I had such a nice weekend. I was feeling, if not terrific, at least well enough to get out and about a bit. I went to the used book sale at our Community House and came home with a big stack of books for $5.00. Then I took off with my friend, Leni, for a chanterell hunt. We were successful but to early. We found a huge patch (multiple patches actually) but the were still too young to harvest. We will go back in a bit and harvest them. I found a huge flush of oyster mushrooms too but the are way up in a dying maple tree. Even with a long handled tool I may not be able to reach them without a ladder.
I am pulling up the snap peas today, digging in compost and planting that space with some kale. I am still harvesting peas. On Saturday, after the mushroom hunt I picked a huge basket. The girls helped shell them and I got brave and put them in the Excalibur. It was hared for me. We love our garden peas and I am worried that dried will not live up to frozen for quality. But there are certainly advantages. That whole basket of peas dried down to less a full pint of tiny, funny looking orbs. I could store a years worth in my dried foods cabinet and never need to worry about power outages. They are supposed to taste as good as fresh. Now I just need to see if there is way to generate enough solar power to run the dehydrator if the power is out. I wish we had enough sun and hot weather here to just get a solar model but we don’t.
There is a lot of talk around here about the blight affecting both tomatoes and potatoes. If it is as big a problem as it sound like it might be, it could well spell tragedy for farmers both large and small. I am going to pick up some neemoil today. It is the only organic likely to work on this scourge.
I want to take a quick moment and discuss money. I hope you have some put away. A stash of small bills could be so important in the event of a forced bank holiday or an extended power outage. Plastic is nice (well, it isn’t nice but a credit card can be handy) but cash is king when you need to buy your child milk or medicine and the plastic won’t swipe. There are a lot of places that can’t operate with no power but small stores often can.
July 20, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thank you for reminding us about the cash. I thought I had put away a larger amount, but checked it the other day and realized I had miscounted. I need to add a bit more to meet my goal and had totally forgotten about it until you mentioned it.
My sugar snaps are done as well. I plan to pull them out tomorrow, but I can’t decide what to plant in their place. I need to get on it asap, however I am having a case of the summer blahs – mainly due to my slower recovery on my oral surgery. It is hard to get excited about eating right now when I’m still having to be careful about every bite that goes in my mouth. I am thankful I can eat at all!
July 20, 2009 at 2:17 pm
You poor thing! That’s exactly what I went through when I was under the weather. It was so hard to get motivated to do anything. I think I will put kale in that spot but more cabbage and some lettuces are another possibility.