her able hands

Woke feeling pensive, yet forward-looking, on the very heels of having taken an awkward swan dive into the past (brave and foolish heart).

A visit to the surgeon—lump removal scheduled for July 2. He thinks it’s a lymph node that got clogged when my root canal got infected. Yum. Also fairly confident that it’s not cancer of any sort, but will do pathology on the little bugger to be safe. I’ll have the 3rd and 4th off as well, so hopefully recovery will be quick and I can enjoy the festivities of Lila’s 4th birthday and the fireworks. Hmmm…fireworks on Vicodin.

The day dragged along so slowly at work, many breaks as people popped in to speculate on the timeliness of the facility’s demise. Now or later? Only the executives know for sure. I’m glad I don’t have to walk around with that knowledge making a home for itself in my belly.

Home such a relief after another huge thunderstorm with drenching rain. I picked slugs. Picked salad. Made a light dinner. Had some fun with the camera.

I spied Lila and our neighbor sharing the swing under the Great Oak.

Chris gave them both a good hour of thrills.

I enjoyed seeing the towering Queen Ann’s Lace, dwarfing the just-blooming Mallow, and played around with effects in photoshop. Oh, so much to learn.

After this shot, we trooped inside, all giggles and tickles, with plans for a bonfire and s’mores on the weekend. We watched the fireflies light up the yard and welcomed summer—so much easier to do when the earth isn’t so thirsty.

Bookmark It

Phew, it rained. Torrential for a good half hour, and then a light, steady rain for another hour. When I got home, I pulled back some of the mulch in the garden and felt the soil, plenty wet around the roots, but farther out from the plants, still dry. I should pick up a rain gauge. The one I had at the other house filled up, froze and cracked into a dozen pieces, and I never replaced it, even though I thoroughly enjoyed keeping track of the rainfall in my garden journal, and spouting off to anyone who would listen, just how much rain each storm delivered to my garden.

I’ll also pick up some copper to hopefully deal with the slug problem. Holy crap, those slimy little bastids were making quite a meal out of my pepper plants, the salad beds, the two watermelon plants, the Kuri squash and the newly sprouted (again!) Haricot Verts. Jeebus on a stick, did the chickens just about break one another’s necks when I dumped the collected 72 slugs into the pen. Too bad I poured pickling salt on so many of them before Chris reminded me that the girls would get a thrill out of such a disgusting snack. I should run out there to check one more time before the light completely fades from the sky, but I’m just too pooped.

Here’s something completely different…the other night Chris moved a log away from one of the piles, intending to bury it around the edge of the chicken tractor to deter the baby raccoons. I was in the garden and heard him scream like a little girl. I guess I would have too, if I’d put my hand on this:

Then the next night, Tyler saw this gorgeous, bedazzled chrysalis hanging from Lila’s basketball net.

And you thought city living was so tame.

Bookmark It

Okay, so more eggs, people. I mean, that’s what’s for dinner. I got home, cracked the top off a Corona and wandered out to the garden to water. It’s a hand-watering situation with the nozzle turned to *soaker* and me holding the hose dangling into the straw by the roots of whatever thirsty plant is in my path. Tonight was Cukes, Peas, Fava Beans, Chard, some Potatoes, and the Tomatoes.

Here’s something cool…I decided to let the volunteer tomatoes (pardon my random use of capitalization with my plants, I’m so confused) grow unhampered for the past few weeks, in the bed slated for Haricot Verts and Royal Burgundy Bush Beans, mostly because I just ran out of time, but also out of curiosity. I never bought any cherry tomatoes, and wasn’t able to find any but one of my favorite heirloom paste (San Marzano). If my memory serves me, I can see that I’ve got at least a half dozen Italian Giant Paste tomato plants out there, with their feathery, droopy leaves dipping down to the earth. There are also about fifty other plants, with my luck the Bloody Butcher (yuck) but I’m holding out hope that one or two might be Juanne Flammée. I’m just going to put up some more bamboo trellis in that bed and move them around a little, water the heck out of them, and drop some more straw around the stems. Hopefully they’ll survive if I wait till the temp drops a bit later in the week. Two years ago I had single Giant Paste Tomatoes that weighed more than half a pound. Paste tomatoes! Huge, I tell you, and all meat.

