then. Also in August our youngest son and oldest grandson will both be coming in for a visit! I am so looking forward to that. And since I will have to take it easier than usual for a bit, I can relax and visit.

I finished painting the china cabinet and we took it to our booth in Ravenswood yesterday. 

I had a few other things ready, including a dozen grab bags, something new I have been trying. They sell pretty quickly. 

Larry built two of these little shelves this week too. 

A few other things we took in. So both places were restocked for the weekend.

Bad photo, but this is a spinning postcard rack. I found it on Amazon, and it is perfect for displaying in my booth, but was a real jigsaw to put together! 

Tomorrow we will go pick up the rest of a load of furniture we bought, and that is all we have planned. So maybe we will have a fairly slow day. I am more than ready for one!

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

Wordless Wednesday: The Cellar, So Far

62, cool and sunny. Warmer and humid later, a small downpour, but sun returned.

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

Orneriness

For the past several days we've been having fits with our fridge.

The fridge when it was new. in 2011.

I guess most people have problems with their refrigerator from time to time, but when ours starts giving us trouble, it means a lot of head scratching and trying different since because most repair people wouldn't have a clue how to fix it. Because it's a gas refrigerator, running on natural (wellhead) gas.

When we put in the free gas that was part of the deal for allowing a gas well on our property, we decided to convert as many appliances to gas as possible. So stove, dryer, hot water, heat and the fridge are now gas, and most of the time it's just lovely.

But there are those times.

Like when the gas suddenly goes off for no apparent reason--usually when it's dead cold. Most of the time it's an easy fix--just push down the plunger thingie on the regulator and then re-light all the pilots.

And like when the fridge acts up. Wellhead gas is not as clean as the gas you get through the pipelines, and it can cause some issues. Especially, apparently, with the refrigerator's heating element. It might sound odd that there is heat in a fridge, but the flame heats the gas that moves through some convoluted pipes and chills down. That's about as good as I can explain the process. It usually works like a dream and we love it that our fridge works when the electricity goes off.

But when it goes out or suddenly doesn't cool like it should, then we don't like it so much. Sometimes it's as easy as cleaning out the flue (yes, there's a flue on the fridge, weird I know). Other times it means moving the whole thing out and cleaning the condenser coils and whatever else is back there. Then there is cleaning the gas orifice itself.

And when all that fails, we found yet one more trick: laying the fridge on its side and then standing it back up again. Because sometimes a bubble can form in the condensed gas and block it from cooling as it should.

This time we ended up doing all of the above. None of it worked.

Getting by without refrigeration in winter isn't too difficult. A cooler on the porch will usually handle most of the important things.This past week we had quite a few days, though, when the temperatures stayed above 50. So that meant Plan B: freeze jugs of the emergency water we have stored away and using that in the cooler and the fridge.

The fridge is working again, kind of. With the jugs of ice it's down to about 47f in the bottom and it's freezing things in the top freezer compartment as it should. But it's not back to normal yet because the flame isn't acting as it should--going up and down when the thermostat is adjusted. It stays exactly the same no matter when temperature we set it at.

So Monday I called the number we had for repairs. A young-sounding man answered and listened to my tale of woe. He had Larry check a few things, then promised to call back.

Several hours later he was back on the phone. Our refrigerator is not a model he was familiar with so he had to do some calling and checking around himself. He came to the same conclusion we had: the thermostat is bad.

I was all ready with a credit card to pay for the part, but he said no, he'll mail the part and after we put it on and it's working correctly he'll send an invoice and we can mail a check. How old school is that? So kudos to this company for some really good customer service. I'll have to add their name here when I am sure what it is because they'd changed names since I last called four years ago).

We're managing fine with the ice jugs routine in the meantime. But it does make us wonder if this refrigerator is worth the savings in electricity. Maybe it's time to throw in the towel and go back to easy.

We like being independent but it's an awful lot of work and aggravation. And because we're not well off we can't just call repair people to come and fix stuff. Today, Larry's outside tracking down and repairing a leak in the water line from the well to the house. Fortunately it's sunny and not too cold. But we're getting a little old for things like lifting refrigerators. And lifting refrigerators and other such jobs is getting old too.

Maybe it's just plain orneriness that makes us cling to this lifestyle. Or maybe it's just plain being dumb. When all is fixed and running smoothly again, we'll have to look back and evaluate.

Right now, it just feels like aggravation.



