Harvest is… Done!

Well, summer’s bounty has come (mostly) to an end now and I am starting to draw back inside and begin my winter hibernation.

The only things still (sort of) producing in my yard are my beans (they are still giving a meal’s worth every few days) and my tomatoes.  The tomatoes, though, need to be pulled (very soon – it is the middle of October here and Jack Frost will not be very far away now) and hung somewhere dry in order to let them ripen on the vine in as much as I will be able to let them.  I really don’t want to lose what is still left on the plant – I have had such an amazing crop from it this year!

The rest of the yard is starting to die back, and the leaves are now starting to fall from my pear, apple and lilac trees. At this point in the season I’m trying to decide “what next.”

“What Next” thoughts include removal of the pear tree.  When all is said and done, I really do like pears, I don’t *love” them – and I have a small yard – which means that I either need to love it or cull it. This will mean cutting it down and then digging out the root ball.  Then I will need to over-seed the bare area with grass seed in order to get it to hopefully take root before the real killing frosts start – all in hopes that I don’t have mass areas of mud in the back yard for Jasmine to have fun in….

The other “what next” thoughts include digging out the aromatic evergreen at the end of my patio (right beside my Japanese Maple) and building another raised bed there.  Oh… and also filling in the pond and flattening the hump beside it. 

Ok – I will just have to admit to myself, and accept, that patches of my back yard are destined to be doggie mud pen areas this coming winter and spring.

The inside projects for the winter will include some more work on my kitchen, some painting and shelf building in my bathroom and maybe, if I can figure out how to do it, some closet reconstruction in the bedrooms… I’m pretty well decided that I will be (eventually) having proper stairs built from the front bedroom into the attic – thus opening up the entire attic space to make it into living space, (well, once dormers and electricity and possibly plumbing have been run upstairs) and what is now the front bedroom will become a small office – I mean properly an office.

Anyhow, this winter’s projects will NOT include stair installation…

For this weekend, though, or rather the one day left of it to me at present, I am going to spend it relaxing and enjoying the rainy days we are having.

With love across the waters…

…And Now I Have a First World Problem…..

I am filled with gratitude.  My cupboards are filled to overflowing with sauces and fruits – most of which have been grown by me, all of which was canned by me. I now, though, have a first world problem – I am running out of space to store my canning. 

Kitchen cupboard full to the brim

Peaches are in a storage cupboard

Some dear friends of the family had a kitchen that was remodelled (I'm not certain if it was done by them or by their home’s previous owners) to build shelving in between the studs of their walls… and I have the perfect wall in mind… The wall has no electrical or plumbing connected, but appears to have some wiring running through it (I am thinking it was wired like that in order to provide light and an electrical socket to my “mud porch” with is really more of a catch-all junk area – that will also need renovation… just not now.

The idea is to pull off the drywall, build “insert” shelving units and install them right into the space between the studs - here is a blog link to where someone has done exactly what I am thinking about doing... complete with pictures!!

I have this coming week off work – vacation time.  My plans for this week include potentially getting a jump on making and canning apple sauce (this is no rush – the apples could still use ripening time,) making and canning more roasted tomato sauce, building some shelving in my bathroom, and generally working on some of the finishing projects for the bathroom. 

What I may do, time and energy permitting, is pull some drywall off and see what I have to work with.

Oh – and I am already “getting ideas” about other spaces where this kind of shelving would be great – including behind bedroom doors and in the living room by the front door…

With love across the waters…

…And Pear Butter…..

When I finished canning my “first choice” pears I had a basket full of smaller ones left over – not perfectly shaped, not really eating quality, and too small for me to be bothered with peeling, coring, slicing and canning, I looked for other options about what I could do with them.

 

last batch of pears canned - left-over pears to the right

My newly former boss, I found out, has horses – and would LOVE to have small ones for feeding the horses as treats – I will most definitely bear that in mind for next year’s harvest, but for this year, I wanted to see if there was something I could to with them that wouldn't be overly labour-intensive, but would provide some yummy winter-consumption results.

One of the websites I use when canning, Simply Canning, had a recipe for something called Crock Pot Pear Butter and I thought I might give that a try. I didn't like the ingredient list they had, so I went looking for other pear butter recipes and found one that I did like the look of on the Gimme Some Oven website.  I like all of the spices added and decided to try this one.

