an entry up over at OFB. It’s not an exciting entry or anything, but there’s a dorky picture of me in my stylin’ hanging-around-the-house clothes.
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Fred is dying – DYING! – to see that stupid Transformers movie, and it kills him – KILLS HIM! – that I’m all “Eh” about it. I have no desire to see the movie, but I’ll sit through it, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. Last night, he declared that it would be best to wait a bit to go see the movie, so that the crowds will have calmed down a little. Tentatively, we’ll be going to see it the weekend after next.
Two movies in one summer. Can my heart take it?
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Did you know (did you care?) that chickens take dust baths? One of the buffs sat outside the computer room window yesterday and rolled around in a patch of dust for a good ten minutes yesterday. I didn’t take any pictures, but I assure you – it was severely cute.
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From my comments:
By the way, you might consider labeling everything on the lids (the top part that can’t be reused – not the rims). I’ve found it has saved me a ton of time in not having to soak off the old labels the following year. I just use a sharpie on the lid and pitch it in the recycling bin when we’ve eaten up said product.
How sad is it that this never occurred to me? I wondered how much of a pain in the ass getting those labels off was going to be (my prediction: BIG pain in the ass), but I never thought of marking the top, which makes total sense, since you can’t reuse the lids. Thanks!
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Regarding pickling, have you ever considered pickling some green tomatoes? Those are good!
I hadn’t thought about it, but I suspect that when I’m in the throes of “What the HELL are we going to do with all these tomatoes?!”, this comment will pop into my head, and I’ll give a little prayer of thanks for my readers!
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Did Fred find a website on how to plant the garden or did y’all just do it and hope that everything went OK with it? We’re talking about having a garden next year and I’m afraid we’ll plant one and then everything will eat it or it’ll just become a big, brown, crispy pile of compost matter.
Fred did a lot of reading online, a lot of book reading, and then when it came time to plant, he just kind of went at it blind and planted stuff wherever the hell he felt like planting it. If I recall correctly, the only real consideration he gave was to the corn, and how it should be at the end of the garden, which has worked well for us. I think we ended up lucky, considering we did it all half-assed. Not only did we plant half-assed, he went back and planted stuff between rows, which is why the summer squash and zucchini are threatening to overwhelm the cucumbers. Next year the garden’s going to be a lot bigger, and not necessarily because we want to have more stuff, but because things like the squash and black-eyed peas need more room than they have.
If he were going to follow a book, Fred recommends
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, which is filled with all kinds of useful information, not just gardening. Also, last week someone recommended
Joy of Gardening, which I plan to get one of these days.
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Are you going to put all of your canning/pickling/whathaveyou methods, techniques and recipes up on your recipes page?
I hadn’t thought about it, but I might! For the time being, I highly recommend anyone who’s interested in canning and pickling go right out and buy the
Blue Ball Ball Blue Book of Preserving. That is one awesome, helpful, amazing book, and I cannot recommend it enough. Those of you who recommended it to me, I totally owe you one!
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Do I recall Fred mentioning on his site that you had planted watermelon? If so, what about watermelon rind pickles? My Grandma used to make them and they were so unique and tasty too! She colored them red and green. Man, those sure were good. *drooling*
We absolutely planted one or two (or ten thousand) watermelon, and we’ve actually talked about trying out pickled watermelon rind. We’re some pickle-loving fools, so I don’t see why we wouldn’t give it a try. Also, I believe we’re going to give watermelon preserves a try while we’re at it.
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Are you pickling any green beans? A friend of my parents used to make those and they were soooo good!
I haven’t yet, but I plan to. I actually just printed out a recipe for pickled green beans, and maybe the next time a big batch of them comes in from the garden, I’ll pickle ’em.
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Speaking of the garden, here are some garden pictures (click on any small picture to see the larger version, or go on over to
Flickr).
Itty bitty watermelon.
Pattypan squash, in the making.
In the front, cantaloupes. In the back, watermelon. This bit of the garden is horribly weedy, but we’ve been told that if you mess with watermelon and cantaloupe plants too much, they stop growing. Apparently they’re SENSITIVE and don’t like to have their tendrils messed with, so we’re leaving the damn weeds.
On the right, summer squash. In the middle, zucchini. On the left (though you can’t really see them), cucumbers.
On the right (between the wooden stakes), cucumbers. In the middle, green peppers and jalapeños, and possibly some other kind of pepper as well. On the left, the second planting of green beans.
On the right, tomatoes. On the left, black-eyed peas.
On the right, okra. In the middle, pole beans. On the left, corn.
Corn! I believe that Fred’s considering a second planting of corn, once all this is ripe and harvested.
People have said to me in the past, “There’s nothing like (various vegetables) straight from the garden!”, and I’ve always thought
yeah, right. Whatever., but they are absolutely right – the squash, okra, corn, green beans we’ve gotten from the store cannot even dream of holding a candle to the stuff right from the garden. It’s amazing, the difference.
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Last night Fred went upstairs to the kitten room while I puttered around for a few minutes before going up to join him. When I walked through the door, I was stunned to see that he was petting Gilligan, who really and truly seemed to be enjoying the petting. He let him do it for another minute or so before he ran off. He hasn’t let me pet him as much as he’ll let Fred, but I did get to pet him a few times. He not only let Fred pet him, he actually purred, and Spanky’s purred several times, as well.
This bunch seems to like Fred a lot more than me – I suppose it’s my payback for the fact that the
Christmas kitties lurrrrved me, but were afraid of Fred.
“You may NOT touch the belleh!”
The always-annoyed Maryanne.
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Sugarbutt, asleep atop the kitchen cupboards. I call him my kitchen witch.
“Okay, enough of the flashy-flashy, lady. There’s canning to be done!””
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Previously
2006: “I love you, but GODDAMN DO I HATE HIKING.”
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Miz Poo vs. The Intel Man.
2002: Fred tries to poison me.
2001: Letters.
2000: It occurs to me that that’s perhaps far more detailed than y’all need.]]>
Itty bitty watermelon.
Pattypan squash, in the making.
In the front, cantaloupes. In the back, watermelon. This bit of the garden is horribly weedy, but we’ve been told that if you mess with watermelon and cantaloupe plants too much, they stop growing. Apparently they’re SENSITIVE and don’t like to have their tendrils messed with, so we’re leaving the damn weeds.
On the right, summer squash. In the middle, zucchini. On the left (though you can’t really see them), cucumbers.
On the right (between the wooden stakes), cucumbers. In the middle, green peppers and jalapeños, and possibly some other kind of pepper as well. On the left, the second planting of green beans.
On the right, tomatoes. On the left, black-eyed peas.
On the right, okra. In the middle, pole beans. On the left, corn.
Corn! I believe that Fred’s considering a second planting of corn, once all this is ripe and harvested.
People have said to me in the past, “There’s nothing like (various vegetables) straight from the garden!”, and I’ve always thought yeah, right. Whatever., but they are absolutely right – the squash, okra, corn, green beans we’ve gotten from the store cannot even dream of holding a candle to the stuff right from the garden. It’s amazing, the difference.