Peaches anyone?

It's decision time. Do I get a bushel of peaches, or do I pass on them until next year? I'm definitely on the fence about peaches. 

My grandmother always canned peaches. It didn't matter if she still had a few jars left over from the previous year, when the peach harvest was happening, peaches were processed. My grandfather had a couple of dwarf peach trees, but there were problems when he'd only bring in a few peaches at a time. Processing just two or three quarts of anything at a time is labor and time-intensive. I don't like to preserve anything if I can't fill the canner. 

That's a problem I won't have. Having been an eyewitness to what the deer can do to fruit trees, I never planted any. Nor will I. If you'd like to read The Apple Tree Story, it's over at Between the Keys. True story, too, and it explains why I won't bother with fruit trees. 

But back to the question of the day. Do I go to the orchard and get a bushel of peaches? I can make a batch of peach jam, peach pepper jam, maybe a peach chutney, peach pie filling, and plain peaches. If I do it this year, I'm likely set for peaches for the next two, possibly three years. We're told that home-canned foods are good for eighteen months, but the truth is it lasts longer if the seal is intact. Would I stretch it past three years? Probably not, but two years isn't a problem for me. 

I'm leaning towards doing peaches. It'll add variety to our winter menu, something we desperately need. We're like most people in that we gravitate toward the "easiest to cook" menu. I want to do better and better needs to include peaches. 

The good news is I won't need to try to do everything today. There's time to join Himself for a cup of coffee before I head out to the orchard. I want to make a few phone calls to see which storefront has what variety and for how much. I know I want a freestone variety and not a cling. I think my grandmother preferred Red Haven, but there are newer varieties out there. 

Home food preservation is a brave new world to me. My grandmother would be amazed at the changes in our foods and the shortcuts we now have to "putting up" canned goods. 

For better or worse, peaches, here we come!

The Lady of The Hideaway

Drop back two and punt?

Life at the manor has taken a few twists and turns over the years. Sometimes we've been reacting more than proacting. When a loved one has health issues, you're often at the mercy of disease progression or disease treatment and that's simply the way it is. Other times, you can lay out a good plan and see it through to fruition. Sometimes your plans are thwarted by forces beyond your control. 

And sometimes, and this is the hard one, you come to realize that what you planned, what was your dream, is no longer feasible. You realize there isn't time to invest into working the plan or you come to the crossroads of where you've been versus the fact you've gone as far as you think you can with it. So it is with me and my writing career. 

Becoming a writer was a fluke. I was bored one day and I sat down in front of an old HP desktop that had a whopping big 256MB hard drive and a One Note program, and I started to tell a story. The damn thing snowballed on me and here I am, decades later, with a publishing history, blogs, social media, and book sales. Unreal. 

It became my plan to retire so I could write full-time. I lived for the moment! Now that I'm in the transition into total retirement, I'm wondering if that's what I really want to do. With so much that I love to do - walking, gardening, canning, quilting - do I want to sit at the computer for several hours a day? 

The publishing industry is one of constant change. Established writers get pushed back by new voices fueling different markets. Amazon only rewards megastars. Many, many, many good, solid writers get lost in the algorithms because that's the way Amazon makes more money. My own work is buried by the algorithms at Amazon. My sales are predominately at iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and a few other subscription services overseas.  

Even Facebook has begun to punish promotion. I belong to a lot of Facebook groups, and as I started to promo the release of July Heat, my posts went "into review" because I included buy links. 

Should I spend the time, months in fact, creating a good story only to have nothing become of it? Or should I spend my time, daily, enjoying Holly Tree Manor? As I transition into retirement, would my time be better spent rebuilding old friendships now that we all have more time to spend together without the constraints of jobs? 

I can't see my way to striking a workable balance. Maybe it will be clearer when I'm not "employed" even on a part-time, work-from-home basis. And maybe I'll have to drop back two and punt my way into something I've yet to imagine. 

Some days I'm just along for the ride, not steering the boat. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Pantry prepping - canning ground beef

Yesterday, a trip to Walmart gave me a sticker shock. I was going to purchase a pack of 85/15 ground beef. I did not. Instead, I stopped at our local grocery and got it two dollars cheaper per pound. When a local store can undercut Walmart, I begin to think we may be in trouble. 

I bought thirteen pounds of 85/15 for $56.00. The same amount at Walmart would cost $71.00. 

What did I do with all that ground chuck? I pressure canned it. My Presto canner will hold sixteen wide-mouth pint jars. That's almost a pound a jar of shelf-stable meat in my pantry. I probably could have forced more into fewer jars, but I stuck to the amount of beef we typically use for spaghetti sauce. That's a good measure for us. Yours may be different. 

The National Center for Home Food Preservation gives instructions on how to safely can meats. If you want to can ANYTHING, that should be one of your "go-to" resources, along with the Ball book I've mentioned several times. Read and learn about the process so you do it correctly.

I even broke out the Ball lids for this project. I like the Tattler lids, but this was meat and I didn't want to risk operator error. 

I must confess I never thought I'd can any sort of meat, but times have changed. Inflation is running wild and all any of us can do is purchase wisely and practice whatever measures we feel necessary to save what we can. 

Will I go get more ground beef to can another batch? Not this weekend. Now I'll be on the watch for sales and then can another batch. 

Eat tomorrow at today's prices. Yep. That sounds like a good plan.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

It gets green in the woods

Brush piles happen. 

We are never without dead brush that needs to be burned. Air pollution, you cry! So are airplanes, I say! If you can pollute on your way to exotic vacations, I can burn brush. Didn't think of that, did you? 

My house and yard are an oasis surrounded by woods, which are part of my property. For many years the southwestern corner was designated as our "wilderness" area or sort of a bird sanctuary. Unfortunately, the local critters have become too comfortable being too close to the house. We've been waging a war with the local raccoon and we decided his cover has to go. We are cleaning up the wilderness area. 

This job wouldn't be possible if we hadn't gotten the Brush Crusher. The grapple is able to lift and carry large pieces of downed trees and drop them directly on the burn pile. It's amazing.  How different the manor would look if we'd had the tractor and grapple twenty-five years ago before cancer first entered our lives and his health began to decline. 

Google Earth view

But there is little to be gained wishing the past to be different. We are here today and we do what we can today. I look out the windows of my sunroom office and am amazed at the transformation taking shape after only two days. I'm very happy with it. We still need to do a little weed-whacking and move some large rocks to the stone fence, but it will get done. One of us will take the old Husquvarna mower in for a finer chopping of small sticks. This fall, I'll sow a lot of deep shade variety grass seed and see what we get in the spring. We'll finish our shooting range, but that's for another blog entry. 

The manor has long had a park-like feel to it, and this will add to our enjoyment of the property. Well, it won't make Rocket the Raccoon very happy to get the eviction notice, but I don't care. 

Take that! you little varmint!  

Or should we thank him for giving us the motivation to clear that section of the manor so WE can enjoy it? 

Nope. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Cowboy Candy - I've waited a year to make this!

I can put the blame on YouTube for my addiction to Cowboy Candy. It wasn't until I watched an episode of Living Traditions Homestead that I even heard about Cowboy Candy. I made a batch and it was down the rabbit hole from there. I processed several batches and enjoyed it over the long, cold winter. 

Cowboy Candy is great when mixed with cream cheese. I drain off the syrup, chop up the peppers, and mix. Crackers or raw veggies, the resulting spread packs just the right amount of punch to satisfy a snack craving. 

Earlier this year I started jalapeno peppers from seed and the result is that I have thirty-three plants all producing peppers. I anticipate being able to process multiple batches from my own garden. I'd like to make salsa, but we'll have to see how that goes. 

If you'd like to know a little more about Cowboy Candy and how I do it, check out my page here.  I do it about ninety percent by the Ball book, and about ten percent "rebel." 

Here's where I tell you to never go "rebel." The instructions to process food are in place for a reason, like so you don't die of botulism. My "rebel" is simply cooking the peppers a tad longer than required. 

Having home-canned food in the pantry is about more than just being prepared. It's about making some really tasty foods to enjoy. It's about preservative-free food and opening a jar of soup and having dinner ready in five minutes. It's worth a little bit of planning and a couple of hours here and there for a more varied menu. 

It definitely works for us. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor
 

Wildflowers

 Last summer, I built a wall. 

The small knee wall was something I always envisioned for a problematic area between the house and shed. It happens to be where I park the car and for decades it was an eyesore and a sore subject with me. I asked several men (ex-husband, a live-in boyfriend, the current spousal unit) and none of them was willing to do that much hard work. Ultimately, I did it myself.

Ultimately, the Lord of the Manor will never, I repeat NEVER, be absolved for not doing it. I ask for little, being quite self-sufficient, but I did ask for that. And he refused. It'll bite him in the ass one day, I assure you.

Last year I sprinkled the contents of a few cheap seed packets and got a bit of late summer bloom. This year, I bought a good quality pack of wildflower seeds and the wall is now exactly what I envisioned for so long. It's in full bloom and is gorgeous! I think next year I'll add a few herbs to the mix and see what happens. And next year I'll keep the seed envelope so I know what all the little flowers are because there are quite a few I don't recognize. 

It was worth an afternoon of very hard work and a lot of sweat to dry stack the rocks. Really, it was. I'm very pleased with the end result. But I can't help but think how much more it would mean if just one of those men had been willing to give me the gift of their time and strength. 

Apparently, not all of us are worth an afternoon.

No matter how pleased I am with the wall, it will always be tainted with my disappointment. It has made me examine other projects and figure in a factor for the same disappointment. I plan on doing things myself. 

So at what point does the man become nothing more than a millstone around the woman's neck? 

We are sometimes who we are forced to become, not the person we hoped to be. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Kohler's Pig by Michael Sowa

 

Have you ever had an image reach into your being and tell you secrets about yourself?

Many years ago - many, many, many years ago - my best friend and I were doing a bit of "shopping" to while away the hours of a Friday night. Being the frugal sort, I rarely bought anything I didn't truly need, but those evenings were about spending time together more than our purchasing power. One night we walked into a home decorating outlet and saw Kohler's Pig by Michael Sowa. We were both immediately drawn to it. She purchased the print right away. I needed to think about it before I parted with that much cash. Ultimately, I went back the next morning and got a copy. 

I have no idea why it's entitled, "Kohler's Pig." It's never mattered to me. What mattered is the little pig. 

Quite a few of us have heard the expression, “when pigs fly!” (Well, if you live below the Mason-Dixon Line you know it.) This familiar southern expression is the essence of impossibilities. "When pigs fly" is the no way, no how, no when, ain't ever gonna come to pass and why would you think otherwise of a mundane life. 

My parents didn't use the expression, not in so many words, but I grew up believing they expected little of me. Consequently, I expected little of myself until I turned thirty and had the first of many epiphanies. 

Thank God for my grandparents, and for this anonymous little pig. 

So think about the pig leaping off that peer. 

After being told all her life she can’t fly, she proves them wrong. Let the naysayers keep telling her it’s not possible. She knows. 

It doesn’t matter she’s alone and no one sees her do it. She knows in her heart she can fly because for a few glorious moments, she did it. If even for a singular glorious moment, she did it! 

So many of my victories are like the little pig flying. They've happened in quiet secret moments experienced alone. Does that make them less valid? I think it makes them more so. 

I don't need false accolades and praise any more than I need to prove myself to others. Neither does the little pig. 

