A creature of habits

I've had the same desktop photo on my computer since 2015. It happens to be the very first photoshop project I did. I like it. The colors, with their autumn-ish hues, please me. I doubt that I intended to keep this photo up for six years, but here we are. 

What struck me as I powered up the unit this morning is that I'm still using that same coffee mug, too. 

I suppose continuity is a good thing. Or should I simply admit I'm a creature of many habits?

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Preserving peaches

I heard the peach harvest this year was exceptional, and from what I saw at the orchards it was not a lie or a marketing ploy. I made the drive to a local orchard my grandmother favored for peaches and brought home a half-bushel of Bounty. They were huge! 

This local orchard has been family-owned and operated for a few generations. I like to see that sort of stability. Anyway, I went and bought peaches. 

These peaches were, no lie, bigger than my fist. I'd never heard of Bounty peaches, but they looked and smelled wonderful, plus they're a freestone variety. I've since learned they were developed at the USDA peach breeding program at Kearneysville, West Virginia, which is just a tad more than half an hour from the manor. 

Once I had the peaches home, I immediately began to process them, canning them in pint jars. I got twenty-four pints of canned peaches and one batch of peach jelly. It was an intense two days but very much worth it.

With so many pints on the shelf, I won't need to can peaches again next year. I suspect it will take two pints to make a pie, but that's okay. I didn't want to process them in quarts and risk opening a jar to have peaches for dessert and not using the entire contents over the course of a few days. 

Home-canned fruit is good in the sealed jar on the shelf for at least eighteen months. I personally am not worried about fruit that is jarred longer so long as the seal is intact. 

And that's the key to safe consumption. The seal must remain intact. If you take a jar off the shelf and the lid falls or lifts off in your hand, throw the food out and sterilize the jar. Don't risk eating it. It rarely happens, but a seal can fail so be mindful of it. 

I'm looking forward to canning apples, but that won't be such as intense process. Apples keep longer than peaches so I won't need to do them all at once. I'll also be putting apples in quart jars. Some of the newer varieties such as Gala are available now, but I want Stayman or Winesap which are older varieties and will, I hope, capture the flavor of my grandmother's pies. 

Summer fruit and winter pies and cobblers. It's worth the work. 

If you want to learn more about canning, please visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation at https://nchfp.uga.edu/. This is your preserving bible. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

A touch of red this year

2004

2020

 From my office, I have a great view of one particular maple tree that always puts on an autumn display. The first picture was taken in 2004 when orange was the color of the year. The tree has grown a lot since then, but it never fails to draw the eye. This year, the color will be redder to red-brown, I think, but October is young yet. 

Sitting atop a little knoll on the edge of the treeline helps with visibility. I've often said it's the only tree I never want to cut down. 

Will it outlast me, here on the manor? I hope so, and I hope whoever comes here after me has an equal appreciation of the manor. Living in the woods isn't for just anyone. If you have any fear of the dark, the woods are not the place for you. 

Perhaps my love of the poet Robert Frost has influenced my choice to live apart. His poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," written almost one hundred years ago, speak to me of a magical moment in time. Does it matter where he's been or where he's going? I think not. But in that moment of complete albeit cold solitude, the language of the woods speak to the poet. The woods are lovely dark and deep, this I know at my very core. 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (1923)

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy winds and downy flake.

The woods are lovely dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor