Do You Plant a Fall Garden? & This & That

   Those of you that don't get an early winter or freeze do you plant a fall veggie garden?

I don't normally but all my flower seeds were a bust this year do to the extreme heat, My perennials grew well in the beginning but the heat prevented some of them from even blooming-which I was surprised about.

We are still in temps close to the 100 F degree mark plus high humidity on top of that-so I am really feeling "trapped" in the house this summer.  The fresh produce at the stores has been very poor do to the extreme summer heat we are having. I know most of our country is dealing with the same

The last time we had such a hot summer we also had a very warm September. This morning though I thought I would take a chance and shop on Ebay for seeds to plant for fresh greens-- kale and swiss chard and spinach. These can make a good fall crop. Fresh eating and they freeze well too.

 The tomato plants were a bust-only got a handful of the little yellow pear tomatoes-so I will plant in those tubs. Will be easy to get water to them as well. Hopefully the little critters and the deer do not eat them. Smiles-though they are probably hungry for fresh greens too-sigh-I may have to place a netting over them.

  I had planted ornamental grass plants-very small-last year and this year in a big tub-these are all thriving in this heat--so whenever we get a major cool down-I will prepare them to get planted in a mound of dirt down by the lake towards the right of our property line. These are now out growing the tubs  and need to get moved to their permanent place before winter-the root balls are huge as well.

 I am still enjoying spinning while watching the world events on the tv. Almost have another spindle full to place on the niddy noddy.

  I got to thinking while spinning-that I still have my huge and thick Yellowstone inspired quilt I made a couple years ago.(before Larry's accident which will be 2 years this October)  It is too huge to put through my sewing machine-that would be a nightmare for sure. I tried hand quilting it-and the layers are too thick-I have quality thicker flannels for the top and the backing along with a wool batting in between. The only other thing I can do is hand tie it-which I had issues with too-as the quilt is too heavy for my old fashioned wooden quilt frame. I need to get this quilt out though and work on the floor to knot it. This will be a winter project.  I also hadn't thought about it when I made this how to wash it? ugh  I don't think there is a laundromat near me either-will figure that out later smiles-I love Yellowstone and really want to get this cozy quilt put together. It is a bit larger than a queen size-thick soft and cozy.

  I looked for a past post on this quilt and found this photo-it was on the frame but too heavy to stay tight while working on it

Bummer the lift is still not working. Larry knows how to wire up the motor etc but the person doing it is not listening at all. Larry has a vast knowledge of many things and if he hadn't gotten hurt he could do it and have this working. We finally had to put him on other jobs as he is wasting our wage money by not listening. He can't see or understand past what he keeps doing. Many of the younger generation I have noticed do not have an open mind for listening and learning-sad (not all of course, but we have run into this more lately)

Stay cool and enjoy the rest of your week

 

First Skein Spun

   It has been a couple years-before Larry's accident that I have done any spinning.  I am just not going to get fine spun yarns but I am not concerned with that anymore. I am liking my bulky handspun yarns and will add to my Yellowstone inspired yarns that I have spun off and on since 2017 when I visited there.

  I am loving these two fibers carded together and spun-the bison and karakul fibers The bison fibers gave the yarn a nice softness.

  I found another bag of the karakul  and I have lots of bison fiber bits so I will be spinning more of this and adding to my Yellowstone weaving project

  I am getting help getting caught up with the grass cutting. Our workers that are still working on the lift brought their lawnmower-I used the weed eater up by the lake as I have a lot of those water iris plants there-that look just like grass. So I appreciate that-they are working it in with the projects.  They are also getting the metal railing they made ready to put on the paint primer.  Slow going as we have the extreme heat and humidity today and for at least the next 5 days again.

  Happy Thursday

New To Me For Preserving

    Good morning,

Of course another hot and humid day-that is the norm this summer, and probably into September as well.

 I think it may have been on Instagram or maybe Facebook when I saw an ad for vacuum packing.

  Curious I went on Amazon to check it out-watched lots of videos, and settled on one that lets you know when the seal is finished-seems like a new feature. Really one needs this to know it has done it's job.

  Some of the videos were showing vacuum sealing  items like pasta after opening the package, grains etc to keep foods fresher. I liked this idea and thought I would try it. Amazon had the one I chose on sale as well.

  I buy different things online from Sam's Club now as their stores are over an hour's drive away-simpler at my age to buy online, get it delivered, so much less stress.  I like to buy their bags of dried cranberries but I end up with a half a bag that gets all dried out-so then I can still use them if I soak them in water a bit. So I thought this product could be good to try first.