On night three of canning my peaches, when the peaches were in the canner and cooking, I chopped up my pears and popped them into the crock pot with some lemon juice and honey – the lemon juice to keep the colour lighter (turns out that was a bust) and the honey as part of the recipe.

 

Pears cooking down in the crock pot

Pears cooked overnight in the crock pot, I woke up to a spicy fruity smell – yum!  Since Jasmine was going to Doggie Daycare that day, I had a little extra time that morning and processed the pear butter (meaning I took it out of the crock pot and ran it through the food mill to extract the fruit flesh and discard the skins and seeds.  I put the milled pears into a pot and let it sit in the fridge that day.  When I got home, I got my canning supplies started again – water bath canner etc etc etc… and started cooking down the pears to a really thick consistency – and added the spices.

Cooking down the Pear Butter

So what is the verdict? Well, I think it tastes like really fancy applesauce – just made with pears instead… so I will probably not make that again.  I guess next year some horses will get a treat!

With love across the waters…

Pears!

You may recall that one of the things I did last weekend was pick the pears from my pear tree...

Before the Harvest

Harvested Pears

... and even though I hadn’t planned on it, today I canned (some of) my pears.  Yesterday afternoon I decided to try one out and surprise, surprise – it was ripe enough to eat – which means that it was almost too ripe to can!

ACK!

That meant I had to jump into action this morning and get moving on processing my pears – if, unlike last year, I wanted to can any for winter consumption.  Last year I left things too late and ended up eating maybe three of them and then composting the rest of them. 

So this year I was determined to catch them in time!

With the help of the Simply Canning website, I pulled my act together last night and got a plan in motion.  This morning I leapt (well, more like trudged) into action.  First up was to get the kitchen ready for my efforts.

Everything Out of the Cupboards and Onto the Counters...

Next up was to make up a citric acid bath for the pears to keep them bright - my version was lemon juice and water since I am trying to be as sugar and chemical free as possible.

4 Cups Water to 1 Cup Lemon Juice 

Then to make light syrup.  While I am trying to keep things as sugar free as possible, I recognise that the syrup is something that helps to keep the fruit tasty and preserved… so I opted to try the honey and vanilla option that the Simply Canning site listed… so mine was a dark honey with water and about a teaspoon of vanilla.

Light Syrup

Bringing the Syrup to the Boil

Peel, core and cut up the pears… this happens to be the most time consuming part of the process, and the one that leaves my hands sore and sometimes blistered when done…

First Batch

The pears then go into the syrup to be partially cooked… from there, into the canning jars with just enough of the syrup to cover the fruit, and then into the water-bath canner.

5 Minutes in the Syrup

When all is said and done, I have 16 jars of pears and a now nice and tidy kitchen.

Half Way Done

16 Jars Cooling

Dishes Done!

I find that as I continue my food processing journey I am learning important things – including that I much prefer to work with wide mouth mason jars as opposed to small mouth ones. Not only is it easier to get the larger fruits in and out of without making as much of a mess, when doing sauces, it is easier to get ALL of the sauce out of them.  I do have a couple of flats of small mouth jars that I will continue to use for my applesauce efforts, but solid fruits – pears and peaches especially – are MUCH easier for me to manage in the wide mouth jars… which means that, before I process the peaches that are coming in this week, I need to get my hands on more canning jars!

I do still have some pears left to work with, but with these I will be attempting pear butter… which to me looks like a sort of a preserve that would be good on crumpets (which I plan to learn how to make this winter) and ice cream.

The pear butter exploits will be documented later…

With love across the waters…

This Time of Year

I had been thinking to stop in at my Brother & Sister-in-Law’s house  for a visit today on my way to Mum & Dad’s, but the clean-up at Grandpa’s house is all but done (and there is a showing on Sunday) and so my help wasn’t needed this weekend… as a result I opted to stay home and do some things here… My Sister-in-Law sent me an email this morning – one of the things she said (thank you Carrie!) was “Have fun in the yard- I love the bounty of this time of year; makes life feel so full...”

I know exactly what she means. I have been trying my hand at gardening and canning now for two years. In the 4 years I spent in my house in Ontario, I mostly puttered and weeded in flower beds.  Though I considered putting in vegetable beds, I never really managed it. My house there didn’t actually have any taps outside that would have made watering productive. There was a tap that went into the back wall of the garage, but nothing else – and that meant carrying watering buckets around, or running hoses out windows and through the house in order to water.  Not a house built for anything other than lawn that didn’t require water.

