Beans, Beans, Beans!

Just as I got home from my walk with M. this morning at 9, S., our garden centre helper, arrived.  She and I started an "orgy" of picking, shelling and snipping.

First up were the broad beans (Fava beans).  That finishes the harvest for those beans.  I brought them into the kitchen for blanching and freezing.

Then we looked at the peas.  They were too far gone.  I picked a few pods which we shelled and got about two handfuls.

But there were still lots of Royal Burgundy beans to be picked.  When we finished those rows we had quite a haul.  We sat down on the deck in the shade of the apple tree and snipped all those beans.  It gave me two ice cream buckets heaped high with snipped beans.

But before I blanched them S. picked two half full pails of Evans cherries, the same kind Jim and I had prepared for freezing last week.  S. and I got busy pitting them, and filled a 4 quart container almost full.  They didn't need to be blanched, so I spread them on my cookie trays, on top of waxed paper and put them in the freezer as the Fava beans were already solid enough to put into gallon Ziplock bags.

I like to freeze everything on trays so that it's loose in the gallon bags and I can take out however much is needed at one time without defrosting the whole bag.

I had been doing the laundry at the same time, and it was now 1 p.m., time for S. to go home and for me to get the meatloaf and potatoes into the oven for dinner.  Our vegetable today was corn on the cob, and that I cook by putting the ears into boiling water and when the water returns to a boil, time it just one minute and then turn off the heat.  I learned that method about 10 years ago from M.'s mother.  Before that I boiled it according to an old cookbook that I had, and it was always tough!  Now it's tender and delicious!

After dinner I took down the first load of laundry and hung up the second.  By that time it was after 4 p.m. and I needed a break!  But the start of a rain shower about 4:45 meant quickly retrieving the wash from the line.  Aha, it was dry!

Finally this evening I got around to blanching the Royal Burgundy beans.  That's the only kind of bean I like to grow because they seldom become to fat to use.  These deep purple beans grow long and slim and don't have large seeds.  Jim and I had picked, blanched and frozen two gallon bags last week Friday, but there were already oodles more.  Blanching turns the beans green.

The cookie trays were still loaded with cherries that weren't hard enough to put away, so I went looking for a substitute "tray."  I found this 46" long piece of plywood that would fit in my big freezer, which is 65" long.  I covered it with waxed paper, and there they are: enough green beans to get us through the winter! I'll stir them around occasionally as they are freezing so they don't stick together.

So that was one day full of accomplishments, and I'm so gratified.  From now until August 31 I have no appointments or duties on my calendar.  I'm hoping to get tons of projects finished.

Finally Finished

Finally finished my first project for this summer!  Yeah, I know, I should be able to say, the fifth project, or something like that, but that's not how this summer is panning out.

This is the front door, and I had it off the hinges for a week, scraping, priming and painting.  That was a week ago.  This week I painted the frame around the door.

When we bought our place, this was an outdoor area, and the ceiling was the underside of a second floor balcony.  We had our carpenter frame it in and install windows, continuously, all the way around.  This door used to give access to the balcony upstairs.  It was replaced with a three part window, eliminating one area where the rain was able to soak into the living room.

The house was built in 1979 so this door was, by now, a very dingy looking door.  This afternoon I put on the final touches by staining the wood parts of the door sill.

It feels so good to say "Finished!" to one project!

Here's the view from outside.  What an improvement!

Next up: finish painting the inside of the garage, and refinish the "people" door to the garage.  The house had no attached garage when we bought it.  There was a single car garage down where the garden centre is now.  We dug a foundation in under the walls of that building, which had been simply sitting on the ground.  Then we double insulated it, filled in the wall where the window and the garage door had been and installed an entry door.  That old garage is now our cold storage building.  We store shrubs and perennials in there over winter.  Because of the double walls, it remains above freezing throughout the winter.  It's where we store our potatoes, onions and carrots over winter also.

P.S.

Well, it seems as if it did work that time.  Apparently something was wrong with the settings, and has been straightened out.  I hope it stays that way!

On Tuesday before the storms we picked cherries, and here's the result:  four quarts and one pint of cherry juice from Nanking cherries and an almost full 4 litre pail of pitted Evans cherries.

Our area is not kind to "soft" fruits, such as cherries, peaches, apricots, etc. but we are able to grow lots of small cherries like these.  The Nanking cherries are a medium sized shrub that really loads up with small, deep red cherries, with a fairly large pit.  I put about 2 1/2 gallons of those cherries into the steam juicer, and these sealed jars of cherry juice are the result.  It's very tasty and makes great jelly, syrup, table juice and wine.

The Evans cherry is a tree form that also produces lots of small cherries, also with fairly large pits.  These cherries are good for pies and tarts, but need to be individually "de-pitted."  I have a cherry pitter, but it doesn't work too well with these small fruits.  I've found the best method is to take a nail set, insert the pointed end in the stem hole and give it a circular twist to pop out the pit.  That bucket took me a full two hours of concentrated effort.  Jim helped every now and then as he was able.

When I finished I looked as if I'd been in a battle with a crowd of voracious insects!  There was cherry juice all over my arms, legs, the floor and the chair the container was set on.  But, you know, this winter I'll be glad that I did it when we enjoy cherry pie and tarts!

Stormy Weather

Our area has been stuck in a pattern of hot, sunny days with gathering clouds in the west,  until late afternoon or early evening when the storms "overcome the sun"--meaning that they become powerful enough to take over the sky.