It’s too bloody hot (still 91* at 8 pm) so I’m not taking the camera out to snap any pictures until the weekend. That beer knocked me for a loop in the heat and I just finished my yummy scrambled egg wrap and now I just want to sit here in the chair and let my brain dribble down my neck. Oh, that’s right! I was telling you about the eggs. See? This is my brain on heatwave. I asked Chris what he wanted for dinner, hoping he’d say something like, “I’ll run down to Katie’s Corners and pick up a pint of homemade Black Raspberry ice cream.” But no, he said, “Spaghetti. Or fritatta.”

To which I replied, “Ew.”

But then he ran next door to give his mom a hand with a few things and my beer head was all woozy and I needed some protein immediately, so I let myself go on autopilot and hoped that whatever happened, it would be edible. It was!

(Recipe ahead.)

I chopped some Vidalia onion and sautéed it in olive oil, then tossed in the baby Red Russian Kale I picked up at the market on Saturday (also chopped). After the kale cooked down a bit, I splopped in a glop of the leftover garlic scape pesto and some chopped fresh Basil, Parsley and Oregano, dusted it all with some kosher salt and cracked pepper, then dumped in nine barely whisked eggs, which I scrambled slowly so they maintained some separation of church and state (er…yolk and white, kind of like scrambled fried eggs). At the end I tossed in some chopped fresh mozzarella and the rest of those retardedly expensive Campari tomatoes with the so-called European flavor that were grown in Arizona and trucked to my table at great expense and manpower. Sometimes I want to kick myself in my own ass, but while I have long legs, they’re not quite long enough. Isn’t that a great visual? Anyway, the eggs were totally local. We tossed the mess in a whole grain wrap and called it dinner.

I’ll leave you with this riot of color in the Lily bed, the most incredible color in the yard right now.

Sorry it’s a wee blurry, I didn’t use the tripod.

Technorati Tags: eggs, eat local, heatwave, Lily

Bookmark It

This post is a practice run for the One Local Summer 2007 challenge. Liz at Pocket Farm is hosting the second annual challenge to eat at least one all-local meal each week for the summer, and then post about it. I wanted to participate last year, but the move and the new job made my brain all squicky and I just couldn’t get it together enough (although I ate and fed my family plenty of local foods). I’m excited about doing the challenge this year, and looking forward to tracking what I do. My own personal challenge is to prepare foods in ways I never have before.

Oh, and guess what? Today’s our one year anniversary in this house! We spent it at the old house burying our St. Joseph statue and mowing the lawn in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity, and wondering who we can call in to bale the cut grass.

Aaanyway…this is a practice post because the meal I made yesterday was mostly local (the salmon, the marinade and the asparagus were not) and also because it’s a week early. We had friends and Chris’ mom to dinner last night and in honor of opening day at the farmers’ market, I wanted to attempt as much local food as possible, without having to drive half an hour to get it (local meat and cheese means driving)

There was an amazing amount of locally and organically grown produce at the market, especially for the first day of the season, a far cry from previous years when it was all plants and bread. I scored some gorgeous Butterhead lettuce to add to my own delicious greens for a giant salad (along with Arugula, Lolla Rosa, Tom Thumb, Viroflay Spinach, Mustard, Mizuna and my Dwarf Grey Snow Peas, tossed with balsamic vinaigrette).

These peas are incredible. Too bad the plants are all turning yellow from the ground up and have stopped flowering, probably due to the onset of true summer—drought and heat.

I also picked up a few zucchini and summer squash, bunching onions and a loaf of whole wheat sunflower bread (not sure if she uses local flour, highly doubtful).

