The attack

After being away for all but three days since the beginning of July, my garden was in a STATE. I accidentally left my sprinkler on in the garden for, oh, say, 4 hours. Then we had a week of intense heat while the kids and I were away. Tony was home, but he didn't really go into the garden other than to take pictures of how the 4 hour shower completely made the garden go ridonkulous.

So yesterday, the weather was nice, sunny, warm, but not die-of-overheating hot. So I weeded. And weeded. And thinned. And weeded. And man, it really was starting to look fly in there! Got to a spot next to a huge compost heap where I had tried to plant some peas, and for the longest time, nothing was happening. But now, those babies were growing and flowering! So I started weeding and tossing the weeds onto the heap. One pea plant, two pea plants, YEA!

Then suddenly OW! WHAT THE FLUGLEHORN?? Something bit me. I looked at my shoulder, that was now throbbing in pain, and I saw a wasp. Then I started getting pain all over my body. I looked around. WASPS. Everywhere. Swarming on me, all over my shirt, my shorts, my legs. HOLY MOTHER OF BATHSHEBA HOW CAN THOSE LITTLE MOTHER TRUCKERS CAUSE SO MUCH PAIN?!?!

"TONY! TONY! WASPS! I'M BEING ATTACKED BY WASPS!" and I ran out of the garden flailing like the wacky waving arm-flailing inflatable tube man. Out of the window, I heard Tony, who in no way would come outside because he is actually smart and knows that wasps are total assholes.
"TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES!"

So I did. I started stripping as fast as I could in my yard, which is completely visible by all  of my neighbours. It was just like those scenes in cartoons when the bees are swarming and the person in the middle is acting like they have zero control over their body.
Those cartoons are based on truth. That truth is me.

I jumped into a freezing shower and moaned and groaned. By the time I got out, the pain was still sharp in my shoulders, but that was it. I have five distinct welts (that I can tell), 4 of which were on my deltoids and shoulder blades. Honestly, I cannot believe that something so small can inflict so much pain FOR NOTHING.

Those assholes made a nest inside a compost heap and stayed hidden all this time. Just waiting for me to go and start cleaning up the garden so they could assault me. They are lucky I am smart and don't just pour gasoline and light the whole flipping pile on fire. Cuz I would. But we have new neighbours, and I don't think they want me to burn their fence and shed down. Although if they knew it was in the name of safety for all mankind, they would probably approve.

Hey wasps, your days are numbered. Too bad for you that I am not allergic to you and didn't DIE because now, you'se gonna pay. I will be smoking and fogging you until you bite each other and cannibalize to death. And then I will pounce on the heap you called home and dance and plant my family flag and say GOT YOU MOTHER FUCKERS! I declare this to be MY HEAP!

That's how we do things, assholes.

*********

Apologies for the cursing. But in this case, I cannot express myself clearly enough without calling them nasty names. And I am truly grateful that I am not allergic to wasps, becaue the attack would likely have killed someone who was. I am still red and welty today, over 16 hours after the attack.

It's canning season!

I took an interest in canning last summer.  My mom used to can all sorts of things when I was a kid, ranging from homemade pickles, to jams, to canned vegetables, to soups.

I started last year with jelly.  My first ever attempt at canning was making nanking cherry jelly, which turned out so well I hopped right into more jellies and jams. Last year, the total cups of jelly/jam canned was roughly 60.  Some in pints, some in jam jars that hold one cup.  By this summer, about 10 cups remained, mostly of strawberry jam, which seems to be the least favourite at our house.  Or maybe I just made the most of that kind last year.

Last year, Tony got into making pickles: he made regular dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, and curry pickles, which were killer. Those curry pickles were so amazing on burgers I can't even explain it. He also made some pickled beets, and I made about 24 quarts of salsa.

This year, the running total is getting to be ridiculous: I have done 8 cups of strawberry jam, 18 cups of saskatoon jelly, 18 cups of cherry jelly, and nearly 30 cups of raspberry jam, the boys' favourite.  All of the berries are local, all of which were picked by our family. I also made some cherry bbq sauce (5 cups). We have apples waiting to be processed, too. They are good for eating fresh, but there is no way we can go through all those apples! Jelly-time is looming.

Now, jam and jelly time is almost over and we are heading into regular pickling and canning. We picked about 10 lbs of string beans from our garden last night.  That's right, 10 lbs.  That was from approximately half our plants, and this was not the first picking.  I picked nearly as many last weekend! I am not one for canned beans, so I am trying to flash freeze them, and Tony wants to make some dilly beans.  I have also got into pressure canning, which opens up so many possibilities, like soups.  I have done beef barley soup and a mexican-inspired meatball soup.

All this canning is fantastic, but I am quickly realizing that I need more space to store my canned goods.  I have no cold storage room, and piling jars all around my basement is not ideal.  We also have to store our potatoes at my mom's house in the winter because she has a cold room that will preserve them, whereas if we kept them in our house, they would spoil by November, I am sure.

I never thought I would ever be so domestic, but I am loving all the home-grown and homemade foods so much.  It takes time and dedication to make all these goodies, time which could otherwise be spent knitting or relaxing, but we reap the rewards all year on our toast and at the dinner table, so it's definitely worth it.

Especially when Sashimi tasted some store-bought jam and said "What's wrong with this jam?  It's no good."

Strawberries

Last spring, I planted 14 strawberry plants in my yard.  They were each one small root and stem.  I let them do their thing all summer, letting the runners go mad.  In the fall, I looked closely at what had progressed: once I separated all the runners that had started growing on their own from the mother plants, I counted my new strawberry patch: 60 plants. I rearranged them all in a row and covered them with straw for the winter.

This year, I have again been letting them do their own thing, tending to the flowering ones and trimming the runners somewhat.  Some plants did not survive the winter, but many others sprung up in their place. Everyday for the past week, the boys and I have checked the patch to pick the ripe berries.  Most days we get about 6-10 ripe berries.  Yesterday, we got this:

[caption id="attachment_635" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Nothing better than home-grown berries"][/caption]

So we washed them up and sliced them for the boys at supper time.  Red smiles for everyone!

[caption id="attachment_636" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pay no attention to the Kraft Dinner in this photo..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_637" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Teeth are nice and juicy red from home-grown strawberries"][/caption]

It's pie season, bitches

Despite being tired, I was very wired last night.  I did some laundry, did a bunch of weeding in the yard, then collected some strawberries and rhubarb from my garden and made this:

[caption id="attachment_626" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="All the organic local goodness you can stuff in your pie-hole"][/caption]

I did not have enough strawberries to make this a true strubarb pie, so I tossed in some saskatoons and raspberries from last season that I had flash-frozen for such an occasion. I made the filling on the stove before baking the pie, just so I could do some necessary quality control (mmm...more quality control please...)

It was all I could do not to devour this baby for breakfast.  True homegrown flavour, wrapped in awesome pastry-flakiness, also from scratch.**

I don't care how many calories it is. Pie season only comes once a year.

-----------------------------

**No, making pie crust from scratch is not hard. It is necessary for delicious awesomeness.

Our green thumbs are busy

The husband and I have been really busy this summer with landscaping.  While we had professionals do a lot of work that we simply could NOT do ourselves, due to lack of equipment, time and know-how, we still have a lot to do ourselves, particularly in the back yard.  My husband recently posted about the whole process on his blog, so I will just link to it here. There, you will also find a link to photos of the entire process, before and after shots, as well as shots of the boys "helping."

Now click away!