A quiet and relaxing Sunday....sort of....

These are garlic chives flowers...aren't they remarkable ?  If you click on the picture to biggify it, you can really get a glimpse of their beauty.

  I was up at zero dark thirty this morning, and I have to tell you...I feel like taking a nap right now. (It's 2:30 in the afternoon).  I keep leaning over on my hand and closing my eyes. lol  After I had put the dogs and the chickens out, I walked around the house...lord!  At 7 AM it was already 80 degrees and the humidity was through the roof.   I started watering after I picked another gallon of green beans. At about 9:30 I stopped and came in the house to cool down...made a couple of egg sandwiches for my son and myself and then went back out. I've been piddling around out there off and on ever since.

  They are calling for a bit of a cool down...which means that today it is only getting to 99 instead of 103. Possibility of some isolated thunderstorms starting around 4 PM. We'll see.  I've become a skeptic around the idea of weather forecasts lately. lol  This heat wave has been brutal...and no rain.  The garden is hanging ion there, but some things are looking a little bedraggled from that heavenly halo beating down on them relentlessly.  The potatoes are looking the worst, and so this afternoon, I started mulching them some more. They should have been done last week, but I'm here to tell you that it is really hard to get motivated to handle straw and straw bales when the temps are in triple digits. Never mind, though...they are almost done now. I have maybe another 3 feet to finish up the bed. Had to stop because I was sweating so hard it was running into my eyes and I couldn't see.  Since I had finished up the bale, I decided to wait until this evening to finish. I came in and laid down on the couch a bit...and it was all over then.  lol

  It occurred to me that maybe I was hungry, since it's 3 o'clock and breakfast was at 9:30...duh...I'm now eating a bowl of leftovers..quinoa, red onions, fresh tomato slices and a bbq'd hamburger patty. All cut up nicely and peppered and with a little salt for the tomatoes. Why do I have leftover hamburgers, you ask ??  It's a long story...

  Yesterday my baby brother and his family came up from southern Illinois.  And then my brother and his wife that live about an hour from here, decided to come  too. They called and said they were going b y the meat locker and bringing burgers and brats and what else should they get? lol So I spent the better part of the morning super cleaning the house.  They started arriving around 1 and we spent the rest of the day laughing and cooking and eating.  The last of 'em left around 9 and I fell into an exhausted heap. lol

 And that is why I have leftovers of the meat persuasion in my fridge.  lol  I made a big jar of lemonade and am sipping it now...so beautiful with the lemon slices in it.

Just off the phone with the Irishman...says it's in the upper 80's there, near Rice Lake, Wisconsin. They are having a ball and the family reunion festivities were yesterday, with about 90 people in attendance. Am really glad he's having fun.

  SO, that's about the size of it here.  I will be canning green beans tomorrow, I have over 2 gallons in the fridge now and more to pick by tomorrow I'm sure.  I also need to get out front and pick peaches. Am thinking peach preserves might be the way to go. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG0-iWCKjsw&feature=related

 Those babies are so sweet and juicy !!!!!!  I usually make jam, but...I guess I can do anything I want, huh?  lol  My brother and his wife brought me 2 big plastic bags of zucchini and yellow summer squash and some cucumbers from their garden down south. They said everything is pretty burned up down there...So, I guess I'd better figure out what to do with those too...I'm going to grill some of them for supper tonight. My son has been fishing and has quite a bit of fish in the fridge that he wants to grill tonight, so I'm thinking, grilled squashes, some leftover quinoa and grilled fish sounds a lot like heaven. He's with his dad's family today, his aunt from Washington is here and they are all gathering at the nursing home his grandma is in for a family get together.

