Slow Down a Bit

Today I just couldn't get myself to move so I did the wash and hauled most of the canning equipment back to the basement. I love canning, but I hate hauling all those heavy filled jars downstairs. Still, they look pretty on the shelves. I tried making apple and pear butter in the crock pot for the first time this year. I will let the butters sit a while before trying them to see how they taste. They look all right. Tom wants me to make a relish with his Lemon heirloom peppers. He got the seed from Jungs and let me tell you, those babies are HOT. I wanted to make hot sauce with them and mix them with some of my hot peppers, but he wants a relish with them only so I guess I'll have to find a recipe. I put a lot of my hot peppers in the dehydrator. I'll use them in organic pesticide concoctions next year. While I waited on the clothes dryer, I harvested a lot of seed from different veggies, went outside and turned over my compost bins and started a new section with the unsalable veggies I harvested from the field before the frost. I think I'll wait another year before spreading out the compost on the field. I also made a 16 bean soup with a ham bone from the freezer and I tossed a Serrano pepper in the pot; it turned out ok, but it still feels like there is something missing.

We finally got some good rain last night. I don't know how much we got, but I think it was a couple of inches, and it soaked right in. Next time I go out to the field I'll check the rain gauge. We could probably use 10 more inches.

Tom wanted to make tacos for supper yesterday so I trekked out to the field to cut some fresh lettuce and dodged a rain shower by going into the high tunnel. Wouldn't you know it, everything in the high tunnel but the cool weather plants was black and dead. I don't know if the hard freeze got them or if they got cooked by my having closed up the high tunnel before the hard freeze. Looks like I need to do a bit of research on growing in high tunnels. No tomatoes this year after all! After I cut the lettuce I took a look at my sunflowers. They were drooping and blackened, too. I went and cut the broom corn and hanged the heads straw side down in the garage. It will be fun making good luck hearth brooms this winter.

Tomorrow is bowling day with Ed so I don't know how much in the field I'll be able to get done, but I would like to get all of the currants and gooseberries moved close to the house. I am already thinking about planting more apple trees . . . .