A Time To Write...

While words have failed me these past couple months, I find that they keep building up in my head and my head can handle only so much within it. It seems I must write in order to make room for more thoughts...crazy? Well, you're still reading aren't you? hahahaha

I spent my summer canning, pickling and preserving the harvest as best I could. Who would have thought there would be so much food to care for? Some I grew myself, some was given to me by friends who grew more than they could preserve themselves, some I purchased from the local farmer's market and, of course, some came in my CSA basket.

I have (5) quart baggies of purple hull peas. They came in a huge mesh bag and took at least two hours for Ernie and I to shell. Shelling peas is a great way to pass the time with a wonderful friend. All you have to do is sit at the table, shell peas and talk the hours away. Which is exactly what we did. Now, if you ask Ernie, she will also include that this pea shelling past-time was where she began her boo-boo getting escapades. She even has pictures to prove it! Imagine that - Ernie with pictures! hahahahaha

You can see how things have piled up in my head when I can write an entire paragraph about shelling purple hull peas. Hey, it was fun!

We spent some time stringing green beans too but I don't think Ernie got any boo-boo's doing that. Although she didn't stick with it as long as she did the peas so that could be the reason why. I had so many green beans to string that I needed Ernie, Sherry and Traci to help get them done. A couple of those volunteers came and went as we were having a party the same day after all...

In all I have quarts and pints of tomatoes, quarts and pints of green beans, quarts of summer squash, quarts and pints of chow chow, quarts and pints of pickled sweet bell peppers, pickled hot banana peppers and pickled sweet banana peppers. I have pints of pickled yellow squash, pickled cauliflower and good old regular dill pickles. I have pepper vinegar, fermented jalapeno peppers, home-made sauerkraut, pickled eggs and I would have had pickled shrimp but we ate it as soon as it was ready!

I made pear preserves with pears that Jay brought me. I made plum and blackberry wine, taco sauce and two different kinds of salsa - regular tomato salsa and some tomatillo salsa. I highly recommend the tomatillo salsa, it came out awesome! Together Ernie and I made two big bags of spaghetti sauce.

I have pickled okra, smothered okra and then there was the okra that I fried. It was quickly devoured to say the least.

So you see, it's been a busy, busy season for me. I thought I had posted all the pictures on the flickr site but when I checked it the other day, it appeared to be missing the pictures of my shelves of jars. They certainly are a sight to behold if I do say so myself. I'll have to find them in my picture albums (thank you Ernie) and get them posted. For now, it's enough to get a post up and worry with pictures later... (oops did I say that Ernie?? LOL)

And so went the summer... I planted, watered, staked, grew, harvested, chopped, fermented, soaked, cooked brine after brine, packed jars, filled the canners too many times to count and anxiously awaited the popping sound of the jars sealing in the food, preserving it for when fresh vegetables are no longer readily available. Indeed this was time consuming, it was being on my feet for hours at a time, it was watching the pressure gauge and the stove top timer, it was cleaning up my messes - which were huge to say the least. It was above all else, simply wonderful.

I can't tell you how it feels when the jars have sealed, they've been washed down and the lids have been labeled. There's just something about it that, unless you're into it, you may not understand. I enjoyed it thoroughly and now that the season has wound down, I miss it terribly.

Since I feel the need to still be growing something, I've bought a few fall flowering plants and grasses that will keep us in color for months yet to come. I bought a yellow mum, though I have plenty of mums at the house, this one was planted in the bed at the flagpole. I bought pansies and planted them in pots then set them out around the big, yellow mum.

I bought a blanket flower plant that looks red in the pictures but is actually orange. It attracts butterflies, which was a surprise to me. I bought a purple balloon flower plant. It bloomed twice already but currently has no blooms. It may be time for it to stop blooming for the year since the weather has turned. These flowering plants will both come back next year and will spread a little each year after.

I bought two fall grasses, miscanthas, I believe? I'll have to check the tag, but anyway, they're about 4 feet tall and they're green on the stems with purplish, feathery leaves on top. The lady at the nursery said they'll stay green for a long time and even when they turn brown in winter, they'll still maintain their shape and come back bright green in the springtime.