She hangs in front of me as I sit at my desk, a constant reminder that I know how to soar. No romantic spirit animal for me. No wolf, no bear, no bison, no fox, no coyote. Mine is the little pig who still speaks to me even after thirty years, reminding me we fly together. 

She knows. Fly on! 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

So how did the potatoes in the grow bags work out?

Last fall I conducted a little experiment on growing potatoes in fifteen-gallon grow bags. It was enough of a success for us to give it a try this past spring. I got a couple of Kenebeck seed potatoes and planted them in a big green bag - and they grew! 

Unfortunately, be it due to the weather or my inexperience with grow bags, the tops of the potato plants browned over the past two weeks. That meant the growing spuds were probably done growing because their source of nutrients had died. I wasn't quite ready to call it quits, but logic and common sense do sometimes prevail here on the manor. I emptied the bags to harvest the potatoes - and there were potatoes.

It wasn't the harvest I hoped for, but it's got potential. These can be used as seed potatoes now. There is no reason at all I can't allow a few of them to sprout and replant the bags for this fall. I even wonder if the plants will survive in the greenhouse over the winter. 

Half the fun of gardening is just planting and standing back to see what Mother Nature will do, and what she can do. 

We'll keep you posted.

Oh, and those really small potatoes? We'll boil them, butter 'em up, and enjoy!

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

The peppers are forming

I have what is to me a new food obsession. I say it's new because I only discovered it last year and I'm totally hooked on it. What is it you ask? A little delight called Cowboy Candy or "candied" jalapeno peppers. I'd never heard of it until I saw a homesteader on YouTube make it. Himself is a big fan of jalapenos and I was always on the "take it or leave it" fence. 

Until I tasted Cowboy Candy. 

Oh, it's not pepper jelly, no. I've always liked a big spoonful of pepper jelly over some cream cheese with a handful of wheat crackers. Cowboy Candy is better. 

I planted pepper seeds earlier this year and damn if I didn't end up with thirty-three pepper plants for my little garden corral. They are doing so well! There are pepper blossoms everywhere and now little peppers are forming! 

The recipe I use to make and can Cowboy Candy can be found in the Ball Book of Canning and Preserving. It's a wonderful resource for technique and recipes. It's great to have recipes and not just a how-to on canning, say, apples. You get a recipe for apple pie filling which is one of the reasons I want to can apples. 

I'm hoping for a good harvest and a lot of half-pint jars of Cowboy Candy. It's amazing how quickly we went through the batches I made last year. I'm going for double this year. I really can't wait! 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

How's the countdown doing?

taken 6/20/21

I have a countdown counter on my phone to track the possible days to my retirement date. I have a world of options ranging anywhere from tomorrow morning to May 31, 2022, and any day I choose in between. That's been the most difficult thing - deciding on the date. Because it's not just about the date.

If I choose to go on March 31, 2022, it's not 280 days. It's 40 weeks, which is rather biblical at the moment. Forty is one of the numbers of completion. March 31st equates to 200 weekdays, or workdays. But wait.

I don't work on Mondays. I gave that up a few years ago and it's been the greatest gift I've given myself in years. So I need to figure 200 workdays on the counter less one day a week for the 40 weeks, or 160 workdays. But wait.

Here at mid-year, I still have 14 vacation days and 5 paid holidays to go, so we must subtract another 19 days of work from the 160. This gives us 141 workdays remaining. 

And here's a thought for you. Why do they call it the work FORCE? I never thought about the word "force" having two separate meanings before. Shines a different light on it, doesn't it? 

taken 6/20/21

I tell myself I can make it another 145 days, but I wonder. The CEO is on vacation this week and I may make a few phone calls. 

I'm ready to be home at Holly Tree Manor on a full-time basis. I have work to do here. I want to transform the manor to match the vision I've carried in my heart for so many years. 

Yes, it's really time. Am I brave enough to take the step?

