9/08/08: Bits and Pieces

Palin/Fey:
There's a lot of blog entries and news stories out there about how Tina Fey looks so much like Sarah Palin that she's absolutely got to portray her on Saturday Night Live. I think it would take very little to make that work!

New School Year:
Weslee started 6th Grade today. It took me several weeks to work out his curriculum, and to plan the full 191 days. He's got (1) reading and literature (2) language arts with spelling, writing, speaking, handwriting and grammar rules (3) social studies with history, geography and civics with particular emphasis on the 2008 presidential election (4) science (5) math where he's really behind because it's a difficult subject for him (6) mixed bag of subjects which are basically workbooks with many topics in them including math and language arts, and (7) other which is art, health, first aid, music and what I call "life skills". He had four subjects assigned for today, and completed his work accurately and in a timely manner. Yeah!

Garden/Harvest:
Weslee and I pulled up the rest of the edamame (soy beans) yesterday. Since the plants only bear once, and since the plants had begun to die with leaves turning gold and falling off, we pulled up the entire plant, picked off the fuzzy edamame pods, and threw the plants to the side for the compost. We harvested enough for about 5 meals (times 3 people = 15 servings). Frozen now. We need to plant triple or more next year. They are unbelievable freshly picked and the beans gobbled up. Yummy lingering taste.

Doug and I also harvested some string beans from the corn patch. Various types - from Kentucky Wonder to Missouri Wonder and Black Valentine. We had enough to freeze for about 15 servings also.

Here's the leaves from our Mexican X-Top Squash (a cushaw - winter squash). Yes, those white spots are supposed to be there - it is NOT powdery mildew. I hope to post pictures soon of a couple of the cushaws. There's one that as big as my head!

We checked on the black turtle beans in the front yard. Some of the pods have begun to turn from green to purple to papery white, and the beans inside from green to black. The instructions I found said to let them dry on the bush so that's what we're doing. Couldn't resist, however, trying some out and boy they are yummy green OR black, just out of the pod and popped into the mouth. Figure we grew enough for probably 10 pots of black-bean soup or chili. Thinking we need more next year too, IF I can get Weslee to like cooked beans (he'll eat them raw tho).

Here's a black beauty eggplant. We aren't letting them get very big before we pick them, but they are quite tender and very prolific. Good to dehydrate to.

And can't forget to mention the watermelon! Doug picked a watermelon he thought was ripe and he wa absolutely correct. The two of us ate it (Weslee doesn't like watermelon) and felt marvelous that we grew such a delicious treat ourselves.

Put another big batch of tomatoes and a squaw-kini (cross between squash and zucchini) in the dehydrator. Should be ready in another hour or two. The squash, zucchini, tomatoes and eggplant that we dehydrated last week turned out great. Waiting till harvest season is over before I grind to a powder, and mix to make into a "all-vegg" powder to nutritionally enhance our wintertime meals.

Mabon/Harvest Celebration:
We're planning a little harvest get-together not this Friday but the next. Just a little celebration of how thankful we are that our "experiment year" was so very successful. To be joyous that we discovered the wrong way to grow the three sisters, how to more carefully mark our tomatoes, to separate gourds and squash more thoroughly, the varieties we really loved this year and those we'll never grow again, those things that weren't worth the space, water and time they took, and those things we really wish we'd grow more of, or at all!!

At our celebration, hopefully we'll have freshly-picked corn, eggplant and string beans (both rubbed with olive oil and a bit of sea salt) to grill, salad with tomatoes and just picked carrots and radishes, and watermelon. Probably have hot dogs and bratwurst that I'll keep warm in the crockpot or if it's cold enough, homemade chili with our black beans and homegrown tomatoes. If you're a friend or family member and will be in this area that afternoon, call so we can talk about the details.

The Weather:
The weather here in the Denver, Colorado area has been unbelievable. Can't believe that a month ago we were practically melting from the heat. And now, we had a very cold day last week then days in the 70's. Woke up to 42 degrees this morning - hope my plants, especially tomatoes, will bounce back. Not ready to give up fresh vegetables yet. Several eggplant are almost ready, and we still have most of the corn still on the stalks.

Today we got to a high of a whopping 51 degrees. Supposed to get close to 80 (ok, mostly 70's) for the rest of the week. Then rain and cold on Thursday and more high 70's for a few more days.

Glad we're not in a hurricane area but wondering why this year's weather is so completely odd. Hmmmm....

Health:
Doug's been fighting an ear/nose infection for almost a week. He called the doc last week whose office suggested antihestimine and use of a netti pot. Helped a little but mentioned during lunch today that he's feeling bad again. Hope he'll make a doctor appointment when he comes home today.

Weslee felt a little bad last week but he has an amazing immune system so was over it in 2 days. I starting to feel the ick late last week and am fighting it too. My immune system is majorly compromised so I get just about everything going around.

End:
Guess that's it for now. I still owe this blog a lot of harvest pictures and more. And still have more to do on the websites but I'm exhausted for today. Was up and working around 6:30 a.m. to finish getting Weslee's curriculum and assignment pages printed out. Arggh!

Vikki www.newviewgroupllc.com