A Saturday Which Has Served Saturday's Purpose

I decided to pickle a few carrots and onions with the beets and so when I went out to the garden to pull my beets, I grabbed a few carrots too. Those are the smaller beets, waiting to join their larger cousins in the simmering pan. I've never pickled beets before so I read a bunch of recipes and figured out how it should maybe go and went from there.
I couldn't find my canning kettle at first and so I texted Jessie whom I knew had borrowed it in the past, to ask if she had it. She that no, she didn't think so and I said, "Good! Then it must be here somewhere," and sure enough it was, just in a different closet than where it used to be kept. The kettle, the jar lifter, the canning funnel.

I cooked the beets and carrots until fork-tender and then peeled the beets. The skin came off easily enough after they were cooked and I sliced them up in a bowl along with the carrots I sliced and the onions I cut up too. I made a pickling solution with white and cider vinegar, pickling salt, sugar, a little of the cooking liquid, and a little water. And then, because so many recipes recommended them, a bit of cloves and cinnamon as well as some black pepper. I'm not sure I'm going go like that and in fact, I'm not sure I'm going to like this concoction at all, but I did it, at least, and there is great satisfaction in even a few jars of something preserved or pickled from the garden and not one beet has been wasted.
Here are the jars, filled and ready to be lidded and put into the canning kettle for their boiling-water bath.

And here they are, out of the water and waiting for the beautiful sound of success- the pop of the lid, indicating air tightness. 

I'll take some to Gibson's birthday party tomorrow and open a jar and if anyone likes them, they can take a jar home with them. If I kept them all they would never get eaten. Mr. Moon has a deep and profound aversion to both beets and cooked carrots (they taste like dirt) and I can only eat so many. 

And after ALL THAT WORK, putting up five entire pints and one half pint of beets and carrots and onions, I laid down on my bed and read for awhile and then, because I could and because no one in the world needed me and because my bed is so comfortable and my pillows so numerous and soft, my down blanket so perfect for the temperature, I put my book down and closed my eyes and slept for an hour. What heaven a nap is! Especially one where you know that you have no real waking-time. No matter how tired I am, if someone suggests I take a nap for oh, say- twenty minutes, I cannot fall asleep. I need to have the sweet knowledge that the world will go on as it will for as long as I need to truly rest, land-line unplugged and cell phone with the sound turned off, and today was that way and when I woke up I had a shot of espresso on ice and then got the laundry off the line and checked and found a Camellia egg in the nest and then I chopped up treats for my babies, the second time today.

I am really determined to make this particular tiny flock a bit more human-friendly so that the grandchildren can enjoy them more and as anyone who has done any sort of animal training knows, food is the key to all.

I chopped the grapes and lettuces and then knelt by the tub and, as I have been doing, made a special whistling call and let them cluster about and eat from my hand. 

This is not rocket science and they are already to the point that whenever I go in to talk to them, they run up and look at me with great expectation. I have always said that my chickens consider me to be a breathing food delivery service and that is fine with me. 

They get so excited about the exquisite deliciousness of grapes and lettuce that sometimes they jump onto my hand and eat from there. That's Trinky in my hand above. The other yellow one (and I think they will both be white when they mature) is Tronky. These names come from when Hank was a small lad and instead of saying that he was thirsty, he would announce that he was Trinky and Tronky. I have never forgotten this and cherish the memory and so, the yellow (for now, at least) chicks are Trinky and Tronky. The boys have named the all black one "Hawk" because she has amazing feathers when she stretches them out and of course the little orange one with the prominent wings is Nicey and the black one with the yellow cap is Dearie and the orange one without prominent wings is Nora. 

Nicey and Nora.

Trinky and Tronky.

Hawk and Dearie. 

And Violet is still sitting on her stinky eggs. I just did not have the heart today to go out and take them from her but tomorrow I'm going to have to. There is no alchemy as far as I know to make rotten eggs viable again. I wish there were. I would use it for that sweet and determined little hen. I remember when we got her last year from the Tractor Supply I felt almost certain that she would not live the night through and yet, here she is, the last one of that bunch still living, trying to be a mommy. 

All right. I need to stop anthropomorphizing and just do what needs to be done. The flies are already gathering. And right this second, looking out towards the coop, I see that Violet is off the nest and eating from this morning's scratch. Who knows but that she will be relieved and perhaps, after a period of rest and recovery, she may sit on another clutch? If not this year, then maybe next. 

This world is filled with so many tiny miracles and everyday marvels and mysteries. Certainly enough to keep me curious and observant and entertained. 

To say the least. 

And of course there are pickles. The definite and proven alchemy of seed to dirt and water and sun to jars of shining rubies. 

