My Tomatoes Runneth Over

I have been out of sorts the past few days. Nothing serious, just a general unwellness.

I did pick tomatoes today and a bunch of herbs. The Roma and yellow plum tomatoes are absolutely full of fruit. I'm going to freeze much of them whole. A friend makes herbed salt and I have decided my life is not whole without that in it, so I have a bunch of herbs dehydrating as I type. I think I may have a new obsession!

These need a little more ripening time so I've set them on the screened porch. The light looked so nice I had to take a photo. What are the odds they will become playthings for Frieda?

I haven't kept up, I hope tomorrow will be better and I'll catch up.

Changing Seasons

Yesterday was a quiet one. I did the minimum and barely that. It was sultry, the dew point was 72 degrees, and that is just wrong. I lolled about, listening to a book for most of the day. Mark was in his office, as he is today, finishing work before a client meeting tomorrow. I am fortunate in him, he pays no mind to what I do with myself and wouldn't be bothered if he did.

I am looking forward to this....

.... and this. I like winter. It's easier to like since I don't have to drive in bad weather, but I like the slow pace, the early darkness, the fire in my cosy room. The braised meats, the sauces.

Isn't the above a lovely photo? I don't know how I managed that. It was taken before the wonderful cell phone cameras existed by my Canon DSLR. Now I forget I have it. Things have changed hugely in a very few years. It's amazing and a little unnerving. At the same time.

I can tell today will be a repeat of yesterday. I have no idea why the quiet seems different, it's always quiet, except during planting and harvest, but it feels different somehow. It feels like a curl-up-with-a-book quiet. Which is what I'm going to do. Keetah will follow me to my throne chair, the ceiling fan will keep us cool and I will finish my book. The library has alerted me the next one is now available. I feel indulged.

Teenage Mutant Tomatoes?

Mutant Tomato

Two tomatoes melded together and decided to have babies. Sorta gives me the creeps.

We had some rain overnight, which precludes me from finishing the mowing. We are supposed to have more this evening. It's going to be a hot and humid weekend, which also keeps me from the lawn mowing. I never have handled heat well and my old self has had the opposite of most people as they age. I handle heat even less. I got about half done yesterday before I got too warm. I'm out in the full sun for most of the mowing and it gets to me.I have plenty and I mean PLENTY to do inside. Maybe I can convince myself it's about time.

I'm not a really early riser anymore, not like when I cared for forty horses, but I am generally up by 7:00. I slept until 8:30 this morning. It was discombobulating. I lost 1.5 hours of my morning.

I had a shoe called oofos recommended to me. I was told to use arch supports and I got good ones, but they bother my feet and back more than without them. The therapist told me to wear athletic shoes, which I have never liked, but I bought a pair, light pink. If I'm going to wear them I'm going to make a statement! I hate them. They feel heavy and cumbersome. I spent twenty-five years in farm work boots but I bet they would bother me now, too. oofos are expensive but they have a slider that was on sale. I ordered a pair and will see how they are. If I like them I will spend the money on shoes. Sliders aren't going to work in Minnesota during winter.  I think back to the decades I spent in high heels!

Because I feel like rambling, I am going to shred more zucchini and some carrot and make fritters for dinner. What else, I don't know. It's been awhile since I have made them. I bought an electric griddle years ago for that particular use. I should use it again. Not to be maudlin, but depression does steal your life. On that happy note, I think I will take my leave! And say, I am doing better.

 

A Good Neighbor

Neighbor Bill came by yesterday mid-morning with a large box of tomatoes. He came back in the afternoon to fix the lawn mower. It was nothing more than debris under the hood that had got around the spark plug, keeping it from sparking properly. He used the air compressor to blow it out and it worked like a charm. To test it out, Bill mowed a small section of the lawn. Win for me!

This is a photo diary of the second half of the day. Roasting the tomatoes and getting a little over four quarts.

Then in the evening using one of many zucchini and some garlic in a sauté, adding in freshly roasted tomatoes and fresh basil.....

Served over pappardelle. It was so fresh.

