Thursday, June 15, 2017

A Special Day In That Jason Has A Birthday


Today is Jason's birthday and we all met at Persis Indian Grille to celebrate. We love that place so much. Owen had about five plates of butter chicken. He finished up with a plate which held nothing but naan with the butter chicken sauce on it. We all agreed it was like the Indian version of a biscuit with gravy.
He loved it.
For his birthday, Mr. Moon and I gave Jason a yard cart and a leaf blower. Now, that sounds like a lot but we'd promised him the yard cart LAST YEAR and have never gotten him one so we owed him. It was like a joke by now.
Maggie was delighted to see her Boppy. As soon as she saw me, she of course started to ask, "Boppa? Boppa?"
Owen said, "She just likes Boppy better than you."
I refuse to believe this. But she sure does give him the flirt-eyes when she sees him. And she absolutely croons his name.
Little girls. What you gonna do?
Kiss 'em up and love 'em to pieces.

After lunch and cake (which was delicious) I came home and cranked up the canning kettle. It was Day Fourteen for those pickles.
I had no idea how many pints I had in that crock but estimated about ten or eleven and it turned out I got about ten and a half. So. Here they are.


When that was all finished up and the pots and the crock all washed and drying and the lids popping and sealing, I went out to pick cucumbers and beans. Didn't get that many cucumbers but Lord, I got so many beans that I finally got tired and had to come in and rest and let my mosquito bites calm down. Mr. Moon got home and I sent him out to pick and then went to join him and we picked at least as many as I'd already picked and now I have tons and tons of green beans. I gave Hank and Rachel a gallon ziplock of them at lunch today. I suppose I better start freezing them. You can't can non-acid or pickled vegetables without a pressure canner and I do not have one of those. So- freezing it shall be. Of course you can't just stick them in a freezer bag and toss them in the freezer. You have to snap them and blanch them and shock them in cold water and THEN you can put them in the freezer bag. 
Ay-yi-yi. 

Anyway, I feel extremely productive and so forth and have been observing my chickens all day as I've gone about my business outside and have determined that Dearie is indeed going to be an alpha rooster eventually. His flock, at this point, consists of his tub-mates. Nicey, Nora, Trinky, and Tronky. Little Richard and Joe Cocker have but one hen apiece if they ever split up. Poor things. Only Nancy and Honey. It is yet to be determined who Owl and Lucy will join up with. As for now, they stick together and rarely get more than a few yards from the hen house. 
They are shy and they are playing it safe. 
Mick's ladies are Violet, Dottie, Darla, Trixie and Camellia. 
Is that all of them? Let me count. 
Yes. For the moment we have seventeen birds. 

And so it goes in my life, once again. It's time for me to get in there and finish up the laundry and make our supper. I'm doing our lovely simple slurpy ramen soup tonight and that is all. We've been watching one episode of the new season of "Orange is the New Black" every night and I'm not sure what I think. 
What about y'all? 

The sun is going down and the silver light is being shot all over the place in crazy ways, illuminating the sweet, rain-washed green of it all as well as the chickens, having their final scratches and snacks and sips for the day before they go to roost. I can hear a cardinal talking about stuff and it's supposed to rain again tomorrow.

Dang. There ain't nothing prettier than a white hen with the sun shining through her red comb. 

Yeah. I'm crazy. 

Love...Ms. Moon

18 comments:

  1. What gorgeous pickles!!! And how satisfying that popping which tells you they are perfectly sealed. Delicious to the eyes the mouth and the ears! Well done darling Mary.

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    1. They all sealed! The sound of success! What am I going to do with all of these pickles? For goodness sake. No one needs this many pickles.

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    2. You can mail them to me. I LOVE pickles!!

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  2. Wishing many happy returns of the day to Jason!

    Lovely pickles, too!

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  3. I'd love to can green beans, but I'm scared to death of a pressure cooker! My mom had one that blew up when I was little and I want nothing to do with them. My son's ex-girlfriend insisted green beans didn't need pressure canned and did about 10 quarts....she made them both sick! Do you have a recipe for freezing them? Mine always lose their 'freshness.'

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    1. I don't have a recipe yet. I'm about to research that.

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  4. Owen and I have the same favorite Indian treat. Naan and sauce - very frequently from the butter chicken.

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  5. Catrina I've found the secret to freezing green beans is to spread them out on cookie sheets so they can freeze individually, then put them all in a freezer bag.

    My review of OITNB Season 5: I absolutely fell in love with Frieda this season, even tho it was definitely Taystee's time to shine. Easy to see why Uzo Aduba has won Emmys for her role of Suzanne. Janae had a very inspiring back story this year. Piper and Alex were more insipid and boring than ever - they wouldn't have been missed at all had they been written out of the show. The entirety of Season Five was focused on 3 or 4 days of a prison riot. Very messy and cluttered, but still good. The show has been renewed for two more years.

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    1. I'm going to have to clean out my freezer before that happens.
      Dammit. But I'm sure you're right.
      Frieda is becoming a more major character. She's always had a charm about her. And yes, if the actor who plays Taystee doesn't get an Emmy, I don't know why. I right there with you on Piper and Alex. At this point- who cares about them? But I suppose they are, by now, grandmothers of the plot.

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  6. I envy you your garden, your chickens, and your beautiful family!

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    1. Ah well. Nothing is perfect but we are damn lucky.

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  7. Happy birthday Jason! And I think you might have the makings of a pickling business, a cottage industry that might well be in demand. All you need are labels. You have certainly been industrious. Love.

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    1. Oh god! Lily and I have a friend who has a cottage industry of making jams and preserves. She works like a demon. I'm not THAT industrious.

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    2. Plus- I'd have to charge about ten dollars a pint to get any profit out of this and who would pay that? They ain't that good!

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  8. Happy birthday to Jason! That is a passel of chickens! And I have up on OITB, as I think I mentioned at some point. I might be seduced back again, but for now, no.

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    1. Every night when Mr. Moon comes in from putting the chickens up (i.e., closing their door) he always has a different count. We've just given up on counting them. If one IS missing, there's not much we can do about it at that point.

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