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

Noodle Day

Larry wasn't feeling well today--he's been working hard on several different things and I think it's catching up with him. It could be a cold trying to catch hold, so I decided on that time-honored tradition of making chicken noodle soup for him.

Except I had no chicken and no noodles. But I did have turkey frozen from Thanksgiving that needed to be used up, and I had eggs and flour.

So it turned into a noodle-making day. I can make noodles in less time than it takes to get to town to the store anyway.

An hour later, the noodles were hanging to dry and the soup was underway. And when it was done, a grateful husband ate a good bowl or two before heading off for a nap.

He's feeling better this evening, so you see? It works! I have plenty left over for more soup too.

I used my Kitchenaid mixer to mix the ingredients (4 eggs, 2 tablespoons of water and 1 1/2 cups of flour), then kneaded by hand for a few minutes, then let it rest 10 minutes before cutting into 5 sections and rolling each one out to go through the pasta machine. So easy. And so good.

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

In the Kitchen: Canning Time

One of things keeping me busy these days is the gardens. Well, not so much the gardens as what is coming out of them. While I hate the summer heat, I love seeing the produce that provides food for us for the better part of the year.

It's high harvest time for our summer gardens. Tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, potatoes, onions, and so on have been making their way to the kitchen by the basketsful for the past few weeks.

Which means:

Vegetable soup, 16 quarts now completed. In the pot,

and in the jars.

Onions, dehydrated and stored. We're trying this method this year, as we seem to lose so many stored onions to rot. I've also tried freezing them, but it's difficult to keep them from smelling up the whole freezer. So we'll see how we do with the dried ones. This is about 2 bushels of mixed yellow, white and red onions--they sure take up a lot less room this way.

Pasta sauce, 16 quarts so far and I am hoping for more before the tomatoes give up. They looked so pretty in the pan prior to cooking down!

They've done well but the heat and humidity have made it touch-and-go as far as the various blights, etc that might attack. So far so good, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We've had our best crops from the German Pink and the Cherokee Purple so far. We also planted Mortgage Lifter but have had only a few tomatoes from them so far.

Broccoli, about a dozen bags so far. The plants continue to produce although the flowerettes are getting smaller and smaller. Larry has taken good care of these plants and we're hoping they'll make it through to cooler weather and continue to produce.

Cabbage: we grew a half dozen heads of Late Flat Dutch, to make sauerkraut. When they were ready last week, we spent hours "butchering" them, as I call it, because they were so huge! We used 4 of them to make 8 quarts of kraut--there was a good bit of waste due to bug and slug damage--and the chickens enjoyed the last two because we were worn out with working on them. It would not have been so bad but we did those after putting up ten quarts of corn.

 

Corn has been excellent but now the raccoons have found the patch so we won't get much more. We have 20 quarts put up so I am satisfied. The first raccoon damage was only about 5 ears, but the next night they had a party out there. My friend John Rushing of western Virginia has a theory that the first coon goes home with sweet corn on his breath and the others smell it and make him bring them all back the next night! I think he's got something there. Larry was so determined to finish up the last wagonload that he worked under an umbrella in the rain.

I've also frozen 20 bags of shredded zucchini to add to soups, stews, chili, and to make zucchini bread. This is a new venture too, something I've not tried before but I am hoping this will turn out to be a good way to preserve the zucchini bounty.

I've tried freezing squash but don't like the texture when I've used them. I've also tried dehydrating them and pickling. The pickled zucchini is very good but we can only eat so much of it! So I am hoping this frozen puree will be worth the trouble. I also ground up zucchini and added it to pasta sauce which I canned. I think this is going to be great in casseroles this winter.

And lastly, we got a little bit of garlic this year. I want to focus on this more next year and perhaps figure out a better place to plant it. These were wildlings that had seeded themselves in my flowerbeds.

Our second planting is coming on: late beans, corn, squash, carrots and onions seem to be thriving. Pumkpins and melons are doing well too, but it will be September before we taste our first melon. Ah well.

We still need to plant the fall greens, and I hope we can get to that in the next week or so. We have the seeds ready, just waiting to get the potatoes dug and a few other things pulled out and the ground tilled.

Two things that are different this year: I have made no jam or jelly yet. We've frozen a lot of berries and have been eating them fresh, but with so much jam still in the cellar, we really just don't need any more. Kinda makes me sad because I love to make it, but it's just silly to make what we don't need. I have yet to put up any pickles, either. The first cucumber plants turned out to be those long burpless once and they have done terribly. The Chicago Picklers are just now starting to come on, so later this week I'm pretty sure I'll be pickling.

