Put it up!

Last Saturday, we got a remedial lesson on hot water bath canning.  It is something I have always been interested in, but never did.  Mostly, because like Ralphie in A Christmas Story ("you'll shoot your eye out"), I was thwarted by my mother's undeterred fears of succumbing to a painful and undignified death from botulism  or being impaled, maimed and otherwise disfigured by shrapnel spewed by an exploding pressure cooker. Food borne illnesses be damned!  We will have apple sauce this winter!

Common Ground

This weekend is MOFGA's Common Ground Fair.  The weather was cool and overcast, the crowds manageable and sights, smells, and sounds inspiring.

Goings On at the Homestead

There is something about Fall that gets my domestic juices flowing.  I know the official start isn't until Wednesday, but there has definitely been a change in the air, the light, the smells..

I have been busy painting the coop, creating an opening in the pen, gleaning the garden and replanting lettuce and spinach-I am going to try to grow under mini hoops as long as I can into the winter-we also froze several bags of carrots,  the rest I am going to keep in the ground till frost to sweeten them.  We've been getting three to four eggs a day:  brown,  brown speckled, white and blue-green. Apples are rosy-checked and ruddy complected.  It is a fine time of the year.

Cameos by Sadie and Bertha.

Who Says Folks Don't Dress for Travel Anymore?

Style.  Style is different than fashion.  Fashions come and go, but style is a constant.  Cary Grant had it.  Jackie O, Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Sean Connery... Part of the appeal of Mad Men on AMC is the clothes and the manner in which the characters deport themselves.  People sometimes lament the lost golden era of dressing for dinner or for a plane trip.  Those lost bits of civilization leave us nostaligic for something we may never had had to begin with.

Some people have the style kevorka and know how to employ it-even in this day and age and even when simply going to the Miss Portland Dinner for an impromptu Labor Day breakfast with family.

And it obviously make them very happy!

Crop Update

We had a bumper crop of taters this year.  From three plants that started out robust, but then fell to the scorching heat, we got nearly three dozen spuds!

Food- Related Activity at the Urban Grange Hall this Weekend

Here is a mega tomato we grew from B. Potter's plants acquired in the Community School's organic sale earlier this summer.  They are heirloom so they look a little rough, but we are roasting them to freeze to add to sauce and stews this winter.

Roasting tomatoes at low temp. with olive oil and salt.

We are consistently getting three eggs a day from our four hens. Notice the egg on the left-it is standing on end. Tricky!

More Random Thoughts

Song lyrics that make me weepy... don't really understand why-just is

"Katie looks at Tommy like I still look at you..." from She's in Love with the Boy, Trisha Yearwood

"I don't have to tell you, but you're the only one."  from You Make Lovin' Fun by Fleetwood Mac

"And this is how I see you/ in the snow on Christmas morning/ love and happiness surround you
(As you throw your arms up to the sky/I keep this moment by and by) from Wintersong by Sarah McLachlan