Okay. I've got an idea. I'm going to start canning my pickled green beans in gallon jars. So much less time-consuming, right?
Actually, my canning kettle isn't big enough for that but I do believe I might start putting them in quart jars. I didn't pick yesterday, went out today, picked in the rain, and got another Jumbo Ziplock Bag full. This is truly ridiculous.
It started storming here last night with lovely rumbles and distant lightning cracks and then rain. The wind had been blowing all day, sometimes with huge gusts that rattled the magnolia leaves and shivered the Bradford pears and oaks into tangles. I guess it blew in that storm and I read in the paper this morning that over 22,000 people in the area lost their power. As far as I know we did not, but if we did and the generator had come on, we would not have known it in our sleep. There was some pretty serious flickering going on before we went to bed but no complete loss of power. And it has rained almost all day, sometimes just a drizzle, and sometimes hard and fast. So once again I came in from the garden wet but not with sweat which was a very fine change in the circumstances and now it's down to about sixty-nine degrees on the porch which is almost polar for us at this time of year.
Guess what- I did it, y'all! I sat on the couch for awhile this afternoon with Maurice and watched TV and started patching my beloved old blue linen shirt.
We watched that limited documentary series on Prime about the Duggar's "reality" show. Remember the Duggars? That deranged fundamentalist Christian family who had nineteen kids? I never once watched the show. Not sure why. I mean, there's a family in Monticello who probably follow the same principles with maybe a dozen kids whom I see at the Wacissa sometimes and I'm pretty fascinated with them. The sect that the Duggars followed was a group called the IBLP which stands for Institute of Basic Life Principles and it was founded by some creepazoid misogynist guy named Bill...wait for it!...Gothard.
Mr. Gothard was the final word on how to control your wife, your kids, and your life according to his take on the Biblical principles. The IBLP is all about homeschooling and they provide "educational" materials for that purpose. They also teach that children and wives need to be taught right from wrong with "the rod" and...oh god.
It's all just so horrible.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gothard has never been married. Over thirty women came forward and accused him of the usual stuff- sexual molestation and abuse- which he denied but he did resign. Here's what he said about that:
"Never in my life have I touched a girl sexually. I'm shocked to even hear that."
Ironic for someone with that name unless he touched boys sexually instead.
Okay. That's enough about the Duggars and their slimy beliefs. Of course, their oldest son, Josh, is in prison right now for child pornography. The show itself was canceled when it came out that Josh had confessed to molesting some of his sisters when they were young.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Well, you could but it wouldn't be as weird.
There's the beginning of my mending. The entire yoke of the shirt is worn thin as a wispy dream of a yoke and I should have just started out replacing the whole thing but I do love my embroidered-on patches. You can see the one I already did.
Tonight's supper is going to be stuffed peppers.
Those are probably the best bell peppers I've ever grown in my life and I probably should have left them on their bush and let them get red but they are so big and shiny and firm and lovely that I decided to pick them now before the bugs get to them.
Gosh. That paragraph was a little bit naughty.
Oh well.
It's still raining. Maybe the cucumbers will now burst forth with pickle worthy goodness. I hope so. I know the weeds are happy.
One last thing- let me ask you a question- if cats had peed on your homegrown potatoes and you left the potatoes outside on the cement walkway and it rained on them for a day and a night and they didn't smell like pee at all anymore, would you dare eat them?
I am pondering this.
Meanwhile, be well and take care.
Love...Ms. Moon
lucky you with rain! And beautfiul mending patches........ and no, I would not eat the potatoes no matter how much rain fell on them!
ReplyDeleteSusan M
PS and yes, if your canning kettle can handle quart jars, I would surely use those for your prolific beans!
DeleteSusan M
The canning kettle will indeed work for quarts. I may try that tomorrow.
DeleteI would eat them taters. I would not share their background with my beloved, but I would fry 'em up. With onions.
ReplyDeleteWell, my beloved is the one who keeps saying, "Except for the mental thing, I think they'd be okay."
DeleteUh-huh.
I'm sorry but I could not eat those potatoes.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder why you don't just blanch some of the green beans and freeze them instead of pickling them all. Just curious as I am a lazy cook...
Sweet patching job, Mary!
I have tried freezing green beans and they are just nasty when thawed and cooked. Now the field peas freeze beautifully. I doubt you could tell the difference in fresh and frozen when they're cooked.
DeleteI would not eat those potatoes either! In the future you might want to put the potatoes somewhere the cats can't get to!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ellen D. about blanching the green beans. Rather then canning so many, maybe freeze some of them, as well! Or, give them away!
Has Maurice become a senior lady and becoming more social and sedate?
not a good idea. I tried that with blue lake green beans since I don't can, blanched and froze them and when thawed and cooked they were very rubbery. inedible to me. flavor was probably OK (I don't really recall) but the texture was totally off putting. but maybe the rattlesnake beans would be different.
DeleteMarcia- I think Ellen's right. The green beans I've frozen have just not turned out well. Not worth the effort. I have no idea why.
DeleteThe potatoes were just in that pan on the floor for curing after being dug. I don't generally keep them there. Never will again, either.
I don't know that Maurice is getting more social. Or sedate. But she hasn't made me bleed this week so maybe.
I think you are right about freezing those beans ... I don't even like frozen green beans! I do get canned ones and only use them for 3 bean marinated salad.
DeleteFresh ones cooked up with diced bacon ... oh, damn, now I am drooling! LOL
I would eat the potatoes. How can pet urine penetrate the skin of any vegetable? If you are not confident the rain has rinsed the vegetable thoroughly, peel it. I wouldn't, though. I would just wash it like I wash the dirt from any garden vegetable and get on with preparing dinner or canning.
