Psst…you awake?!?

Yes…3:25 am I bolted awake—piss damn fart I left the tomatoes out. Middle of May. -3 degrees Celsius. Aaaasrgh. I ran outside in housecoat and slippers… too late. They were crunchy. Sigh…

I trimmed off all the frozen bits. The portulaca was so dense I think it survived but I’ll give the tomatoes a few more days. The stalks look green (ish) but that could be my imagination.

I had my friendly neighborhood tillerman out to do the garden. It’s been such a cold spring but our growing season is so limited that the garden must be planted and fingers and toes crossed. I must say it looked darn good after he was done.

I had wanted to haul some manure from the back but my poor little tractor got a flat over the winter—I only noticed once the snow melted. The valve stem sprung a leak and was dripping fluid. Luckily it was at the top of the tire so I didn’t lose too much. The service guy came out and changed it but a week later I noticed it was looking pretty sad again. Back out with the repair truck..what with seeding about to start I’m very grateful they were able to fit me in. Look how big the service truck is compared to my little tractor.

Poor tractor hasn’t been started since this time last year but I filled it with gas and away she went. The solar charger keeping the battery alive had died last February during THE coldest week of winter and I was afraid the battery was toast. But it fired right up.

I dug out the potatoes from the shed as they are the first thing into the ground. They always look like space aliens.

I’m not sure why I insist on growing so many. I like eating potatoes but we really don’t go thru very many. This year I found an Austrian Crescent potato and bought not one but two bags—what was I thinking?!? Anyway I also want to try some container potatoes. I saw something on a gardening site that looked interesting and thought I’d give it a whirl. The gardener was using old garbage cans, cut the bottom out and planted his spuds in there filling the can up with dirt as the plant grew. The yield was unbelievable. Something to try. As I was sorting potatoes I came across this one!! Gnawed by a pocket gopher/mole.

They are evil beasts and coincidentally my daughter just trapped one in the back corral and my cat brought one home!! Good cat!!

One year they got into the garden and ate a whole row of carrots from underneath. I had no idea till I started to pull some and all I got was a little knob of carrot under the green tops. They get into the spuds all the time eating a few bites out of each potato. Now I would share—as I said I grow too many and moles need to eat too. But they spoil the whole crop instead of just eating one at a time.

And speaking of creatures not sharing—let me just say a few words about our national animal…#*##^+*~**##. BEAVERS. Now I like beavers. Hard working. Industrious. Actually really good for the environment. But they are clear cutting my valley!!! I would share my trees with the beaver. But they have no brakes. It’s always more more more with them and now they’ve climbed halfway up the valley and have started dropping the big white poplars (having already decimated the black poplars on the valley floor). My son is beaver control. He set out a bit of tannerite to blow a hole in the dam and then came back in the evenings to pick off the work crew repairing the damage.

I really hate to do it but I’ll be living in a desert if they aren’t stopped. Look how green the valley is!!

But now I’ve dilly dallied long enough. Time to go do chores and get into the garden. It’s still dropping into the minus degrees this week but hopefully it will end soon. Victoria Day long weekend is the traditional garden planting weekend and who am I to break with tradition?? Who else is planting their garden?

How many are in there anyway?!?

You may remember how sick momma goat was last fall. The last round of antibiotics she got came with a warning from the vet, that if she was pregnant she might lose the baby. I didn’t really hold out much hope that she was bred. The buck was only with her for a few days and then she got sick and lived in the barn for the next six weeks.

Sissy goat on the other hand was definitely bred. From the size of her I’ve been expecting babies since mid February (which was when the buck got loose for a day and probably had his wicked way with her). But no babies in February. And none in March. And she kept getting bigger and bigger.

When she laid down she covered a lot of ground. And she was sooo uncomfortable. Poor girl.

So imagine my surprise when I got this sudden feeling I should put my book down and go into the back and just check the girls. I had a feeling something was up.

Momma goat!!! A bonus baby!! Pure black except for a dribble of white on his chin. He seemed pretty weak so I brought him into the house and laid him in the sun with a hot water bottle at his back and one more nestled into his tummy. He warmed up and took a few slurps of momma’s milk from a bottle.

Then back out to the barn where he thrived as the only baby at the enormous milk bar.

It couldn’t be much longer for Sissy goat to pop. I was actually getting quite worried as she was prolapsing a bit when she laid down. The vet gave me something to speed her delivery—supposed to act in 36-48 hours but she started to labour almost immediately. Perhaps it was just her natural time. She had three babies over several hours and my daughter and I stayed with her in the barn, helping to pull the babies as needed.

