Beets, Swank Bathrooms, Schnauzer Beefcake...

Because of the hot weather this July, we're only now getting harvest enough to can. Usually, we've got the fans going and the kettles boiling starting in mid-July. But this year, a good bit of the harvest happened just before our vacation (which had us scurrying to get everything put up so nothing spoiled the week we were away). Now, things are somewhat more leisurely. I say somewhat because now we're putting garden and bee hives to bed. Soon the first frosts will hit, and we need to be prepared.

Michael puts the beets in the boiling water canner.

Michael, filling jars with Oxblood red beets. And when we say
Oxblood, we mean, like red stuff everywhere.

See the red stuff? And not just in the bowl...it looked
like a crime scene around the sink, where we dumped the
water we boiled these babies in.

And for those that just didn't fit into the jars, they got a good whirring
in the food processor. Can you say, chocolate cake, boys and girls?
Yes, these will very likely end up in chocolate cake with peanut
butter frosting.

Okay, yesterday, I promised pictures of a Greenbrier bathroom, and I use the indefinite article "a" because I only thought to photograph one of them. There were more. Oh, there were many more. Some that had apparent flecks of gold in their granite countertops, bathrooms lit entirely by chandeliers, bathrooms with built in garbage cans and tissue boxes and little hand towels that didn't feel disposable (but were, thank goodness. I mean, ew?) Anyway, I promised and now I deliver:

Just one of the bathrooms at the Greenbrier in
White Sulphur Springs, WV....each doorway along
this hall leads to a small room with a vanity table
and toity. Each one has a door that closes. At the end of
this hallway is a conversation area (see the next pic!)

The conversation area at the end of the hallway above. I suppose this
is where all ladies go to powder their noses, although each bathroom "stall"
(cough) suite itself had a vanity table to powder ones appendages at.



Fred says that all this discussion of luxury is very
tiring. "A little grass, a little masonry work, or
the dust ruffle on Grandma's bed, and  you know, I
can work with that. Who wants to tinkle on marble?"



Pepper jam, tomatoes, butternut squash, and beans!

Pepper Jam, Baby!

We've started to get a small ton of tomatoes!

Ugly Tomatoes!

The first batch of tomato sauce!

I baked our butternut squash in the oven and whirred it
around in the food processor.

So many beans, with so many more to come.



Jasper begged for a bean, but wasn't digging it once he got it.



Kidney beans, black beans, favas, soldier beans,
yard-longs, and black-eyed peas.



We just haven't figured out how to get around this part yet.... 

Prepped for drying....

Watermelon Jelly (Part 2) and Other Stories....

The water bath is heating up and the lids are sterilizing
in a sauce pan. I'm stirring watermelon juice, vinegar,
sugar, grated ginger, and pectin.

First, some storytelling: "The Unnatural History of Brown's Island" was the featured story at Fiction365.com on Saturday. I hesistate to call my Brown's Island story 'new', since I wrote it in January 2010 and have been sitting on it, like it's an egg, ever since. The story itself, although fictional, is based largely on local legend and some fact, since there was indeed a deadly explosion there just before Christmas in 1972.

In other news, food preservation continues! I started watermelon jelly on Monday and finished it on Tuesday afternoon. In fact, I was

washing dishes just as Michael came home from work, and that left our evening free to attack the other things that needed to be taken care of, namely, carrots. Michael got a fannyload of them on Sunday by digging them up with the potato fork. Last night, we washed, trimmed, scraped and re-washed the carrots before raw packing them and getting them into the pressure canner....pictures of the productivity follow, just below: 

Just out of the canner! Watermelon-ginger jelly.



Rainbow carrots, being peeled and chopped.



The smaller carrots got their own jar.

We chopped the larger ones.



Fresh out of the pressure canner!



A long view of Tuesday's productivity...is that a
ghost in the image, or is our jar just steaming?

And on Tuesday and Wednesday nights....

Recall that watermelon that wasn't ripe back in
mid-July? Well, this baby was gone in ten minutes.

