Summer has arrived

I've been enjoying plenty of greens from the garden this year, including spinach, arugula, cress, scapes, and herbs, but now the better days begin. The small tomatoes are starting to come off my plants and the big guys will follow. Also, my garlic patch is near ready to dig up. A few garlicy friends from last year's location decided to grow this year. I hadn't been taking care of them because I wasn't sure who they were, but they did alright on their own. Here are a few. I was happy to see that the red variety was growing because I forgot to save some of those to plant again this year. I'll be more careful this time.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Another successful year. I contributed some standard favorites - sweet potato casserole, orange sweet potato cups, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, dried cranberry and plum challah, dressing, teas, a peanut butter pie, and - of course - the turkey. And I did it with only one fire this year!! Each year I like to try something new and this year's new addition was a local turkey!!. I bought it from the Mennonites who live in Antietam Battlefield and they processed it for me the day before I picked it up. What a beaut! She was a 18.5 lb gem who thankfully fit into the oven in just a way that I could get another dish in there to bake at the same time. Here are some photos of part of the spread. We also enjoyed a delicious spicy spinach artichoke dip, asparagus, spinach salad, blue hubbard squash soup, tomato tart, broccoli slaw, yam salad, mashed potatoes, Hütte peach cobbler, apple crisp, pecan pie, red velvet brownies, and some delicious wines. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Radishes - Chinese Red Meat

I was very excited to grow these puppies in the garden this year and finally it cooled enough to make it happen. I still have a small copse of these guys in the yard. I'm borrowing that term from the tree world. The growing process was curious. They first grew with small red roots growing above ground. Then they grew fat and seemed to bury into the ground, at which point they turned green on the outside. I couldn't wait to cut into them - and look how pretty!

Table updates

I was in NYC for a couple of days, so the new table was put on hold. Here is what I was able to get to today and then another photo of how it will potentially look with the top boards on it.

It's November

and here's what's up. I began building a farm table for my kitchen using plans from a blog that my sister loves. Here's a photo after the initial steps. At this time I was cooking, building, grading, and preparing food for the freezer. I've been freezing soups and greens - bok choi, chard, radish greens, turnip greens, and some other special things that I don't know what to call but I bought them at the market. Can you see all the activity in the photo?

And here are some radishes and bok choi I harvested today.

Peacherine

Here's a little Joplin to start the day.

Other delights

Every day I pick something from the garden and eat it with a meal. Here are some photos of a few fall gems, including bok choi, mustard, spinach, and radishes. And in case you haven't noticed, my blog posts photos in the reverse order from how I upload them.

Almost November

....and my garden is still heartily producing. I already pulled up most of my tomato plants, but as you can see here those still in the ground were still blooming and producing. I picked this whole bowl of tomatoes to make either green tomato salsa or green catsup. I'll decide later this week. Alack, I ended up pulling the remaining tomato plants a few hours after taking these photos. The temperature is expected to be in the low 40s/high 30s this week, so it was only a matter of time. I thanked them tremendously for their offerings in my garden this year before pulling them up and burying them in the compost pile.

West Virginia Storytelling Festival

Last week I was one of the featured tellers at the WV Storytelling Festival at Jackson's Mill. My partner for the event was Ilene Evans, who you see in the last photo here. It was shot in the LIvestock Barn. This less-than-desirable venue was one of the only buildings large enough to hold all of the children that came. We told to 1200 students over two days. The other building is much nicer, but I didn't get any photos there...so I had to borrow some from Granny Sue's blog. The other two tellers this year were Granny Sue Holstein and children's book author Marc Harshman. Granny, Ilene, and I have told together before. And Marc was one of the judges of the Liars' Contest waaaaaay back when I first started.

Link to DP song

I see that the link didn't make it on. Check this song out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiUjYoa6dvU

The hocket I mentioned begins around 2:36.

Fat Red Carrots and a golden beet

...can't wait to eat those greens!