It was very slow going and finally, after the third was up and nursing and I was sure she was all done I went back to the house.

But I was wrong. She had a fourth which I found dead the next morning. I think Sissy simply ran out of steam to clean it up.

She herself was down and very weak. Milk fever. I had nothing in my vet box for her so I rummaged thru my own supplies. An ancient box of maalox—1000 mg of calcium per tablet. I spread some soft white bread thickly with peanut butter and fed it to Sissy with a tablet of calcium stuck in each bite. She took about ten before she caught on and began spitting it out. I also mixed up some electrolytes for her water pail. She eagerly ate the carrots and apples I brought out but didn’t seem interested in grain or hay. With my daughters help we got her to stand long enough to let the babies nurse.

Sissy has made a full recovery and yesterday I opened the barn door so they could begin to go outside. I’m so glad it’s over—kidding is just so stressful. All the babies are boys which is really unfortunate but they are all healthy which is the main thing.

With the warmer weather—I think it finally decided winter was over (although as I write this there are snow showers mixed in with the rain 😩) I have been out in the yard pruning my fruit trees.

I’ve finished the second baby blanket which turned out quite pretty. I love how the cut squares stacked so nice 😊. I had promised to make a blanket for the girl I drive bus with but as stores closed with the lock down I used what I had in my stash. I think there will be enough for a second blanket. Thankfully I’m a bit of a squirrel. Who knows what all I have in my stash. I certainly don’t 🙄

I managed to finish a book too. I’d heard it reviewed on the radio before lockdown and was lucky enough to have picked it up on my last trip to the library. It’s a fascinating study of the lives of the five women killed by Jack the Ripper.

I cannot believe that amount of research the author has done and how much detail is known about these women. Contrary to popular belief they were not all prostitutes (maybe one) and many came from very stable and prosperous families. But almost all succumbed to alcoholism and lost everything as a result. Fascinating book!!

And now it is raining. So I will stay inside and make a chocolate cake—because I am not fat enough yet…and perhaps work on another pair of mittens. What do you do on a rainy day?

Still winter…

This winter is just not letting go of us. It’s -16C this morning!! We had about ten inches of snow a few days ago and snow showers off and on all day yesterday along with a nasty wind. So is this picture January or April 6?? It’s not January…

Icicles on the awning!! So pretty!!

The deer have been gathering up—there were fourteen of them on the lawn the other day—masters of disguise, you can hardly see them except when they move.

But now I’ve decided I can’t let them get too comfortable in the back yard—they’ll be coming for my garden. Much as I don’t want to, I’ve started scaring them away. My neighbour constructs a six foot high electric fence around his garden to keep the deer away—I’m not that ambitious. If I keep them out now before the yummy things start growing maybe they’ll stay away. They have all the rest of the farm to themselves.

Because the weather is just so nasty I’ve been inside working on projects. There’s a new baby in my daughters’ circle and I’ve been working on a blanket gift. The mom has an irrational fear of dinosaurs (not really but it’s a family gag these days) so I wanted to make a dinosaur themed blanket. The images I pulled off of Pinterest left much to be desired. Or so I thought.

Looking at it now, it does look like a dinosaur, or at least a lizardy kind of creature. But I wanted something different, something cuter. I mean, how hard could it be?? First I had to find an image, something boxy, without too much detail. I found this!!

It was quite small so my daughter enlarged it for me and I folded it so I could transfer it to yet a larger piece of paper to make my pattern.

Then I cut out the pieces and chose the fabric. I had purchased fabric way back when the stores were all open but I didn’t have this project in mind. Nothing was working, it was all blues with larger designs. Thankfully I’m a bit of a hoarder and had a bigger selection of greens.

I had to swap out the arms because I had cut the pattern pieces so the design was upside down. Generally in these fabrics the design runs in all directions but just my luck it didn’t on this one. Then I moved the tail to the other side. Sewing the head with the frill went easy enough, as did the body—but putting the head on the body!!!! Well I think I sat and just studied it for a whole afternoon. In the end I just did it. I had to rip a few seams and take up some slack but over all it went together pretty well. After the seams were snipped and it went thru the wash to fluff it up it looked pretty good. Then I put on the horns, toes and eyes and voila—green puppy dog!! If I squint I think I can see a dinosaur. But it’s done and it is what it is!!

In between I baked bread, cinnamon buns and yesterday some hot cross buns. I ripped the end off the baguette to taste it. It was pretty good!!