We think Keetah can hear certain sounds, slightly. Which is cause for much barking. MUCH barking. I have no idea if she will ever regain enough hearing to say she can actually hear. We know she can bark!

The afternoon will be spent mowing what is now long grass and weeds. The rain we had last week brought the green back. There isn't any more in sight right now, not encouraging. We've had wonderfully cool mornings with temperatures in the 50s. I love it! 

I'm not going to love heating this winter, I got the annual letter from the propane supplier with the locked in price on their budget plan and what my averaged use over three years was. My monthly payment will be just under $400/month. It was just under $300 this year. When I started using the budget plan it was $145. This is just propane, no electricity. I have a wood pellet stove we haven't used for a few years. I may be firing it up, although the pellets aren't cheap. Minnesota does not regulate pricing of propane like it does other utilities. I don't know if I'm going to lock in the price this year.

So, that's my story. Lawn, tomatoes, barking and heating costs. I need to settle down into a quiet life, enough of this wild and crazy.

Long, Low and Droopy

Howard B. Hound

He was my spoiled, droopy boy. 

Basset hounds are living, breathing cartoons. You can't stay sad or mad around them.They drool, they smell yeasty, they have health problems. They are worth it. Look at that face. Is it Murphy's fault Howard finished first? 

Murphy was rescued from Basset Buddies Minnesota at 11.5 years old. His owner had died, my last greyhound died a couple of weeks earlier and Howie needed a friend. Murphy was an energizer bunny, unlike the slug, aka, Howie B. Murphy attached to Howard right away and Howard looked at it as a burden he had to bear. Howard looked at everything as a burden he had to bear.

They got along well. Murphy always wanted to be where Howard was. Howard first was diagnosed with Glaucoma. A year later it was congestive heart failure. We spent a lot of time at the vet. Murphy always came along. Howard was on a lot of medication, he also had chronic ear problems needing meds. He was a trooper through all of it. I ended up keeping him alive a year, six months longer than was predicted. I gave him a lot of furosemide, much more than was prescribed. It's what removes the liquid around the heart. The vet didn't think I should, I said, what does he have to lose? He got another happy six months out of it.

The above photo is not Howard whining. This is Howard in full I Want My Biscuits mode. He would start with a low whine and then steadily ramp it up until it looked like this. Howard got what Howard wanted.

Howard let go May of 2017 and Murphy joined him March of 2018. Howard was ten, Murphy sixteen. I was without a dog until my mother died May, 2020. Emma and Keetah came to live with us. Emma died six months later at seventeen, a long life.

I was scrolling through photos and of course I have a lot of Howie. He needed a mention.

Apples to Apple Sauce

It's warm, humid and sunny. I'd be mowing the lawn if the mower was working properly. Instead I made applesauce from the apples Neighbor Bill brought me.

These apples are quite tart and don't hold form when baked, which I learned the hard way by making a pie with them several years ago. Applesauce pie, anyone? My favorite way to eat applesauce is warm over vanilla ice-cream. I could devour copious amounts, but I don't because, well, I'm overweight. But I'd love to.

It's a quiet day, really like most days. It just feels quieter than usual. Mark had been out to lunch with a client, maybe that's what feels different. Whatever the reason, it feels peaceful.

I have a pork roast in the slow-cooker with white wine, onion/garlic, fresh sage and rosemary. I seasoned it with old bay. It's not just for fish. I'll serve it with a zucchini, cucumber and yellow cherry tomato salad. I love having dinner making itself. 

My good friend in Denmark, julochka, showed me how to make herbed salt. That will be tomorrows project. It looks and sounds wonderful. 

I obviously had nothing fit to print, as I have just sort of rambled on. Mark has told me he thinks I should continue blogging, he thinks it's good for me. I think he's right, even when I'm just running on. As I am inclined to do. Take care.

Topper

 This leggy little guy grew up to be....

This guy.

WF Impressive 

1997

Mergers

A marriage between eggplants.