Overall it's been a good garden year, partly due to having a lot of rain, partly due to the horse manure Larry spread last winter and to the fact that he has mulched most of the garden this year. He has really become a good gardener and I leave it to him anymore because he really enjoys it and I can see it's good for him--he relaxed when he's messing around out there.

So what's going on in your garden? Good year or bad one? Surprises or disappointments? Do tell!

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

Apple Butter Day

We had a perfect day for our annual apple butter cooking. Cool, crisp enough to see your breath in the morning, then gradually so warm we took off our jackets, then cool again as clouds moved in. But the conversations kept us warm all day as we stirred, stoked the fire, and washed jars.

George ended up being the chief stirrer this year, although everyone took a turn.

Larry minded the fire and kept up a steady stream of orneriness all afternoon, and the grandkids were there to do anything asked.

Here's the crew: Larry, Hannah's boyfriend Jeremiah (who is so tall we had to ask him to sit down so he'd fit in the frame!), Hannah, Haley, Grace, and George.

This time Jeremiah volunteered to take the photo so I could be in the picture. That was nice. George kept the pot stirred so it didn't scorch while we messed around with pictures.

 The finished product, about 32 quarts of rich brown, spicy apple butter. Mmmmmm.

Cleanup time, covering over the fire, washing up the kettle, wiping down tables, etc, takes a little time.

At the end of the day, trick or treaters! What a fine time it was from beginning to end.

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

The Strawberry Barrel

When I showed Larry a photo of a strawberry barrel, he got a bee in his bonnet about making one. We had the barrel, given to us by our friend Jason. It was perfect for this project.

So Larry got busy with a drill and some plans we found online here. The end result:

A barrel full of berry plants! 

 The process is really simple. Drill the holes for the plants, drill drain holes in the base, add gravel or broken clay flower pots in the bottom for drainage, and add a tube with drain holes in it down the center for watering. Then start putting in dirt (We used MiracleGro Moisture Control, pricey but worth the cost), and put gravel in the tube as you go. Plant the plants as each level of holes is reached, and keep repeating the steps until the barrel is full. 

I can't wait to see how this does for us. Our old berry patch was taken over with perennial weeds, as so often happens, and cleaning it each year was back-breaking work. We are hopeful that we will get a good crop of berries with much less work. I chose everbearers because I like having fresh berries throughout the year. With Larry's diabetes, we don't eat much jam any more so a few in the freezer an fresh to eat throughout the growing season is a good option for us.

One more thing off the to-do list!

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

The Care and Feeding of Kerosene Lamps

(My February column in Two Lane Livin' magazine)

We’ve all seen it: a movie with a frontier setting, people in a log cabin settling down for bed—and then someone will reach over to an oil lamp with a smoked-up chimney and turn it down as if turning off a light switch. End every time I see this I say the same thing: “They didn’t do their homework. That’s not how you put out a lamp. And why is the chimney so dirty? Don’t they ever trim the wicks on movie lamps?”

I didn’t grow up knowing about kerosene lamps. Although we lived in the country when I was very young, we moved to town when I was six and my only memory of using non-electric lights was during storms or at Halloween. But when I moved to our new house in West Virginia in 1976, which we built knowing there would be no electricity available, I developed a fast and intimate relationship with oil lamps, learning through trial and error how to care for them properly to get maximum light.

Our first lamps were the Aladdin type that required a delicate mantle. On first lighting the mantle turned to ash that glowed and gave out impressive brightness, but one false move and the mantle disintegrated and had to be replaced. With four little boys running around, there were many false moves. The Aladdins also used a surprising amount of kerosene, and it didn’t take long to realize that while they gave plenty of light, we would go broke trying to maintain three of them. So we turned to the old standby, the standard kerosene lamp. I bought five brand new ones with bright brass burners, white wicks and shiny chimneys.

The chimneys turned black at first lighting, and I learned my first lesson—keep the wick turned low, and keep it trimmed. Proper trimming requires sharp scissors and a steady hand to shape the edge of the cotton wick into a graceful arch. No loose threads should be left and the wick must be shaped right or the flame will be uneven and the result is those smoky chimneys seen in the movies. Trimming the wick often will assure a clean, even, bright burn; if a black hard crust forms on the edge of the wick, or if the wick is old and dirty from being too long in use the lamp will not produce as much light and the chimney will be smoky.