 It's been a blessing having him here...he's done all kinds of trellis making and stuff for my garden and been a big help when he's not at work. The sad news the other day was about him, as you've probably guessed...he is heartbroken, as his wife has decided they need to be apart...and I am watching him go through the stages of grief at the demise of this 10 year relationship.  Trying to not say what I think any more than necessary...he hates that he has nowhere to go and is back staying with his mom, that things are the way they are for him right now, etc etc.  Time will heal things, but I think the damage may be done. I am just so grateful that I have a place he can stay (and he is too--just that his pride is balking, which I think is a healthy thing) and figure out what he's going to do next. I want him to be happy....life is way too short. He has already (IMHO) tried way too hard for way too long, and the best thing for him to do (IMHO) is to cut ties with her and let her do what she needs to do...but take care of himself. They have no children together,  and have pretty much kept separate lives financially, so that will make lots of things easier. But his heart is broken and he is suffering, and that is the worst thing for a mother to have to watch. When there is nothing you can do.

 Ah...life.  Tomorrow there are 2 memorial services/viewings for the people who passed and I really don't want to go to either one, but feel that I should. The truth is that I hate those things, and hate the way we handle death in our culture. Plus the fact that it stirs up all the old unresolved grief I have for the deaths of my own mom and dad, who died when I was 27 and 32 respectively.  I have processed most of it by now, don't get me wrong, but it triggers that old cell memory I guess.

  I may just stay home, say some prayers for transitioning souls, and can green beans.  No one will notice my absence, most likely, these things are always such a blur for the loved ones.  I'll see how it feels in the morning...

  Stay cool, you hotdoggers.  It's supposed to stay hot for another week at least.  yuck.

Namaste.

Blackberry Summer

(Wasn't that a book by Margaret Meade?? No wait....Blackberry Winter. (It's a miracle my feeble brain could even come up with this...) lol

  We started picking blackberries here on Honeysuckle Hill this week...so far-- some breakfast berries, one Blackberry Doobie (Thanks Wild Magnolia !!) and 4 or 5 quarts in the freezer. And lots of scratches and thorns and weed rashes on the ankles. It's just part of the package...the berries this year are huge and sweet and abundant. Some years, if it gets too hot and too dry too soon, you get small seedy berries that aren't good for much. These are all wild blackberries, so we're at the mercy of Mother Nature (which we always are anyway, if you think about it). They all come on so quickly and you spend a couple of weeks picking madly and trying to beat the birds to them. And the Japanese beetles, who have quite a fondness for them as well. But there's nothing on earth like popping a fresh off the vine sweet blackberry in your mouth. We are blessed to have so many brambles on 3 sides of our property.

One of the peach trees got so top heavy with fruit that it broke the branch...right where it should have been pruned last year, the Irishman says. lol  Problem was , we had one really cold snap last winter and that was it. Apparently we missed it. Anyway, the apple tree is absolutely covered with apples and the other peach tree is loaded too. This is going to be a good year for fruit preservation. Berries, apples, peaches...yum.

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  Saturday we went to a solstice celebration out at the La Vista Ecological Learning Center.  It was awesome...2 astronomers came with their equipment--scopes and special lenses and filters-- and we got to look at the sun. It was pretty damn cool. We turned the sun staff and had a scavenger nature hunt and ate watermelon and drank lemonade. We each introduced ourselves by name,  told where we grew up and then shared our favorite childhood summer memory. Mine was sitting on a picnic table in our backyard, with a bunch of neighbor kids (who were mostly my cousins) and eating watermelon seeds and seeing who could spit the seeds the farthest. It was really fun and interesting...esp. listening to the city kids who got to spend some time in summer on grandparents or aunts and uncles farms. I made a new friend and we had a really delightful time.

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  Saturday night after we got home,. I made supper of leftovers and then found a recipe for a dessert called a Blackberry Doobie. Sandra at Wild Magnolia had mentioned it to me, and I hadn't heard of it. I asked--Do you have a recipe?? and Do I need an oven??  lol  I looked up the recipe for it, and it turns out it is a sweet fruit soup with buttermilk sweet dumplings in it. It's an old southern recipe.  I did a couple of things wrong, but it was still one of the best blackberry desserts I have ever had. I can't wait to make it again...I'm going to put the recipe on Dragon Woman's Kitchen...