My days are all running together. I’ve been a day behind all week. Saturday morning I proudly gave my daughter her Easter present—a giant Kinder egg. She rolled her eyes and said, you know it’s only Saturday?!? Then the next day she gave me this!!

Happy Easter everyone 😊

Snow…again….

Well April is here and it’s snowing. Again…

What happened to April showers bring May flowers and all that?? Sigh…

I decided yesterday I would make some masks. Yes I know they say homemade masks are ineffective but I think they are a great idea, not so much for protecting the person wearing the mask but for other people. If we all wore them we would keep our cooties to ourselves!!

I got out moms’old reliable but it was giving me grief winding the bobbin—it just wouldn’t wind. Right at the point where I thought I would have to hand wind it, zip, away it went. Must have been holding my tongue wrong. 😜

I recently found a rotary cutter and cutting matt I had purchased years ago when the kids were small. I’d never used it, sticking to the tried and true scissors. My poor mother, I remember her getting so upset when she discovered her prized sewing scissors had been used to cut paper. Again. I feel her pain. My sewing scissors are always in need of a good sharpen. But this rotary cutter. Wow!! It’s just about the best thing I’ve ever used. Perfectly straight crisp cuts, and thru multiple layers. Anyway, I cut my fabric and then had a think about what kind of ties to use. I really want elastic as fabric ties just seemed like too much trouble. Wearing the mask is really the object here and if you have to struggle to tie it, it won’t get worn. I have a huge stash of bits and bobs—that’s where the fabric came from, but no thin elastic. I sure wasn’t going out just to buy elastic—not exactly a necessity no matter what it was used for. So I had a coffee and a think—my daughter has a big jar of elastic hair ties—they were soft and stretchy and colourful. Perfect. I clipped out the knots and ironed them flat. Then stitched up a dozen masks. I thought they came out quite cute 😊

I found a few more bits of fabric so I’ll buzz those up this morning before I start my bigger project of a baby quilt for a friends’ daughter.

A few days ago I was working on yet another pair of mittens. It wasn’t till I was halfway thru the second thumb that a niggling sense of déjà but stopped me cold.

See what I did?!? Unbelievable. Maybe time to move onto something else so I just put those away for a bit and picked up a book.

The Moon of the Crusted Snow is written by a Mohawk author from Ontario. It takes place in a remote reservation in the north. The reserve, only recently connected to the grid, looses all of its southern services and slowly word trickles north that some huge catastrophe has happened in the south. A handful of white people make their way to the reserve thinking its their best chance of surviving Armageddon. A rather timely read considering our current situation.

Then I went back and picked up my mitten again, frogged down to the decreases, gave it a quarter turn and refinished it. With a little help from Luther.

Success!!

And my final project last week was a headband knit-a-long for one of my knitting pages. I needed a break from mittens. But I chose poorly on my colour scheme and had to frog the whole thing twice. Even so, I ran out of pink and the light green but you know, it looks intentional. My daughter likes it!!

So now to finish my coffee and do a few more masks. I’m quite liking this whole social distancing thing…

‘Allo ‘allo ‘allo

So I just received an email from a friend a few days back rather plaintively asking if I didn’t have anything to blog about. I mean, I took it as plaintive. There’s no emotion in emails. It could have been any other tone but as I know this person I took it as a bit of a poke to get back in the game.

I’m not going back to where I left off. No point looking back. The game is ahead. Or afoot if you’re a Sherlock Holmes aficionado. And what a weird and wacky time it is too. Schools closed only last week here, but most of my families pulled kids the Tuesday of the week before. So, the 17th. Wow. It seems so much longer ago. So I’ve been home now for two weeks.

I discovered the joys of audio books earlier this winter. My first one was Five Days At Memorial.

Absolutely riveting!! The five days after Katrina hit New Orleans and what happened in one of the biggest hospitals there, with no power, water or sewer, how the staff managed to keep critically ill patients alive until just before being rescued, when the decision was made to needlessly euthanize some 20-30 patients. The grand jury made the decision not to prosecute the doctor involved. A tragic tale but so well written and researched.

Having picked up my knitting needles this winter I was loathe to put them down again and audio books were just the ticket. Best of both worlds. Then I began listening to podcasts and between going for walks down the grid and sitting in my comfy chair knitting, the winter passed pretty fast.

I made some fingerless mitts for my sister, to be worn over cheap dollar store gloves. They turned out pretty.

Then I made a pair of mitts for a boy in my bus who kept forgetting his.