The Lady of the Manor

** I took those screen captures days before I actually go to write this entry which is why the numbers may seem "off."

Green and growing!

 We couldn't be happier with our little garden corral! Everything is green and growing and even producing blooms. We worry about the deer finding it, so we did put up a perimeter netting and so far <knock on wood> they're leaving it alone. 

I enjoy going out and watering it every day it doesn't rain. The tomatoes are in grow bags and those can dry out quickly. Next year, the plan is to get the tomatoes into five-gallon buckets. I didn't want to be a hoarder and purchase every food-safe bucket I could find, a notion that may bite me in the ass come next year, but there it is. 

Last year we started with five grow bags and had an encouraging harvest.  This year we've gone a bit bigger and instead of having just a few peppers, I hope to have enough for several batches of Cowboy Candy, pepper jelly, and more. We had enough cucumbers to eat and make a batch or two of refrigerator pickles, but not enough to store in the pantry. I love, love, love bread & butter pickles and hope this year to put my great-grandmother's recipe to good use. 

Then there are tomatoes. We seem to be cursed when it comes to tomatoes, but with over a dozen plants, we have hopes of some scrumptious tomato sandwiches. Considering we're growing old-fashioned Beefsteak tomatoes, it may happen. 

And so we wait and hope our little garden corral will do us proud. And we also hope our energy doesn't fail when it's time to preserve our harvest. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

How many stages will it take?

November 2020

 We've begun to do the work to clear the old tractor path. It's been a long time coming because it will be a lot of hard, physical labor, labor that I will need to do. The Lord of the Manor no longer has the physical capability and I thank God that I do. 

Last November, on a bright sunny day, we made our way to the edge of where the work started and did a few minor things - mostly assess what really needed to happen. That led us to the purchase of a Brush Crusher.  Brush Crusher is the brand name for a front-end grapple for the John Deere 1023.  We purchased ours from Good Works Tractor and had it shipped since we knew we were capable of the assembly. 

The grapple is able to lift heavy logs and hold them while I use the chain saw to cut them to length. It can also "bite" into the brambles, yank them out, and hold them firmly for a trip to the brush pile to be burned. Oh, if we'd had this thing twenty years ago! 

June 20, 2021

There is a massive amount of work involved with clearing the old tractor path. Deuce and I took a walk along the southwestern strip of it last winter. A short video of our walk, in the snow, can be found here. 

The path was clear back in my grandfather's day. The property he gave me was at one time a small apple orchard and a strawberry patch. I still have tiny wild strawberries grow each year. 

It may not look like we accomplished much, but we can at least see the stone fence again. Our next task is to finish cleaning up as much as we can before we move on to the next twenty to thirty feet. It may take us this entire season to clear the whole stretch, but we'll keep after it, a few hours at a time, until we reach the corner of the property.

Making the turn north will have to wait for next year. Maybe. The Brush Crusher is a true game-changer. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Curried Apple Chutney from the Ball book

Curried Apple Chutney

Last summer I purchased the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. (not an affiliate link) It's a great resource for experienced and newbie canners alike. I want to try many of the recipes in the book, and yesterday, I got a headstart on canning apple goodies. The original plan was to do apples in season, but one should never walk away from a good deal or a free deal. Preserve it! It looks like apple season will be all about apple pie filling and that's okay. 

Chutney, sweet or savory, has always interested me. I had everything needed for the Curried Apple Chutney so last evening, I went to work and got it done. It didn't take too long to do, either. I spent about half an hour peeling apples, chopping the onion, and measuring out everything. The chutney needed to cook for about forty-five minutes, during which time I prepared the jars. Once the mix has cooked, it goes into the jars, and then it's time to follow a water-bath process for fifteen minutes. Then the jars came out, I tightened down the Tattler lids, and scampered off to my Kindle. 