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  This morning we went into town for a meeting and then stopped on the way home and bought 4 bales of straw from a local farmer. His wife came out and jerked those bales out of the shed like nobody's business. I was impressed. The Irishman leaned over to me on the way out and said--see? I told you she was a big old farm gal.  She was tall and big...and had a baby under one arm and reached in there with her left and pulled those bales down.  lol  Farm women are freaking AWESOME.  And that's all I'm saying on the subject. lol

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  Well, this weekend is running out, and I am tired and sore. Sore from picking blackberries on the hillside. Sore from bending over and picking the first batch of green beans. (YAY).  Sore from picking 2 quarts of snow peas in 3 days. From bending over the lettuce beds, picking picking picking. lol I cleaned the chicken coop this afternoon and we tried integrating the chickens again with the pullets...I eventually went back in and separated them again,. as the older Australorp is bullying them all and they wouldn't come out of the coop into the run.  The older Buff Orpington, on the other hand, goes right up in the coop with them and has no problem at all. Hopefully when the new flock gets a little older and bigger, they won't be so intimidated by her.  It's so interesting to watch the social behavior of chickens..one of the many reasons I love having them.  I cleaned and refilled all the water bowls too, as we were forecast a high today of 97. I think it made it to 95.  Hot hot hot.

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  We have some family stuff going on right now...not with us but it's a sad time. Please hold us in your prayers...I know it will all work out exactly the way it is supposed to. Still, it's a hard journey and hard times. But it's the storms we weather that make us who we are, and the relationships in our lives that teach us about ourselves and about the things that are truly important in the world.

  As long as we're learning...everything is going to be alright.

Namaste.

Wednesday ...and counting the hours...

Lemon Meringue...

   Company coming on Friday. House: still not cleaned. Laundry: not done yet.  Green beans: picked another full peck today, and must can today or tomorrow. Teapots: finally back up on cabinet top shelves.  Sigh....my list seems to grow longer instead of shorter.  The good news is this: I know how my relatives live, so nothing here...and I mean NOTHING...will offend or shock or disgust THEM in any manner.  This is all about me.  The bad news is this: now I don't have so much motivation to kill myself doing all this.  lol  I was thinking that I might call my son and see if he has the time to come do a couple of things for me that I can pay him for. Not big jobs, but things that would take some of the pressure off me. He's not working much, off and on like crazy, then downtimes that make him nuts. He'd probably come do it just to keep busy.

   I was hoping to have 4 days off, but it's not to be. Looks like I have to work my regular 2 days off and take only Saturday and Sunday so that I can be with the family. How I long for the days when my time was my own and I could do everything anytime I wanted to.  When I wasn't at the mercy of other people and their opinions and their demands...oh well.

  I went out to feed chickens and take Roxie to the backyard when I noticed that I had green beans out the Ya-Ya again. It's a blessing, don't get me wrong. But it takes almost an hour to pick that bed. And it kills my back. And then I noticed that it is dry as a bone out there, so apparently the Irishman is coming home from work, eating the delicious meals I have cooked for him, plopping on the couch,  turning  on the tv and not moving a muscle.  I know he's not been sleeping well. But neither have I.

  Marriage.  It's something else, isn't it?  I saw a little thing at a craft show once that said ...

    "Marriages are made in Heaven,

     But then, so are thunder and lightning."

   I have been married and not married. In a good marriage and a not so good marriage.  In love and out of love.  And mostly, listening to my friends (married and not) we are usually yearning over the fence at the marriage we don't have, or at the single life we wish we did have.  Greener grass and all that, I guess. I am the married sort. I guess. lol  I have spent the better part of this relationship of  two decades either trying to accept him the way he is or trying to change him for his own good.  LOL  It's a conundrum.  Some of the things that I found SO charming about him back then drive me nuts in the right now. He has changed and grown and mellowed...a little too much in some ways (IMHO). But we are a good match, all in all. And  I think I speak from experience when I say that  sometimes that is as good as it gets. There's no perfect life when you live with another human being, I don't care what sex they are. There are going to be days when you pick up those socks that are in the middle of the floor, 2 feet away from the laundry basket, and it will be the last straw. And you will throw them out the window or set them on fire or put them in his lunchbox. There are going to be times when you look across the room in incredulous horror, not believing that THIS is the person that has been sleeping next to you all these years. And there will be those times when you look at yourself in the mirror and wonder where the time has gone and how did you get so old so fast. And then you will look back across the room and know:  He's sucked the life right out of you.  LOL

   Of course, there will be other times when you can't believe how the stars must have lined up so right for you to have a blessing like this in your life.  When you realize that here, this person right here, is the one that you have shared history with, that knows you better than you know yourself sometimes, that can still make you laugh after all these years.  

