An update on the copperheads: it would appear that after guarding our blueberry bushes from the marauding chipmunks, and obviously having eaten all the chipmunks in our backyard, they have decided to move on to a new home. We've not seen them all week. I'm a relieved but a little sad. They did do a darn good job with keeping the chipmunk population down.
Dh picked some more Asian pears this week. This is what happens when you leave them alone for a while instead of trying to pick them early: they grow bigger! Duh. The one on the left was picked a couple of weeks ago, while the one on the right had a chance to catch a few more rays of sun on the tree.
Yesterday was canning day. The pile o' tomatoes in front of dh was just 1/3 of what we ended up processing. We got a total of 18 3/4 quarts of sauce! The 3/4 quart we didn't can, but will use for borani or something this coming week. Never leave more than a small head-space in your canning jar.
All the tomatoes in 4 big pots:
Did I mention that they were in FOUR big pots?
We watched a bit of Mad City Chickens last night. We'd first seen it written up in a paper in Vancouver, and requested that our library get a copy of it. Being the generally agreeable library it is, our wish was granted. It's a cute little film, a bit silly and humorous. What struck me as sad though, was, at the beginning of the film, someone in Madison, WI, who had been raising chickens illegally, said that one of her neighbors complained to the city about her chickens...not because of the noise or the smell, but because this neighbor was afraid this woman might eat the chickens. I'm boggled as to where this neighbor thinks the supermarket chickens come from? Rained down from the sky in a pristine shrink-wrapped form?? It's disturbing how some people are so removed from their food (and ancestral roots of merely a couple of generations ago) that they think it's unnatural to raise and process one's own meat. We finished up the kids' swim lessons this week. It was good to find out that they didn't forget everything that they learned last year. :)
Our homeschool co-ops and classes will start up next week and the week after. I guess fall is officially here, despite it not being September yet.
Has school/homeschool started for your kids yet? What sorts of fun things are you doing as August comes to an end?
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams
18 comments:
I'm jealous of your tomatoes. ;)
Amazing chicken story...sad, but true of many folks...even in rural Vermont. (you mean the chicken has to die so you can eat it???? ;P)
Spotted, I did think of you when we were canning. LOL @ your comment! I'd like to see these folks eat a live chicken! ;)
is there any problem with the pears going bigger? do they get tough or something?
Meg, no problem at all...they actually get sweeter (notice the pretty pink flush on them?). I think dh was just worried that the birds and bugs will get to them if we left them on the trees for too long.
Those look like huge pots of pasta sauce! Mmm...
Our homeschool year begins in September. Though I have an inclination to begin a little early just because I'm so excited about our new school year.
Fun things? In August? Staying OUT of the jungle! It's so hot and humid here, that I'm waiting for the Chusok festival before I do much wandering/fun stuff outside.
The Asian Pears I think are called Apple Pears here---and they are a super super delicious treat! They only are displayed in individual packaging.
And of course I LOVE the family picture of everyone cooking the tomatoes... just wonderful!
Yes, the bigger Asian pear does look yummier! It's hard to wait tho. You take that chance of the wildlife getting to them before you do.
My dad decided to chop down the Asian Pear trees here, because the squirrels got to some of the fruit. He decided to chop down the nectarine and peach tree too for the same reason. sigh....
Think it's time to sell the farm???
the pear difference is amazing!
your house must have smelled amazing! the tomatoes are ripe and gorgeous!
It is amazing how much a pear can grow in two weeks. They look yummy!
I for one am glad the copperheads have gone away. LOL! Too scary for me.
Funny about the chicken. People always amaze me. I do believe that we should all be required to kill our own food at least once (even though I'd hate it), because it really does remind us where it comes from. We are so removed from what we are eating, having to kill and process our own food would be an education in and of itself. We'd appreciate it more for sure.
Snakes eating chipmunks!? How big were the snakes? Thank goodness we don't have any really dangerous snakes in the UK. Hardly anything here that will kill you - apart from the weather :(
Back from 37 degree celsius (98 fahrenheit) temperatures in Mallorca to cold rain. Your lovely pears wouldn't look like that here! The lusciousness and abundance of the fruits and vegetables my friends can grow in the sun was amazing - reminds me of your wonderful harvests.
Holy Moly! You got a lot of sauce done!
I just love how everyone was pitching in to help. I bet that made it a very fun project.
Man oh man, I am so envious of all that tomato sauce. I know it's a lot of work, but having so much sauce for later...love it.
