What's Up In YOUR Land Base?

Blessings Darlings!

 

Here in my land base, the fireflies are long gone. Night are LOUD now, with cicadas and crickets having meet and greets. I can count on seeing some shooting stars every night that is clear enough ... but I can also count on late day thunderstorms often enough that at least half the nights aren't clear enough.

And it is so very much butterfly and moth season! Monarch and swallowtail, lovely moths I don't know the name of, and the ubiquitous cabbage moths are everywhere.   Night features other moths, plus visiting bats (I'm guessing that they share barn space with the barn swallows).

The local peaches are ripe - and a local church is having their Peach Festival tomorrow.  My tomatoes are nowhere near ripe since I planted them late, but the cucs and peppers and occasional zucchini (I only started one plant) are producing.

The rivers are high due to all the rain over the past month.  Water practically pours out of cracks in the cliffs of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The humidity is high.  Every day the forecast is "Today will be much cooler than yesterday was," but that's just wishful thinking.  The temperature has been pretty constant.  

This is when county fairs should be.  Before school starts, in the gap between when farmers harvest stuff.  Everyone should be eating funnel cakes with diced fresh peaches and powdered sugar.

Frondly, Fern

Zuke Problems!

Blessings Darlings!

I've had several weeks of being buried in zukes.  This has been a good thing for me.  But ... now not only have some low-level problems with squash bugs started (and I think THEY are rather under control), but wilt has hit.  I removed the plant with that, but ... I'm worried it will take out the other two in that hill.  And that it will move to the gray squash in the next hill over.

I'm debating starting more grey squash in a new hill to get me to full summer squash power, but they'd have to go in the area I planned to put my fall greens/radishes/turnips in. 

With the beans being so bad this year (I'll be applying BT to those this evening, if the wind is calm then), and the tomatoes being so late (my fault), the zukes have been our main veggie.  Without them ... mostly I'll just be getting herbs and spices from the garden.  Which will leave me sad and lower on money, since I'd have to pay for veggies. 

On top of that, something has eaten leaves from some of my cucumber plants.  So even THOSE aren't about to bury me. 

I'm beginning to think I need a larger garden, as well as the energy and time to work it more.

Oh well.

Frondly, Fern

Crunch

Blessings Darlings!

I'm sitting here eating a very healthy breakfast as I type.  Freshly made hummus and freshly sliced veggies that I'm dipping into it.  This is a change.

I've been eating very badly lately.  Like - yesterday, for example.  No fruit or whole grains with breakfast, just eggs/ham/white bread, a huge sugary coffee for lunch, and two slices of greasy pizza for dinner. So I'm trying to crawl back to eating ... better. More veggies. More whole grains. 

I'm less concerned with what I should NOT eat as much of.  If I make it a point to eat good tasting good stuff, I'm hoping that will crowd out the good tasting bad stuff. 

I sure wish that cucumbers weren't a dollar each right now.  Oh well.

Frondly, Fern

Today's Haul

Blessings Darlings!

Just in from the garden and tabulating today's frugal harvest:

2 cucs, 9 oz total
1 zuc, 12 oz
green beans, 12 oz

Tomatoes are still totally green. Vines from the purple sweet potatoes still trying to take over the garden, but I have no clue if the sweet potatoes are growing under the earth.  No sprouts yet from the lettuce and spinach.

We ARE falling behind in eating the beans and cucs, so Suz is going to get some as gifts.  If we can work out our schedules!

Frondly, Fern

Freezer Eatin'

Blessings Darlings!

The funniest part of Eating While Broke - and there really are LOTS of funny things to it - is the 'creating meals out of the stuff buried in the freezer' part.  We're spending almost no money at the store any more - only milk, cat food, and a few odds and ends this week (small yogurt, can of water chestnuts, egg roll wrappers, etc) - but the Chubby Hubby thinks this week's menus are totally outstanding.

Sunday - Home made pizza, salad, fruit.
Monday - Stir Fry using Reduced price Mystery Raw Meat, home grown cabbage, home sprouted       bean sprouts, and rice.
Tuesday - Shish Ka Bob, using reduced priced beef, home grown zucchini, and onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, served in home-made pita. May need yogurt for sauce.
Wednesday - Korean Seafood Pancakes and ... probably seasoned bean sprouts.
Thursday - Kalbi (Korean BBQ Ribs) using reduced price thin flanken, rice, green beans, salad
Friday - Fried Chicken - from reduced price chicken, potatoes, broccoli, salad
Saturday - Pulled Pork - last of those 50 cent a pound pork shoulders, cole slaw, rolls, fried leftover potatoes
Sunday - Egg Rolls from scratch, using the pulled pork and some salad shrimp.  Will probably buy rather than make wrappers.
Monday - Rumaki - we now have a bag full of frozen livers from whole chickens we've bought. Will need to buy a can of sliced water chestnuts, spicy green beans, rice, salad

And when I type reduced price I mean the meat was already on sale but hadn't moved, so the store knocked the price down lower.  Cabbage, bean sprouts, and green beans from the garden are the main vegetables used this week.  Zucchini will start taking over next week.  Garden cucumbers and more cabbage are in salads.



The fried chicken and the rumaki are the only things that use 'intact' pieces of meat ... and in the rumaki's case the pieces are accumulated livers from whole birds made extraordinary.  The rest all use meat cut small and mixed with other stuff.

I've got sweet corn, but no idea where to fit it in.  I may freeze it.  Also have 6 granny smith apples, which I'll probably bake for desserts.  As a result of that ... we may need to buy some whipped cream.

Frondly, Fern

Zucchini Experimentation

Blessings, Darlings! Since my garden is producing an over abundance of zucchini/marrows/courgettes this summer, and my kirby cucumbers died, last night I tried making spicy half sour pickles out of the zucchini. For a NORMAL batch, you put the sliced cucumbers in the brine, leave them out 2 days, and they are done. This being a Laboratory Experiment .... I refrigerated them immediately instead of leaving them out. And I just tested them, about 13 hours after the pickling started. They are done. Really really done. So done that I've just replaced half of the brine with water. For some reason they are a bit bitter, but the texture is great as is the level of sourness. Perhaps the zucchinis I used were a bit too old for this? BTW, the stink bug collection experiment continues, but we've been having lots of overnight rain and I think that inhibits their travels. Or this technique is just good for indoors/attics. Or the technique fails. As the damn bugs move inside I'll try it in the basement and see what happens, but I'll keep trying it as a garden pest treatment until the garden is done. Frondly, Fern