Beans Galore

While we were away the neighbors picked and ate all the beans they could. Yesterday we picked about a 1/2 Bu.

Nee: Mom, what are we ever going to do with all these beans?
Me: What do you mean, I always can this many beans.
Nee: Every thrid day?
Me: Oh, I see what you mean

Nee: I think your are trying to feed a village beans and corn.

The photo was taken after giving a good amount to the fellow who helps with irrigation. I call the picture, "Berner with Beans"


The beans magically turned into 35 pints (amount corrected)of Dilly Beans - OK I worked through the night canning.

Home!

We are home again after a charmed vacation. It was everything we could have hoped for and more. I love my quiet home in small town in the middle of nowhere but I do love getting out to the excitement of the city, too. At first the girls were afraid of the city and had to be coaxed out of the room (their first trip to a BIG city) but by the end of the week were right there figuring out the best routes on public transit and moving with the flow on the city streets.

Now it's catch-up time as the busy time of year is here.

Independence Days #12

I'm posting my Independence Days early this week as we leave in the morning for San Francisco.

BTW, here is an "after" shot of the pretty bread and jam from my previous post (after the family got their hands on warm bread and fresh jam):


1. Plant Something: nope

2. Harvest Something: copious amounts of pickling cucumbers, the first slicing cucumbers, the first tomato, the first green beans, pecks of peppers, and apricots.

3. Preserve Something: Mrs. Neighbor and I canned 11 jars of pickled peppers (the long yellow kind) and roasted chilies over a wood fire for later salsa - all cooked it went into a 1/2 gal bag in the freezer.
Put up 2 half gallon jars of lacto fermenting kosher style pickles.

Next day: two loaves of bread, and bought raspberries on sale at the grocery to make 14 1/2 pints of jam for Mr. Greenjeans.

Next day: 9 1/2 pints of Pepper Jelly. I put what I thought were 2 habeneros in the mountain of peppers but it doesn't seem to have any heat. (Turns out the peppers were poblano or pimento - now I'm afraid all the hot peppers died). I'll let the Santa Fe peppers develop more next time see if we can't get some heat into them.

Next day: Borrowed Mrs. Neighbor's food dehydrator and put in a load of apricots.

4. Prep Something: Have really weeded a lot in the garden (don't worry there's still of weeds plenty left - no manicured garden here). Here's some before and after photos from the green bean makeover. Thre are three rows of different varieties of green beans:
Before:
After
Interestingly, the beans with the holes in the rows are an heirloom yellow wax bean.

Mr. Greenjeans cleaned in the shop and I cleaned in the garage (lots of moving mess left over). Like the weeding, there is more to do there too.

Mr. Greenjeans developed a way to get the fruit out of the top of the apricot tree. He has a 16' extension pole that he taped an small plastic bucket to. When we climb a 12 step ladder and rattle a branch with ripe fruit on it, we catch most of the fruit in the bucket.

5. Manage Reserves: I have to say we had decided that the jam that I made with splenda a few years ago wasn't safe to eat. I don't know if that's true but I didn't want to be the family that made the news as a cautionary tale. I put the contents of two dozen jars of jam into the compost and the jars into the dishwasher. I could use the jars anyway.

Nee made labels for all the preserves for me and put them on. She started doing beautiful labels for me last year using layers in adobe photoshop. We put them on clear packing tape and stick them on the jars. They don't leave a gooey mess on the jar when the label comes off. We've talked about posting the labels on the blog so everyone who wants to use them can.

6. Cook Something New: Everything I preserved this week was new to me. I had actually not made apricot cobbler before.

7. Learn something new: The lactofermenting is completely new concept to me. I'm still trying to understand it and giving it a whirl.

It is Vacation Time!

Yeah! I am officially on vacation for 10 days!

I have three days at home to can and preserve whatever bounty the garden provides, clean, tie up loose ends and pack for our trip. Not only that but Mr. Greenjeans is on vacation too! (Him to me: don't work me too hard.) I tend to always have more plans than time but it will be good.

Here are some garden shots: Some of the corn
Tomatoes, Peppers, Brussels Sprouts. (Yes, the Tomatoes are caged but they need fences and they were planted a couple of feet apart but have grown together into one big massive tomatoe tangle).

One of the baby Watermelon


Here are some of the projects. The picture was taken before I made pepper jelly and the apricot cobbler. Also not pictured are the fermenting kosher dills.

Raspberry Jam in a Jam Pot my MIL brought to me from England years ago.

A Blog Award!

Thank you Rob for the award! (I saw your post before I even received official notification!)

1.The winner can put the logo on her/his blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 5 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you’ve nominated
6. Bonus points, list 5 random things about yourself that we might not pick up from your blog.