Then a couple pair for my bus driver friends’ grand kids.

I had sorted thru my stash and I thought I really needed to start using up the odder bits. Last summer I scored a huge tote full of tapestry yarn. 100% wool, relatively fine, and lots of colours. I made a couple pairs of mitts just pulling off the top of the bin, colours I like that complimented each other. Not perfect pairs obviously but matched non the less. No one else will have a pair like these 😊

Then I thought I should organize the colours a bit and laid them all out to see what I had.

So many colours. And all for $5 at an estate sale. Someone’s treasure sold by family who couldn’t use it to become my treasure. So I organized it into packages of like colours, and made up a few more pairs of mitts.

There’s some slippers in there too, inspired after I’d had tea at a friends’ place and she offered me some handmade slippers to wear because the floor was cold. I can’t count the number of pairs of socks and slippers I’ve made over the years, I used to wear them as liners in my winter boots, and my father always wore a pair in the house. But I think I’ve forgotten my pattern as these seem a little narrow. I’ll have to keep practicing.

Anyway my next audio book was one of the free ones offered by Audible for people in self isolation. Wuthering Heights read by Michael Kitchen. I’d never read it before and quite enjoyed it, but I really wanted to slap Heathcliff upside the head. And give Kathy a good shake too but there you go.

Then the piece de resistance, A Year of Wonders.

A novel of of true event in the 1600’s in a small English town. Plague is brought into the town in some fabric and after many deaths the decision is made by the villagers themselves to quarantine the town so the plague does not spread. Narrated by the author, it was so timely. Written long before our current situation, much of the feelings and practices of 17th century rural England could come out of today’s newspaper.

In between I did read some actual books, far too many to list here. I knew our library was going to close so I came away with quite a stack, not that I don’t have a gazzillion books of my own in the house. But those are, of course, for emergencies 😜

And there you have it, my completely boring and uneventful spring. Hope you are all well and keeping busy. Gardening is just around the corner.

Who likes kimchi?

I love kimchi. Of course I was raised on sauerkraut so it’s not much of a leap to spicy sauerkraut. I’d been looking for years in our local Asian markets (and when I say local, I mean in our closest biggest city, about an hour away). I could never find the right pepper. Finally last weekend I found a KOREAN grocery and a very helpful young girl. She wanted to know how many cabbages I would pickle and then sold me a lifetime supply of pepper 😂. So I picked up a Savoy cabbage, which wasn’t cheap, I tell you. But it was a lovely specimen. I also picked up daikon, green onions, and an Asian pear. I prepped by watching lots of utube tutorials. It looked remarkably easy. I started by chopping the cabbage and soaking it in salty water. Many of the videos, even the ones in Korean, showed the cabbage being chopped into bite sized pieces, which is what I did. A few showed a more labor intensive method of leaving the cabbage quartered and salting the layers of leaves all individually. Too much work!!I made a strong brine and left the cabbage to soak for several hours, tossing it a bit every time I walked by. The thickest part of the cabbage should bend when you fold it, not break.I made the spice paste, with garlic, ginger, pepper, spring onions, daikon radish, julienned garden carrots, and some julienned Asian pear. I’m not sure why, many of the recipes had apple and pear, and some even had honey or sugar!! Maybe food for the little microbes? Anyway I just used a bit of Asian pear. Once the cabbage was soft enough I triple rinsed and combined the spice mix with the cabbage. I was supposed to use gloves but just used my spatula. Now my spatula is orange and smells like kimchi. Sigh. I packed it all into a big jar. Amazingly it all fit!!I set it on a plate on the counter and barely tightened the lid. It off gasses as it ferments and I didn’t want an explosion. I kept tasting and it was hot!! but oh so good. Couldn’t stop tasting it. As I washed up the dishes I saw a deer bedded down in the front yard. She lay in the sun for quite awhile before the ponies began to annoy her and she took off.

And for breakfast today I had rice and kimchi. It’s burbling away and oozing a bit. I’ll leave it till tonight then wash up the outside and put it in the fridge. Scrummy!!

Momma goat is sick

I started this blog about two weeks ago. I just couldn’t finish because it’s been such a roller coaster of emotions thinking she wasn’t going to make it.

First she went off her grain. Honestly, in thirty years of stock raising, I should KNOW that means trouble. But I didn’t catch it. Oh I saw she wasn’t coming for her grain but I didn’t attach enough importance to it. Maybe she’s not hungry. Maybe she doesn’t like it. Maybe she’s had enough.

Noooo.

