Enjoying the Abundance

I inventoried the pantry yesterday and rotated stock. Some years ago, I heard an interview with Joel Salatin in which he said his wife puts up two years’ worth of food every canning season. That way, if there is a crop failure, they have extra to see them through. I try to follow that system, too, but it means being careful to use the older food first.

[Joel Salatin will be the keynote speaker at Self-Reliance Festival, where I am teaching in October. I will try not to be too much of a fangirl upon meeting him, but I am excited.]

We didn’t need as much salsa as I anticipated. I based my production last year on a quart a week. I think it averaged out to three quarts a month. I may make salsa again this year, but a smaller amount. And not as much tomato sauce. We are down to just a few jars of peaches and a few of apple pie filling. Those definitely have to be replenished. I’m waiting for Susan’s Duchess of Oldenburg tree to be ready to harvest, and I’ll check at Glacier Produce tomorrow to see if peaches have come in.

I’m thinking hard about how much garden space we need next year. Honestly, we probably don’t need four zucchini plants, seven cucumber vines, and 35 tomato plants, although I am happy to share the excess. WS came over last night to get zucchini for his farmstand. I give away produce at church, Anna buys some for her catering business, and the pigs and chickens are happy to hoover up their share. Ground squirrels aside, growing food is not difficult. The difficult part is dealing with it when it all ripens at once.

The far third of the garden is fallow this year. I am considering leaving it permanently fallow. That section has never produced much other than potatoes. The soil there needs more amending, It has had several layers of rotted straw tilled into it, but it could benefit from a couple of loads of chicken manure. That area would be a good spot for an asparagus bed if I could get the soil prepped.

We’ll see. I have all winter to think about it.

I am enjoying watching the tomatoes ripen. This one is a variety called Black Strawberry.

I need to locate the Aunt Ruby tomato plant in that jungle. Those tomatoes stay green even when they are ripe and I don’t want to miss them.

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I drove The Diva on Monday without incident. I am hoping that whatever the husband did solved the problem, although I did question if it had something to do with hot weather. I noticed the shifting problem most on those days when we were well up into the 90s. In any case, if it happens again, I can switch to driving the car in manual mode.

Our friend, Smokey, stopped by yesterday for a visit. We sold our stock trailer last year after the truck accident because it had a gooseneck hitch and we no longer had a truck that could pull it. Smokey offered us the use of his stock trailer this year. He has been a great help with our pigs in the past and will get pork in return for his neighborliness. He and I sat on the porch for a bit, talking and watching a storm roll in from the west. I saw a sudden flash of light and then heard a very loud crack of thunder right over our heads.

I don’t know where that lightning bolt landed. It did rain for about half an hour—not enough, but we’ll take what we can get.

I called the processor yesterday to confirm our appointment for next Monday, the 14th. We don’t want to arrive with a trailer load of pigs only to be told they can’t accommodate us. And it is good that I called, because they asked if we could wait an additional week. The pigs will go in on Monday the 21st, instead.

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A fourth of the log cabin top has been quilted. Two hours of wrestling is about all I can manage in one sitting, so I am not hurrying.

Burda patterns are on sale this weekend at Joanns. I plan to get a few, including this one:

I was going to make up a few more Laundry Day Tees with some of my Walmart remnant rack fabric, but those pieces are two-yard cuts and two yards isn’t enough. The LDT is a swing top and requires an extra half-yard to have enough for the sleeves. This Burda pattern should do nicely.

I’ve noticed that Walmart has had mostly two-yard cuts in their remnant bin lately. I hope this is not a trend. Two yards is not enough for a dress or a long (enough for me) cardigan with sleeves. Four yards is almost too much, but three yards would cover just about everything I’d want to make.