Because I’ve done very little to the house or yard or either garden in the past 2 1/2 weeks (cherries, then vacation, then work, class and real life), and because we received about six inches of rain in the past week, we came home to quite a mess Sunday night. We finally got a good start on it late this afternoon, but there’s a lot left to do.

Sunday night, we unpacked, and did laundry. Monday and Wednesday nights I had class after work, which lasts about 3 1/2 hours each night. Tuesday night I surveyed the needs of the gardens, and then I had 100 pages to read. And early Wednesday morning, Sandy had a major gall bladder attack.

Into the fourth hour of the attack, he said, “God created pain so that we won’t be afraid to die.” This guy was not happy.

His doctor’s office opened at 8 am, so I prepared the car for him and he got up at 7:35 to dress to go. He immediately had to lay back down because of the pain. At 7:40 he dressed, and got in the car. At 7:45, he was over it.

Have you noticed that sometimes all it takes to make the pain go away is to get in the car to go to the doctor?

In this case, however, he’s going for the surgery. It is his fourth major attack, and he had a minor one about a week before at the lake. I’m glad because I don’t want to watch him go through this again, and I’m relieved that it won’t be an issue when we go to Italy.

Anyway, he’s been working on cleaning house, and together we got the front yard in good enough shape that the neighbors won’t call the city inspectors on us.

Here’s a quick back forty update now that the puddles have gone away. The mosquitoes are out in full force, and the vines have gone crazy. Most of what I have to do this weekend involves hacking out the vines and weeds where I didn’t mulch. The hollyhocks are kaput. I had taken away the support for the peas in front of them, and I guess they needed that when the ground got saturated. Solves a problem, though.

The artichokes are rotting. But they were pretty much done.

Some of the volunteer squashes look like orange mini-pumpkins. The other volunteer squash, as far as I can tell from my Internet searching, are Fordhook Acorns. I could be wrong though, they look more yellowish. Kind of like spaghetti squash with ribs. They seem to be turning oranger (is that a word? it should be) with age. I don’t recall buying these, but I have a friend who occasionally contributes to the compost pile, so maybe they originate with her. If anyone has info on these squash, please help me figure out what to do with them. I have a bumper crop, and the vines are overwhelming this part of the garden.

I’m a little disappointed because I hoped for butternut squash, but considering my crappy luck with squash in the past, I’m extremely lucky to have these.

I’ll be eating green beans next week. And cucumbers, it looks like. I never dug up my garlic - I hope that there’s really some down there because I keep forgetting about it.

Just before I left (June 16) I planted the last Monticello Jr. garden seeds - Whipporwill crowder peas, in the middle and various spots of the center bed. They came up while I was gone. The Monticello Jr. garden has been somewhat of a failure, but certain plants, such as the tennis ball lettuce, have made me very happy.

In our errand running tonight - thank God I now have coffee, because I had some soda relapses - I went by McKnight Hardware and bought a Foley food mill. I had a $5 coupon that was about to expire and by God I was on a mission. Tuesday afternoon I had gone by the community garden row after work with some tobacco sticks and a hammer, because I knew from the shape of the back forty that I probably had some tomato cages down. I didn’t get much done because I got drenched while I staked the cages, but holy toledo do I have tomatoes on the vines, and I need to get ready for canning.

I have a lot to do in the community garden this weekend. Weeds have taken over the paths and the O’odham Pink beans have gone nuts. Aren’t they supposed to be desert beans? I didn’t think bush beans got this big. One yellow pear tomato seems to have a fungal disease and the peas need to come out. Even though most of the tomatoes are loaded some of the Roma plants look puny to me. Carrots are ready to be pulled and I’m getting broccoli side shoots.

McKnight had a few pepper plants and a lemon thyme outside marked free, so I gave them a home tonight. One pepper, an unidentified bell, went into the container garden where I lost an eggplant. Just before I left, I transferred a few Habeneros into some small pots. For the most part, the eggplants look extremely healthy and I have some small ones on the Early Black Eggs. I have a small problem with aphids (which the ants are farming, and I’m so fascinated that I hate to spray) that I’ve controlled with Safer insecticidal soap. But, and this is important, no flea beetle damage, which is the reason I started planting my eggplants in containers up above the ground.

Bringing me to the end of this long, long post! Whew! And I didn’t even cover half of it!

Whew! I’m back, but I feel a little overwhelmed! After a week and a half away, you can bet that I have a LOT that I want to write about, but not only do I not have time to write, I don’t even know where to start. So, I thought I’d blog a little on my lunch break.

