Rain!

My area of the country has been sadly lacking in the rain department.  In comparison to the southern part of the state we don't have much to complain about.

However, we probably hadn't had rain since the first part of June. It was getting a bit dire out at my happy place.  The grass was starting to turn brown and the veggie garden was starting to look stressed and dried out.

We did what what we could with trying to keep things watered.  We carried buckets of water and I even filched water from the swimming pool. It finally got to the point where the creek dried out ... completely.  As in no water running and the sand at the bottom of the creek bed was dried out.  No ground water seeping into the creek to keep it wet.

I got pretty sad.  It got hard to go out there and see that things were slowly dying and that there really wasn't much I could do.  There is a sandpoint well out there but it's strictly light use.  The pressure tank is small and would be turning on constantly and probably burn out. There is no way we can use it for the hours of watering the garden would need.

A few days ago it rained!!!!! The skies opened up and the rain poured down like manna from heaven.  Immediately you can tell a difference in the garden.  Nothing is looking wilted, nothing looks stressed.  It's wonderful.

This is a couple of pumpkin vines.  I'm so impressed with how big they have gotten.  I did start these from seeds.

Look!  A baby squash.  I'm pretty excited to see this. I started winter squash plants from seeds back in April.  I'm crossing my fingers that we get more than two squash this year.  Last year I started seeds in the garden and I ran out of time before the frost hit and killed the vines.

 Here is one of my tomatoes.  My tomatoes are growing and doing well.  I don't know if they will ripen in time or if we will need to bring them home at the end of the season and let the ripen.

 

Here is a shot of one of the grapevines we planted this year.

Grapes on one of the other grapevines we planted this year.  The grapes are the size of smallish marbles. 

This year the raspberries seem to have exploded a bit.  I'm finding raspberry canes in the least expected places.  Most of the raspberry canes we have are wild.  This is our third season out there so I imagine that the canes are starting to hit their stride, so to speak.  I'm surprised that the wildlife hasn't come and eaten them.

An epic canning day

So what do you do with meat that you decide doesn't have much flavor when you cook it or use it in dishes? 

You cook, boil and can it!

Yes, ladies and gents, that is what I spent Saturday doing.  Canning approximately 40 pounds of ground meat.  My hubby started the day cooking meat and getting a head start.  He added spices to the meat while it was cooking. 

I do believe it was 43 jars that I filled. At one point we did have to stop, make a trip to Menard's and buy more pint jars.  The canning jars were on sale this week. 

After cooking and draining the beef I filled the jars and would smack the side of the jar to help the meat settle down.  Later on I realized that this was kind of a useless step. 

After filling the jars with meat we put a bit of beef broth in the jars and filled the rest (leaving one inch headspace) with water. Then I took a plastic utensil and ran it along the inside of the jar to get rid of the air bubbles.  Doing that kind of defeated the packing down I did earlier.  While the beef was cooking was cooling and waiting to be processed, we were taking bits and pieces of the beef and taste testing.  Yum!  That was the word of the day. 

It's looks belies it's true flavor. Probably the best ground meat I've ever tasted.   If it tasted that good before being pressure cooked and canned, I can only imagine what it tastes like now!

I'm fortunate enough to have two pressure canners.  If I didn't have two of them, this process would have taken at least two days.  I was able to have the second pot ready to go as soon as the presser canner on the stove was done. I *highly* recommend getting two pressure canners.  This was one of the best moves I've made since I started canning. 

Out of the 43 or so cans only three jars didn't seal.  I'm pretty impressed with that ratio.  I really took my time and properly prepped the jars, making sure that the headspace was correct and that the top of the jars were clean, the lids were on and that the bands were finger grip tight. 

This has been one of the *hottest* summers in recent years.  Those who do canning and processing know how hot it can be when you are doing this. 

 Last year we thought ahead when we purchased a new grill.  We got one with a side burner.  I did all my processing outside.  There was no way I could have done this in the house.  

This project was started about 7 a.m., I think, and it wrapped up after 8 p.m.  I now have lots of jars of yummy meat that will help me and the other cooks in the house when it's time to think up something for dinner. Not to mention the time it will save! 

A garden update

Here are some photos from the garden this past weekend.

The garden has exploded.  Everything is green and blooming and I've been picking some goodies already.

Sugar snap peas.  Just as good as I remember them.  Very few actually make it out of the garden.  Some of the vines are more than 6 feet tall. 

Winter squash plant.  I'm *amazed* at how quickly these grew.  We've had great growing weather.  Lots of sun and heat.  

Beets! We've been picking these the last week or so.  I've never had homegrown beets before.  The smell reminds me of freshly husked corn.

My MIL has been cooking the beet greens.  I imagine it reminds her of days gone by.  She loves boiled greens.  Me, not so much.  I'm a bit particular about food textures.

Our pole beans are starting to go gangbusters.  We have a few plants that are more than 6 feet tall.  The plants are starting to put out flowers.  I can't wait!  I have fond memories from last year when all three of us were picking green beans.

