It was a nice show and I not only got to meet many fans and old friends, but was able to meet Eve and Eivin Kilcher of the Discovery Channel’s series, Alaska; the Last Frontier. Very nice folks! I also met Eric Boettcher, a young man who teaches primitive survival both at his home in Utah and across the country. We enjoyed visiting back and forth about various survival skills. Such fun!
Then it was a long flight and, to tell the truth, I couldn’t wait to get home. Big cities kind of scare the pants off me, even though I was born in Detroit. So many people! I felt like kissing the ground when I arrived in northern Minnesota. It was raining but all around it was dark. And quiet! I love it.
Monday I couldn’t wait to get up and doing. So much had changed in the four days since I left. The poplar trees are turning yellow and the golden birch leaves are falling. The tomatoes are finally ripening. Will picked fifteen varieties while I wrote down evaluations on all of our new tomatoes. Some didn’t make the cut and we will grow them again next year but won’t offer them in our seed catalog. It was a bad gardening year and we always try new varieties two years running to see if a poor crop or taste was just a fluke or if that’s the way that tomato performs. Twice poor and they’re tomato sauce and out! One great new variety is Black Russian, a heart/plum-shaped medium-sized tomato with tasty, dark flesh and a wonderful flavor. It’s a definite keeper!
I pulled many more Iroquois and Gold Marie Vining dry beans and shelled them out. We shell by hand so we can toss any misshapen or immature beans. And I love my front porch so I can shell beans under cover (it started raining) and watch nature around me. I draw deep breaths and smell all the scents around me: fall leaves, pine, grass, and rain. Can’t beat it!
In between beans, I worked at tying up our great crop of ancient Bear Island Chippewa Flour corn. It’s a wonderful grinding corn, giving us nice, softer cornmeal due to the large kernels. They have big ears full of colorful kernels.
Last night, we ran five different batches of tomatoes through our Victorio tomato strainer, one at a time. This extracts seed, which we save, and also gives me nice tomato puree. I filled a turkey roasting pan and it spent all night in the oven on low heat. But the tomatoes were real juicy so I’ll have to let the sauce cook in the oven part of today so it cooks down enough for spaghetti sauce. While it cooks I’m making Cowboy and Cowgirl Candy, candied jalapeños, and jalapeño-flavored, milder Cowgirl Candy. — Jackie
Love the picture with Eiven and Eve Kilcher, we watch that show and enjoy it so much. Autumn is definitely here so quickly this year. We are in Northern Indiana, Zone 5 and had 90’s last week but the leaves continued to color despite the summer feel. Today we are back to fall like temperatures and it feels so much better. Don’t know if you have black walnuts that far north but we have a lot of them on our farm and we spend many days with grandkids picking them up and have found an outlet to sell them. This provides a bank account for the grandkids for the year; seems like free money. Happy harvesting!
Loved hearing the details of your trip. Sure understand about the joy of getting back to our country paradises. I do that each day after traveling to the city to work!
Jackie, what a great day! I just love those kind of harvesting and food preservation days, many of them with my beloved grandmother who was a great role model (much like you are for all of us). It feels so satisfying.
Your description of the Bear Island Chippewa corn made me so excited to try it for cornmeal. I just have to figure out how to find a place to grow some.
Sigh! I too would rather be anywhere in the country rather than stuck in a city. I love peacefulness, quiet, and tranquility too. Cities are so full of noise; there is always that background hum, even at night, and motor noise, sirens, folks arguing on the sidewalk with their girlfriends, neighbour’s noisy stereos……I would much rather listen to the birds singing, the insects humming, and the trees rustling.
Thanks for sharing and for encouraging all of us.
So glad you made it home safe and sound! Those Black Russian tomatoes look delicious and I will have to try some next year.
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