Here in my little lot in Cumberland, I have a tap out the back of the house.  I’d like one out the front as well (I could do more out front if I had the capability to water without running hoses all over hell and back around the house) but that isn’t in the cards at the moment.  There are many other home improvements I need to tackle before I put in a faucet for watering convenience out front. The tap out back makes it possible to set up drip lines that keep the beds alive.  Beans, snow peas, carrots, Swiss chard, tomatoes, spinach, kale and lettuce – not to mention the pears, and plums I have been able to harvest this year - so far. I pulled the peas, kale and lettuce a week to two ago – and am readying those beds to put in a next planting of kale, spinach and snow peas.

Where I was really going with this is that there is a real feeling of security for me in being able to open my cupboard or freezer and see food in that I grew myself, see things that are so much healthier and so much tastier than the commercially made options.

This coming week I will be working on peaches and pears – and then the apples.  The peaches, freestone peaches, are coming to me from the Okanagan – maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday, but then Wednesday night I will need to get started on canning again. I looked in my canning jar cupboard today when I was getting ready to can the tomato sauce, and did some quick calculations… and I am thinking I may need to get my hands on my pint and quart jars… and maybe more cupboard space to store my food.

I love the bounty of this time of year; makes life feel so full...

With love across the waters…

Feeling Summer Bounty

My cupboards and freezer are starting to fill with garden bounty – and I’m LOVING the sight!

The past few weeks have been very tumultuous – as a family, we have not only been dealing with the sudden and shocking death of my Grandfather, but also the clean-up of his house – which has not been a small job.  While I haven’t been able to be there to help with the major week-day efforts, I have been down on weekends as much as possible (since he fell and ended up in the hospital) and as a result, the garden has been largely ignored.

With the exception of watering, I’ve done very little other than pick things, here and there, until this week. Last Sunday I came home from Mum & Dad’s house with a plethora of tomatoes. I then picked all of what was ripe in my yard and last Monday I really got into the guts of starting to process some harvest.  First things first, I made up some roasted tomato sauce – SUPER easy – the recipe was found and piloted by my Mum and can be seen on her blog about Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce - Mum's blog is called The Messy Gardener. 

I had long booked today (Monday the 18^th of August) as a vacation day – and so was looking forward to a three-day weekend that would allow me to get some things that I have been neglecting around the house taken care of.  Friday night after work, I picked all of my pears.  They are now divided up – half (the larger ones) are in a paper bag (with a couple of apples to help speed the ripening process) on my kitchen table and the other half is in a basket, also ripening, but at a slightly slower rate.  The second set will be made into pear butter a recipe for which, I found online, and the first set will be for fresh eating (YUMMY!) and canning – I’m going to make light syrup for the canning ones, and I’m going to try out another recipe I saw on line for that one…

Pear tree - pre-picking!

Harvest!

Ripening in a Brown Paper Bag - with Apples to help

The Rest of the Pear Haul

Friday I also got to meet up with my Mum & Dad for lunch – and they supplied me with more tomatoes (yay!) as well as a HUGE bag of green beans and a couple of ears of corn! After I picked the pears, I cut up all of the cherry tomatoes (for drying) and got the dehydrator going. 

Getting the Dehydrator Loaded

Saturday morning I got straight to it!  First, I checked on the tomatoes in the dehydrator…

Overnight's Work - Still Some Work to Go

Then I made up another batch of roasted tomato sauce

Plum Tomatoes

Ready to Roast!

And canned it all.

Two Kinds of Tomato Sauce

While the tomato sauce was cooling, I turned off the dehydrator and packaged up the dried tomatoes… 

All Ready to Make Sundried Tomato Pesto!

I also stewed up the previously frozen Damson Plums and got them all stone and skin free… After that I quit for the day.

Frozen Plums

Cooking Down the Plums

Yesterday I had an out of town chore to look after in the morning…

Once home, though, I opted to get at the beans and look after the plums.

