No preserving at the moment but that time is coming. The squash,
eggplant, tomatoes, sweet chiles and cucumbers are covered with flowers
and small fruit. The pole beans, both red lima and green bean are
flowering like crazy.

We were hit by a large hail storm the other day with some hail as big as
golf balls but mainly around marble size. Put a lot of holes in the
squash leaves but they are recovering nicely. The Tennousi pear has
exactly two pears on it so not going to be any pear jelly or pear sauce
this year unless we go to a U-pick orchard nearby.

Looking forward to putting up canned green beans as we are out but still
have a half dozen bags of frozen green beans. Chard is no problem
anymore as the plants in the front flower bed are still producing and
approaching there third year of growth. In addition we still have frozen
chard, cauliflower, and broccoli from the Louisiana garden, still
perfectly good so we are trying to eat it up.

Freezer is full of home made soups, stews, moussaka's, etc. from last
year so need to eat them up too. I've been hitting the used neat bin at
the supermarket and we have lots of beef, pork, chicken, etc. neatly
vacuum packed and sealed and a day away from being cooked and eaten at
any given time.

I've posted on the HOA website a couple of times about gardening and
home food preserving but so far have not caught any new fish. Guess most
of these folk seem to eat out on a regular basis or order in. One family
across the street seems to only eat fast food from local drive in's. At
least their trash seems to say that. Poor souls.

I've got one grandkid gardening and now he's wanting to learn to put up
his own food. He's already using the vacuum sealer we gave him for
Christmas last year and put up two deer he and his son shot last season.
He tells me he's enlarging his raised bed garden by putting in another
four by eight cinder block bed. He found a lot of cinder block on the
curb and loaded his pick up truck twice to get it home. Don't find good
materials just lying around around here as pickers always come around
just before trash pick up. He was lucky.

Just waiting on the vegetable garden to produce well and we're back to
work. Hope all are having a good spring and are prepared.

George

George Shirley wrote:

....
> I've posted on the HOA website a couple of times about gardening and
> home food preserving but so far have not caught any new fish. Guess most
> of these folk seem to eat out on a regular basis or order in. One family
> across the street seems to only eat fast food from local drive in's. At
> least their trash seems to say that. Poor souls.

some folks never really learn how to cook. someone
we know recently is elderly and being taken care of
by an in-home-nurse for a few hours a day and it happens
that the nurse doesn't know how to cook, but the
elderly lady is now teaching her. 90something yrs old
and still teaching. nice lady too. Ma just found out
that she was at home and so she's put it on her schedule
to visit her.


> I've got one grandkid gardening and now he's wanting to learn to put up
> his own food. He's already using the vacuum sealer we gave him for
> Christmas last year and put up two deer he and his son shot last season.
> He tells me he's enlarging his raised bed garden by putting in another
> four by eight cinder block bed. He found a lot of cinder block on the
> curb and loaded his pick up truck twice to get it home. Don't find good
> materials just lying around around here as pickers always come around
> just before trash pick up. He was lucky.

it's nice when you can get free materials. even
nicer if you have people willing to deliver.


> Just waiting on the vegetable garden to produce well and we're back to
> work. Hope all are having a good spring and are prepared.

funny thing about timing George as i was thinking this group
needed a post so i sent one on the botulism event in Ohio.

at the moment, i'm recovering from yesterday's bout of
gardening. working on the north garden and getting it
ready to be planted... i'm hoping to put at least half
the area into onions and the rest will be beans. already
in there and reseeded and regrowing are the turnips,
onions, garlic, strawberries. its'coming along nicely.

as we were out walking this morning i noticed the neighbors
down the road have flowers along their driveway. their chickens
were out in the front yard near the road - as we were walking by
i made a chicken noise and Ma thought the chickens did it. got
a good laugh out of that one. so next time i see someone out
there i'll stop in and ask them if they ever want any flowers or
trees that we have extras of to come on over and help themselves.
we'll trade for eggs if they have extras. we always have plenty
of a lot of our flowering plants. i haven't divided up some of
the clumps of daffodils since they were planted eight years ago.
tons of other things too if they want them. we're happy to share.


songbird

George Shirley wrote:

