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Storing the Onions
If you follow over at Sprout Dispatch you may have seen my post about our onion harvest. For a week the onions sat in some deer feeder platforms in our computer room, fan on, door shut to keep the cats out. The room started reeking about a day into it but finally mellowed (or I got nasal fatigue) by the end of the week. Finally last Sunday I took them outside and cut the tops off, leaving a few inches, trimmed up the roots a bit and then stacked them in some storage crates I found at Walmart. Initially I was going to opt for laundry baskets but a few…
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Yellow Pear Tomato | Vegetable & Fruit Portraits
I have to say that these are going down as one of the most prolific tomatoes I have ever grown. They are giving my sungolds a run for their money on abundance. Last night I was picking the golden fruits off the vines in the last bits of light before dusk, I was reminded of black plum tomatoes that I grew in Florida. The shape is different but I was instantly missing my seeds and tomatoes from then. It really is interesting growing tomatoes in a different climate. If I were in Florida still, the vines would have been ripped up for about a month now, or at the very…
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These Days
+These days I feel like most of what I do is garden related, whether it is being in the garden or doing something with the harvest. A couple of days ago I pulled out 21 lbs of food from our garden, carrying it out in one of our black reusable bags—a first in awhile because I always forget and have to pull used plastic grocery bags from the garden shed—worrying that the straps would break on the way to the car from the pressure. Inside I had many fistfuls of endless long, purple Chinese mosaic beans, more cucumbers than I need at the moment because we’ve pickled ourselves into a…
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Tidbits
+When I get out of the natural rhythm of life it always takes me several days to bounce back. +Last weekend I drove to east Texas to visit one of my best friends Michelle. Her daughter’s 4th birthday was this weekend—I can’t believe that one! I came to Texas a few weeks after she was born 4 years ago and met Kylen as a tiny baby and now she’s this tall, long haired, spitting-image-of-her-momma kid! It was fun, there were cupcakes, balloons, meeting Michelle and J.P.’s extended family and friends…it was great! Now that I found an easier way to get there, (I took a different way to get there,…
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In the Kitchen | Key Limes & Cucumbers
Back in March I saw a post on Food in Jars about salt preserved key limes. I bookmarked it and finally the other day I saw key limes for sale at the store. In Florida we had a small key lime tree I grew from seed—even managed to get a few fruits off one year—and while most ‘wild’ citrus was oranges or grapefruit, I once came across a key lime tree! That’s a good find! Staring at the photos on Food in Jars I was entranced and could just imagine sipping a homemade limeade from the juice I would ferment. Oh, it looked so good; I had to make it!…
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10 Years Ago
Rosemarie and me with our friends Robert and Eric. They didn’t go to TAMUG, but Eric sailed on the Texas Clipper II in 1998 with us. Rosemarie and me. Another Rose from TAMUG! Hi Rose! One of my best friends, Erika, and my first college roomate Marsha. When my 10 year high school reunion came up four years ago (!) it didn’t seem that strange, it did feel like I’d been out of high school that long. Well, it has now been 10 years since I’ve been out of college and that does seem strange. Ten years ago I walked across the stage with most of my friends at the…
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Sumter Cucumber | Vegetable & Fruit Portraits
I’m starting a new series of portraits of the vegetables and fruits I harvest out of the garden. Hopefully I can make it a weekly series!
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The San Bernard Oak
Prior to visiting the art show at the Migration Celebration at the San Bernard NWR I took a tour of the San Bernard Oak, the largest live oak in Texas. The trail had been freshly mowed and maintained so it was not nearly as buggy as I was expecting. I took my time, meandering along, snapping photos of the way the light hit the vegetation along the trail. Fairly certain this is a mustang grape… A gas pipeline provided a nice opening for the sun-loving plants to thrive like these Mexican hats Ratibida columnifera. Finally I arrived at the oak tree, however due to the tours (they were mostly self…
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One Year of Being Vegetarian
I’ve officially been calling myself vegetarian for a year! Time has flown by and while I knew I would make it this long I think I wasn’t sure how long I would keep it up beyond this. Since things have been going swimmingly I plan on keeping this as my food lifestyle until I decide otherwise. That said, I *am* looking forward to my birthday because I plan on eating a large portion of sushi. Throughout this year I’ve read various food blogs, some meat eating, some veg, some into the primal/paelo thing, others into organic/whole living, and there are many thoughts you can glean from them all. In all…
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Eagle Rock Loop Day 1 | Ouachita National Forest
Finally, some backpacking time! A week ago Chris and I went with my dad, brother and some of their friends from my brother’s old Boy Scout troop to the Eagle Rock Loop in Ouachita National Forest. I was very happy to be getting some hiking in—on mountains especially. I was hoping that part of it would be reminiscent of the Appalachian Trail and I was pleasantly rewarded with birds, vegetation and smells that we saw on our hike of the A.T. We split the drive up, leaving Houston for Dallas at noon one day, then jumping in the car that my dad, brother and another hiker were in to finish…