I chopped, blanched and froze two colanders’ worth of the beans – the third colanders-worth I decided to try my hand at dehydrating (for consumption in soups and stews through the winter. One colander is equal to about two cookie-sheets in the freezer – a cookie sheet vacuum sealed and frozen is 3 - 4 meals’ worth of beans (as a side dish)

Beany Madness in the Kitchen

In the Freezer

Dried Green Beans

Then back to the plums.  I tried (a couple of years ago) to make plum jam… I was using powdered Certo and it never did set, but it made this delightfully tart syrup that was amazing on pancakes and waffles… this time I didn’t even bother trying to make jelly – this time I went straight for the syrup.

Plum Syrup - 2014

Quite a haul!

Last night, before bed, I took out all of the rest of the applesauce from last year that I bagged and froze… I thawed it out overnight, added cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger to it and canned it up today…

On to the beans.  Pulled them out of the freezer, bagged and vacuum sealed them – they are now in my chest freezer waiting for winter dinners!

Frozen and Vacuum Sealed

In and amongst all of this activity this weekend, I also managed to mow the lawn, get the kitchen and bathroom floors washed, three loads of laundry done, pick the next small bunch of nearly ready-to-make-sauce-out-of tomatoes, and a *very* little bit of tidying and organizing taken care of. All in all, I’m very pleased with what was accomplished this weekend! The next major harvest activities will be more beans and tomato sauce... and the apple tree...

Oh... the apple tree...

Apple Tree 2014 - So Heavy With Fruit
That the Branch is Touching the Ground!

With love across the waters…

Defiant Acts

"Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do.  Plus you get strawberries:" ~ Ron Finley

I love the feel behind this statement - well, both of these statements, really... Though I won't necessarily get strawberries (I don't plan to plant any, but just because it isn't part of the plan today doesn't mean I won't find somewhere to put some eventually..) I am, though, most defiantly acting in favour of spring!

To go back a few months, my yard had a hard winter - loads of deep and long lasting heavy snow, along with a February snow accumulation that meant that even as late as the beginning of this week there was snow in my back yard (though today all gone) and there is still a little in the front yard...

Taken about 4 weeks ago...

Last weekend I spent some of my Sunday on poo patrol as the snow was melting, I also pruned my apple, pear and plum trees...  There's a small pile of branches I need to dispose of, but nothing really huge to worry about there.  The trees were still lying fallow last weekend, but today when i was out I noticed that the plum tree is budding out all over - so last weekend was the absolute last minute I would have been able to do the pruning safely.

Today's project work was the back yard.  I made a trip to Art Knapp and then over to Slegg Lumber before heading home... While at Art Knapp, I picked up six raspberry plants, two blueberry bushes, a bag of peat moss and a bag of container potting soil.  At Slegg Lumber I picked up two cedar trellises and four . ten-foot long 1" x 2"s.

So here's this weekend's outdoors project list:

• move the upper long bed box to a new location along the side fence
• build a pea trellis using the old green lattice screen that was acting as a barrier to hide the old oil tank (thus the 1" x 2"s) and make a new bed to plant the pea trellis in
• ready the garden beds for planting
• plant peas, spinach, raspberries and blueberries
• tidy up the garden shed
• rake up the back yard (basically make it pretty) and make another poo-clearing pass over everything.

Once back from the shopping excursion, I realized there is more I will need, so I'll be out again tomorrow morning to collect the missing bits, but today I was able to accomplish a fair amount.

First item on the list had to be poo patrol. That done, I opened up the shed and pulled out my bistro set and got the concrete patio spring-friendly.  

By the end of the daylight hours today I had moved the long bed, dug out and readied the other beds, planted the raspberry and blueberry plants, and set up the trellises for their jobs... Tomorrow (after the Slegg Lumber run) I will set up one final small raised bed, build and install the pea trellis, plant the peas and spinach seeds and tidy the garden shed a little. If I have enough time, I'll also rake up the back yard & get the lawn ready for spring and over-seed with grass seed where there has been winter damages.

Once I finish off all of tomorrow's bits, I'll snap some pictures and show you where I am at this point in readiness for sunshine and warmth...

Next weekend I'm going to be putting out my drip lines and then I'll see about getting in there to tackle the front yard projects...

With love across the waters...

Foraging for Kale

We have been in the throes of a heat wave.  There's been no rain in nearly a month and we've had hot dry sunny weather all July.  Though most people complain about the rain all winter, I choose not to as I know how desperate we on Vancouver Island become during the dry and hot summer months. The garden beds have dried out (and required the installation of soaker lines to keep my poor plants hydrated) the forests have become dangerous (though the true danger is from people and carelessness) and my world had taken on a fine dust covered film. I have also not turned on my oven in over a month.