I read a lot on my vacation. The first book I finished was This Organic Life by Joan Dye Gussow, and wow, talk about a book that completely reinforces and connects with everything I am doing now. This is one of the most inspirational books I’ve read in a long time. And to think that my friend found it in hardback on the free shelf at the used bookstore. Lucky me!

Then I read a biography for the class I am taking on Monday and Wednesday evenings, Louis Armstrong, An Extravagant Life, by Laurence Bergreen. I’ve always been a jazz fan but I’ve never known a lot about the subject. So this look at the nitty-gritty beginnings of jazz and the life of a musical genius was fascinating. Louis Armstrong’s life was nothing like I expected. The class will focus on the period of the 1920s, the decade when my parents were born, and I think that it’s going to be very, very interesting.

Then, because I WAS on vacation, after all, I finished the fourth Stephanie Plum book, and began the fifth one. Janet Evanovich’s series is hysterical and bawdy with some of the funniest characters ever. Great beach reading, and technically, there was a beach at the lake.

And I started the Michael Pollan book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Okay, I really started it a long time before it came out. The excellent NYT article “Power Steer” has been worked into the book, and I read a couple of chapters in advance of publication. Plus, I regularly cruise the Internet to pick up bits and pieces of his work. I think that Michael Pollan is a life-changing author, and many readers agree with me.

Oh well, I must get back to work. I will try to get a Back Forty and Community Garden update up soon, although after not working on them for a couple of weeks during a rainy June I may have to spend all my time working instead of writing. And of course, I have photos and such about the lake.

After 5 p.m. today, I’ll be blissfully away from all computers until Sunday evening, June 25, because I’ll be here.

This past Sunday, my husband Sandy and I participated in a lovely experience that I plan to repeat at least yearly. Along with members of Slow Food Piedmont Triad and UNCG’s “Simple Living in a Complex World” class, we wound our way up to the Levering Orchard in Ararat, Virginia, just north of the N.C./Virginia line between Mount Airy and the Blue Ridge Parkway, to pick cherries and share good food and good company.

The Levering Orchard is 98 years old. Frank Levering’s grandfather first planted the cherry trees here, and Frank and his wife Wanda Urbanska took over the operation of the farm in 1986, a move that they wrote about in their book Simple Living. It is a pick-your-own orchard, although there are some already picked fruits available for sale. Levering Orchard is known for its cherries, but it also offers peaches, nectarines, pears, and apples. See the Levering Orchard web site for this year’s schedule and other information.

We carpooled to the orchard from a couple of departure points, and once there, headed straight for the trees. The trees were much bigger than I’d anticipated, and they were chock-full of cherries! By late Sunday afternoon, many of the low-hanging branches had been picked, necessitating climbing the heavy tall ladders. I was in a tree as often as possible when I was a child, so I enjoyed the excuse to get up there and simply sit for a spell while my husband picked cherries. It is hard but pleasant work, and it is easy to pick more cherries than you meant to buy or use! We concentrated on picking the large dark sweet cherries, and bought half a bucket of the smaller tart cherries already picked. I estimate that between us we picked about 17 pounds of cherries. When it is this much fun, it’s hard to stop. And the scenery and the view - well, it was gorgeous.

After we all finished our cherry picking, Wanda, Frank, and their son Henry joined us for a potluck picnic and a discussion afterwards about simple living and Slow Food. Also joining in the discussion were Tenley Weaver and Dennis Dove of Full Circle Organic Farm. Tenley and Dennis operate a food distribution co-op of local produce that focuses on USDA-certified organic and biologically-grown vegetables and no/low spray fruits called “Good Food Good People.” They provide consumers and restaurants in southwest Virginia with seasonal sustainably-grown food.

I had a nice conversation afterwards with Frank Levering about my daydream of buying a couple of acres for a little blueberry farm. He was so encouraging that I might actually look into it some day, after Italy! (Everything is “before Italy” or “after Italy” these days - looks like it is already a benchmark in my life.)

Wanda and Frank are the authors of several books about simple living as well as the host and writers of the television program Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, beginning its third season on PBS in January 2007. In a nutshell, this is how they describe the show:

“Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska examines what people can do to make their lives easier and more stress-free, from buying products that will last a long time to managing budgets more responsibly. The show focuses on four themes: environmental stewardship, thoughtful consumption, community involvement and financial responsibility.”

I recommend their book Nothing’s Too Small to Make a Difference, for a well-rounded view of the simple living philosophy.

For more photos of the event, please go to the Flickr photo site that Mandie created for Slow Food Piedmont Triad.

Preserving Cherries

Since we brought home about twenty pounds of cherries late Sunday evening, and I’m leaving town Friday after work for nine days, that meant that I had to get crackin’ to do something about them!

