Cooling off

The smoke is mostly gone, and the days are much cooler – fall is really here.

The tomatoes are ripening like crazy. I pick pole beans every day, then tomatoes. It takes two trips with the picking bucket to get each day's toms in.

No, that's not me. But that's
my bucket. $1 at an estate sale
years ago. Very handy.

We moved the food driers over to the other kitchen, leaving a whole length of counter over here for tomato sorting and storage. I go through them a couple times a day, moving the ripe ones here, and the bad ones there, so we know what needs to be used or canned or refrigerated. I'm pleased to be a slave to tomatoes. And the rabbits and chickens are happy to eat any iffy ones.

We've been making our usual tomato-season sandwiches: a thick slice of homemade bread (or a gluten-free pancake, in my case), a generous layer of homemade pesto, slabs of tomato and grated asiago cheese, all toasted under the broiler. Mmmmmm.

The kids were up the other day to help with the garden. (Liam is getting so big! And he's got chunky little thighs.) We harvested the hops. My pulley system didn't work as well as I'd hoped. The vines climbed four lines tied to a ring, and the ring was to be raised and lowered with a rope going through a carabiner on the top lip of the 20-foot ham-radio pole. But the vines bound everything together, and it took some serious reefing to get the ring lowered. We cut the vines and tied everything up in clean sheets. Next I need to pick off the hop cones and rig up a place indoors to dry them.

That's the hops tower on the back of the chicken house.

This year was an improvement on the last, when the vines grew into the chicken wire on top of the chicken run – picking the cones was a real pain. Next year, I want to move the vines to the flower bed around the building, and set up several towers. The towers can attach to the roof for stability, I'll use actual pulleys for smoother raising and lowering, and we'll get away from the dust that the guineas and chickens churn up in their yard.

C. wants to make beer with our hops, which would be cool and maybe even save us some money. Of course, I get to design the label. She is looking for a recipe for a "skunky" lager similar to either Labatts or Dos Equis. Don't ask me – I'm not a beer drinker.

My addiction is chocolate, which I think is altogether more sensible. I've been buying Guittard milk-chocolate chips, big fat bits of smooth, rich chocolate – better than any candy bar, IMHO. Since we try to limit our grocery shopping to once a month, I figured I could limit myself (ha!) to four ounces a day, so 10 12-ounce packages would last a month. Right? Not so much. So far, I'm consuming a whole package a day. I guess I'll be realistic, pick up a few packages on payday, suck them down, and then do without. Self-control is a bitch.

Six eggs today. Milk and two dozen eggs from Rose Saturday.