 

I was able to harvest my garlic and it is curing in my shed for about a week and a half and now it needs to be cleaned off, have the chaff trimmed from it and it needs to be stored for overwinter consumption.

 

Yesterday the skies were gray and overcast almost all day.  My Mum & Dad came up in the morning to bring up Grandma's old love seat, a chair of my Great Grandmother's (on my Mum's side) and Grandma's bed.  We also finished most of the back fence project - the lattice is installed and it looks AWESOME! And finally, after lunch we assembled the bed.  I now have a spare bed and once again I get to do some re-arranging to make things a little more space friendly.

 

Late in the afternoon, after Mum & Dad had headed back down to Thetis Island, I was sitting inside thinking on making myself some dinner and the skies opened up and POURED.  I'm not talking sprinkle, I'm talking out and out pouring rain.  It was glorious!  It rained like that off and on all night and most of today and I could practically hear the trees sighing in relief.  My plants outside look happier and my apple and pear trees (and the little coral bark maple out front) are even looking perkier.

 

As a result of the MUCH cooler day today I even turned on my oven for the first time in over a month!  I baked cookies and granola.  I packaged up and vacuum sealed the granola for future use since I opened a box of cheerios the other day and need to finish that before starting something new, but still, I've not had my own home-made granola in what feels like AGES.

 

Since I wasn't needing to stain or cut or organize anything fence-wise today, I also took some time to harvest and freeze some of my kale for winter consumption.  I had to battle aphids - there was quite the infestation in there - but I won that battle for now... next year I will buy ladybugs (hee hee hee) to eat the aphids for me... after much soaking and washing, I laid out the leaves on cookie sheets and froze them. 

 

Did you know that after about an hour in the freezer kale will shatter if you drop a leaf on the floor?  I didn't know that either.

 

Kale frozen, I decided to try my hand at making kale chips and a kale and pear smoothie.  The smoothie is delicious - though I think next time I will have to puree the kale before adding the other stuff so that there isn't so much to chew on (ha ha ha!)

 

The kale chips are in the oven and I may be ready to try some of them after supper when I watch TV. 

 

The kale harvesting has cleaned out about a third of my bed - I am selectively pulling plants out now as the big ones I am leaving will continue to grow through the fall and provide me with healthy greens through the winter.

 

All in all a good day and a great weekend!

 

With love across the waters,

On Being The Ant

Remember Aesop’s fable about the grasshopper and the ant…?

Once there lived an ant and a grasshopper in a grassy meadow.

All day long the ant would work hard, collecting grains of wheat from the farmer's field far away. She would hurry to the field every morning, as soon as it was light enough to see by, and toil back with a heavy grain of wheat balanced on her head. She would put the grain of wheat carefully away in her larder, and then hurry back to the field for another one. All day long she would work, without stop or rest, scurrying back and forth from the field, collecting the grains of wheat and storing them carefully in her larder.

The grasshopper would look at her and laugh. 'Why do you work so hard, dear ant?' he would say. 'Come, rest awhile, listen to my song. Summer is here, the days are long and bright. Why waste the sunshine in labour and toil?'

 The ant would ignore him, and head bent, would just hurry to the field a little faster. This would make the grasshopper laugh even louder. 'What a silly little ant you are!' he would call after her. 'Come, come and dance with me! Forget about work! Enjoy the summer! Live a little!' And the grasshopper would hop away across the meadow, singing and dancing merrily.

Summer faded into autumn, and autumn turned into winter. The sun was hardly seen, and the days were short and grey, the nights long and dark. It became freezing cold, and snow began to fall.

The grasshopper didn't feel like singing any more. He was cold and hungry. He had nowhere to shelter from the snow, and nothing to eat. The meadow and the farmer's field were covered in snow, and there was no food to be had. 'Oh what shall I do? Where shall I go?' wailed the grasshopper. Suddenly he remembered the ant. 'Ah - I shall go to the ant and ask her for food and shelter!' declared the grasshopper, perking up. So off he went to the ant's house and knocked at her door. 'Hello ant!' he cried cheerfully. 'Here I am, to sing for you, as I warm myself by your fire, while you get me some food from that larder of yours!'