Freezing

The first thing I did was what Wanda Urbanska suggested: I put washed and dried, whole unpitted cherries on a cookie sheet, froze them, then bagged them. I have very little room in my freezer so freezing couldn’t take care of much. This was not the method shown in any of my preserving books, but it was the easiest and quickest way, and I’ll take Wanda’s word for it since she’s been growing them for twenty years.

Pitting

Then Sandy and I got to work pitting cherries. I was kicking myself for not buying a cherry pitter the last time that I was at McKnight’s Hardware, but then I found a useful tip in my copy of Putting Food By - the rounded end of a paper clip makes a great cherry pitter! I used a jumbo clip for the large ones. It is a bit awkward at first, but after a few tries it became fast and easy.

I only kept the perfect ones for preserving, so since I don’t waste food, I was forced to eat the imperfect ones. (Cue violins)

Drying

I loaded up all four trays of my electric food dehydrator with pitted sweet cherries and ran it for 25-27 hours. I took out the ones that were dry at 25 hours. The cherries were very juicy, so some of the largest ones never did seem to get dry enough. So I was forced to eat them. Then I stored the rest in glass jars.

Canning

I preserved four pints of cherries. Next year I’ll can more, because it wasn’t as hard as I thought. Just a lot of boiling water and some sticky mess to clean up.

I brought a little over 4 pints of pitted sweet cherries and a cup of sugar slowly to a boil, poured them through a wide funnel into four clean scalding hot pint jars, topped them off with boiling water, wiped the rims with a scrupulously clean hot cloth, and placed the jar lids and screwbands on them. Then I lowered them into a large canner filled with boiling water. The rack in the canner has room for seven jars, so I filled the other three spots with open jars filled with water to keep jars from bouncing around. After twenty minutes in the boiling water bath, I pulled the jars out.

This was the hard part. Note to self: BUY OR MAKE LONGER, BETTER JAR LIFTER! I’d rather not boil my fingers every time I do this. I tossed the last jar around so much trying to get it out of the pot without burning myself for the fourth time (I did anyway) that I’m amazed that it didn’t break and that the lid sealed properly. At one point I had it wedged upside down in the rack. Second note to self: Have bowl of ice on hand for dipping boiled fingertips.

Here’s a tip about buying a canning pot and jars - it may say that it is a 21 quart canner, but don’t you believe it. That’s not even close. The “21 quarts” refers to loose contents. The rack in my 21 quart canner holds seven jars. You have to fill the pot 1 1/2 to 2 inches above the jars because you must have moving boiling water surrounding the jar to completely sterilize the internal contents. A 21 quart canner is barely tall enough for pints. Putting Food By says that even a 33 quart canner is not tall enough for quarts. And it suggests buying wire cake racks or making your own racks.

I keep waiting for my mother to give me the pressure canner sitting unused in her storage building, or I’d buy a pressure canner. Maybe next year I’ll be reporting on that method of preserving.

If I had a little more time before vacation, I’d can a few jars of Cherry Relish from a recipe I found in a 1973 copy of Stocking Up, How to Preserve the Foods You Grow Naturally by Rodale Press. Basically it contains pitted cherries, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, honey, vinegar, and pecans. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Maybe I’ll try it in the fall with pecans from my mother’s trees and dried cherries.

The other books I used in researching preserving cherries were Well Preserved: Pickles, Relishes, Jams and Chutneys for the New Cook by Mary Anne Dragan and an old copy of the Ball Blue Book, lent to me by the fabulous Zha K.

Cherry Picking at Levering Orchard

I still haven’t had time to write a proper post about my cherry picking trip, but I hope that you’ll enjoy these ladders.

I’ve been a bit under the weather for the last couple of days, and what energy I’ve had has gone toward pitting a whole lot of these for drying, freezing, and preserving. More later!

When I visited Mama on Mother’s Day weekend, she treated me to this onion pie. We both used Vidalia onions because they are in season (and I LOVE them!) but you could use any sweet onion. According to Mama, the recipe originally came from Cooking Light magazine. I changed it a bit because I use a quiche pan, so I needed to increase the amounts a little, and I didn’t use fat-free ingredients. It is good warm or cold.

Vidalia Onion Pie

1 unbaked pie crust (see recipe below)
1 Tbsp butter
3 c chopped Vidalia onions
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 extra-large egg
1/2 c 2% milk
1/2 c buttermilk (*see note)
salt
dash of hot sauce

Preheat oven to 350. Melt the butter in a large skillet and cook the onions about five minutes. Put onions in pie crust. Blend cream cheese and egg until smooth, then mix in milk, buttermilk, salt, and hot sauce. Pour over onions. Bake for 45 minutes or until set.