Behind the grasses I have plans for two hydrangeas and two shrubs called "Burning Bush." The Burning Bush blooms bright red in early spring and stays that way for a month or so. It gets about 5 feet tall and wide so I'll need a pretty good size area for those two. With the hydrangeas we won't know the flower color until they bloom although they are named "Nikko Blue." We'll see :)

I planted lots and lots of 4 o'clocks but every time they got real leafy and ready to bloom, the chickens ate them. Every single one of them. Every time they came back, they got eaten again. I've given up on 4 o'clocks in that particular bed. Perhaps I'll try them further down the road when the chickens don't roam...darn chickens!

Last weekend there was a festival in Columbia called the "Southern Fried Festival." They had all kinds of fried foods, twinkies, kool-aid, pickles, oreos, etc. There were the usual chicken strips, french fries, chili fries, chili cheese fries, and the list goes on. Well, we road over there in the Subaru with a cooler full of beer in the back and it was a beautiful, sunny fall day with the colors just starting to change.

We walked the streets of the festival and checked out all the vendors, art, and crafts. We listened to a few bands and made a couple trips to the car for a beer. We took some back roads to a piece of property owned by Wally's uncle and we found a place to eat some fried chicken that didn't cost and arm and a leg like the festival did. We parked on the side of the road with two working farms bordering us on either side. We opened the doors, opened a beer and ate hot fried chicken for lunch.

When we went back to the festival I just had to have some fried pickle chips... mmm mmm good! We found a guy who did chainsaw carving and Wally bought me a cedar pumpkin that the guy had carved with a chainsaw. I'll put a picture up on flickr for you.

We also found a booth selling "no sugar added" apple butter, strawberry and pear preserves. We got some of the strawberry for Wally, some Cajun Candy for me and some pickled asparagus for both of us. The Cajun candy is jalapenos and some other stuff that makes it sweet and hot at the same time. You don't want to keep eating it because it's hot but you can't stop because it's so good. The pickled asparagus is almost gone...it's awesome!

When we had seen all there was to see at the festival, we headed for home. I was watching the scenery and day-dreaming all along the way when Wally stopped and turned into a driveway. The sign said memory lane and up a ways was a big wagon overflowing with pumpkins and gourds.

On the wagon was a sign that said "$3.00 each." Inside the wagon, on top of all those pumpkins was a little jar labeled "please put money in here." I couldn't resist! I bought a big orange pumpkin and a HUGE green and white striped gourd with the neck curving over. I was so excited!

Wally took us by Pee Wee's for an hour or so and then we took Totty's Bend for a slow, winding, hilly ride home. The cows were eating grass, the babies were laying in the sun in their grass beds and chickens roamed the farm house yards much like mine do. How do those ladies keep them from their flowers???

It was a day for the record books for me. I went to a fall festival, heard some great music, picked up some homemade goodies and road some back roads I'd never been on. Just being outside all day in the fall, mountain air made us kind of sleepy and it wasn't long before we hit the hay. It may have been daylight still... lol!

The Hickman County Fair was a couple weeks ago so we went to see what was going on there. I love checking out the canning competition. I didn't get my jars into the competition on time but I definitely will next year. They have a whole page of categories and I would have had something for all of them. They even have a kids group of entries that were very impressive.

We watched the cattle judging and the tractor pulls and then went on home. Before the fair though we drove out to the Cane Creek Market where the Mennonite people live and work their farms. I bought some steel cut oats, some cream of tartar, some marjoram (for my soups) and some dried okra and beets. The dried okra is crunchy and a little bit salty, like a chip but it's okra. It's pretty cool. The beets are sweet and crunchy and if I had access to lots of beets, I'd make these on my own.

I have dehydrator now so anything and everything is being tried and tested in that thing. I have summer squash slices in it right now. I read that they can be lightly salted when they are done and will be like squash chips. They stay good for months once dehydrated so we'll have summer squash chips when it's cold and no squash is available. Pretty cool, huh?

Oh and don't think I won't be making some venison jerky!! I've been keeping an eye out for the deer and I'm determined to get one this year. I can't wait to have venison jerky, venison cubed steaks, venison spaghetti and especially venison chili! Yum, Yum, Yum!!

It's time for me to go dig in the dirt so I'll try to get another post in soon...it's sunny, 75 degrees and the leaves are changing, it was hard enough to sit here this long... lol!!