August, now

The summer's beginning to give up her fight. Lyrics to an old favorite song, that. It is true, say we, with a mix of regret and readiness. Summer is a heady time, full of adventures and possibility and vegetables, but that it is fleeting is a twofold blessing. Not only do we appreciate it all the more come springtime, but we are pre-empted, in these climates, from wheeling out of control with gardening projects and sunburns and long days off.

We are just back from our vacation to the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, arriving home at 4:00 am this morning. It was nice to wake up at home. It is a cool morning, there are a few leaves on the deck, and acorns bouncing off the steel roof. Fall is coming, and I'm ready.

Not quite prepared, but ready anyway. We haven't gone into the garden yet, but I have already put canning jar lids on my shopping list for today, since I'm sure there are tomatoes and beans and grapes to blanch and cut and juice and preserve. And that other harbinger of autumn... the first day of school. It looms not so far off in the future. This week is a week of crossing items off to-do lists, hopefully.

Some preparations for cooler weather have already been made. I've been making and canning and freezing stock for most of the summer, when the opportunity presents itself. A new project: corn stock. Simply simmer the gnawed cobs for several hours, with herbs. It smells divine.

Isn't it lovely? I look forward to using it as a base for soups and chowders. We're a soup-eating crowd at TelltheBees.

The potatoes are dug already. It was a bumper crop! In addition to George's Potatoes, a white heirloom variety I've named after their source, an old gardening neighbor and special friend of my grandparents, we threw some blue and red potatoes that were left at our house in the ground too, to great results. 

We brought some of these with us to Virginia, and have tubs of them resting in the cool dark underneath the cupboards in the sunken greenhouse. 

The bees have been checked and rechecked, but we probably won't harvest any honey this year. We were far too late adding extra space in the spring, busy as we were with other big things, and one of the hives swarmed. Everyone in there is happy now, but even with this long hot summer, they had a slow start. As my dad said, we got a different kind of honey. 

We sure did. 

I couldn't resist buying a case of Michigan peaches at the co-op before we left, and canned a bunch of rhubarb peach sauce, whose intended use is to mix into plain yogurt for a bright spot in my winter breakfasts.  

I didn't follow a recipe here, but added extra citric acid and processing time for safety. I did not, however, add vinegar to the water bath, which made for cloudy jars and lids. 

And now... off to our strategic planning meeting for the week. On it: much gardening, canning, cleaning, preparing, and home-improvement projects.

A coffee toast to a productive week for all!

Around here this weekend...

Jake spent today in the garden. 

Here we have a boatload of basil. We're having a porch and pesto party on Wednesday, so this will all be put to excellent use. 

He picked three shiny beauties whose name I love: Georgia Flame.

This here is a bunch of epazote, an herb we grew to combine with our dried beans. Supposedly it cuts the gas factor when mixed with cooked dried beans. But, it tastes like gasoline. If it works though, it might be worth it. 

 Onions are harvested! They'll cure outside in the sun for a few days. Maybe we have time to grow another set of onions this year... ?

My favorite joke, lately (thanks to my cousin Kelsey):

Q: What does a nosy pepper do?
A: He gets jalapeno business. 

HA! 

We've kind of neglected our garden this summer. Earlier this weekend Jake refused an offer by our house guests to help weed because he was too embarrassed to show it to them. His afternoon out there made it much better. See him waving in the background? He's happier now. 

We've been doing a lot of screen porch living. 

Even this walking stick wanted in on the action.

We had quite the entourage at our Fortnight show last night. 

When we got home, we had a fire. We've been waiting all summer for this, and finally the burn ban was lifted. Someone ate many, many marshmallows.

Tonight, Jake made a fresh marinara. Marcella Hazan says "a sauce must be sufficiently savory to season pasta adequately. Blandness is not a virtue, tastelessness is not a joy."

Continued: "Always taste a sauce before tossing the pasta with it. If it seems barely salty enough on its own, it's not salty enough for the pasta. Remember it must have flavor enough to cover a pound or more of cooked, virtually unsalted pasta."

Jake followed Marcella's Tomato Sauce with Garlic and Basil, sort of. And oh, it was good. 

North Shore

We were gone for a week, a week ago.
We had ourselves a time!

Wild blueberries

Campsite breakfast

Boundary Waters panorama...can you spot Jake?