> No preserving at the moment but that time is coming. The
> squash, eggplant, tomatoes, sweet chiles and cucumbers are
> covered with flowers and small fruit. The pole beans, both
> red lima and green bean are flowering like crazy.
>
> We were hit by a large hail storm the other day with some
> hail as big as golf balls but mainly around marble size.
> Put a lot of holes in the squash leaves but they are
> recovering nicely. The Tennousi pear has exactly two pears
> on it so not going to be any pear jelly or pear sauce this
> year unless we go to a U-pick orchard nearby.
>
> Looking forward to putting up canned green beans as we are
> out but still have a half dozen bags of frozen green
> beans. Chard is no problem anymore as the plants in the
> front flower bed are still producing and approaching there
> third year of growth. In addition we still have frozen
> chard, cauliflower, and broccoli from the Louisiana
> garden, still perfectly good so we are trying to eat it
> up.
>
> Freezer is full of home made soups, stews, moussaka's,
> etc. from last year so need to eat them up too. I've been
> hitting the used neat bin at the supermarket and we have
> lots of beef, pork, chicken, etc. neatly vacuum packed and
> sealed and a day away from being cooked and eaten at any
> given time.
>
> I've posted on the HOA website a couple of times about
> gardening and home food preserving but so far have not
> caught any new fish. Guess most of these folk seem to eat
> out on a regular basis or order in. One family across the
> street seems to only eat fast food from local drive in's.
> At least their trash seems to say that. Poor souls.
>
> I've got one grandkid gardening and now he's wanting to
> learn to put up his own food. He's already using the
> vacuum sealer we gave him for Christmas last year and put
> up two deer he and his son shot last season. He tells me
> he's enlarging his raised bed garden by putting in another
> four by eight cinder block bed. He found a lot of cinder
> block on the curb and loaded his pick up truck twice to
> get it home. Don't find good materials just lying around
> around here as pickers always come around just before
> trash pick up. He was lucky.
>
> Just waiting on the vegetable garden to produce well and
> we're back to work. Hope all are having a good spring and
> are prepared.
>
> George
We've had an unusually cold spring here so far (SE VA), so
my gardening efforts are running about a month behind normal.
Two beds out of eight cleared and planted so far, with another
bed about half cleared and plants waiting to go out, but it's
raining here today, so inside work only.

Instead of preserving fruits and vegetables, I'm taking
advantage of the cooler weather to bake and re-stock the
freezer with brioche, cupcakes, muffins, biscuits, sandwich
buns, and breads. Nothing like taking a few baked goods
out of the freezer to thaw instead of turning on the oven
when it starts hitting the high temperatures this summer.

Nyssa, who manages to find lots to do rain or shine

On 4/25/2015 4:15 PM, Dave Balderstone wrote:
> We're getting pasted today with a spring storm. A couple of inches of
> wet snow, and earlier freezing rain. It's still too early to plant
> seedlings. Another three weeks or so.
>
> Still, I got three geese this morning before the weather hit. May try
> some goose jerky, or sausage... Yum.
>
I really never cared for waterfowl meat Dave. Raised over 200 Muscovy
ducklings almost fifty years ago and ate to many of them I guess. Wife
wanted ducklings so we let two hens raise full nests and put another 100
eggs in our incubator. Only way to clean a Muscovy is to skin the damned
thing and it was a pain to do. Have never eaten wild waterfowl as our
family was more into hunting critters with four legs than birds, with
the exception of quail, doves, and blackbirds. We ate a lot of those.

We started the morning with a little heavy rain, then light rain, and
then bright skies and sunshine, got hot out there by mid-afternoon. AC
has been coming on regularly since noon.