First canning of the season

This weekend I did my first canning of the 2012 season.  Somewhere around 17 pint-sized jars, 3 half-pint jars and 4 one-quarter pint jars.  I should be set for the next year for strawberry jam.  

This year I was able to make strawberry-rhubarb jam.  Pretty exciting!  It's got a little bit more meaning for me since the rhubarb was picked for me by one of my SIL's. 

Saturday we decided head out to one of the local pick-your-own strawberry patches.  It was our first time heading to this particular one.  It started raining just as we got there.  It was decided to forge ahead and pick strawberries.  At some point my son stopped picking strawberries and was just standing there and eating them.  No one said anything. I think they were just impressed that we stuck around to pick berries.  I think we got around 16 pounds of strawberries.

It may just be me, but I get a lot of satisfaction from canning.  Yeah, it's a lot of work and it usually happens one the hotter days that I process, but I really enjoy it.  

I say this now, and in a few weeks or so I will be processing cucumbers and beans and peas and feeling totally overwhelmed, :-).  But it does make me happy. 

My first broccoli of the season

Adorable!
Picture was taken today, June 18, 2012.  I've been waiting for what feels like forever for this.  Last year we had purchased only a few broccoli plants and regretted it.  This year we bought 24, I think.  No regrets this year!

Forbidden Woolery yarn club June 2012 shipment

I signed up for the 3-month yarn club that was offered on ForbiddenWoolery.com.  What can I say, I love her stuff and I've never been disappointed.

The June shipment was "Gum Drops" in the Pride base.  There are sparkles but just enough that they catch your eye.  I'm petting the skein right now.  It's very soft.  The yarn is 75% superwash Merino; 20 percent nylon and the stuff that makes the sparkles.  

I'm thinking it will either become a scarf or a hat.  I have the 101 patterns for sock yarns book.  I will be looking through that and maybe looking out on the internet.

Early June in my garden

This year we decided to start working in the garden early.  Last year I think we started working in the garden around Memorial Day.  This year, thanks to the mild winter in my area, the garden could be worked mid-April. We worked the soil in the big garden a couple of times and planted crops that could be planted as soon as the soil could be worked:  Lettuce, beets, snap peas and onions.

Last year we decided to put a strawberry patch in.  It was a losing battle unfortunately.  We didn't properly prep the area and the weeds were too much to keep in check.  Not to mention trying to keep the baby strawberry plants in some sort of order.  They went all over and were rooting where they weren't supposed to.  At the beginning of this year we decided that we were not going to keep the patch and plowed it under when we roto-tilled.  We felt really bad about tilling all those plants under after doing our best to nurture them last year.

Well, when we started working the garden soil a second time we found baby strawberry plants growing. We just could *not* turn under the plants after they made it through one roto-tilling.  It was decided that we were indeed meant to have a strawberry patch of sorts.

So we started looking through and picking out the plants and my hubby made me a 3 foot by 5 foot raised bed in the area I call the "grotto".   We saved 25 strawberry plants out of the original 50 that we purchased.

There are strawberries growing!  We may not get many this year, which is fine.  I think this is the beginning of something beautiful/

One of the other things we decided to plant again was potatoes.  Last year we didn't really plan to plant potatoes and when we got some seed taters I just kind of dug a whole and threw them in the ground and said "sink or swim". It was towards the end of the when I was planting stuff, already getting hot and I was feeling weary. I had pretty much tried to get everything done in one weekend and really burned myself out.

We did get some potatoes but certainly nothing to really brag about.  They were the size of peanuts.  Great for soup but not much else. In fact, my MIL made a fabulous soup last fall with all kinds of fresh veggies from the garden.

This year, hubby made a planter box for me in the grotto.  We cut up some taters that were starting to grow and we planted them.

This picture doesn't do the plants justice.  The plants really took off.  They are a very healthy green and are almost ready for their first hilling.

A true first for this year is grape vines.  We purchased four grape vines.  Three "King of the North" and one "Concord".  The picture below is one of the King of the North vines.  I'm super pumped.  The grape vines seem to really like it out there.  We purchased the vines at our local Menard's and they were grown in Wisconsin. 

A lot of the seedlings that we planted in mid-May have sprouted and are starting to grow.  I'm not done planted seeds yet.  I'm trying to do the successive planting so that I have a crops come at different times. I have a feeling that we aren't done finding places to plant stuff either.   At some point I'd like to pick out a spot for a little herb patch and get the area ready for next year if nothing else.

One thing I planted last year was Mesculan mix lettuce.  It's a quick growing lettuce, having a growing time of 28 days or so.  Last year it grew much faster than I was expecting it to and it flowered -- alot.  I now have that lettuce growing ALL OVER.  In my driveway, out by the main road, down the trail -- it's everywhere.  I never would have dreamed it would turn into a weed of sorts.