Animals are NEVER not hungry. They are NEVER not interested in their grain. They ALWAYS want more. This is the first sign that something is wrong. And I missed it.

By the time I figured out she was sick, she was struggling to breathe. My daughter and I initially thought she was having trouble bringing up her cud. Everything we read and observed seemed to support this. But she had no fever. She wasn’t coughing and didn’t have a snotty nose. It didn’t look like any kind of pneumonia I’d ever seen. But she couldn’t breath. We video’d her symptoms and showed the vet. He thought it was obstructed breathing. He gave me a couple courses of long acting antibiotics but they didn’t work.

A week later and she’s still not eating or drinking I went back for something else. The second vet gave me a different antibiotic and a course of steroids. She was just so miserable.

I stayed in the barn with her and she just stood beside me as I stroked her back. She just wanted company. I was so happy the one evening when she finally laid down as she had been on her feet struggling to breathe. I thought laying down was a good sign that she was comfortable enough to get some rest. Until I got back to the house and realized she may just be laying down to die so back out to the barn I went.

And I tried everything to make her eat. I was visiting her in the barn every few hours and took her some kind of treat. A sliced apple, carrot, cabbage. Saltine crackers to make her thirsty. We had pancakes on the weekend and I took her those. I made toasted rye bread and mashed a banana on top. I bought her kale and fed her sliced beets from the cold room. She ate these things and slowly slowly began to improve.

She stopped gasping and began to show interest in her hay and the other day really stuck her head into the hay and ate ravenously. And she started drinking. I was never so happy to see a barn full of poop.

So momma goat was sick but now is on the road to recovery and I can relax. I’m just so grateful the weather is mild and she can gain back some of the weight she lost.

She’s been part of the family for 12 years or so and has been such a great mother and a real character. I love my goat!!

Knitting weather

A few weeks ago a friend of mine sent me a picture of a pair of thrummed mittens she saw at a craft sale. Alpaca yarn. $70 a pair. Yikes!! But of course they are worth every penny. That’s the thing with handmade items…you cannot really get proper compensation for all the hours you put into a project.

I’m lucky. I’m a knitter. I’ve made dozens of pairs of mittens over the years and after I saw the picture, I knocked off a pair over a couple of evenings. Still, say four hours a mitt, times two, plus the cost of yarn. At minimum wage, that’s about a hundred bucks. Who’s going to buy hundred dollar mitts?!? So it’s a labour of love, and I prefer to gift them.

I have been in a bit of a rut lately though. Wanting to knit but very aware (and reminded frequently) of my daughters’ sweater I started almost five years ago. An Icelandic sweater, with a bunny themed yoke, I knit it in the round, with a steek up the front. This steek is a method of knitting designed to speed the process. A sweater knit in the round goes much faster than a sweater knit either in pieces or in a back and forth method. The steek is cut, the edges finished and buttons or a zipper attached…voila, cardigan. But I’ve never cut a steek before and am terrified of the UNRAVELING!! So I have left this sweater at the final stage for over four years. But I am determined to finish it this winter, one way or another. Pictures to follow 😊

Now this summer, while traveling in the maritimes, I indulged in my favourite pastime, wool shopping. I visited several mills and many wool shops, always picking up an interesting colour or two. So I decided to wind up the skeins into proper balls. I dug my kniddy-knoddy out of the shed and began to wind. This yarn is a single ply, 100% wool milled in New Brunswick at the Briggs and Little mill. I LOVE this yarn. I love the weight, and the gentle twist which enables me to seamlessly join yarn or switch colours. I have to use quite small needles, a 3 or 3.5mm, which is time consuming but makes patterns just pop. My favourite style of mitts are twinned knitting, which gives a double thickness and over many wearings, felts nicely making the mitts practically wind proof and very very warm. I like this particular pattern because I don’t have to carry the yarn more than three stitches (so no snagged fingers) and lots of opportunity for colour variations. It has to be interesting for the knitter too!!

Anyway, the red and grey yarns are being knit into some fingerless mitts for my sister. I saw a picture I liked and graphed out the design. Knitting without a real pattern (number of stitches, actual increases or decreases) is challenging. I usually have to knit three mitts. One to create the pattern. The second to perfect it, and the third to match the second. This is one start, which I’ve already ripped out and restarted. I hated the cuff and the needles were too small so the mitt was too tight. My sister wants these to wear over those skinny little dollar store gloves so she can use her fingers without freezing her hand off. I changed the cast on, making a picot edge, and they just feel better. I’m not sure the thumb gusset is deep enough but I will finish this one and get her to try it to see.