The ant looked at the grasshopper and said, 'All summer long I worked hard while you made fun of me, and sang and danced. You should have thought of winter then! Find somewhere else to sing, grasshopper! There is no warmth or food for you here!' And the ant shut the door in the grasshopper's face.

It is wise to worry about tomorrow today.

Yeah – I always thought that the ant was a little bit sanctimonious – I would like to think that instead of shutting the door in the grasshopper’s face, she would  offer some food, but still – the moral of the story cannot be argued – prepare for tomorrow today.

I’ve spent the last couple of months playing at being the ant - harvesting, doing yard work and, most recently, getting the yard and garden beds ready for winter.  Today I gathered leaves that have come down and piled them over top of some of my garden space.  Next weekend I’ll do more of the same, only this time pile it up into the compost bin to let it gently rot down through the winter until, in spring, I can use it in my vegetable beds.

Garlic is planted & has set up shoots – I have mulched more leaves on top of that bed to keep them healthy and feed them come spring.

Canning is complete – I ended up with more than sixty jars of applesauce, pears and peaches and enough fresh apples and rhubarb to make up six crisps. I also made up plum jam (which is more like plum syrup) and rhubarb ginger jam. 

The last of my apples went to my brother’s home a couple of weeks ago where we ground and pressed apples to make juice - I came home with apple mash which was dug into the garden bed and a couple of gallons of the juice (both of which are gone now) it was delicious!

Putting the garden and yard to bed for the winter makes me think of the ant – getting ready for next year’s planned crops, gardens and enjoyment.  I will have a proper vegetable patch this year – fenced off and planted with things like beans, snow peas tomatoes, squash, courgettes, lettuces and carrots. When I was over on Jersey, my neighbour had an utterly brilliant way of growing courgettes and squash – she would buy a bag of soil, cut a hole or two in it, and plant her plants directly into the soil. These bags sat on her patio. At the end of the growing season, that bag of soil was used to fill and seed lawn or to augment garden beds. I figure I will do as she did and plant squash and courgettes in those and then cover the rest of my garden space with other items…

This coming year’s garden will be smaller – eventually I want to have a larger section of my yard – all the way back to my compost bin actually - fenced off for vegetables.  Being able to plant, grow, harvest, preserve and then, through the winter, eat the foods I have grown myself is my eventual goal.

For tonight, though, I will have a dinner of roast chicken and trimmings (stuffed with bread I made myself) and a yummy desert of baked apple and rhubarb crisp. If a grasshopper shows up at my door seeking food and shelter I won’t be slamming the door…

With love across the waters,

Sumac Begone!

Today marks the official end of the epic tale of me versus the Sumac Stump. I know I will have future sumac-related tales for you – there is, after all, a second sumac that was planted on the property – I cut it down and have been fighting with its runners this summer as well, but the bulk of my fight with the sumac was because of the big one that was directly outside the back door when I moved in.

Overgrown sumac with clematis tangled up in it

About Three weeks after I moved in, Mum & Dad came up for the day (and brought Grandma with them) to have a visit.  Dad also brought work clothes with him and helped me cut back the sumac tree to a stump.  This spring and summer I have spent time pulling up roots, digging out roots, hacking at the damn stump with my mattock and generally making a dent on it.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to dig out around the thing (and promptly punctured a perimeter drain pipe I had no idea was there!) and got to the point where I found out that although it does have a tap root per se, the tap root on this sort of shoots off to the side and up under the concrete slab poured some time ago for my current patio.

The Stump.  At the right of the stump is the rhizome.
On the left is the punctured perimeter drain pipe.

I came inside and Googled sumac trees (thank God for Google!) and learned that (like irises) sumac actually grow from a rhizome. In addition to that (also like irises) they shoot up new trees out of the length of rhizomes they send out – so a single planted tree can sprout up hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of additional trees.

AGH.

At that point I went back outside, hacked at the rhizome a few more times (it was  about nine inches around), gave up, filled all of the dirt back into the hole I had created and vowed to slap any human I know who voluntarily planted a sumac! I called Mum & Dad that night and sounded off to them about it as well.

Dad told me they would come up again in a couple or three weeks’ time and, if I dug out AROUND the root (and under it,) he would bring his chainsaw up with him and we could cut through the root with that.  Knowing they were coming up today, I dug out around it yesterday.  All my hard work a few weeks ago was rewarded in that digging around it back out today was easier as the soil was nice and loose - and since we have has almost no rain; it is also dry and light.

