The sun is shining and I’ve had a busy day. I’m posting early as I have an invitation to visit a friend with a cob oven who has asked me to stop by to bake in the morning. She fires up very early on Fridays and I need to be out the door at the crack of dawn.
The first picture here is of the press I got from Aunt Marge. I need to get at it with some lubricant and a wire brush then play with it a bit so I can figure out how it works.
The second picture is of my seed box. I had such a hodge-podge after spring planting. Maggie and I took an hour and got them all organized by type. I really need to commit to using some of the older seed up and replacing the seed in my long term storage. I’m flat out of brassicas.
The third picture is of my beautiful Honey Locust wine. I got it racked today. I decided not to feed the leavings to the chickens. I didn’t think intoxicated birds were a good idea.
I want to leave you with a recipe. The vegetables are just coming in from the valley and I wanted a summer salad. I chopped up a cucumber, an onion, a yellow pepper and an orange pepper. I added some garbanzo beans and feta cheese and a bit of vinegrette and had a light, delicious side dish.
Add in a lot of weeding and harvesting strawberries and now back out to plant a few more seeds and it’s been a really productive day.
June 16, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Wow! Honey locust wine! I’m so curious how it is made and how it tastes. I’ve been thinking about taking up winemaking. Lovely pictures.
June 16, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Aunt Marge rocks!
June 16, 2011 at 5:01 pm
LOVE the press! It looks like it will last a few years
, and like it could press all kinds of things – cheese, apples in the fall for cider, olives (if you lived in a different part of the country……)
June 16, 2011 at 6:31 pm
That press is a beautiful thing!
June 16, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Kathy, if you want some more info on the press look up lard press. They were used to press the extra lard out of the cracklins. And they are very nice. Some of them even have an attachment to make sausage by using a sausge stuffer cone on the front of the press. We had a friend that had one and we used to use it together when we butchered pigs.
I do have my seeds in plastic boxes for my seeds. And I do have some gallon jugs to make wine I have not made any for a long time. I need to get back to it.
We did finish planting the garden yesterday. It is still cold here, have a fire going every day. Most of the garden is still in the raised beds under plastic. We have had a lot of rain here. So most people have yellow corn plants. We have kept ours warm under the plastic and will transplant it later when it gets warmer. But for now it is protected and keeping warm.
June 17, 2011 at 8:53 am
I need an Aunt Marge!
Actually I have an Uncle Harry with an old mangle on his balcony. He’s under strict instructions not to get rid of it without speaking to me first!
June 18, 2011 at 8:57 am
Nice blog. I live in MA, too, in the Brookfields. Good work.