 

This will become some kind of dinner this evening. I took out a freezer bag of pureed tomatoes a couple of days ago and I plan to make sauce. The two will merge in one form or another, as the eggplants did with one another. Mark wants me to make eggplant "meatballs". He loves them and it's been several years since I made them. I used bread crumbs I made from homemade spelt bread and I have told Mark that is what helped make them the way they were. I need to make spelt bread, if I don't he will be disappointed. I'm not making bread until we lose the humidity. Often it's one ingredient that makes all the difference.

That man loves zucchini sautéed with garlic, onion and tomatoes. He raved about last evenings dinner, which was no more than panfried white fish, farro and the all important flavor fest he really likes. So easy to please. He is a food motivated person. He grew up on a dairy farm in SW Minnesota, the middle of ten children. He never went hungry but it seems he didn't feel he ever had enough. He thought I was beautiful, dear man, but what really grabbed him was I could cook! You really could not have found two people more unsuited to one another than the two of us. If not for his stubborn persistence, it wouldn't have worked. Yet here we are, old-ish, one of us infirm and overweight, the other not. Whatever he saw physically is gone, but I still can cook. Proof there has to be more. He's still a nerd!

Just a bit of Fluff

When I was a child I loved to draw and paint. I was told my father had a half-brother who was an artist. I never met him, but it intrigued me. When my mother died and I went through the massive amount of stuff in the house I came across several of my youthful artistic endeavors. I would have been fifteen when I painted this in high school art class. I realized when I took a painting course in college that I was best served by sticking to art history. But, I tried. I brought it home and have it displayed in my snug/sunroom.  My childhood dreams live on in my little painting.

Another form of creativity; growing enormous zucchini. I've told Mark they are sneaky bastards and now he has learned. One must be diligent in watching these green devils, they hide amongst the foliage. The largest of the three beasts was cut open, seeded and shredded. I have three freezer bags waiting for winter use. 

 

Neighbor Bill stopped by yesterday with some apples and more slicing cucumbers. He'd brought me ten earlier in the week. It's a good thing Mark has a near addiction to cucumbers in cream sauce. It's also a good thing I learned from Jacques Pepin how to make the simplest sauce known to humankind. I adore Jacques Pepin and wish he could be immortal.

I got nine quarts of pickles from the last batch of pickling cucumbers Neighbor Bill brought me. There were seven quarts from the prior batch. Sixteen quarts of pickles! He told me yesterday he has more. Nooooo! He told me I'll be getting a lot of tomatoes. I guess I'll be roasting and freezing soon. That sounds like Minnesota weather. We go from roasting to freezing. Fast.

Mark may go to North Minneapolis this coming week to see a client. If he does I'll see if my son with the Vegan Wife, who lives in North Minneapolis,  wants produce. Perhaps some pickles. I have no one to give what Bill has no one but me to give his extras to. An English teacher would have a field day with that sentence.

We miss the big, gangly, high-stepping horse. I'm glad we do. It shows we haven't become inured to grief.

The Denver Mint

1995-2022

 

Solo released his magnificent essence to the universe yesterday.

He was an elegant, gentle soul. A National Champion in halter and several time Champion in Saddleseat. He came to me as a ten-year-old. I had him started under saddle on the farm and then sent him to a longtime friend and trainer. He was already a Champion Stallion in halter, but he had so much action I thought he should give it a shot. So we did.

It's a fact when you have a lot of horses you will experience a lot of grief. Through illness, the dreaded and often deadly colic, injuries that are inevitable when you have numbers. Every time it's the end, it hurts like it's the first time. I suppose that is how we stay human. 

Mr. Solo had Squamous Cell Carcinoma in his sheath. For those who don't know what this means, the sheath covers the penis. I knew he would need to be put down, but he wasn't in pain so we let him have the summer. The tumor had grown quite a bit over a week or so and Solo had become too thin, so we let him go. He's buried in our grave yard at the top of the east pasture. 

He was a social fellow, he loved being a gelding. I cut him in 2010 and he thanked me everyday. He had his posse in the gelding herd, we called them the "Big Boys". 

We will miss the tall, long necked boy a lot.