ReplyDeletePS--how many wild animals pee on potatoes, peppers, carrots, lettuce and everything from the garden on their way through in the night and we have no idea.
Deletegood point, Joanne! Susan M
DeleteWell, you're probably right, Joanne but I don't think that potato skin could keep out everything. And yes, for sure other animals probably pee on vegetables but these potatoes were MARINATED in cat piss. Ick. Pure ammonia. I watched Maurice dig a tidy hole in between two rows of field peas a few weeks ago and, poop in it, and scratch it over again. I said, "Girl! What the hell?" But I guess that really it's just fertilizer and that is certainly not going to come in contact with the peas themselves.
Deletewe are no longer so cash strapped that eating the potatoes would have not been a choice...... xxalainaxx
ReplyDeleteI have thought of that so much with great gratitude.
DeleteIf a cat had peed on my potatoes I would not give a damn about it. After all when they were in the soil, worms were peeing and dumping on them all the time. All of this adds to the flavour or, as Americans say, "the flavor"!
ReplyDeleteWell, that's sort of apples and oranges. The cat pee sort of marinated those potatoes as they sat in it at least over night. I am pretty sure that cat pee is ever going to be the flavor (or flavour) of the week.
DeleteI probably wouldn't eat those potatoes knowing a cat pissed on them. But God knows (I don't want to know I guess) what I've consumed in restaurants!! LOL! I guess it's the "what you don't know" kind of thing. If I did venture to eat them, I'm paranoid enough that I'd be on the phone to poison control before the night was over! LOL!
ReplyDeleteParanormal John
Oh gosh. Restaurants are probably the worst. Vermin out the yang and it doesn't matter how classy the restaurant is. That's just the way it goes. Some worse than others, I'm sure.
DeleteBut yes- I would not recommend that you would ever eat cat-pissed potatoes.
I wouldn't eat those potatoes. Have you ever considered planting less beans? Just a thought:)
ReplyDeleteI had some lovely peppers coming along nicely until the fucking dogs destroyed the plant and the peppers on it. I may have thrown the half eaten peppers at the dogs. And the dogs dug a hole, in the rain, in the middle of the lawn and came in covered in mud. I'm good leaving them behind for a couple of weeks.
Well the damn dog has diarrhea now, serves him right.
DeleteI planted a whole row less of beans this year! It's just a spectacular bean year, I guess.
DeleteDamn dogs. How DARE they destroy your peppers? And then dig a hole in the lawn? I bet they were pretty proud of themselves about it all too.
I wouldn't eat the potatoes. But I'm biased by being deathly ill this week from whoknowswhat cause...
ReplyDeleteExactly.
DeleteNo I would not eat them. That peppers paragraph doesn't sound the slightest bit naughty to me. Might I suggest planting fewer beans next year?
ReplyDeleteNo naughtiness? Damn. I need to try harder.
DeleteI did plant fewer beans this year and I've never gotten so many!
After watching the DOC about the Shiny Happy People I watched a "podcast" with the exMormon woman interviewing one of the cult's members, her story was awful of course, - she said the DOC was just the tip of the iceberg- a sanitized version of what really goes on in that cult.Training children begins when they are born- to submit, cruelty , beatings and fear based teaching- like the experiment with shocking the dog- that one. Pure evil! Smacking around a baby, in the name of Jesus, amen.
ReplyDeletePotatoes are not especially precious- cheap up here- I would compost them but maybe Mr. Pudding is right- more flavour!
Linda Sue- when they described "blanket training" I wanted to kill them all. Except for the babies and children. What kind of a soul do you have to have to hit a BABY?
DeleteYeah. It's not like we can't afford more potatoes.
I'm so glad Josh Duggar is in prison. His poor wife - and the poor girls in that family! Creepy f....krs!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad he's in prison too. What a fucking piece of shit.
DeleteYes, I would eat them but I'd probably wash them off first anyway. I don't see how the pee could infiltrate. and I wish we'd get some rain.
ReplyDeletecults are scary because they're always all about abuse and control and sex. I haven't ever seen the show or watched the documentary so I don't know if that poor woman birthed all 19 kids and if she did, omg, that poor woman. back before birth control it wasn't unusual for women to have 10 or 12 kids and the last few usually didn't live past a few years. don't you know those women were tired and depended on their older kids to raise the younger ones.
and look at the perfect blanket stitch on that patch.
oh, and by the way, regarding our parallel lives, I'm fixing stuffed peppers for dinner tonight.
You forgot one of the elements of a cult- MONEY! It's so easy to be on the outside looking in and say, "How could these people fall for this shit?" And yet, there must be some glitch in our wiring that allows it to happen and there sure are plenty of people (mostly men of course) who know how to take advantage of that.
DeleteYou had stuffed peppers too? No way!
Oooooh, I haven't heard of that Duggar limited series. Wonder if we can get it here? I am bizarrely fascinated/repelled by those people even though I never watched their original show. I think if you raise kids never talking to them about sex, and in fact teaching that the body and its physical urges are dirty and ungodly, and holding the most extreme versions of those views, it's inevitable that those kids are going to express their sexuality in unhealthy ways. The more repressed the atmosphere, the more twisted the sexual expression. (Kind of like priests!)
ReplyDeleteI'm on the fence about the potatoes. If you cook 'em and they taste OK, I'd say eat 'em. Cat pee isn't going to hurt you, after all. Taste, smell and mental hurdles are the real issues!
37paddington: I never trust zealots and proselytizers, especially the religious kind because once you try to impose your beliefs on another, shove it down their throats really, well, you’ve lost the kindness thread so really, what credibility do you have left. The Duggars and their ilk creep me out. Even before the abuse came to light you just knew there was nothing good going on there. Sometimes the world is a sad sad place.
ReplyDelete