*My buttermilk was really thick so I used 1/2 cup. If you use normal buttermilk, that may make the sauce a bit too thin. Adjust it down as necessary, or you may want to use a little extra cream cheese or sour cream or yogurt.

Pie Crust

I make all my pie crusts with my food processor. It’s easy.

For a standard-sized pie pan:

1 1/2 c flour
6 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces
About 4 Tbsp cold water, milk, or buttermilk

Put flour and butter in the food processor with a chopping blade. A combination of white and whole wheat is nice. Hit the button a few times until the mixture is blended and looks like course crumbs. Turn it on low and add liquid until the dough begins to hold together.

Roll out the dough and press it into a pie or quiche pan.

I don’t try to make a perfect circle big enough for the pan anymore. Life is too short. I press in the pieces of rolled dough and you can’t tell the difference. I usually add a little extra flour and butter for a quiche pan because I don’t roll my dough out very thinly. If I have extra, I can make a little lattice work or other design on top, or freeze it, but it’s less hassle to have too much than too little.

Sources:

White and whole wheat flour: Old Mill of Guilford
Butter: Homeland Creamery
Milk and buttermilk: Homestead Creamery (Earth Fare)
Organic Vidalia onions: Earth Fare
Organic Valley cream cheese: Deep Roots Market
Free-range “authentic” egg: Back Woods Family Farm

The Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market is always my first stop on Saturdays. Since I’ll be leaving for Lake Waccamaw Friday evening that means I’ll miss the next two markets. So I tried to load up, but without a shopping cart there was only so much I could carry!

• True free-range chicken breasts and eggs: Back Woods Family Farm

• Blue cheese/leek and Goat cheese/tomato mini-quiches: Nora Glanz
• Marinated goat cheese: Goat Lady Dairy
• Organic Ace beets: Handance Farm
• Organic Yukon Gold potatoes: Weatherhand Farm (I hope to harvest some of my own soon.)
• Sweet potatoes: Faucette Farms. Mainly for sprouting - reading This Organic Life reminded me.
• Pasture-raised hamburger and stew beef: Rocking F Farm
• Oatmeal/honey soap: Mimi’s Soaps
• Organic whole wheat pita bread, olives, and baba ganoush: Dough Re Mi
• Yellow stone-ground grits from Old Mill of Guilford: Donna Myers

I decided that I love my sister so much that I will cook her real cheese grits so she won’t be tempted to eat that awful instant stuff out of the packets. But I forgot to buy more extra-sharp cheddar cheese from the Molners! Oh NO! In three weeks I will surely be in serious withdrawal.

I’ve gone cheese-crazier than ever lately. The other night I bought Pecorino Romano, Manchego, and an American cheese named Van Gogh. If you want to sell me cheese, all you have to do is give me a little taste. I really have no control over it.

However, it will be great to have all these good cheeses down at the lake, if I can keep from eating them before then. It’s the kind of place that is made for cold munchies. I have just a few rules at the lake house.

1. Eat whatever and whenever you want.

2. Sleep whenever and as long as you want.
3. Wipe the counters and keep grain products and sugar in the fridge (serious ant problem).
4. Wash your feet off before you walk in the house (there’s a sandy beach).
5. Turn the lights off when you leave a room (serious fire hazard, you should see the ceilings).
6. Drink as much as you want, as long as you don’t drive a car or a boat.
7. No smoking.

I tried to enforce a new rule about walking cute little dogs next to the canal where huge Mama Alligator has her babies, but no one listened. Thank God Mama wasn’t paying attention. I also tried to enforce a rule about not using the sailboat because it isn’t ours, but no one listened. Once we had to fetch it from the other side of the lake and haul it in with a jet-ski, and when I was in it we had to paddle in. In fact, few people ever pay attention to any of my rules except 1 and 2. Fred has a sign in the bathroom that says “No couples in shower” but hey. Let’s be reasonable.

That’s the lake for you. I’ll be there for nine days beginning Friday, June 16. I’ll be surrounded by family for most of that time, but for two blissful days I will be totally alone. I’m taking my paints and a pile of books. There will be no computer, no phone, and no cable TV. Ahhhh. I’m really there already.

Time Magazine published an excellent article on the Locavores and the Eat Local Challenge called The Lure of the 100-Mile Diet in the June 4 issue. In fact, it had a whole section on “Eating Smart,” including an article from Michael Pollan entitled Six Rules for Eating Wisely, and another article by Margot Roosevelt on pasture-raised beef, The Grass-Fed Revolution.

All are well-written, informative articles and well worth your time!