What do you with all your pears besides just eat them as is?
i'm glad those snakes are gone! although chipmunks are quite pesky! all those tomatoes, lol!
I hate copperheads, but love the homemade tomato sauce.
Hey Theresa, are those FOUR big pots the tomatoes are in? Lol! Joking with ya! Those tomatoes look so good..I can almost smell that sauce all the way here in Oregon! Mmmmm....makes me wanna make that gnocchi I have in the refrigerator. :)
I love Asian pears. Aren't they sweeter tasting than others?
Never heard of Mad Chickens in the City. Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't go there. Lol!
You know, I've never canned anything. It sounds like something I would enjoy but I always freak out about the boiling and sterilizing part...fearing I wouldn't sterilize enough and would make people sick that I gave my canned/jarred stuff to. Ha! Would be just my luck.
Have a wonderful evening! :)
xoxo
Oh and yes, Quincy sends kisses and teddy bear hugs. ;)
Michelle
Is the sauce plain sauce that you use for a base or already seasoned. Do you have a recipe for spaghetti or pizza sauce? That is strange about what the neighbor said about the chickens. I could never eat anything I raised, just because I would become emotionally attached to it. My grandfather was a cattle farmer and once bragged about how I was eating one of his cows that I had grown attached to. It was pretty traumatic - he was very insensitive. I actually was a vegetarian for a few years, but unfortunately, my GI system cannot handle such a high fiber diet. If I had to kill and skin my own food, I'd probably be a vegetarian, albeit VERY skinny and unhappy from not being able to digest the food/fiber.
Wendy, I think I would literally melt in Korea! Stay cool, and have fun starting the school year!
Carrie, thanks! It's so much fun to work together like that; and we get free slave labor...LOL!
Grace, so true: it's always a gamble to see if the wildlife wins or we do. ;) I feel your pain re: your dad. Hugs!
Meg, thank you! It did smell pretty nice, but the house heats up quite a bit. Luckily, it was actually a cool day on Saturday (unusual for Indiana!).
Michelle_Pixie, isn't it just wild how 2 weeks can see so much growth? I can't say I completely miss the copperheads, but they were useful. :>
Diane, glad you're home (even if you're not)! The snakes weren't too big; 3 ft or so. And we learned that rarely is a bite fatal...just rather painful. ;) So Britain is like Ireland in that there aren't much/any snakes?
Theresa, yeah, we worked like ants to store up for the winter...LOL!
Teri, it's good to put up as much as we can because some years, the crop just doesn't do as well. Yeah, we've only eaten the pears; they keep very well in the fridge!
Heather, would you believe we used to think chipmunks are cute...until they started eating all our blueberries. ;D
Blonde Duck, copperheads are much maligned; they're rather useful creatures who kept to themselves. =) I was hoping they'd stay farther from the house though.
Michelle, did you make your own gnocchi? I keep wanting to. I think the good (ripe) Asian pears
are sweeter than the other pears. They just have a nice, crisp texture that most pears (Bartletts and Boscs, for e.g.) lack. Please kiss Quincy back for me! :)
Maureen, the sauce is plain so that it can be more versatile. We don't actually have a special pizza/spaghetti sauce recipe; dh usually wings it. But, he makes sure he uses lots of aromatics: garlic and onions (if a recipe calls for a clove or 2 of garlic, he'll put in 5 or 6).
We raise some chickens for eggs that we allow ourselves to get attached to and don't eat. The meat chickens we never form emotional attachment to. Your grandfather was rather insensitive; we talked about raising and eating our own meats with the kids a lot before we did it, so they were prepared for it. We'd never spring it on them like that.
I think vegetarianism is wonderful and we try to eat at least 50% vegetarian/vegan meals each week. We would be more likely to become full vegetarians, actually, if we had to eat industrially farmed meats - where we know that the animals were treated poorly before being slaughtered and where the crowded conditions are more likely to yield unhealthy meats (that are then heavily medicated). What meats we don't raise, we buy from small scale farmers; it just makes us feel better about the quality of the food and about the relatively happy lives of the animals before death.
So there's nothing doctors can do for your body's intolerance to fiber? That's a bummer.
i had to laugh (out loud) when i saw those 4 pots of tomato sauce! our kitchen has looked like that too lately. we bought some canners from the farmer's market, but i got a few too many, and became overwhelmed. plus, we are getting so many cherry tomatoes from our own plants, i can't keep up with those either! mostly, we are drying or roasting those. lovely.
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