The grade of kerosene used makes a difference in how clean the lamp burns too. Low-grade kerosene produces a yellow flame, smokes a chimney quickly and has a strong odor; it will also stain a lamp if left in the bowl too long without being used . Cleaning the built-up yellow gunk out of the bowl of a lamp that has only an inch or inch and a half diameter opening is no easy job. The wick will soak up impurities in the kerosene and will produce a yellower flame and heavy odor because of the dirty fuel.

We ended up with twelve lamps to light our house. When I lit them at dusk the light looked feeble but then it seemed to make its way into all the corners and by full dark the house was filled with a golden glow.  Each week we refilled all of them, no matter how much fuel remained in the bowls. A full lamp burns better and brighter. All the wicks were trimmed, short wicks were replaced, and all the lamp bases were washed carefully on the outside while the chimneys got a good hot water and soap washing. We dried them with newspapers to produce a shine that made them look like new. Occasionally the gear that advanced the wick would wear out in one lamp or another and need to be replaced, and of course chimneys were broken from time to time.

When we finally hooked to the grid in 1989, all twelve of the original lamps were still in operation, and we still own most of them. As each of our sons bought their own homes, some of the lamps moved with them for use in emergencies.

I hope my sons remember the rules for care and feeding of their lamps and pass on that knowledge to their children. Such skills are becoming a thing of the past. Many Two Lane Livin’ readers are old hands at caring for kerosene lights, but if this is new information for you, remember to look at the kerosene lamps next time you watch an old movie. I bet you’ll say, “Look at that lamp! They don’t know anything about how to take care of a kerosene lamp!”

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

An Apple Butter Kind of Day

Actually, it really wasn't. It rained. It poured. And then it rained some more. But thanks to a good neighbor, we were still able to make our apple butter with the loan of a canopy that worked nicely to keep us dry as we stirred.

We made our apple butter in steps. We made the sauce in advance, some last week and some 3 weeks ago, and put it in the freezer until we could get a date set for the cooking down. We settled on this Saturday and of course the rain moved in as soon as it heard the news. But with Pam's canopy and a little ingenuity we moved ahead.

The canopy covered our work area nicely. We worried about sparks possibly flying up from the wood fire and burning holes in the canopy so we set the cooking up outside of the shelter; we took the top plexiglas off a porch table and used the base to create a shelter over the kettle, sliding a piece of tin over the cooking sauce whenever the rain started up, and moving it aside as each shower passed by.

The fire gave us fits for a while; we had the wood covered but it still was not easy to get a good hot fire for a little while. We leaned some tin against the side of the kettle for a while and that seemed to help the fire get its breath, and then we were really cooking. Daughter-in-law Sandy washed jars and she and granddaughter Grace provided support while we stirred and stirred and stirred.

Each year the color of the sauce is different, depending on the apples we use. This year we had a good crop of Red Delicious, so we used those, some Rome and some Grimes Golden. The color is lovely, a nice reddish brown; and the flavor? Well, every year we think it's the best we've ever made, but this year's batch truly is delicious.

We started with 15 gallons of sauce. I follow the way my neighbor Belva Simons taught me and cook it down to about half of what we started with. We cook the sauce until it is boiling good and beginning to turn color; streaks of a dark gold will begin to appear and the boil cannot be stirred down. Then we add the sugar, slowly so that the sauce doesn't stop boiling. When all the sugar is in (20-25 pounds for my kettle, depending again on the apples and their sweetness), we continue cooking until the apple butter passes the "slump test." I don't know if that's the right term for it, but it describes what we're looking for very well--butter that does not weep and that holds its shape when a spoonful is placed on a plate. The whole cooking time is usually between 4 and 5 hours. (Add another 4-5 hours to make enough applesauce to fill the kettle).

When it was done I hurried inside to heat up the chili I'd made earlier and whip up a batch of cornbread. Fresh apple butter on biscuits is good; on cornbread it's ambrosia. While I did that, the men cleaned up the kettle and put away the tables, tin, and other things we used. Today we relaxed. Two of the guys played golf; grandchildren and Larry watched a movie and I did laundry and visited with my daughter-in-law.

The house is empty now; our company went home with apple butter, cider, eggs, gourds, butternut squash, apples, brownies and lots of hugs. I am washing up linens and towels and missing the sounds of their voices and laughter already.

