Pop!

We enjoyed our company this weekend! Mick's grandparents came down to camp, and thankfully survived the two solid days of rain. We enjoyed cooking hot dogs with them at the property and chattin' at the house, and they shared with us delicious ginger cookies and snack mix. We put them to work helping us identify some of the plants around the property that we hadn't been able to look up.

Martha came to visit last weekend too, which was lots of fun! We went to Ithaca Saturday - she spent time with a friend and we spent time with the Wegmans. :) She played at church with me on Sunday, which was loads of fun, much more fun than playing by myself! It seems like it worked out to be a relaxing weekend for her too.


Gerard provided the entertainment for one of our dinners. We were eating chicken (thanks, Mom, for supplying us!) with a honeysuckle candle (80% off at Michael's!) burning on the table. Gerard loves chicken, and perched hopefully on a stool at the table. While he waited, his tail was twitching -- and he consistently twitched it right through the flame of the candle. He would even hold it there for a couple of seconds until we saw smoke. It didn't seem to bother him, but it certainly gave us lots of laughs! Well, after a few of these tail-twitches, he resolutely set his tail down in the hot wax. Mick decided to intervene once we saw tail-flames! The result was a wax-tipped tail for our cat (not a very flattering picture, unfortunately, but posing was not first on his agenda at this moment):


He also managed to flip some on his side, which is still a bit wax-coated, and drip wax on the candle, placemat, stool, and floor. That's our genius cat!

It is really beginning to feel like fall these last couple of days. Mick broke out a bottle of his red lager, and it was beautiful!


It tasted wonderful too. Mick also made a second batch of brandied peaches, which have such a beautiful color.


He saved the sugared peach water to mix in drinks, and it is SWEET but delicious, and what color! An excellent use for Manischewitz bottles. :)


For my part, I was quite pleased with how this French bread turned out while Mick was at AT.


We went to Tractor Supply last week, and I spotted a stovetop popcorn popper on clearance, sitting all by itself on the top shelf. I quickly decided that some of the money I received for my birthday would go towards that, since we had already been talking about it. I think it tastes better than any other popcorn I have had, and it is quick and easy to make!
Before...

During...

And after!

Next year we hope to grow our own popcorn too! mm-mm.

Shades of Orange

So I (Mick) am back from AT! To celebrate our reunion and Sarah's birthday, we ordered out from Pudgies...the whole shebang! Pizza, wings, mozzarella sticks, and fries. Top it off with some rootbeer and cab. sauv and you have a very special evening.


We dove back into gardening the following morning, and while I was pruning and training the grapes I happened across a very special leaf!


It's a monarch butterfly chrysalis!


While Sarah was at work yesterday afternoon I ran some errands, and while at Price Chopper I saw that peaches were on sale. Which reminded me of our attempt to make brandied peaches last year...which were good, and lasted a long time, but we kept them in a crock. Eventually they got too soft and a little mold formed on top. We still finished them, but still. I thought if we kept them in mason jars they would stay cleaner and we would be more likely to eat them. Their color is amazing!


And the cool weather has felt like a taste of fall! Some leaves are already beginning to blush, and on the way back form Fort Drum there was a single limb on a single sugar maple that was a brilliant orange. It all inspired some canned tomato sauce (five pints) and some hard cider


The tomato sauce includes all of our tomatoes that have ripened (lots more on the way still!) along with some tomatoes and a green and yellow zucchini that I picked up from church that morning from a fellow gardener overwhelmed by his surplus. Some of our onions and dried oregano and Heidi's garlic (which has such a great smell!) added their flavor too.

Flora and Fauna

Roscoe and I had a lovely adventure on the hill last week. I was pulling goldenrod out along the driveway, because I want to encourage the vetch, black-eyed Susans, clover, and other wildflowers that are growing there.


When I got home, I looked up the type of goldenrod that was starting to flower. Turns out it is called sweet goldenrod, or anise-scented goldenrod. It really does smell like anise! and it is supposed to make a good tea, with the dried leaves and flowers. This batch of flowers though went to spruce up the house.


Meanwhile, Roscoe was off on an adventure of his own. He very kindly took a break from his drink to smile for the camera.


Having satisfied his thirst, he was off to do some digging.


Proudly displaying his prize...


...then back on his way...


...to bury it again.


Gerard gave us quite the warm welcome when we got home from our adventure. "What, you want me to move out of the driveway?" (Notice in the background the rain buckets that he has overturned with his leash.)


All in all, a lovely afternoon.

Week in Review

The scarlet runner beans are probably my favorite part of the garden (if I had to choose). Today I met a female hummingbird that also seems to enjoy the beautiful bright red flowers.


And there are lots more beans on the way!


I planted some salad greens in the shade of the scarlet runner beans. I didn't know how well they would come up, but it looks like we will at least have some lettuce, mustard, and endive.


The cucumbers are finally starting to take over. If you look closely, you may be able to see the scarlet runner bean flowering in between the two cucumber plants.


Our first cucumber! I actually picked our first four yesterday (they had grown considerably since I took this picture), and there are plenty more flowers on the way.


Our volunteer squash is making itself right at home next to the onion and garlic bed. Every day we trim it back so it doesn't take over the onions and garlic...or the cherries...or the gooseberries. It cuts down on the mowing and weeding though!


The purple stalks of sweet corn and the deep green vine of a winter squash or pumpkin (I can't remember which). :)


The lemon balm looks as lovely as it smells. We can't wait to make tea with it!


The hops are still climbing, and the cones look beautiful.


The comfrey looks bigger every day. By now (a few days after I took this picture), there is very little mulch visible in the bed at all. And we had given up a couple of these plants as "probably dead" not too long ago!


Pizza anyone?

Surprised by Purple (twice)

We have been making smoothies for several weeks now, usually with the berries we pick. Raspberries were the dominant fruit for awhile, since they ripened before the blackberries and we have many more raspberries and blackberries than blackcaps or golden raspberries. So a typical smoothie was mostly raspberries, with a few blackberries, less blackcaps, and an occasional golden raspberry. This makes a smoothie that is some shade of pink. Well, last week the raspberries began to slow down and the blackberries took over, so the fruit I picked was almost all blackberries with just a few raspberries. I put all the ingredients in the blender and let the electricity work its magic. When I turned around, I was quite surprised to see a very different color of smoothie than anything I had ever seen before!


The pictures really don't do the color justice. I had no idea that this shade of purple could result from anything other than Red 5 and Blue 7 (or whatever those weird artificial dyes are that they put in food). I can't imagine what an all-blackberry smoothie would look like, but maybe in the next couple of weeks I will find out!


I have also been surprised to see our sweet corn turning a lovely shade of purple.


The tassels, stalks, and even the leaves of the more mature plants are quite purple.


I would have expected something like that from our ornamental corn (which still looks quite ordinary and green), but I have been surprised by purple sweet corn. (Hopefully I didn't mix the seeds up, I have been having some trouble with that. :-/) I'm curious to see if the kernels will be purple too? Further bulletins as events warrant!