  I also watched videos with people making pickles and instead of canning them they are using this vacuum pack tool instead. I need to do more research on this for sure.

    I did find this chart on the shelf life for foods vacuum packed here  they are listing fresh fruits and veggies too. Anyone a scientist understand vacuum packing?  This could be a really fast way to process a veggie garden. This was an interesting link for the shelf life-freezer, frig, shelf life I would not put glass jars in my freezer-but thinking in the frig would prolong fresh fruits and veggies.

 My camera does a horrible job with indoor photos I have read everything and don't see a way to improve the light-so I apologize for the bad photos.

  I did 6 wide mouth pints of the dried cranberries and had just a little left over to use up

There two pieces like this-one for wide mouth lids and you attach another piece on the bottom of this for small mouth lids-takes just seconds for each jar

Here is the one I bought off of Amazon this is the name of it --there are many on the market 

M12 Auto Stop Electric Mason Jar Vacuum Sealer - 2025 Upgrade Smart Jar Vacuum Sealer for Mason Jars with Wide and Regular Mouth Canning Jar Lids Portable Mason Jar Sealer Machine Kit

I am amazed about the fresh foods preserved this way-sooo simple and fast

  I grew up preserving foods and I have always done it my whole life until we moved to the lake house. I won't can on an electric stove and this one is old and needs to go--this is sooo simple I will need to try doing this for fresh produce to give them a longer time to be fresh.  I will need to see what I still have in canning lids.  I brought most of my canning jars along as well.

  Please share if you have used this tool too

Update: after more reading fresh foods can be vacuum sealed-to last longer-but need to be stored in the frig-that makes more sense to me for sure. and more information at this link   so this does not replace canning or freezing but extends time in the frig before it goes bad

No Flour Cookies, No Rain & This & That

    Good morning Sunday,

       Were you able to see the awesome moon last night?

    Here from the big windows looking out at the lake-the moon was to the far right amongst the tree limbs-but I was able to view it-wonderful. They say we will be able to see it again tonight It was very red.

   I have not made us cookies in a long time-probably since last Christmas time.  On Pinterest I ran into an oatmeal-peanut butter-chocolate chip no flour recipe I mixed up the dough late Saturday and baked them before our 2 pm meal today. I liked the ingredients, natural peanut butter, maple syrup, rolled oats, chocolate chips, a couple eggs and baking powder, vanilla extract.

   In my pantry years ago-at least 15 years ago or so I was into making my own extracts-They turned out sooo good too. I still have two bottles that I haven't used much of since I made those. These are just excellent now from the years of aging. I will start using these up instead of buying vanilla extract. I also found a bottle of lemon extract I had made during that time as well

   I have made something similar to this recipe in the past but this was a much better recipe-flavor and texture. It made 2 and 1/2 dozen cookies-will freeze half of them.

 Here is a link to the recipe

   I think the peanut butter makes them a little shiny. Good texture and I love the maple syrup in these too. Once a year now I buy a gallon of maple syrup from a farm on the east coast-sooo delicious and worth every penny. It is getting pretty pricy now though. Larry likes homemade pancakes with maple syrup for Sunday mornings.

   The weather people said cooler today with rain this morning. We heard lots of very loud thunder and lightening for about 15 minutes around 7 am and then just a couple seconds of sprinkling rain-and then it all just left-sigh so we missed the rain again.

  It is at that point now not worth the water to water my plants any more-but I do water them just enough since they are mostly perennials

On another "this & that"  I am getting too many kindle books this month-I started getting newsletters from Book Bub and also Amazon for Kindle-with too good a deals-or free to pass up-so I need to start deleting those emails before looking at them haha. I have lots of different reading material now to choose from, many new to me authors as well..

  One last "this & that"  How often do you change out your wooden cutting board?  We retired and moved down to Missouri around 25 years ago-and that is when I bought a new wooden cutting board. I had been thinking about changing this one out for a couple of weeks now. I saw an article probably on Instagram about needing to change out wooden boards every couple of years. That article said even though you wash and sanitize with bleach you can't get all the bacteria out of wooden boards.  I am thinking Wow yes I do need to change this out.  

   So I went with bamboo cutting boards-I bought a three pack that was on sale on Amazon so went with that. Didn't make sure about the sizes so the biggest one is smaller than I would have liked the best-but it is working. I read they should be oiled with food grade mineral oil so will need to check into that, and to replace when the bamboo has deep cuts in the board. Sounded easier and  sanitizes better than regular wood--any of you have bamboo kitchen cutting boards??

This is the one I chose  I like them but they are smaller than I thought they would be --largest one is 15 x 10 inches  My other board was twice that size. These will work out ok

Sharing a photo I found online. This is Bagnell Dam on Lake in the Ozarks-that makes the electricity for our area more info here

   Happy new week!

Fish Tacos & Missing Petunia Flowers

   Yesterday I got my second Wild Alaskan seafood box.  I was excited about this one as I chose a box where I could choose what I wanted.  I chose different fish new to me this time along with the halibut, cod and pollock. So this has been a fish adventure for me-smiles

  This is the photo of the label inside the box of what I chose. I had plenty of salmon in the freezer still. The new to me fish are the lincod, sablefish, and rock fish.  The quick cuts are chunks which I really liked for making chowders or tacos.I chose a variety of different fish cuts

 and surprise when the company sent me an email that my fish box had arrived, they also sent me a link to recipes for the fish I just purchased-That was very thoughtful of them. This company is very hands on.

  Yesterday I asked Larry what he felt like eating-I said too bad you don't care for fish and he says I like fish tacos.  Wow ok haha.   and he told me he likes cod-so am happy about that. I told him so far none of these ocean fish are oily at all just firm white meat.

  So I looked for ideas for a recipe-and just made it really simple-forgot to take a photo-but I found this one online. Recipe here from Epicurious for Wild Alaska Pollock-perfect

  I did cut the chunks smaller-so half this size shown above, sprinkled adobo spice on them. Sauted onion and sweet pepper strips til tender-set aside-cooked the fish in a bit of olive oil til done-added the sauted veggies, and a little bit of diced tomatoes and green chilis (since I am not supposed to have much in acid foods)

  I also always make refried beans from scratch and use different canned beans each time-added a bit of the diced tomatoes and green chilis to that as well.  Larry didn't want shredded cabbage so I chopped up leaf lettuce.

 These were delicious and will make them again-have not had a fish taco before.

Larry doesn't want to eat anything pork any more-he reads different things online since he can't get outdoors (too hot as well) and finding there are lots of worms and eggs in most pork. So he has informed me no pork-- So I am down to beef or chicken as meat choices and now a little fish too-

  I think I discovered why our air is a bit polluted here-the fires at the Grand Canyon in Arizona I thought we were a bit far away from Canada-so I think this is the source. We are back to hot and humid again.  The last time we had a summer like this-September was also very hot and humid.

  Oh and I could not believe this-the other day I looked over at my beautiful petunias in the big copper pot-what?? no flowers-not one. I am blaming it on the deer-we do have wildlife here as we are surrounded by woods-and we have seen the deer forage here-I think they come in the night or very early mornings. My neighbor loses her hostas every year to the deer. 

   Oh well they probably enjoyed them haha

  Stay cool in this heat

Today's Sunrise

  I am enjoying some awesome sunrises this week Here is today's-Wow My camera is not the greatest for capturing these-the sun was totally red this morning

  I did get to the grocery store yesterday morning early-the produce was horrible guessing do to the very hot weather this summer. I did buy a few things including some nice fresh strawberries-I will be baking us up my Grandma's recipe for Yellow angel food cakes-which whips up both the whites and  yolks seperately. Haven't made that in a long time.  They were also very limited in their frozen veggies too.

  For curiosity I looked online to see if there were fresh veggie or fruit boxes that ship-Yes there were lots of them including Melissa's organics but very expensive for the amount of food.  

  We are back to the high heat with humidity again for the next two weeks-nice thing so far this week cool in the mornings-So hoping this week to try cutting grass-ugh

 Happy Wednesday!

Good Morning Monday

  I am drinking a cup of coffee (decaf) and watching the sun rise this morning-so peaceful As you can see this tree is now dead and needs to be cut down-most estimates are a thousand dollars-craziness-still looking for a better price.

      

       

        This looks like the last cool day for awhile-I didn't get anything accomplished outdoors over the weekend-sigh.  Once the dew is off may try to cut some grass

   Enjoy your new week

A Glorious Day

   Just a gorgeous morning for the first day of August. Cool a little hazy-just lovely

A glorious sunrise this morning

and I found the crow photos-still on the camera-it was  very bright when I took these photos indoors through the glass window

Enjoy your day