O, Fall, Come Quickly on Little Wing-ed Feet!

My view - the whole of my weekend.



My beloved Bread & Butter
Pickles

 

I really do believe the gods have a sick sense of humor.  Imagine all the tittering and sniggering as it was decided to make everything ripen and need to be canned during the dog-days of August.  I had a lot of time to ruminate about this and many other things, as I slaved over a hot stove for most of the weekend.  Whining aside, it was very satisfactory to see all the jars lined up on the counter (and the kitchen island and the dining room table and on top of Pepper's crate) by Sunday night.  I am most thrilled at my new cache of Sylvie's mom's bread and butter pickles.  I have been out since February.  It's not been easy.

 

I did manage to talk myself out of buying an entire bag of corn (55+ ears!) as it is finally dawning on me that I am a family of one (person).  I am going to can a couple of dozen ears' worth and that will have to do.  On Sunday, I made zucchini lasagna - nice thin, flat ribbons of zucchini taking the place of pasta.  I also used a package of frozen mushrooms, a jar of diced tomatoes and a jar of roasted tomato sauce, both from the pantry, a package of grass-fed ground beef, a handful of reconstituted diced onion from last year's bumper crop (thank goodness for my dehydrator!), homemade ricotta cheese, and topped of with dollops of last year's garlic scape pesto.  Delish!  Unfortunately (or fortunately - depending on your frame of mind) I also made fresh peach ice cream and peanut butter / banana chunk ice cream.  I had leftover cream that HAD to be used.  HAD to.  I may need an intervention.

 

Last week, some fairly violent winds made origami out of the shade canopy I used on the back deck.  It was the only thing that allowed me to actually use the deck.  I came home Thursday night and it was twisted like a pretzel.  After scouring the limited options in my rural neighborhood, I found a deck umbrella at a deep discount.  Noodling it around for a while, I finally bungeed it to one of the Adirondack chairs on the deck - a rather elaborate bungeeing job, if I do say so myself.  So far, it's remained upright.  A friend dropped by last night and we had a glass of wine bowls of ice cream under the umbrella.  It was very nice.  It is difficult, however, to remain cool when covered in furry beasts. 

 

Speaking of furry beasts, the flies have been gawd-awful the past few days.  The sheep and llama are especially bothered by them.  I found my jar of SWAT and trotted out to smear the Pepto-Bismol pink goo on their faces.  I thought Juno looked like a particularly fetching woolly Good 'n Plenty.  They were so miserable, they didn't mind.  Apria took some convincing - and six smooshed apples.  Flies have been sneaking into the house which causes the dogs to leap and snap.  It's been pretty exciting.