Curried Apple Chutney jarred

First thing this morning I checked the jars, gleefully discovering all the seals are good. The book says the recipe makes ten pints, but no. It made twelve half-pints or only SIX full pints, and I measured everything very carefully since it was my first time using a recipe. Sometimes you get what you get. The Ball book is usually very accurate in the recipe yield, so I'll give them a pass on this one. 

I also learned something else this morning. Apparently, the Jarden company, which makes Ball jars, is now owned by the Newell company. Is this why we can't find metal lids? At this point, I'm liking the Tattler lids more and more. 

There are many additional recipes I want to try in the Ball book, but what I need to do next is simple apple jelly. As I peeled the apples last night, I saved the peels and the cores to cook along with some sliced apples to make the apple juice for the jelly. Waste not, want not as the old saying goes. The remaining pulp will go out in the woods for the little ones. I still have several jars of Caramel Apple Jam on the shelf, so no apple jam or apple butter this year. 

My coffee is cold and this entry is finished. It's time for a fresh cup and to check the weather forecast for the day. After that, who knows? The day will unfold, with or without a decent game plan.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

**You can find a bit more about this chutney here.**

Cherry jelly - first time making

Growing up country, having a cherry tree was not a big deal. My grandfather had several "wild" cherry trees that produced cherries growing in odd locations. Not every "wild" cherry bears fruit, so having several was quite a boon for my family. 

These trees produced an abundance of fruit, but the cherries were small. It took a lot of work to harvest enough fruit for everything my grandmother wanted to "put up," but it was worth it. I haven't had cherry jelly since she stopped canning. And I do mean jelly, not jam. She strained the pulp and used the clear juice. 

When I was making grape jelly a few short days ago, I saw that the Sure-Jell insert had the formula for cherry jelly. I finally had the chance to make a stop at the local fruit stand and brought home about four pounds of fruit, enough for one batch of jelly. 

Making the jelly was much the same as making the grape jelly. The cherries are cleaned then heated to release the juices. Being that I was making jelly and not jam, I didn't need to pit the cherries before heating them. My grandmother was no one's fool. She knew how to streamline the work and I learned from her. 

Once the cherries were hot, I used a potato masher to mash them. Then I added a splash of lemon juice to preserve the color, ladled the hot pulp into a jelly bag so the juice could strain out, and went on about my other chores. Several hours later I had three and a half cups of juice - just the correct amount for the Sure-Jell formula. 

The juice was transferred to a large pot and reheated, the pectin added, and the mixture brought to a roiling boil. After a minute, the entire four cups of sugar were added all at once while constantly stirring the mix. Yes, you have to have the sugar measured and ready to go in all at once. It's important to do it that way. 

After the sugar is added and the mixture is at a roiling boil again, set a timer for one minute and keep stirring until the timer goes off. Then remove the pot from the heat and jar the VERY HOT liquid. Process in a water bath according to your altitude. 

Just like with the grape jelly, I used the Tattler reusable lids. Tattler lids are made in the USA and last for years. 

I'm pleased with the results. There was just a little bit of jelly left in the pot that I scraped out and tasted. I think we'll really enjoy the cherry jelly next winter. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

The garden corral

In an effort to thwart the local deer, my veggie garden is a container garden located in what I'm calling The Garden Corral. 

The garden corral is located on what was our pool pad. To our sorrow, the Lord of the Manor can no longer safely get in and out of our little pool. Well, he can hold his nose and fall in, but it's the getting out we're not sure about. It's one more thing he's lost the ability to do as his overall health declines. Fifteen years ago chemotherapy saved his life, but the damage it did has lingered long after the cancer was dispatched. Life is a series of trade-offs. 

My little garden space is a work in progress. I started this year with grow bags and quickly graduated to 5-gallon buckets for the peppers. Next year will require something different for the cucumbers and radishes. The much-anticiapted strawberry grow bags are, in my opinion, a real bust. I don't like them so the strawberries have already been replanted. 

So on we go. 

I have fifteen buckets with peppers, thirteen grow bags with tomatoes, five grow bags with cucumbers, one with beets, one with carrots, one with a bush pumpkin, one with a bush watermelon, and one with sugar snap peas. 

The peppers are what I'm most interested in this year. With any luck, Cowboy Candy, pepper jelly, and a good amount of salsa will be added to the pantry. Past eating fresh tomatoes and making a few batches of salsa, I'm not sure what will be done with the tomatoes. We'll eat the watermelon, and I'll likely freeze the pumpkin puree. I tried canning pumpkin last year and never again. If I'm going to end up with mush, I'll just freeze mush. 

Will the harvest make me sorry I went on this journey? Perhaps, but the idea of having even a small amount of food in my pantry that I know has no preservatives in it is worth a little work. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Garden fail: Radishes

 This is my year to experiment and learn about container vegetable gardening. As I've mentioned, an in-ground garden would be decimated by the deer, so my focus is on what I can grow in my little garden corral. 

Here's the link to a video of the deer in our woods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0JXEfL2vqk . As destructive as they are, we love watching them. 

It's a given that not everything I plant is going to prosper - case in point is the radishes. I purchased good seed from Burpees and got really good germination. It was downhill from there. 

Radishes are said to detoxify your blood, help lower blood pressure, boost immunity, and taste de-lish! I know not everyone agrees on that last item, but we like them. My plan was to serve up some fresh in a few salads and dehydrate the rest. Once dehydrated, they're stored in airtight containers until you re-hydrate them for use.  

But back to the garden fail. I did pull a few young radishes out for salad toppers, enough to be sad we missed out on the rest. 

Good seed germination doesn't equate to a good crop. Lots of things can go wrong like the gardener putting the grow-bag in the greenhouse and allowing the radishes to get too warm. Radishes are a cool weather crop, liking temperatures anywhere from about 40F to 70F. When the weather prognosticators predicted a hard frost, I set the bag in the greenhouse for protection - and then forgot to take it out the next morning. (There was NO frost, by the way.) And so the radishes died before their time. 

I'm disappointed, but I'll try again this fall. Radishes mature quickly so if I plant again about six weeks before our average first fall frost date, we should, hopefully, be able to harvest a nice little batch. 

Maybe, come fall, the radishes we harvest will look like the ones in the picture I ripped-off of the Internet and I can post a good photo for everyone else to use. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Now that the fragrance is gone

Every year I look forward to the peonies blooming. We like to sit on the front porch in the early morning before the sun lifts over the trees and starts to cook us, and the fragrance is wonderful. The peonies are a sort of homage to my grandmother and mother. They were fonder of the plants than I am, but I like the visible connection to them and to my younger years. When the peonies bloom, I hope any rain holds off for a week or so because rain ruins the flowers. This year, we got to enjoy the blooms and the fragrance for about ten days but now it's time to deadhead the bushes. 
 

An unfortunate side-effort of peonies are insects, notably bees and wasps. They, too, love the fragrance but I draw the line a coexisting with wasps. 

This morning, before the sun topped the trees, I got the clippers and went out to do the deed. Much to my surprise my helper, although four-footed and black, isn't who I expected. Loki doesn't care much for work. 

His idea of help could have gotten him hurt. Every time a leaf waved in front of his face, he took a swat at it. It didn't bother me but I doubt he'd have enjoyed it if the clippers caught his paw by mistake. 

In the end, the job was finished without bloodshed. Next spring will bring new blooms and I'll remind the cat he doesn't enjoy gardening. 

I doubt my words will have any influence on him at all.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor 

A light harvest: dill and spearmint

I would love to have a true herb garden. Herbs are lovely, fragrant plants just on their own, but they have genuine uses, too. I have memories of accompanying my great-grandmother into the woods and watching her fill her apron with mysterious green leaves. My mother used to drive up the mountain to one particular spot and cut some sort of mint for summer tea. She tried to transplant some year after year but it wouldn't grow in her garden. My problem is the deer and how they nibble on everything. 

