As always, I have far too many cucumber plants out there in the garden. Last year, I was picking about a quarter bushel a day.
My favorite dill slice recipe comes from Summer in a Jar, a lovely vintage cookbook for canning in single jar batches. This book also has the best dilly bean recipe, featured in Mother Earth News.
I can't wait for the cucumbers to really start coming in! I should probably stitch one of these for my kitchen:
If it weren't for all the leaves on the ground and the stark blue sky, I would think that it was spring here! It does seem that the animals have chosen fall this year to multiply and give us quite a surprise. A couple weeks ago, as Jon was removing the panel that separates the back of the insulated outdoor hutch for cleaning, he saw two new little fuzzy faces looking at him. This was a complete shock, as we were sure that the mother was a male! She had recently molted so we didn't notice when her belly fiber went missing and was made into a little nest way back in the darkest corner of the hutch box.
I won't know what gender they are for a while, but now that I am certain that Firari is a female and Tavie has proved to be the male that I knew he was, I now have a breeding pair, both with really nice fiber. So, oops! I'm breeding angoras once again! Now to be strong and not keep them all!
As for the guinea pigs, they couldn't help themselves, either.
Gary Busey the guinea pig had been living with other male guinea pigs. The pet store had sworn that it was male, and we had them check before we left to be sure. Wrong again! Busey, as she is now called, gave birth to just one pup, but it is healthy and cute and I'm going to have a really hard time not giving this one away. Look at the face!
To complicate the situation, we took another look at one of the newer angoras that we got over the summer, and are pretty sure that this one is female, not male like we thought. It is VERY difficult to tell when they're young. Two other people had agreed that Pika was a boy. Now there is every possibility that she has been bred as well. No wonder Tavie was so happy with his living situation! So far there is no sign of pregnancy, but she is going to be isolated for a month just to be sure. It also wouldn't be tragic for another little to appear, a bit more expected and planned for, with another few little balls of fluff to play with.
I'm a bit overwhelmed at this point with trying to figure out the new living situation. I am still grateful for each of these new little creatures. They all have their own personalities and quirks!
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We have started to have frosts here at night, and there is even a chance of snow this weekend. The garden is almost done. There are only a few root vegetables and onions left out there, and they will be fine through even harsher weather. I harvested corn last week and hung the cobs up to dry in the basement. The kernels will be ground into meal later this winter (once I figure out how to do that...). The stalks decorate our front door.
The canning jar shelf is nearly full. I still haven't done any applesauce yet, either. The freezer is full of local pork. The mini fridge is full of pickles. Extremely sour mustard pickles, to be specific.
Time to go having another cup of coffee and rake some leaves!
This has been a busy summer. Once again, I quit my job (unsafe work environment!), so I have had a bit more time to keep up with the garden and fiber arts. Somehow, all of this 'free time' does seem free at all! I've been busy canning tomato sauce and pickles, harvesting dried beans, playing with baby rabbits...
I've named the grey one Sterling and the blue and cream one Pika, both males from the same litter. We also got another grey male, Firari (runaway in Turkish after he nearly escaped!), who is six months old now.
Firari has bonded with the two kits, and I think they will do well together. Tavie, our two and half year old male, is kept separate due to his age and inability to bond well with other males.
Why do we have so many males? Our large outdoor hutch originally had three separate pens, but when we moved, we took those out so that everyone could have a large run and keep each other warm. We couldn't keep any does with our male without the inevitable happening! It turned out that our original male was too old or his personality didn't allow him to bond well with our new ones, but these new rabbits seem to be happy and carefree, so I now get to have four angora rabbits =) I do plan on breeding them in the future.
The garden has been producing well, especially since we had only amended the newly overturned soil with loam. I've never seen so many cucumbers!
I have probably 20+ pints of pickle slices and three gallons of sour mustard whole pickles in the basement fridge. Tomatoes had late blight and didn't produce well at all, but I was able to buy 60 lbs of canning tomatoes from Sapowsky Farms and I put up 8 pints of ketchup and 7 pints of sauce from that. Canning a couple pints of sauce at a time from my own heirlooms, I think we will have enough to last at least into the next year. Next summer, I hope to have 30-40 tomato plants instead of 15, and I will find a drier spot to ward off rot and blight. I have also put up 40 lbs of peaches (sliced and jam) from Breezeland Orchards. If I can get another couple bushels of apple drops from Mt. Pleasant Orchard, I think we will eat well this winter!
One last summer market on the 23rd, and then I might been a vendor at Northampton's winter market!
I think the rest of today should be spent avoiding shelling more turtle beans, finishing the hat that I've been knitting, and watching classic Doctor Who. Also eating cupcakes because it was someone's birthday and I made sure there would be leftovers.
Next post will be about buying half a freezer pig from Mockingbird Farm!
I have been translating when I can get the work, but I have quite a bit more free time now. So, I decided to get started on Christmas presents, hostess presents, and stocking up the pantry for winter. Canning!
It tastes so good! The orange flavor is perfect with the pear. But...it takes 2 lbs of pears to make 1 quart. Fortunately, we have maybe 50 lbs of pears (friend of the family sent Jon home with half a truck full), so I can and should make as much as I want.
Three of the jars are filled with lemon cucumbers, and the other five are regular straight eights. I've never actually canned before, besides making the jam, so I hope that they turn out alright. The smell of the brine was enough to make me cough, so they should be strong enough!
My biggest problem now is running out of counter space.
Jon and I went to Old Sturbridge Village for the second time last Saturday. We had an amazing time there in the rain, with very few people around! I got some photos to save for inspiration when we are building our house. I love the little house in the front of the village. I want to live there, right now. Can I just stay there, get paid to just work and live, and not have people ask me a million questions?
Here are some of the pictures from that day.
I want this wallpaper!
My parents have a fireplace in their kitchen just like this, but not used in a very long time.