So, I nominate:

1. Lisa and her new urban homestead chickens for her generous sharing of her herbalist knowledge.
2. Caroline at Goldenacreliveson for her wonderful garden post and practical ho-to's
3. April at My Grandma was Green for a really great spin on the greening, simplicity movement. My Grandparents were so important to me and I feel as thought this honors Grands.
4. Ilex who homesteads in a condo for being one of the blogs I've read the longest, who show what you can do with limited space and her views on the world.
5. Wendy? at Home Is... a cool blog I've recently found and started reading. The pictures have me wanting to move to Maine.

The Bonus 5 things about me (I took the liberty of shortening this list).

1. You may be able to gather bits an pieces about our critter from my blog, but we have 4 dogs: A Bernese Mountain Dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, A Border Collie, and a Golden Retriever. All are rescue dogs from various organizations, the best of which is Bernese Auction Rescue Coalition. We also have 3 cats: a Pixie Bob, and two black and white "tuxedo cats" (two rescues). We have 26 chickens (numbers to be reduced upon crowing) and a bunny.

2. As a child I worked for a week for a circus and when the circus left town my parents came early to pick me up to be sure I didn't leave town with the circus.

3. I've never been off the North American Continent (unless the blogger Cruise counts as out to sea).

4. I quilt in the winter the way I garden and can in the spring and summer (future blog posts, to be sure).

5. I own a Yamaha V Star 650 that I've been too busy to get out of storage from our move.

One More Reason Walmart is Objectionable

Yea, I occasionally shop Walmart - I've mentioned that good alternatives are over 100 miles away (more in the winter or spring when the pass is closed).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25967103/

However, I again renew my pledge to avoid spending any money there. I will pay higher prices in a strapped economy to not support their exploitative ways.

edit: Is anyone willing to design a Democrats boycott walmart button?

Independence Days #11

The harvest is just beginning here and I suspect it will be can your buns off through September now.

1. Plant Something: Nope

2. Harvest Something: The neighbors were letting their raspberries die on the bush so I couldn't stand it any longer and picked one and half cups which I made into 1/2 pt. of Mr. Greenjeans favorite jam.

Harvested several pounds pickling cucumbers (and dill and peppers) and made 14 1/2 pts of spicy dill pickles. Took two jars to land owners. This recipe called for sugar which I reluctantly put in thinking it must be required for the preserving but I don't like the flavor (yes, I have that extra jar that didn't go in the water bath that I'm tasting out of). There is another batch of cukes on now so I'll try a different recipe.

Today Mrs. Neighbor is coming over and we are going to pickled peppers. We don't know exactly what we have - not for lack of labeling - but because her two year old went along and "collected" all the tags we'd put in the ground. We'll pickle the long skinny yellow ones, then lay a fire in the Weber and roast and freeze the ones that look hotter. The tomatoes are all green so this will preserve the peppers (with wonderful flavor) until the tomatoes are ready.

Mrs. Neighbor got our first Zucchini - she'd been hungry for that Zucchini. The slicing cucumbers are just about upon us with a vengeance.

The tops of our apricot tree (too tall to reach) are getting ripe and falling to the ground and so am harvesting ground apricots for the chickens (trying to keep ahead of the Spaniel whom I don't want to get them). Harvested grasshoppers from the garden for chicken feed.

3. Preserve Something: Um, see above narrative.

4. Prep/Manage: Went to yard sales and found two matching infant car seats and an umbrella stroller for Mrs. Neighbor (who is 8 mos. pregnant) and gave them to her - I knew that's something she needed. She was thrilled - I guess the car seats were the expensive kind, and they were as clean as new.

Searched and searched for fabric covering for the seats in the trailer but ended up buying the cheapest heavy fabric Walmart offered (canvas). Wow, I noticed price increases there. Yes, I hate going to Walmart but we are in the middle of no where with a walmart and a Lowes.

Accepted an old wall cabinet a neighbor was throwing away. He kind of didn't get it that I wanted to lay it on it's back and plant strawberries in it.

Examined apple trees, peach and plum trees and found a pear tree in the Garden's yard.

Did the chore of taking homemade Beef Stew, Chicken soup, Chicken broth, Frozen party yum yums... out of the garage freezer, thawed them (to get them out of the ball jars) and thew them away. It was a very hard experience but I know that that freezer thawed for an unknown time (repeatedly) and that none of that food could be trusted. Next week I'll clean it.


5. Cook something new: Nope just getting by in the heat.

6. Work on local food systems: The first farmer's market was on with only one small vendor. The produce just isn't ready here, and they were having trouble getting vendors who produced in sellable amounts. The dog park group was there, and people were taking orders for peaches and some folks were playing music... hopefully it will do better through the year.

7. Learn Something new: I really learn a great deal from the food storage group. I have everything to learn about lacto fermentation, but I'm going to try some of those cucumbers lactofermented.

From Sharon's site, I began to think of my garage as cold storage. I had been thinking cellaring, but really, we went a winter without a 'fridge a couple of years ago and just kept our food in the garage.