Spearmint grows around the edges of my patio and I confess, by the end of summer I'm yanking it out like it's a weed. But this time of year, I'm harvesting the leaves for my summer brews. I like nothing better than to put a few spearmint leaves, a slice of lemon, and a chunk of real ginger in a water bottle and drink it down. 

I noticed this morning that the dill has reached the point where it will bolt and set seed if not cut, and the spearmint looked ready to flower. It was time for a little harvest. 

Both are easy to dry. I use a dehydrator, but you don't really need one. Chop and spread the dill out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and it will likely dry fine. You could also put it in the oven with the light on overnight. That little lightbulb creates more heat than you'd think. You can also tie the stalks together and hang the bundle upside down to dry, but I've found the little dill leaves can drop off and make quite a mess. 

My mother cut and hung spearmint, and that works great. I take a shortcut and use a dehydrator. Once the dehydrator finishes, I put the leaves in a quart mason jar with a moisture absorbing pack, vacuum seal it with the food saver gizmo, and store it. How long does it keep? I doubt there's a good answer to that. I keep mine until when I open the jar the fragrance is gone. 

One day soon I'll plant a proper herb garden, but until then I'm happy to have made even this light harvest. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Brood X 2021

 They have arrived. Brood X. 

We've been hearing the cicadas singing for about a week, some to the south and some to the east, but none right on top of us. I think that's about to change. 

Yesterday, I went out to check the trail cam and pull any footage off it, and lo and behold, there was evidence of one of the little buggers hanging on the tree above the camera. It had shed its adolescence shell and is now on its way to breed as a bigger badder bug.

This morning, they're singing away! I suspect one of the cousins is now surrounded and by tomorrow, we will be, too. 

I remember the last time Brood X emerged, seventeen years ago. I didn't think much about the mystery and marvel of it at the time. This year, no matter how loud, I'm not going to complain. 

This may not happen again in my lifetime. It's a sobering thought. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Oh, yeah. Meatballs.

 

Continuing on with my journey into the world of pressure canning, this morning I turned six pounds of ground chuck into five quarts of meatballs in beef broth. I'd hoped to get six jars, but I didn't allow for the way hamburger shrinks when cooked. Trust me, I know better. 

This is more of an experiment than the chicken breast. We like meatballs but they don't figure high in our meal rotation. If these have a good flavor and texture, that could change. I do like the idea of opening a jar and having the meatballs ready as compared to pulling them out of the freezer and have to not only heat them but thaw them first. Plus, they tend to dry out in the freezer no matter how well the vacuum seal holds. The jarred meatballs will not have that problem. 

To process the meatballs, I first formed them and put them in the oven for thirty minutes to render out the fat. Then they went into the jars while hot, and I filled the jars with hot beef bouillon broth. Remember - hot food goes into hot jars goes into hot water in your canner. Three hots. Meat of any kind in quart jars is then pressure canned for ninety minutes. You need to pressure can meat for it to be safe to consume. Do not water bath meat. 

The Lord of the Manor hasn't said too much about the meat canning. I think he's withholding judgment until I open a jar and use it in a recipe. I'm sure the next time we have spaghetti, there will be meatballs in the sauce. Beyond that, meatballs with mashed potatoes and gravy was a staple in my mother's menu rotation. I'm also thinking of meatball sandwiches and Swedish meatballs. The poor, misguided man has come to terms that just because I'm in the final countdown to retire, it doesn't mean I plan to make cooking to feed him my life. 

I do know that if the meatballs turn out the way I hope, I'll process more. Canned meat is shelf-stable meat. If the electricity goes out, we can eat meatballs or chicken. They might be cold, but the food will be pre-cooked and ready to eat. That's a win I can really get behind. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor