I am pleased to announce, after a few year hiatus (due to bad kitchens and life crises), canning season has officially begun in the Levy/Dill household.
I wish I had learned to can at my mother’s knee (or elbow), but this is not the case. My mother attempted home canning once. Ithink it was supposed to be plum jam, it never jelled, her seals weren’t good, and rather take the chance of poisoning her family, the whole thing, jars, jam, etc., went into the trash. That was the end of her career as a home canner.
In 2001, Tim and I and our downstairs neighbors, planted a veggie garden that should have kept the 4 of us in veggies for the summer. They were transferred, mid-season, out of state and we were left with an incredibly abundant garden. After 10 days of cucumber salad, the question arose, “what to do?” The solution was simple. Pickles!
For those of you who have not been following our adventure, when we came to NY from Florida, we had no jobs. We had a little money put away and we thought Tech Valley would provide a job for a seasoned Help Desk tech. Well….we were wrong. We lived on Florida Unemployment Insurance, varied and sundry consulting jobs that Tim
found, and the barest beginning of a massage therapy practice. In essence, we were broke.
We bought the Ball Blue Book, canning jars, cut down a dollar store cake rack, bought a jar lifter
and used my Lobster Pot. That season I made pickles and canned tomatoes, pasta sauce and pickle relish. We ran out of things to can, but not out of desire to be canning.
A run to the orchard got us some peaches and we learned how to make preserves. I have been making the same preserves every year. I’ve been told enter them in the local county fair, but never get around to doing it in time.
Yesterday, as we made our leisurely way down to my Dad’s house for an afternoon that was supposed to include poolside relaxation (but didn’t), we stopped at Golden Harvest Farms to get some peaches.
We bought 2 half-bushels of peaches and set off.
This morning, I woke up to find Tim in a frenzy of kitchen cleaning. While my kitchen is usually reasonably clean, when I’m canning, it is sanitized. Tim unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, filled it with canning jars and ran it again. He
wiped down every surface, then again with a mild bleach solution, then again with a clean, wet cloth. He washed the canner, filled it and we both lifted it to the stove (he’s still limited in his use of his recently repaired left shoulder).
We started with our signature Peach Preserves.
A few months ago I finally bought a digital, electronic, kitchen scale. Because I’ve never known exactly how many of what fruit equals the amounts called for in my recipes, this year, I’m converting everything to weights, not necessarily liquid measure.
Using to old adage (works for liquid measure only…and not all the time at that), “A pint’s a pound the world around,” and my recipe calls for 2 quarts of peaches, I weighed off 4 lbs.
Blanched:
Shocked:
Peeled:
Pit:
and diced:
I ended up with 1 peach shy of 4 quarts. Perhaps other people knew this, but since I’m a self-taught home canner, I
never did.
Of course, in the process I received the first wound of the season:
Fortunately, when you cut yourself with a sharp knife, the cut is quick and clean.
While I was prepping peaches, Tim took off for the food co-op tostock up on new spices, and then the market for more sugar, pectin and other stuff.
Then you cook and cook and cook, stirring to prevent sticking until it reaches the gel point:
Then set up the actual canning station:
And then, after the preserves are put into jars, given a 10 minutes boiling water bath, you end up with this:
So who wants to be on my Yule, Chanukah, Christmas gift exchange list this year?
Tomorrow….the Rhubarb.
A new thing (for me) Ten on Tuesday is a “thing” in certain blog circles that asks you to list 10 things about the topic of the week. So, here’s my first Ten on Tuesday:
Ten Ways To Entertain a Child
1. Tell Stories
2. Fingerpaint
3. Read them a book
4. Have them read to you
5. Go outside and play
6. Take them to the movies
7. Go for a ride in the car
8. Introduce them to barnyard animals
9. Piano Wire
10. Duct Tape
Good topic, considering that I have a 49 year old who is home recovering from shoulder surgery. 
The Peonies are blooming!
I know, I know..I promised to show pictures of knitting and spinning projects in process. I wanted to, I really did…but the photography gods were not very kind when I tried to photograph on a cloudy day. And when it has not been cloudy, I have been busy being outdoors in the very nice weather. Of course, I rarely bring camera to document the process, and I persist in thinking, what is a blog post without visual elements.
So here we are. This is a shawl that I began working on. It’s a gift (so I won’t say for whom), and I started it in plenty of time. But now I’m starting to feel some urgency about it. Trouble is, I can’t seem to knit this pattern while chatting, or even watching TV. Don’t know why, it’s not that difficult, but still the memorization of it eludes me.
The pattern is Brandywine, by Romi (Rosemary Hill).
This is the 2nd pattern of hers that I’ve knit. She also designed Waves of Grain, which I blogged about here.
I’m knitting this from Merino/Silk yarn that I spun from fiber purchased last year at Cummington. Which I blogged about here.
Here is the fiber before it was spun: 
If I buy nothing else at Cummington this year, it will be more of this fiber in another color(s).
This fiber was a joy to spin, and has been a joy to knit with. I love the drape that the silk adds to the fabric, and the merino is soooo soft. As Jess says, Mmmmmmmmerino!
I’ve also been spinning a lot. Here is some Into the Whirled fiber, 100% Merino, the color of which is not done justice by the photograph.
I have to say something about Cris’ fiber. It has to be the best prepped, dyed fiber I have ever spun with. It practically drafts itself, and that clarity and saturation of her colours is an ecstatic experience. I can’t wait to knit with this.
Then there was the fiber that I did NOT enjoy spinning. It was alpaca and wool, but had guard hairs (which I had not before encountered in alpaca) and was a hairy and not pleasant experience. However, the yarn it turned into, once spun and plied, while not something I would wear next to my skin, is much nicer than I thought it would be:
It’s more burgandy than pink…but…the vaguaries of digital photography, and my inability to do color correction. (Someone please teach me, someday).
And finally, some uber-cuteness from the kitties:
Good Morning, everyone! I woke up early this morning to the sound of shattering glass. Apparently I managed to knock the water glass from my bedside table to the floor. Argh. Not a great way to wake up, but the day moved forward from there.
After the flurry of morning email settled down, I took my camera for a walk around the property. It’s so pretty now. I went out the front door the first thing I see is the Japanese Red Maple.
I don’t know about you, but I think they are completely lovely trees. This one has some Trout Lilies that planted themselves underneath, come Hosta and some little Red Maple seedlings? This one is for Tina.
It just put up its first two little shoots. In about 20 years it will be a tree. (Yes, that is a yarn scrap on the ground next to it.) Does anyone else want maple seedlings? Most will get pulled as weeds if we don’t have takers.
Then I turned around and saw the new Forsythia Hedge we put in this spring:
All in all there are 14 bushes. Did you know that if you wait until the blooms fall off, nurseries tend to mark them down ridiculously? These were $15/plant. How’s that for a gardening bargain?
Then I walked around the house to Lilac Heaven. I adore Lilacs. After Hyacinths, they are my favorite flower. And it’s all about the fragrance.
Can’t you just smell it???
Then I walked down the hill to the bottom of the property, where the white lilacs are:
Are you smiling?
On Saturday, we planted a Maypole, ensuring a fertile garden:
And then…I walked under the apple trees on my way back to the house:
In this next photo, I’m not showing you whithered flowers, but the beginnings of apples:
That bulge behind the blossom…That’s going to be an apple in the fall! How cool is that?
Tomorrow….fiber content.
Well, here I am again. Back at the keyboard, wanting to know how my peeps are. Wondering if any of my peeps are left. Seems I got so busy on the other, newspaper blog (which shall remain nameless, and thus linkless), that I’ve forsaken you. But no more!!
It’s time for me to put the newspaper blog, timesucker that it has been, aside. I’ve been there a year, and it never did turn into what I wanted it to be. And so I’m back.
Let me catch you up.
The house is a long-term work in progress. We’ve painted the bedroom and rearranged the furniture. I’m holding off on pictures until I get some more things put away, and maybe…maybe…curtains. It’s starting to feel more like home, and that’s a good thing.
The property is fantastic. Right now there are lilacs everywhere, including all over the inside of the house (in vases). I’ll take pictures tomorrow. Right now, it’s too late to take pictures, but I will tomorrow.
In the meantime, here are pictures of the future garden:
And here are two shots of these amazing chiles that a client brought back from Sante Fe.
See you tomorrow!!
Yesterday afternoon I chanced to find myself in the Colonie Town Hall. On my way to the office I was supposed to go to, I passed the Town Historian’s office.
Kevin Franklin proved to a most delightful gentleman. When I asked if it were possible that he’d have any information on the 150 year old farmhouse I recently moved into, his eyes lit up and he dove in.
Within 15 minutes I was seated at a desk with books and files in layers in front of me. I was given a yellow legal pad and a pen.
Among other things I learned that the original owners of the house were among the founding families of Colonie. The Fort family was traceable back to the original French Huguenot LeForte family who came to this area via Canada. Can you imagine coming down across the Adirondacks in the 1600′s? I wonder how long it took?
I waded through deeds showing the transfer of the house within the Fort family until about 1907, and then the transfers since then until the 1980′s. There were copies of suits filed both by the Fort’s and against them about the Ferry Business and generally interesting historical stuff.
To me, though, the real treasures are these:
and if you wonder what the Fort Ferry looked like:
 note the cable strung above the ferry that crossed the river.
As I said before..How cool is this?
::sigh::
It’s sad, but true.
However, there are Finished Object photos on the TU blog. So hop on over there:
While you’re at it, Tina has new Fiber blog up on CBS blogs.
I’ll try to be back soon with regular blogging.
I know…promises, promises…
First is that the real post is over on the Times Union Blog.
Second…there are big things happening over on Jessalu’s blog. Click on over from here. Comment. Tell her I sent you!.
The thing about moving into a house that was built in the 1850′s and had been unoccupied for 17 years prior to us moving in, is that there seems to be no end of work to be done.
Before we moved in, and for the first few weeks of living here, we worked and worked and worked and worked and worked. And we got the first floor ready for Thanksgiving. Then we hosted T-day dinner for 20 and then we pretty much came to a screeching halt.
The rest of the holiday season was upon us, and we had friends over to see the downstairs, we went to parties and generally had a good time. January hit, we both got sick and now we’re better, and we’re back to work.
We’re working on the bedroom. Just before Thanksgiving we got the bedroom cleaned, and primed. Tim got the closet painted inside and we moved in.
Saturday, we started by painting the ceiling:
See how pretty the primer’d walls are……NOT?
Supplies:
We buy ceiling paint and primer by the 5 gallon bucket!
This would be me…wiping up the spilled paint.
When we moved in there were no doors except on 2 of the three bathrooms. All the doors in the house had been removed at one point, stripped of their lead based paint, and then stored in the garage. The stripping process and the 20 years of garage storage has caused a lot of the glue to disintegrate, so not many of the doors fit without being reglued and clamped back into the right position.
Matching the doors up with their doorways is like putting together a Chinese puzzle. BTW, they soak up primer like a sponge.
Because she always has to be in the same room I am:
I’m hoping that we’ll start to put some color on the walls tonight. Maybe Sunday I’ll start sewing window treatments.
I’ll keep y’all posted as the work progresses.
Oh, and for those on facebook that wanted to see the new comforter:
 It looks so inviting in the promo picture, doesn’t it? It arrived yesterday and I can’t wait to get the bedroom finished so I can unpack it.
More later…
|
|