Good Lord, I have a big mouth. Er wait, is that Steven Tyler?

The bees are cooling themselves outside the top bar.

Bees, enjoying our sunflowers.

Look at those full pollen baskets.

Black beans, filling out their pods.

Look! It's our yard-long beans, and my dirty shoe.
Yes, my shoe has a muff. Sometimes it scares me, too.

Believe it...it's really a yard long.

Our seats, next to the little sunflowers.

Nope, this isn't a horror film still.
Some little boy just has strawberry fingers.

Peppers, onions, cukes, cantalope, and that lovely
watermelon.

Remember that beet pesto I made? Here it is, making
the pasta purple.

Mmmm....more bread for tomato sandwiches.

We ended Tuesday night playing Scrabble and
watching the Pirates! Um...oops. Maybe "viney"
isn't really a word.

And on Sunday and Monday....

 On Sunday, while Michael checked the bees, I picked a mound of beans. We also several healthy piles of purple and candy-striped beets, tobascos, jalapenos, and hot banana peppers. Tomatoes are just starting to come into season, too....and I'm excited to see that my zucchini plant is back after the searing heat has abated. It was sprouting nothing but orange-colored dwarf squash, but it's back to making zuchs again.

And on Monday night (that is, tonight!), we used our Food Saver to pack away some beans for the freezer. And while we ate dinner, I made some quick bread from a very overripe banana and 2 cups of shredded zucchini. I also used some super-dark brown sugar (not the light business they sell you in the grocery store, but the good stuff, with extra residual molasses). Yum.

Beans, blanching.



Zucchini-Banana Bread, with extra dark brown sugar



What's happening today?

It's full-tilt here on Kings Creek, even though it's Michael's day off. Upstairs, I've been making habanero-orange marmalade and zucchini-honey cake (pics, of course, below). Also, I made some zuch-and-cuke soup, but in terms of photos, that's somewhat less exciting than jam and baked things. Michael's been in the fruit cellar, getting things ready for canning season. Look, it's so orderly again!

Downstairs, Michael's been cleaning up the fruit cellar
to prepare for this season's batch of new canned goodies.
It looks fantastic.

Upstairs, I've been making habanero-orange marmalade...

Five pints of habanero-orange marmalade! I know, it's
dark, isn't it? But it tastes fantastic and spicy.
I think even Paddington Bear would appreciate  it.



Honey-zucchini cake



Mustard Pickles, Mustard Beans...



The whole process starts by peeling and chopping
11 (yes, indeed, eleven) cups of cucumbers.

Our cucumber plants have proven to be some prolific little buggers. And even though the vines are now swooning like B-movie scream queens in this heat, they're still producing chubby little gherkins. Last week we made "crock" pickles. This weekend, thanks to an amazing new canning book we got last season, we're making mustard pickles. And since Michael picked so many green beans this morning, we also made mustard beans. Just below are pictures of the progress....so you have the full effect, wanna know what was on the CD player while we worked? This recording from The Skillet Lickers. 

Chopped cucumbers, onions, red peppers.



Us at the sink! :-D

Clearjel, sugar, ginger, tumeric, vinegar, and water

Michael fills the quart jars before they go into the

boiling water bath.

A close-up of the filling process...just cause the
contents are so purty.

Mustard pickles right out of the canner.
Aren't they beee-you-tiful?

We start to cut green beans, and Fred is Johnny
on the spot. "Why, excuse me, would you care to make
a donation to the Jimmy Fund?"

Bun, cleaning beans and imitating Fred's usual
dour expression.

Not just green breans, clean beans.

Beans and onions, destined for the mustard sauce!

The dish fairy was here. Again.

Jasper and his rubber chicken, the current love of his
life. We pulled his pillow to the kitchen entrance, so
he would stay out from under foot. It worked some
of the time. Right now, he's trying to nap. Trying.

And while all this was going on, our little bread machine
made a loaf of white bread for tomato sandwiches.
Mmmmmm.........