The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbored by fruit of baser quality; - William Shakespeare, The Life of King Henry the Fifth
Man, got that right Willie.
Yesterday was a marathon, music gathering, brunch cooking, church going, strawberry picking, fruit preparing, berry squishing, wine making good time.
Started the day, as usual, at 5:45 am letting the chickens out. The chicklets almost look like miniature chickens now. They lack a few neck and tail feathers, but have the rest. If I can tell by the size of the comb, I think I have one hen and one rooster. So yesterday, in between all the other madness, I stuck 6 new eggs under the broody twins for another go.
I need more cause I lost another hen last Wednesday. I think its time to fire up the old security camera. The migrants are back. I'm just sayin'...
So back to yesterday. After the chicken loosing I burned the music for the church service to a CD and listened to it to ensure good working order. Our friendly neighborhood preacher (FNP) was doing a wedding on saturday so didn't have time to pick hymns, so I did it. Everyone seemed to approve my choice, now our FNP wants me to choose the hymns as well as finding them, downloading them, garagebanding them, burning them and playing them at the service. So in the past 6 months I have become the treasurer of the church, the music director of the church, the co leader of the church green team, the grounds maintenance person of the church. And the FNP wants to know if I want to write the sermons as well (kidding).
Note to self: gotta learn how to say no again.
So then, cooking. I got a mess of garden peas from our friendly neighborhood organic farmer (FNOF) last week and spent 3 blissful hours shelling them. Well, it was more of a whole box than a mess. But there is nothing I enjoy more than shelling peas (although there are some things I enjoy as much). Sat on the porch and watched the wildlife go by. Mom even helped me some.
Interesting family pea fact. It appears that I picked up some bad habits somewhere along the way. All of the aunties noted that I shell my peas from the top down. They all shell from the bottom up. I don't ever recall any formal training in pea shelling anywhere in my life, and I neglected to watch to see how Mom did it. So I don't know why I go top down. There was a general discussion about it during the after service meal, and it appears that all the ladies go bottom up around here. But I am too old to change.
So, I had some nice peas and wanted an interesting way to serve them. I am not a fan of straight garden peas. Went to my friendly neighborhood internet and looked up english peas. I found a simple recipe for creamed peas. I embellished a little with my own spices and it turned out very well. Of course it helps to have fresh peas. The FNOF said they were yummy and asked if these were his peas. Arrogant Bastard.
I also made a penne pasta dish with garlic, onion, tomato, oregano, parmesan, basil, cilantro sauce.
Then church. We honored our two college grads with bibles during the service. We now don't have any more kids left in the congregation. All of our entings have grown up.
The lunch yesterday was pretty exceptional. There was such variety that I couldn't fit even a little bit of everything on one plate. We all ate too much.
In the course of conversation, the FNOF told me that he told Jim to tell me that the strawberry field was open to gleaning on last Tuesday. I heard never a word. I don't know why he just doesn't call me to tell me, but there seems to be an order of communication that is really an order of mis-communication between the three of us. I think we need to kill the messenger.
So, I told Jim that he had to help me glean the field cause we had other things to do, like cutting the back forty, getting dog food, etc. We collected buckets and proceeded. We managed to get enough berries to make up a bucket and 1/2. It was really a shame I was not there on tuesday, cause the berries were not really great. It was also amazing that the season was finished so early. Last year it went well into June. I only managed to pick for the FNOF one time. So, to pay him for the berries, (and the lovely NEW box of peas and sugar snaps garnered from the trip) I will pick cherry toms for him on tuesday.
After we got home, we hopped into the car to go get dog food, and now sugar and distilled water for wine making,
and beer,
and gas for the car,
and money to pay for it all.
That took about an hour and a half round trip.
Then I washed, culled and de-stemmed the berries while Jim put the crusher and the press together for their maiden voyage. It took me about an hour to do the berries. Jim crushed and pressed them and the equipment worked really well, but we decided that it was more suited to larger batches. We really need something between the tomato crusher and the large crusher and press that we have. Or we need more fruit. We may have more success doing blueberries as Jim gets a lot of cull berries from our Friendly Neighborhood Blueberry Farmer (FNBF). By this time it was about 7 pm. I still had to prep the sugar water and the various additives. I finished at 8:30 and missed half of Hee Haw. But I am hoping this will be a rockin' batch of strawberry wine.
bak bak
No comments:
Post a Comment