Last week, Part Uno

Last week was a busy week, so I’m going to start with that. I canned, there were fabric hijinks, and did I mention that Jeff and I are (very cautiously) inspecting this house-purchasing idea?  You know, I don’t have a fear of relationship-with-person-commitment or long-term-pet-ownership or anything like that.  What I do have is a total fear of commitment to a given locale.  I’m not a fan of rental properties, but they still offer me the ability to pick up and take off for parts unknown at any time.  Not that I do this (at least not as regularly as I used to), but I can if I want to.  It’s almost like claustrophobia for me, this idea of “settling down.”  You can see why I’ve never owned property.

Back to canning!  I mentioned my initial canning adventures with okra … well, here they are.  I’m partially doing this because I’m impressed that I canned something, and I’m offering proof here that such a thing actually occurred in my kitchen.

I’m also doing this because some of you have told me that canning brings to mind horrible memories of days on end in a hot kitchen having difficulties.  I thought this process was rather simple and quick, and it was air conditioned.  So I’d be interested to know what about this is hard, or if y’all were talking about pressure canning maybe?  These vegetables are not the sort that need pressure canning.  I’m not ready for pressure canning yet, not convinced I ever will be.

CANNING STAGE 1

Cut up and otherwise prepare your veggies.  Boil jars for 10 min.  Heat lids (but don’t boil).  Meanwhile, boil your pickling liquid and simmer for 5 minutes.  My pickling liquid consisted of apple cider, kosher salt, sugar, dill seed, mustard seed, pequin peppers, and a few peppercorns.  After boiling the jars, I set them on a clean cloth to cool for about a minutes.

CANNING STAGE 2

Stuff the jars really full with okra - I had a couple cucumbers, so I did some of those, too.  Add 2-3 garlic cloves each.  Fill with pickling liquid to 1/2 inch below the lid-screw-marks.  Put on the lids and screw on the bands really tight.  I was kind of ginger with handling these … seems to me I’ve heard bad stories about nasty things getting into canning jars, so I kept everything clean.

CANNING STAGE 3

I put the filled jars back in the water bath for 10 minutes to boil.  My jars didn’t sit on anything in the pot, because I have nothing, and besides my canning equipment consists of jars and my biggest dutch oven.  Afterward, I put the jars on a rack covered by a towel to cool down.  That’s them there, all done.  After this the recipe just instructed me to wait 24 hours before trying them.

Did I mention I tried them?  They were good … I think … unless Jeff and Paula were fabricating their reaction so as not to offend … Personally, I thought the okra was great, but the pickles need to sit a bit and be less sharply vinegary, but that comes with waiting a bit longer than 48 hours after they were made, you know?

Greetings, earthlings

First on my list today is a birthday wish to my Grandma, who turns 82 today.  Happy birthday Grandma!

Second, Shelly asked me what a mayhaw is, since I mentioned one in reference to jam.  Eh voila:

Yon mayhaw is a berry from a type of hawthorne tree that fruits in May (May + haw, get it?) So mayhaw.net tells me.  As far as what it tastes like … well, it tastes like a mayhaw. You should try it.  It’s a southern treat, as mayhaw trees flower early on in the year.  Consequently the trees grow best mostly in Louisiana but also in  Mississippi and east Texas.  My neighbor who made mayhaw jelly was from Louisiana (Looozeeeana) and I grew up in east Tejas, so I guess that explains my familiarity.

Y’all want me to break out in an east Texas twang, now?  Hahahahaha.  That would be the day.

Speaking of jelly, tomorrow I venture out in a westerly direction where there are a number of fruit tree farms between here and Fredericksburg - peach trees to be precise.  I’m going to see if I can procure some of those tasty things and do some more canning with them.  I’m quite positive that some obliging farm folks will have recipes I can try at the farm stands.  Each year I’ve been out there when fruit is in season I’ve come back with pages of dessert recipes.

I meant to write a post yesterday but honestly, I was being quite weepy.  Quite. I’m not normally a weepy person, but … well, I picked up Caper’s ashes yesterday.  The folks who do this did one extra thing I wasn’t at all prepared for.  They made a clay impression of his paw.  That’s right, it did me in.  I cried and cried. *sigh* I miss my cat.  His food bowls are still out.  I can’t help it, I’m not ready yet.

If that wasn’t enough, I went to Shelly’s blog to read her account of delivering the Share A Square blankets (sniffle), and then read the account at Yellow Rose’s Garden (Sherry and her daughter went) (sniff), and then went and looked at the pictures Shelly posted on Flickr (sniff) … and then I cried some more.  Then I remembered Shelly gave me an Arte y Pico award earlier this week (that was sweet of her, wasn’t it?) and there was yet more sniffling.

And then I realized I really just had to get off the internet before I became a weeping puddle of goo and go read or something.  So I did, and so I will do now, because I’m not yet done with my book.

July 4 Weekend: Report

I have returned. It has been a busy four-day weekend. Since we had no work for the Fourth on Friday, I took Monday off too and had a nice mini-vacation. This wasn’t a big crafty-weekend.  They can’t all be, more’s the pity, although I did get in some good work on the two crochet kitties. They’re just waiting for the details!  I hope to finish them tonight.

I spent a good part of the weekend hiking.  One of the things I plan to do in the next few years is to hike the Virginia portion of the Appalachian Trail.  Madness, right?  When I was around 20 I decided I really wanted to do that after meeting someone who’d hiked the whole darn thing, all 2175 miles of it.  I never forgot, and now I’m working on doing just that. Lest you think I plan to wimp out by hiking “only” one state, the Virginia portion is a quarter of the trail, about 544 miles.  I imagine it will take me some time to get through, maybe about a month, a little less?  I’m not going to run the thing, after all.

A hike of such immense proportions requires gear (working on that), a love of the outdoors (got that), a love of camping (yep), a significant chunk of time in which to do it (hmmm) and of course, one very BIG, very important, time-consuming thing: training (argh!).  So, I’ve put a lot of time in at the gym, and this spring and summer has seen me start putting in time outside.  It’s been difficult - it seems like I spent my 20s getting out of shape, and now I’m spending my 30s getting back in shape.

It’s also difficult because it’s so hot here for so many months - going outside in July and August isn’t too great is sort of brutal.  As I’ve discovered quickly, there are special things to know about hiking in the hot sun and humidity.   It apparently takes a special toll on your body in terms of liquids and nutrients, and it seems kind of alarmingly easy to hurt yourself.

Due to the weather my hikes have been limited in duration, but I still managed to go 3 miles yesterday and around 6.5 miles today. For those of you who are familiar with Austin, that’s from the south 360/Mopac bridge to Zilker Park in the (very rocky) Barton Creek Greenbelt. I felt it. I worry - 6.5 miles is a long, long way from the number of miles I’ll need to complete the 544 mile goal.  But I guess you do what you can when you can, right?

So anyway, when I wander off from my sewing machine and crochet hook for days at a time, that’s a lot of what I’ve been doing.  Never say that I don’t challenge myself!