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

Applesauce Cake, Apple Cake, Cider Punch and More

It's that time of year! Apples are everywhere, and we sure have our share of them. Our trees are loaded with huge apples. We spent yesterday making gallons of applesauce and cider--I canned a few quarts of the sauce but the rest is for making apple butter next weekend. We have several bushels in the cellar, and the trees are still loaded.

It's wonderful to have so many apples; some years the frost gets them and we're out of luck. Right now we're eating applesauce for breakfast, apples for snacks and drinking apple cider! Tomatoes were the star of our table for two months, but since they've died out the apples have replaced them as the most abundantly available food in our garden.

I've had a few requests for my applesauce cake recipe, and realized that I blogged it several years ago. So those of you who are interested, here's where the recipe is:

Applesauce Cake Recipe

My friend Jo Ann posted a fresh apple cake recipes that I have had for years. It's delicious! Here's a link to her blog post with the recipe.

Making cider is easy, if you own a cider press. We bought our used about 5 years ago and it's been one of the best investments we've ever made. We made about 40 gallons last year, and this year already have made about 15 gallons, and there are many, many apples still on the trees. You can see how we make cider here.

The Cider Punch I make is a recipe given to me by my friend Suzy McGinley. It's quick and easy and kids love it:

Combine cider, orange juice and ginger ale to your taste. Add apples and oranges sliced crosswise and cinnamon sticks to float in the punch bowl for garnish. It's as easy to make as it sounds,very pretty, and delicious. 

You can read more about cider on this post written a while back.

And if you want to see how we make apple butter, read stories about apples and a lot more, check out this link.

I hope some of you will post your favorite recipes on your blogs. (Jo Ann, see what you started? Thank you for the inspiration!)

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

Peaches, Peaches, Peaches...and a Little Storytelling Office Work Too

It's what's happening in my kitchen this week. The peaches have outdone themselves in production, and I am literally swamped with them. So many that I may actually give away a whole treeful because I've got all I can handle and there is another tree just loaded to the breaking point.

So far, I've frozen, canned and made jam. Today I will can some more and maybe freeze a few more because I like the frozen ones better, actually than the canned ones. But after losing everything in the freezer last year, I'm hedging my bets.

The jam was a disappointment and I may try again with it too. It didn't set! I've never had 4 batches all fail; I used liquid pectin this time because someone gave me a few packs of it, and I am not happy with the result. Runny, runny--more syrup than jam. We can use it as it is but it's not what I like. It will be great on ice cream, of course, but we eat little ice cream so that will be a rare treat. Ah well. I've been fortunate over the years to have such good luck with my preserves so I shouldn't complain, right?

There are still plenty of peaches for me to work on:

These are small but delicious white freestone peaches from a tree at my son's house. We've picked these before and they are absolutely delightful, and pest-free. Many of our trees have some sort of worm in a lot of the peaches; that's on the to-do for next year: find out how to get rid of them.

 These larger peaches are yellow freestones from one of our trees. They're big but many have some sort of worm or other defect. I cut around and use what I can.

And these are...whoops! Yellow tomatoes, not peaches! We've had a bumper crop of yellow tomatoes this year--I think the greenhouse mislabeled a package because these were supposed to be Black Prince. No black tomatoes this year which made me sad because I fell in love with them last year.

Other preserving work ahead: more spaghetti sauce and more pickles. And wild cherry jelly! The wild cherries at my son's house are almost ripe and this is one of my favorite jams--the flavor is unbelievably good, very bright and clear. I missed the elderberries, sadly, because I was away from home when they were ready. They don't last long, the birds make sure of that. With the abundance of other fruit this year I'm okay with that.

This morning I am working on storytelling, designing brochures and postcards and getting an invoice and contract ready for an upcoming performance. Even though the calendar is quiet for a bit, there is still work to do to get the word out about what I do. I received an inquiry from a writers' group in Georgia about doing a presentation for them in May; they can't pay much but I'd love to do it. The trick will be to find enough other work to make the trip worthwhile. That means getting some publicity out there and finding some possible places to perform. I would love to do some house concerts; they're fun, informal and intimate. Perhaps I will find a few people willing to host one somewhere in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina or northern Georgia. If you are in any of those locations and interested in giving a house concert, do get in touch. It would be lovely to connect with more of my readers along the way.

Back to work!

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