I didn’t take a photo of the peach pie from the local small bakery (also not likely local ingredients) but it was delicious.

The awesome garlic farmers were there with garlic scapes and spring garlic. They’re also my neighbors and want me to design their farm logo, and when they said they want to pay me, I jumped on that with “pay me in garlic!”

Their recipe for garlic scape pesto:

1/2 lb. scapes chopped into one inch pieces
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups grated hard cheese (they say parmesan, I used asiago)

Blend scapes and oil in blender (next time I’ll use the food processor because the blender kept jamming up and took forever to blend it all), then dump into a bowl. The recipe didn’t call for it, but I added sea salt and pepper.

Mix in the cheese by hand.

I sliced the bread, brushed with oil, grilled on both sides, then got Tyler to spread the pesto on the warm bread and top with a spoonfull of chopped cherry tomatoes (not local) and basil (mine). That was apps with beer while the fish finished grilling and the grilled asparagus and squash cooled.

We all pretty much moaned our way through dinner, and while I was swirling the last slice of bread around on my plate to pick up all the little bits, I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo after the finished pesto (which I made in the early afternoon) so you’ll just have to take my word for it…dinner was good, and about 60% local.

Technorati Tags: eat local, locavore, garlic scapes, farmers’ market, one local summer

Bookmark It

When I get home in the evenings, I should be getting my next moves organized, but instead I head straight out to the garden (after a change of clothes). It’s therapy, and right about now, I need therapy, or at least some anger management and help with focusing on the job at hand while I’m at work.

Last night I tried to remedy the problem of piss-poor, dusty, chalky soil in the chard and pea bed. Those were the first things I planted, before I ordered manure, and they seem to have hit a growth plateau. I cultivated the soil around the plants, yanked out more violets and fed them to the chickens, watered the heck out of the plants, then side-dressed the rows with a couple of inches of manure, topped with a layer of grass clippings and straw. It feels so good to accomplish something that’s beneficial to myself and to someone or something else. The row now looks neat, refreshed and ready for the rest of the season. I swear the chard leaves have more color already. I’m sure it probably will end up most benefiting the rabbit and the woodchuck who hippity-hop and widdle-waddle up to the buffet every day, but I’m hoping the prickly straw keeps them away for a little bit and gives the leaves a chance to grow big enough for me to harvest some. I’m dying to try my Rustic Chard and Feta Tart on the grill.

Next I cultivated around the cucumbers. They’re throwing their fourth leaf already, and most of them look good, though a few have some yellowing and rusty spots and beginning veins of powdery mildew. I’m going to spray them with milk tonight, having read on You Grow Girl that tomato plants like milk. I then did a little Google search and found that milk is helpful for cucurbits, brassicas and tomatoes for any kind of fungal problems, and provides a nice jolt of calcium to boot. I may need to try something else for the rusty looking spots, I’m not 100% sure that’s a fungus.

I watered the cukes deeply and put down about six inches of straw around them, as well. Their bamboo trellis waits above them, to support them as they climb. I WILL make pickles this season, I know I will, because I found one more quart jar from two years ago, so it’s a sign, don’t you know.

I should have stopped at this point to get inside and start dinner, but I wanted to water the tomatoes again. Blossom end rot ruined last year’s crop and while it’s a calcium deficiency, it’s caused by uneven watering which makes it hard for the roots to pick up calcium from the soil. I’m hoping I’ve remedied the lack of calcium in the soil with the crushed eggshells I continue to mix in under the straw, and I’ve been making sure to water the roots deeply every evening while we’re having such hot days with evaporating winds. Because ding, dang, dongit, I’ll have salsa and sauce in my pantry this winter, too, right next to the pickles.

Okay. I should have been in the shower twenty minutes ago. I’ll get out there with the camera this weekend to show you all what I’m babbling on about. Really, things are looking so good!

Technorati Tags: garden, organic gardening, organic fungicide, therapy

Bookmark It