  And for a minute or two, it is all worth it.

  I still want to bake a pound cake.  And those beans aren't going to can themselves. And the marital bed still hasn't been made. So, here I go...off into this life we have made for ourselves that is pretty darn wonderful.

  

  Namaste.

Finishing up the day....

  Sigh....sweet little Roxie is coming into her own. She's started challenging the other dogs at the food bowl, barking and chased a neighbor's dog across the yard...(running headlong into this behemoth of a dog), and today she found the pond. She was exploring the wooded area around the back yard while I was watering the garden this morning and suddenly she was gone. I called and called and no answer.  The Irishman got home about this time and I pointed him in the direction I last saw her and he went down to the edge of the water and sure enough, there she was, along with her favorite babysitter, Bella. Bella was just watching her dig dig dig into the mud, Pat said. He brought her back up in the yard and before we knew it, she was down there again. Stuck in 3 inches of mud, with her little 4 inch long legs!  We had to give her a bath--she was covered in thick oozy mud.  She has been digging a lot, along the gardens edge, in front of the chicken coop...she bites the dirt and digs furiously with her feet, and pulls weeds up and flings them aside.  It's a riot to watch!

  I picked another gallon of green beans today...I have enough to can tomorrow. I also picked bell peppers and a few more jalapenos. I'll pickle a couple of small jars of the hotties and freeze the bells in strips-I froze 3 quarts the other day. The peas are coming along famously and the green beans are looking good...except the part of the bed where someone got in there and dug the plants up. No proof of who that might be, but it looked like the work of a big dog. We have lettuce spinach and kale showing from the second planting. And a couple of yellow crooknecks that may or may not make it to the fruit stage.  We'll see....

  Counting down to the weekend visit of the husbands brother and sister. I can't wait to see them--2 of my favorite people in the world.  I have so much work to try and get done between shifts this week. And yes--I have a grand list.  :)

  Everyone is sleeping around me. I filled the bird water and food dishes and cleaned up a little in the kitchen. I have iced tea ready to make and  a couple of other little things and then I will probably head to bed. Feeling quite tired today.  I still need to feed the fish. Oops. Nearly forgot them. The aquarium is looking a little better all the time since I cleaned it the other day. I'm ashamed that I let it get that bad. I need to take the filter out and rinse it...it's still just a little milky in there. 

  Feeling a little spiritually adrift these days...not keeping to my usual routines of prayer and meditation. This happens to me from time to time and then I have an AHA! moment and get back on track.  I need to remember to.."Make time for quiet moments...as God whispers, and the world is loud." I'm glad I can notice this stuff today...and have the solutions to the problems.

  Watched several good movies the past few days...The Lincoln Lawyer, with Matthew McConaughey  and a wonderful cast that includes William H. Macy and Marissa Tomei and Ryan Phillippe...and a comedy called Your Highness, starring Danny McBride and James Franco.  Then I watched The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, which I always love.  And some schmaltzy Hallmark movie about 2 Italian Winery families from the Napa Valley that I loved..with Patricia Heaton and Lainie Kazan and Tony Lo Bianco...the scenery was breath-taking and made me very homesick for that part of northern California where I lived when I first moved out there.  That's more tv/movie watching in 2 days than I do in a month!

  Alrighty then. Time for this old woman to get her affairs in order and start meandering towards her beauty sleep. I have a few unfinished things in the other room and then I am out of here. Have a great new week coming up, all y'all !!!!

  Namaste.


  

Lazy Saturdays...

  Even the dogs slept in.  All three of them are in here with me now, sleeping around my feet. This is my Caylee girl, who now has somebody (Bella) to boss around, and is exhausted by it all. She is ecstatic to have a playmate again, since Lucy has been gone she has been just lost.