On July 20 our little town was celebrating its centennial.  The fireworks finished at 10 p.m., just ahead of a massive thunderstorm that seemed like a fabulous continuation of a "sound and light show."

That Saturday morning started with rain.  Around 10 a.m. the sky grew lighter, and exactly at 11 a.m. the sun broke through, precisely at the start time for the parade.

These pictures are of the storms we had on Tuesday between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.  The top photo shows the storm approaching from the west.  This is just a small segment of the western sky which was filled with similar clouds.

The second photo shows the leading edge of the storm as it passed south of us.  The under cloud, just above the trees, had two conflicting swirls of wind driving it.  I fully expected to see a funnel reach down from that maelstrom!  We were under tornado warning again that night, as we have been several times this summer.

This third photo shows the leading edge of the second storm.  This was the heaviest storm that evening and did serious damage south of us.  We are about 1 1/4 miles north of town.  The southern part of town and the crop land beyond that were totally hailed out.  Someone said their garden looked like a rice paddy.  Another person said she shovelled several inches of hail off her back deck.

This is the front page of Wednesday's paper, the left photo showing the accumulated hail on one of the streets, the right photo showing the flooding down the lower end of main street.

Our neighbour, who farms several different sections of land, was out Wednesday morning checking his scattered fields.  Some of his crops were 100% hailed out.  It's such a terrible shame, especially since the crops here were in fantastic shape, and would be badly needed in view of the many areas in North America that are experiencing historic levels of drought!

This last photo gives a little indication of how hard it was raining.  It was like a solid curtain of rain, being shoved horizontally by the heavy wind.

I had written this whole post yesterday, but was having trouble with blogger and couldn't get it published.  So here it is now, and we'll see if it's a go.

Having Problems

Something is wrong with my page on Blogger. It won't let me upload any more pictures. But I can't find out how to delete anything to make room for the new stuff. Yesterday I prepared a long post about the violent weather we've been having, but couldn't get it published. If anyone out there has encountered this problem and knows how to fix it, please email me at "grammilu@telus.net" to let me know how to continue posting on my blog. Thanks!!! from Grammilou

Tonight's Menu

Tonight's Menu:
Seafood salad with young beets;
Corn on the Cob;
Homemade Apple Wine


As far as salads and soups go, I think you can combine just about any ingredients.

Jim had some small, young container-grown beets that I wanted to use for our main meal today.  He picked about eight of them, which I boiled, cooled, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces.  I gathered about 12 fresh lettuce leaves from the garden, washed and spun them and ripped them into bite sized pieces.

From the freezer I took out some crab flakes and some shrimp, also some pine nuts and some cooked quinoa.  I had picked fresh peas today, shelled and blanched them.  About a half cup went into the salad, along with all those other ingredients.

I made a fresh dressing from some olive oil, a crushed garlic clove and a bit of lime juice, which I sprinkled over the salad, some before tossing it and some after.

Just before we were ready to eat Jim picked four firm, filled out ears of corn and husked them.  I tossed them into a pot of boiling water, enough so that they floated.  After the water returned to a good boil, I timed them one minute, and then removed them from the heat.  We dressed them with some butter, salt and pepper.

This "Just Exactly Right" meal for a beautiful, warm Sunday afternoon was served with a small glass of chilled, homemade apple wine.

What a treat that all was!

Slow Food

I believe we qualify as "slow food people" because our food is all cooked "from scratch."  That's a funny expression, isn't it?  But I mean that we don't use prepared foods.  For dinner each day I make a salad from raw fixings, cook our own potatoes, pick and cook fresh vegetables from the garden and prepare a small serving of meat (about 3 ounces each).  Breakfast is always a large fresh fruit salad that Jim prepares (Thanks, Jim!) and some homemade muffins, bagels, oatmeal, etc. that I make.

This time of the year slow food is even slower.  These peas were picked between 12  and 12:15 today, shelled and boiled lightly for dinner at 1 p.m.  Have you ever had peas that fresh?  They are incredibly better than anything in a can.  Of course, in the winter, we are eating peas from the garden that have been boiled lightly, drained, cooled and frozen, packed into plastic bags and stored in the freezer.  They are still incredibly better than anything in a can.




Likewise, tomatoes that have been plucked from the plant 15 minutes ago, still warm from the sun, combined with an onion that was in the ground this morning, and whatever other fixings you have on hand for a salad, outshine anything for sale in the supermarket.  It's always a sad day in the late fall when we use our last home grown tomatoes and have to revert to buying greenhouse tomatoes from the grocery store.

Tomatoes can be picked green at the end of the season, just before the first killing frost, stored in the spare bedroom, spread out on newspaper under the bed (in the dark as much as possible) and taken out a few at a time.  Some years we eat
our own tomatoes until late December.

The corn that we planted early this summer (early enough that we had to cover it about five times to preserve it from frost) is getting close to ripe.  We've actually picked a few ears yesterday and today, but the kernels, though sweet and delicious, are not fully plumped out, and an ear doesn't fill you the way it should.  We each had two ears today.

We should let them go for at least four more days to fill out sufficiently.  Corn is my favourite vegetable, so it's hard to wait.  Fresh corn on the cob is another one of those treats that are available for just a short season.  I use lots of corn kernels the rest of the year  either from our own corn that I have frozen, or from a bag from the supermarket freezer.  There's not a whole lot of difference there between the home grown and the store bought.

Enjoy the wonderful freshness of summer vegetables while you can--either from your own backyard garden, the farmers' market, or your local grocery store!