On 4/25/2015 9:30 PM, Dave Balderstone wrote:
> In article >, George Shirley
> > wrote:
>
>> On 4/25/2015 4:15 PM, Dave Balderstone wrote:
>>> We're getting pasted today with a spring storm. A couple of inches of
>>> wet snow, and earlier freezing rain. It's still too early to plant
>>> seedlings. Another three weeks or so.
>>>
>>> Still, I got three geese this morning before the weather hit. May try
>>> some goose jerky, or sausage... Yum.
>>>
>> I really never cared for waterfowl meat Dave. Raised over 200 Muscovy
>> ducklings almost fifty years ago and ate to many of them I guess. Wife
>> wanted ducklings so we let two hens raise full nests and put another 100
>> eggs in our incubator. Only way to clean a Muscovy is to skin the damned
>> thing and it was a pain to do. Have never eaten wild waterfowl as our
>> family was more into hunting critters with four legs than birds, with
>> the exception of quail, doves, and blackbirds. We ate a lot of those.
>>
>> We started the morning with a little heavy rain, then light rain, and
>> then bright skies and sunshine, got hot out there by mid-afternoon. AC
>> has been coming on regularly since noon.
>
> Still freaking snowing here. Grrr.
>
> Wild goose tastes a lot like beef, believe it or not. The breast is all
> that's really worth taking on snow or blue geese, so cleaning is a
> snap.
>
> The Greater Canadas are worth plucking and roasting, though. But that
> season isn't till fall.
>
> If I get enough snows and blues, though, I think I'll try making a
> confit. Can't really can it, but it will keep a good long while in the
> fridge under a layer of bacon fat... Mmmmmm, bacon...
>
Read your blog for the first time, very interesting. Read about the old
planes. Reminded me I have a box, made of galvanized tin, sitting on a
shelf in the garage. Was made by one of my great grandfathers, Albert
Galatin Brown Womack, way back, long before I was born. He was a veteran
of the US Civil War, on the Southern side of course. Was a logger,
carpenter, blacksmith, tinsmith, farmer, whatever helped to make a
living for his extended family. In that box are several old planes, made
of steel and iron, no numbers on them, suspect he might have made them
himself. Also a few hand made drill bits and the hand drills to go with
them. I take them out of the box every few years and oil them up, then
put them back in the box. They've been mine since my Dad passed in 1982
and I treasure them.

After reading your blog I'm thinking I might just put them back to work
as I'm slowly turning a two car garage into a one car garage and the
rest is shop and storage. It's been many years since I used pure hand
tools to make anything so I will keep that in the back of what is left
of my mind. Thanks for jogging some memories.

On 4/26/2015 10:34 AM, Dave Balderstone wrote:
> In article >, George Shirley
> > wrote:
>
>> Read your blog for the first time, very interesting. Read about the old
>> planes. Reminded me I have a box, made of galvanized tin, sitting on a
>> shelf in the garage. Was made by one of my great grandfathers, Albert
>> Galatin Brown Womack, way back, long before I was born. He was a veteran
>> of the US Civil War, on the Southern side of course. Was a logger,
>> carpenter, blacksmith, tinsmith, farmer, whatever helped to make a
>> living for his extended family. In that box are several old planes, made
>> of steel and iron, no numbers on them, suspect he might have made them
>> himself. Also a few hand made drill bits and the hand drills to go with
>> them. I take them out of the box every few years and oil them up, then
>> put them back in the box. They've been mine since my Dad passed in 1982
>> and I treasure them.
>>
>> After reading your blog I'm thinking I might just put them back to work
>> as I'm slowly turning a two car garage into a one car garage and the
>> rest is shop and storage. It's been many years since I used pure hand
>> tools to make anything so I will keep that in the back of what is left
>> of my mind. Thanks for jogging some memories.
>
> Beautiful!
>
> If you have any trouble getting them tuned up drop me a line.
>
> BTW, today's blog post photo will show you the results of the April
> storm that has just passed through. Travel on highways is not
> recommended, and it takes a lot up here to have the Hwys Dept make that
> call.
>
You could always move to Texas. Our subdivision alone has over twenty
nationalities here. I miss our Russian next door neighbors, they were
good friends for the two plus years we've been here. They decided to go
back to St. Petersburg this past January.

Lots of folks from Mexico and South and Central America, another Russian
family, and many folks from various parts of Europe and Asia. Haven't
met any Canadians yet but there's bound to be some. We're a few miles
from the new Exxon Mobil campus and they're moving over 10K personnel
into the area so house prices have risen rapidly.

We bought this house in December 2012 and it has gained over 40K in
value since then. I would sell it for a profit but would then have to
buy a new home somewhere else. Maybe I should start playing the lottery
in hopes of being able to buy a big property somewhere away from Houston
area and the atrocious traffic problems here. Our only advantage here is
that we're very close to our kids, grandkids, and great grands, makes us
cheap baby sitters but we love the job plus the big grandsons are handy
for helping with projects. When I say big, I mean it, middle grandson is
6'5" and weighs in at well over 225 lbs and lives two blocks from us.
Don't even need a jack to change a tire. <G>