It's been a day of all of that. 

And I am grateful.

Love...Ms. Moon

Feed Them Pancakes And Set Them Loose With Wood And Wire And Tools

Mr. Moon is going to fuss because the light is not right in this picture but he can fuss all he wants because have you ever seen a cuter picture?

Jessie and her daddy have spent all day, building that gate and stretching wire for a fence. They are making me a house for my garden. That's how I feel about it somehow. That after six years here, I am going to have a REAL garden with fence all the way around it to grow peas and beans on, to keep out vicious predators (okay, chickens) and that we'll be able to decorate the way we want.
Yes. I want to decorate the garden.
I want the kids to come out and help me paint the fence. There is a board in it for each of the children, for Mr. Moon and me, and one for Owen. His may have to wait a while because although he is smart and dexterous and strong, he is only five months old.
I want to make a little brick patio where the gate opens. I want to have a place where my chicken shit composts and where my leaves are stored for mulch. I want to grow vegetables and I want to grow zinnias and marigolds. Prosaic, beautiful things which I have been growing almost my entire adult life, but now maybe better.
Perhaps I shall put a toad pond in the way I did when we lived in town. I sunk a half of a whiskey barrel and filled it with water and put a water lily in it for toads to drink from. Toads are good for the garden. They eat the bugs and they are beautiful in their ugliness.
I don't know what all I'll do but isn't it going to be beautiful?
Aren't I a lucky Mama-Wife?
You bet.

Yes I Can Can (But I Choose Not To. Today, Anyway)

Well, here is Sunday, late afternoon and we've had a rain shower and Mr. Moon and the youngest child are off to the movies and I'm still a bit under the weather, although as you can see from the picture above I have been eating my fair share of tomatoes.
That was an eggplant and squash casserole with tomatoes on top. I made it last night because the garden will not stop making eggplant and squash. Or tomatoes, actually.
That's the thing about a garden. It's all or nothing.
All winter long you yearn for a real tomato, one just picked and still warm from the sun which has nurtured it into red tomato goodness and then finally it's spring and you plant your tomatoes and you water them and you give them yummy meals of chicken shit to encourage their growth and then at long last, the baby green tomatoes appear and your heart bursts with joy and you protect your baby tomatoes as they grow and finally! one is ready to pick and you pick it, you do! and it's so good and it's a celebration and a joy, that first tomato, dripping with its sweet, salty juices and life is so good.
And then, there are more tomatoes and you are even more joyful! Tomatoes! You will feast on tomatoes! You will eat them on sandwiches and in salads and you will eat them standing over the sink or in fresh tomato pasta or cut up on casseroles and no matter what you do, you cannot keep up with the tomatoes and before you know it, you are drowning in tomatoes and there is nowhere in the kitchen to put down a cutting board because every surface is drowning in ripe, red goodness.
And still, the garden calls- more tomatoes! ready for the picking! Bring your basket, your biggest basket! We are ready and ripe for you!
And you just think, Oh dear. Oh my. What have I done?
And the same is true for the squash and the eggplant and it was true for the snow peas, although they're done now.
But to be frank, the cucumbers and the green beans are doing nothing, nothing I tell you, just vining up and being green and not making vegetables to speak of, which is a disappointment.
There have been years when I got out the canning jars and the canning kettle and the jar lifter and the salt and the vinegar and the spices and I have made pickles, oh my lord, have I made pickles. The dill, the sweet, the ones so sweet it takes three weeks and an antique ceramic vessel to make them because it takes all of three weeks and antique vessel magic to exchange every cucumber molecule for sugar molecules and I am not kidding you.
There is no candy on earth with as much sugar in it as those pickles so of course they are the family favorite.
They would be yours, too, if you tried them.
And I have canned tomatoes in past years and I have made my own ketchup and I have made my own salsa, as well and there is nothing on earth so satisfying as lifting the steaming jars from the kettle and setting them down on the counter and hearing that lovely "pop" as the lids suck in and you know you've done it right and then seeing all those jewel-like jars of tomatoes or pickles there- evidence of your tender garden nurturings, your kitchen labor love.
I may have been a Mormon in a former lifetime.
But today, probably because I am sick, and possibly because I am old, just the thought of sterilizing all those jars and lids and boiling the tomatoes and removing their skins, and the heat and the work- well, it just sort of makes me want to go crawl up in the bed and fall asleep with the fan blowing on my head.
Which is what I think I will do right now until my former-lifetime Mormonism passes and leaves me as I am today, a slightly ill, hotflashing woman of no particular belief at all, unless it is a belief in the goodness of gardening, the righteousness of the Mason Jar, the gratefulness for the overabundance of the tomatoes.