I did, in the process, come across all sorts of pieces of broken pottery and glass, some old nails; a plastic child’s toy grenade (that nearly made me pee myself in that split second it took me to realize it was plastic,) a chunk of what could possibly original clay pipe and what looks like the corner cap from a very old cook stove. I also discovered that, contrary to what I once thought, I could NEVER be an archaeologist. I do not have the patience to sit in a hole and slowly unearth things one layer at a time. Last night and this morning confirms this newfound revelation as I have extremely sore muscles from digging while contorted into awkward positions.

The state of the stump, however, was better.  I had dug out around and below it to the point where I think I may have also discovered a very old layer of brick. I chopped and hacked at yet more roots discovered (and filled yet another wheelbarrow load of the damn things!) and left the stump in a state where it reminded me of a loose tooth.  I could wriggle it around without too much effort.  The rhizome being, I believed, the only thing still holding it in place.

It was!

Mum & Dad arrived, Dad changed into work clothes and pulled out his chainsaw… down into the hole and whizzed through the Rhizome in about three seconds flat… Rhizome cut, the stump fell over! How cool is that!

Rhizome cut, stump flopped!

A little more digging done, Dad pulled out a few more roots for me and then we hefted the stump into my trusty wheelbarrow, ran some water through the perimeter drain pipe to ensure that all of the additional dirt I lodged into it was flushed, covered the holes back up and then all three of us pushed the dirt back into place. Dad did comment to me how impressed he was at the depth I had dug the hole.  I have to admit, I was pretty impressed with myself over that – it was a deep hole!

Dirt back in place, hosed patio and then lattice to prevent
Jasmine from using it as a motorway. At the top of this
picture is my covered over garlic bed. 

Wheelbarrow full of stump and more roots
and Dad's gloves crowning the pile! 

Mum & I also got my garlic planted – 16 cloves - then we headed out for another gorgeous lunch at Mar’s on Main – I stuck with what I had last time (Greek wrap with calamari) and we came back for cake and coffee. I made an applesauce cake with my own applesauce last night and have, woo hoo, discovered a recipe I can bake, cool, and freeze!

Mum & Dad also brought up a whole pile more canning jars gleaned from my Grandpa’s basement.  A good wash out & sterilize and I’ll be ready to can up more applesauce!  I’m going to try to get out there and pick more apples this afternoon and get some more applesauce onto the stove and cooking… I’m thinking I should be able to get the applesauce cooked down and get at least one batch canned tonight before bed – the rest I will baggie up when it cools and freeze.

What’s next to be done? My Damson Plum has died back and my pear tree is overgrown, so some serious tree pruning will need to be done.  I also have shrubbery in the back yard that is now WAY too tall for me to properly enjoy – so the next Mum & Dad Day’s projects will include some much lighter work in getting these things done.

All in all, it’s been a productive weekend so far and, since it’s only 2:00 in the afternoon, I still have time to get more done!

With love across the waters,

Happy Anniversary to Me!

 Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of “all hell breaking loose” for me. One year ago yesterday I:

• Started my new job (and the associated training program – which just finished last week,)
• Took possession of my new home, and;
• Moved into my new home (and out of the townhouse I was renting)

When I look back over the past year (as is, I think, appropriate to do right about now) I can see I have accomplished a lot both on the job and around my house…

At work I have made a good change for myself – am now involved in a job I like – one that interests and challenges me and, for the most part, one I can leave at the office when I go home at the end of my day.

At home I have made a start to the renovations inside (and the removal of 17 different kinds of wallpaper)

And am now surrounded by clean lines and light colours:

I made a start to the changes in the back and front yards.  I hacked back a lot of this:

Removed all SORTS of strange and interesting crap:

And am left with this for now:

No more jungle out there but still a ways to go.

Where renovations to the house itself are concerned, I have also learned that I need to use some temperance in getting things started – or rather, taking on only one project at a time and seeing it through to completion BEFORE starting a new one.

I have learned how to water-bath can food and am in the throes of preserving as much of the current bounty of my space as I can before winter sets in. Next year I hope to have an actual garden and to produce (and preserve for myself) even more of what I can grow.

I still have a long way to go, but looking back, I’m pleased with my progress.

With love across the waters,