Early morning in the tent

Our happy camper!

Addendum

I stood and was in a wide field of buttercups. I could smell their smell and walked through them, my eyes at the level of the yellow, a wide blur of a line of yellow. I was heavy-headed from the gorgeousness of the yellow all blurry. I loved breathing this way again, and seeing everything.


I should say that it's very much the same here as there. There are more hills, and more waterfalls, and things are cleaner. I like it. Each day I walk for a long time, and I don't have to walk back. I can walk and walk, and when I am tired I can sleep. When I wake up, I can keep walking and I never miss where I started and have no home. 


This is from my favorite short story by my favorite author, After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned, by Dave Eggers. It is narrated by a fast, fast dog, who dies at the end. I first read this story the year before we got Echo, and I've read it many times since. I read it last night, while holding his paw. 


Read the rest of it here. Its really great.


I have always especially appreciated the last paragraph. 

Missing Echo

We lost our best buddy today. 

Echo was eight, but seemed older, and had been getting weaker and more lethargic, and less “himself” every day. A visit to the vet on Tuesday confirmed that he was very sick, getting rapidly worse, and couldn’t get better. He was put down peacefully at home the kind and gentle hands of our excellent veterinarian, with Jake and I holding and petting and talking to him as he left. He was buried in a garden near in his favorite place in the yard, where he’ll be able to continue keeping an eye on things here. We'll plant a tree there in the fall.

He’d been with us since he was just a little guy, lived with us in at least four homes in two states, and accompanied us on countless adventures. He was with us the first time we stepped foot onto what would become Tell the Bees, and while we were building our home and our lives in this place. There is no corner of this house and these woods that didn't know his furry paws and snuffling nose. There is no living thing on this land that won't know he's gone. It doesn't feel quite right to be here without him. 

Echo was a good, good dog. He was big and handsome and friendly. He liked chicken-watching, chasing racquet balls, rolling in the snow, and catching popcorn. Mostly, he liked being with us, enough that he'd lie underneath Jake's table saw or follow us from room to room. An observant fellow, he was wary of thunder, vacuum cleaners, small children, and the occasional snowman.  He picked raspberries with his mouth. His ears flopped in the cutest way when he walked. He loved walks so much we learned to use code words when talking about going for hikes. He howled on command. He greeted us with wiggles and whimpers every single time we walked in the door, whether we’d been gone all day or for just a few minutes. Today included.

We shared lots of love and lots of good times, and are so thankful for having known him. 

Echo helped us grow up.
He made us a family.
We’ll always miss him. 

All together now: Robertsoooooooooooonnnnnnnnn! 

Check!

I crossed something my Things to Make and Do list yesterday and sent in my form to be an exhibitor at the County Fair! I wish I could have entered a few more garden vegetables, but with the season going the way it is I'm not sure we'll even still have tomatoes in mid-September.
I'm bringing the premium book with me on the Northwoods cabin-and-camping crawl we're embarking on momentarily, and perhaps I'll be able to talk Jake into entering some things too!

Goings on in the Garden

It is dry around here. Real dry. The NOAA declared our area of Wisconsin in moderate drought. We're watering the garden regularly, but things are still droopy. The early spring, the hot early summer, and the very low rainfall have made for a strange season. What had promised to be a great blackberry season is over now, the berries dried up.
Our garlic was already harvested! We finally were diligent about snipping off the garlic scapes, using them in stir fries and salads, and were rewarded with big beautiful garlic bulbs. We live, and we learn. They're curing on the porch.

The kale keeps coming and coming. "Kale" is my new favorite color.

The spinach bolted early, and for the first time, we saved the seeds. 

I harvested the first red tomatoes yesterday, but in the climb through the jungle of squash vines and bean bushes and the reaching through tomato cages, I jostled some green ones to the ground. No matter... fried green tomatoes for dinner last night!

Tonight it is pesto, made fresh today.

Jake had I had designs on eating exclusively from our yard and garden (chicken, duck, eggs, honey, maple, berries, and vegetables) for the month of July, with the exception of coffee and flour and oil. But then... Xan came along, and that plan, along with the garden, fell by the wayside. 

Maybe we'll do a week of sustaining solely on TelltheBees produce in late July or August. 

Hopefully we'll get some rain soon.