  Bella is a big galoot. Her paws are already bigger than Caylee's and she is at least as tall. At 4 months old, I suspect she's gonna maybe be around 65-70 pounds eventually. She is acclimating well and loving having Caylee to play with. She is doing better on the housebreaking issue, but not perfect. Part of that, of course, is these two old humans trying to learn to read her. But, it's better already, after being here only a week.

  We went to dinner last night at our favorite Chinese place, and I ordered the wrong thing and didn't like it at all. And the place was packed and the service was not as good as usual, and I was cranky. We had plans that got changed at the last minute, so we just ate and came back home to watch a movie a friend had lent us. Called "Inception" with Leo de Caprio...a movie so action packed and frenetic I could barely keep up with it. When it was finally (over 2 hours!!)  over, I was exhausted. It was good, but so fast paced this old woman could barely keep up. Towards the end, even Bella was sitting up beside the Irishman barking at the television. After it was over and we had even closed up the cabinet, she still barked at it.  LOL

  It's 10 AM already and I haven't even fed the chickens. They always have food out, but mornings I throw scratch and crumbles down for them and we have our little daily get-together. Then I stroll through the gardens with my coffee cup in hand and exclaim over the progress or demise of things. Today I am lazy.

  Our local Sierra Club is having a workshop on Ethical Eating the end of the month. The Irishman is on the committee and so I shall go along. They will have interesting information and then a local vendor exhibit, complete with samples. It will; be at the Jacoby Arts Center, a lovely venue. All about local eating and organics and surely some vegetarianism thrown in for good measure.  Also about feeding the hungry and becoming more active in your own community in this area.

  I still have to finish the booklets I am preparing for my canning workshop and get them off to the CSA for publishing. I have been lazy about that too. I have started them though, and the workshop is not until October. Still...I have procrastinated something ridiculous.

  I need to rearrange my pantries and start getting canned beans and such put away. Rotating last years harvest (what's left of it) and putting this years stuff in the back. Cleaning out anything old enough to go away. Dusting and wiping and straightening. I have 2 big pantries and then a big 3 shelf cabinet in my kitchen as well.

  Okay. Nothing gets done when I am sitting here now, does it ?  So, I am off into my day, having a limited amount of time before I head down to MissB's house for my usual Saturday event. She timidly asked me if I had any fresh real tomatoes yet last I was there...so I shall gift her with one today. Thought I might also take some green beans (cooked) because it's one of the few vegetables she remembers growing herself, back in the day.  Apparently she and the mister used to grow some ferocious gardens back in the day, and she loves to tell me stories of growing up in the country and how her mother grew such magnificent vegetable gardens, and her father raised chickens and pigs and they always had a milk cow.  It was a good life, albeit hard at times. She was born in 1929...

  The heat wave is on its way back here (we had a couple of days of respite) and we haven't seen a drop of rain in almost 2 weeks. Things are looking a little raggedy out there, in spite of our attempts to keep things watered. You almost cannot water enough when the temps are nearly a hundred degrees...leaves are burning up, things are starting to crackel.

  Off I go.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!



Namaste.

Thursday ...going, going,. gone...

 This is one of the many things I did today...canned my first batch of green beans. It would have been more than just 6 quarts, but I gave a big bag to my neighbor, who was thrilled at the thought of fresh green beans. They are ready to pick again, so...here we go, into harvest season 2011. 


  I have family coming tomorrow. It will be a ridiculous crazy day...I have my alarm set for 6 AM so I can get some housework done...I have to go to a meeting at noon to give a sponsling her 18 year chip. I have to leave there early to go pick up my grandson and his dog that we are probably going to keep for him.  They are going to spend the night...my brother and his family will be here around 2 and then my sister and her husband and their daughter and my son and his wife will all be over for supper.

