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| It was a bright, sunny day before the storm. |
It's almost 6 pm and I'm sleepy. It's too late for a nap and too early to go to bed. So what to do? This situation usually sends me outside to putter in the yard, but the rains are tumbling down. Recently, our weather has been much like it was when we lived in New Orleans - a thunderstorm every afternoon. In New Orleans, it seemed that it stormed every day after work as we were walking to the bus. I wish I could say the storms cooled things off, but they didn't. If anything, the air was even more humid afterwards, but we are luckier here in that regard--after the storms, the air is usually cooler.
I have to work tomorrow, but I had today off, so I spent most of it trying to process produce so it won't go bad while we are away. After I ran out of ingredients for pesto, I put the rest of the basil into the dehydrator. Herbs dry at a very low temperature and it seems to take forever. In fact, the temperature outside was higher than it was in the dehydrator-98 F and 95F, respectively. As I was expressing my impatience with the drying basil, Theo suggested I take it outside where it was warmer. :)
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The last sauce I made, I used the food mill.
This time I used a blender. |
Also, on the produce menu today was tomato sauce. After preparing it this morning, I've been cooking it down all day and now it's cooling. The goal is to get it into the freezer tonight. However, if I still had my canner, I would can it. Several years ago, I gave the canner away after not using it for a long time. If this keeps up, I may need to get another one. Besides the basil and tomatoes, throw in some dropped pears and apples and it's been a full day.
The rains have stopped and I'm going to go find Ward, who has wondered outside somewhere.
Until next time...
I saw your comment on Strayer's blog. Since you lived in New Orleans, maybe you went through Mississippi on I55. I live near Strayer now, but spent my first 37 years in a little town 100 miles north of New Orleans.
ReplyDeleteWe were I-55 a few times driving from the north to New Orleans, but not too often. What town did you live in?
DeleteBrookhaven, which is sixty miles below Jackson. My wife and I finally left there because we wanted to escape so much that the rural South represented. Getting out of the heat and humidity was a good thing too.
DeleteP.S. Despite living 100 miles from New Orleans, I never once went to Mardi Gras, first because my parents had no interest in it, and then because I didn't. I don't know how rare that was.
DeleteWe were definitely happy to leave the heat and humidity. It gets hot and humid here, but it does not go on for months and months at a time.
DeleteWe went to Mardi Gras on Fat Tuesday only once when we lived in New Orleans and it was definitely an experience. I enjoyed it more than my husband. However, we both enjoyed many of the smaller neighborhood parades that started 3 weeks before the big day. The only problem figuring out which streets would be closed and when on any give day. But that could usually be planned around.
"It gets hot and humid here, but it does not go on for months and months at a time."
DeleteAre you in WV now? Like my home state of Mississippi, when WV makes the news, it's usually for something sad or stupid. While both states contain many good people, such stories certainly constitute bad PR.
I only spent time in WV on two occasions. One was to help friends move there. The second time was to visit them. The third time was to visit the Hare Krishna headquarters. It's a beautiful state.
Make that three occasions!
DeleteI just got back from a trip to PA, but will be going to WV in a couple of weeks. It is a beautiful state with very hard working, down to earth people. That's not to say that it hasn't had it's problems historically, some of which persist to today.
DeleteI had forgotten about the Hare Krishna headquarters. I've never been there. I wonder how many people live there today?
I meant to ask whether you live in WV. I don't see that I said, so I'll mention that I live in Eugene, Oregon, which has a metro area of around 300,000 and is at the southern (or upper) end of the Willamette Valley. I've been here since 1986 except for two years in Minneapolis.
DeleteI was never involved in the Hare Krishnas beyond my desire to check-out all manner of alternative lifestyles, so I have no idea how the WV group is doing today.
The main WV problems that I hear about today concern narcotic abuse and poverty.
I haven't lived in WV since I graduated college, but my roots and many of my extended family are still there. I live now in Maryland in a small town about an hour outside of Washington, D.C. Much of deep Appalachia had/has serious problems with opioids. It's all very sad.
DeleteI have never been to Oregon, but my husband has been a couple of times on backpacking trips. He enjoyed his visits there. I hope to visit some day when things are more stable both health-wise and politically.
Sounds like you had a very productive day! I'm still trying to process my tomato harvest! I've frozen some (running out of room in the freezer!) but still have more! I have been considering canning some of it - I don't have a canner; I just used a deep pot when I canned the peaches last year (we tried one jar last week and it was still fine).
ReplyDeleteTomatoes can be done in a water bath, so a big pot might do. I harvested another boxful tonight, but they should be okay until we get back. None of them are overly ripe. I wanted to get them before the deer did.
DeleteWhen you used your deep pot, what did you use to keep the jars from bumping into each other?
I need to do something with the apples or they'll go to waste. I have no canner and my freezer space is about a foot square. Anyhow, no oven for dehydrating right now so looking into a dehydrator.
ReplyDeleteWe've had our dehydrator for many, many years. It's nothing fancy, but works fine for everything we've tried. It doesn't require as much attention as an oven. Hope you get a new stove soon.
DeleteDecades ago, I made--from scratch--a dehydrator that had six or eight large trays, nine 75 watt light bulbs, and a fan (I could control the temperature by turning lights on or off in rows of three). When I hadn't used it for quite a few years, I sold it. A few years later, Peggy decided that she wanted to dry the pears that grew on our tree, so we now borrow a neighbor's dehydrator, but it's not nearly as big or as efficient. When I made mine, I was still a meat eater, and I made it specifically for jerky. I could dry seven pounds of flank steak at a time.
DeleteIt's hard these days to get incandescent bulbs that will put out heat like that.
DeleteWhat kind of pears do you have? We have two pear trees at our house now. We're not sure what kind they are but they are small but taste okay when they are fully ripe. But they are very grainy. We dried some last year with mixed results.
The area having been an orchard, when we moved into this 1955 house in 1990, we had an old and large plum tree, an old and large apple tree, and an old and large pear tree. The apple died, and the plum tree died (although it came back up from the roots), but the pear tree is going strong. I suppose it's a Barlett, since that's it looks like the Bartletts that are sold in stores.
DeleteI have the original housing covenant, which forbade resale to Jews and non-Caucasians. Eugene is now a very liberal city (aka the "Berkeley of the North"), and I find that most residents are completely ignorant of the area's racist history.
We have two old apple trees that haven't produced much the four years we've lived here. We have planted a young apple tree to take the place of these. We have two pears that are pretty prolific, but the fruit have a lot of bad spots.
DeleteThat's an interesting historical covenant. When was it written? It sounds like Eugene is following what Maya Angelou said once. "When you know better, you do better."
The house dates from 1955, so it would have been sometime along there.
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