Thanks to my friend who started all this with her picture from the craft market. You know who you are. If you tell me your colour preferences, I’ll make you a thrummed pair for Christmas. 😊

Goodbye Piggy

PigPig came to live at the farm after I retired.  That was twelve years ago.  When my previous pig died, I’d said no more.  But we were at an auction, and no body wanted her, so I took her home.  She was of course a house pig for a time and such fun she had chasing around the house after the cats and dog.  But soon it was time to move her out to the barn.

Finding a winter accommodation she liked became increasingly difficult as she got older.  One favorite of hers and mine was a hotbox, enclosed, with a heat lamp.

My camera doesn’t like the heat lamp but it was so cozy.  The cats loved it too, warm piggy underneath and toasty heat lamp from above.  I don’t think piggy minded her furry blankets either.  But the second winter she wouldn’t go in, and I was so scared of starting a fire, I had to come up with another solution.

I’d make her comfy private spaces filled with warm bedding, but very out of character for a pig, she really resisted burrowing and would gradually end up out the door of her house.  So, then I began to cover her with old blankets.

This worked fine too, but the goats were mean to her so for the winter they would have to be kept separate. She didn’t like to go out in the cold so after breakfast and supper she would just cuddle back under her blasnkets.  Not much of a life really.

In the summer she was out and about, but the last two summers became more and more lame (my daughter says pot belly’s are prone to arthritis).

I decided I couldn’t force her to endure another frigid winter, so with the help of a neighbor, and a handful of cookies, she went to a better place…maybe a garden where she could rumble through and eat lettuces to her hearts content.

 

Deer in the garden

I live out in the county. Not too far from the small city I was born in, about 15 minutes on a normal day with no road construction (they have been working on one bridge all summer and STILL aren’t finished). I have a small spring fed creek in the gully in front of my house and often see deer down there. On occasion I’ve seen deer right up at the bird feeders by the house and today, from the kitchen window I saw a doe and a fawn in the garden. I know they are there often as I see tracks but I’ve never been lucky enough to see them in the flesh. It’s not so unusual–my sister in the city lives on a big lot on the edge of town and often has deer in the yard. Everywhere in Saskatchewan is rural, and wildlife is rampant. They were here first. But I get a thrill every time I see them. Early last week I saw a cow moose and her twin calves cross the highway in front of the bus. They are everywhere. It’s hunting season now, and I’ve posted my land so I hope the wild things will find sanctuary here.

I’ve been busy busy trying to preserve the generous harvest this year. I’ve discovered a simpler method for peeling tomatoes. I simply core and freeze then dip in hot water and the skins slip right off. I had put a tub of tomatoes on the kitchen table while the water was warming in the sink. I turned and caught my daughter looking at me with the classic “deer in the headlights” look. She was up to something but I didn’t see what. Oh she makes me laugh!!

We’ve had our obligatory first snow–the one that Mother Nature tosses at us and says, ha–mortal, you are unprepared for winter–get ready or else!!It melted within a few days and stayed quite warm before dumping us in the deep freeze for a week. Every warm day now is a blessing and I’m sitting on the deck in the sun to write this. Soon enough I’ll be on the couch under a pile of blankets debating turning the heat up.

My kids’ dad gifted me some grapes that he harvested from his vine that grows alongside his garage. I had just purchased a new to me toy, a steam juicer. So I thought I would try my hand at making grape jelly. It turned out really good!!I like a little bread with my jelly 😝

Fall is also a time for all things pumpkin. I baked up a tray of sugar pies (type of pumpkin, very sweet) and froze the flesh. But also made pumpkin bread, cake and custard slices. And a big pot of curried pumpkin soup. Yum!!Last weekend sissy and I went out exploring. Driving the back roads, hoping to find some highbush cranberries. It has been such an awful fall for the harvest. Farmers are out working around the clock while the weather is warm and dry. Slowly the fields are being stripped of their crops. The stubble is still golden yellow but is quickly turning grey.

The cranberries are a pop of colour in the bush. My mother loved these berries, and her mother as well. They would cook the berries till they popped, add some sugar and use in tea all winter as a vitamin C supplement. They would leave the skins and seeds but I don’t like sieving my tea thru my teeth. I push the pulp thru a real sieve and then add sugar and can. Some people find the smell of the cooking berries similar to boiling old socks!! but I just love the smell–it smells like fall…This batch only made eight jars and I’ve gone thru two already, so I see more berry picking in my future. What do you harvest from the wild?