Dirty Projectors

Kristy Ch. and I went to see the Dirty Projectors at the 9:30 this past week. First of all, it was great to get into the city. Second, we had just opened an art show hours earlier - with Karen G. the three of us make up collabAttack. And third, the Dirty Projectors blew my mind.

Opening for them was Owen Pallett - formerly Final Fantasy. He was great. It takes a brilliant mind to come up with looping music that works to well.

Then the DPs - I was blown away. Their drummer played the set harder than I've every seen anyone do it. I really thought he was going to break the drums and cymbals at times. It was awesome.
The singers were dead on, and they did things I didn't think were possible. They must all have perfect pitch, because their cold starts on quartal harmonies were unbelievable. And then their trademark hocketing was wild. For a great example, listen to "Remade Horizon." The first part of the vocal hocket begins at 2:37.



I saw it happen. It is humanly possible. And then there is Dave Longstreth, who is a madman and a genius. I can't wait to get more of their music and see them again.
Here's a photo from the show. We were maybe thirty feet from them, although this photo makes it look farther.

Red & Orange

Another Photo

Here's another photo to show where the fruit actually goes in the machine.

.

Cider

Here is the finished product - a half gallon of great cider. I had several beautiful jars of this sweet drink. It literally does not get any fresher than this.

Cider Day #2

We had to break at one point to go collect more apples and pears. Here we are gathering fruit. In one photo you can see me up in the tree - I scaled it to shake out pears from the top.

Cider Day

Karen G and I joined Amanda and James for the first cider press of the season. Here are photos of us using the press. I think we pressed about ten gallons total of apple, pear, and mixed cider. Amanda and James keep bees, too, so toward the end of the pressing bees were on everything. This was a good lesson in coexisting with bees. They are really just curious and looking for sweets, and once you get used to them you can pick up a tool or pan with all kinds of bees on them without any fear.

Let's All Gather Round the Ol' Packard

So here's a movie of me playing my new organ. It is new to me, but was built circa 1892. Its a Packard and what a beaut she is. In the video I'm playing one of my favorite songs from Mary Poppins, which I think is fitting for the sound of the instrument. I made another video from the other angle and even lit candles in the candle holders to show how it would have originally been played (it was, after all, built before electric lights were ubiquitous) but that video wasn't as good. The downside to this video is that you get a lot of pumping noise. Hey, I understand that this video looks all Alice-In-Wonderland and such, what with the giant chair that causes me to bend over to play..and the fact that there is an organ in my house...but I think that is par for the course of my life.

County Fair

Ah yes, the county fair pies. First you see peach pie, which won second place and was delicious. You can see the flavor just oozing out, which was a reduction of peach syrup and brandy.

Then you see apple pie, which did not place but was still very delicious. The filling was similar to that of one you used to be able to get out at the Tradewell in Lavalette. It makes me want a Red Faygo or an RC.

And here is a photo to show you the insides of the purple carrots.

More Garden Gems

So here we have some more goodies from the garden. First you see purple carrots. They have a brilliant orange hiding under the skin with a bright yellow center. I tasted the first one - wow! What a flavor. Very rich, crisp carrot flavor that bites you back. I'm glad I have more of these in the ground and a new batch coming!

Then you see some greens, which include wild rocket and swiss chard. Here the chard is red but I also have pink and yellow. And I threw in a couple of special nun beans for good measure. They have lots of nicknames - holy spirit bean being one of them - because of this special mark on the navel of the bean which looks like a nun praying. Or a dove, soldier, baker, or many other things depending on how you look. Click the photo for a more appetizing view.

Here's the first volunteer tomato to ripen. I'm not sure what these are, but there are about 20 of them on the plants and they have a small donut shape to them. This one was tasty. I also have German Lunchbox tomatoes - small and pink, hot and sweet. There are about 30 of them on the plants but they are also taking their time ripening.