  I made a Scandinavian potato salad today, It's very plain, yet elegant, with simple ingredients...red potatoes, onion, celery, dill weed, celery seed, sour cream and mayonnaise. I usually make the old standard with mustard and eggs...not this time.  I will make a huge green salad tomorrow, some cucumber and onions in vinegar, and we will cook hot dogs and burgers on the grill.  I will get out some salsa and  make some ranch dip to go with the chips my sister will bring.  I will put out a huge plate of pickle...dilled green beans, pickled okra, pickled garlic, pickled baby beets, and pickled peppers, sweet and mixed.  I may even have some olives, green and black to go with. Like my husband always says: We may not have much, but we eat like kings!


  Had a gullywasher of a rain here today and high winds as well. So, the yard didn't get mowed. The humidity is terrible. I did buy some petunias and geraniums and begonias today and they are sitting in the pots, but not really planted.  I can promise you, THAT won't get done tomorrow.  lol


  I had a bit of a meltdown last night...after talking with my sister, who just found out she is going to be a grandmother...and reading Mz. Moon's news about another grandchild...and knowing I will never have a blood grandchild of my own...I just came undone.  My son has 2 stepsons and they are as close as I am ever going to get to being a grandma. The youngest one that comes over all the time is a sweetheart and I am blessed to have him in my life, don't get me wrong. But to never have the chance to look down at my own grandchild that carries my family DNA...well...it just breaks my heart. Somedays.  After my son was born, I got pregnant one other time. From then on, I could never get pregnant again. I didn't want a house full of babies. I was never THAT girl.  But I wouldn't have minded one more. When I write this out, it all sounds silly. Yearning for a life I will never have,  mostly because of choices I made. Must be old age that makes us all so dodderingly emotional about things that might have been.  (And when I say US, I mean me).  I'm tearing up even now...


  So, I am off to sleep. Tomorrow there will be family and food and children playing and dogs barking and birds singing in my life.  And it will be good.  And I will be glad. Glad for those whose lives are full of grandchildren, and glad that I have such a big loving family.

  And glad for pink and purple petunias, blooming their fool heads off.


Namaste.

My baby turns 40 today...

(Big bowl of green beans that I picked this morning) I didn't think there were that many ready!
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Feels surreal.  I can barely believe that I'm 40...lol.  They are having a big birthday party today at his house, complete with swimming and bbqing and a bonfire. I cannot see him today, but I called him this morning and wished him happy "day you were ripped from my loins" day.  lol.  He told me that he had a dream about me last night, and I had this duck that he named chicken, and I kept losing it and he kept having to come and find it and get it back in my car.
 

Okay then. He sounded really happy this morning, and there's nothing a mother loves more than that.

  It is hotter than Hades out there. The temps are still climbing and we're supposed to have a heat index of 107 today. I have to work 16 hours today, and will be getting ready to head that way in about an hour. I picked green beans, cukes, basil, sugar peas, and a couple of tomatoes. I was truly shocked by how many beans there were.

  Had company for dinner last night. They provided filets that we grilled and I provided a big garden salad, small red potatoes, and watermelon sorbet for dessert. It was easy and awesome. BUT--I told the Irishman this morning that I will have to modify that recipe a little, because I think it was too sweet. I will definitely make it again though.  My friend picked up a beef tenderloin on sale for me at 6.49/lb...It was a 40 dollar chunk of meat, but I cut it into about 14 - 1 inch thick steaks and froze them this morning.  They were good....but I still prefer my trusty old NY strip...but THEY haven't been on sale for a while.
 Here's the sorbet:

  I spent all day cleaning and cleaned the lr carpet as well yesterday morning....since my new Oreck carpet cleaner came on Thursday.  Jury is out on it...I have 30 days to fall in love with it or send it back.  I also did 5 loads of laundry, 4 of which are [still] hanging on the clothesline. sigh...I realized at about 10 o'clock last night that I had forgotten all about them.  I told the Irishman this morning that he might have to get them down today after he gets back home. We get such heavy dews this time of year, I'm sure the clothes were wet again. lol

  I need to go hit the shower and get myself ready for the long haul.  I really would rather stay here at home in the air conditioning, on the couch,  but duty calls. 

  I will be back online sometime tomorrow, probably evening.  Have a safe and happy holiday weekend, everyone.

 

Namaste.