The Garden: Part IV

Did I mention yet that my garden is now planted?! No, good! Well it is. I've got

• Blue potatoes
• Garlic
• Beets
• Carrots
• Red Onions
• Spinach
• Bok Choy
• Mild peppers
• Corn
• Beans
• Tomatoes

Once the corn comes up and the beans get bigger I'll be planting squash and of course as the others get close to ripening I'll plant more so I can keep a continues harvest of my favorites throughout the seasons. I still have a partial fence but the critters seem to be leaving my plants alone. Could be the dangling chimes I hung from a branch I planted or my wee kitty who has been seen bunny-ing (as apposed to mousing) near my garden. Either way I'm not complaining.

CRAFTING:

I'm going to generalize at this point. I'm still working on my shrug. At the rate things are going I might have it finished at the end of summer. :3 I'm also sewing my NOLA skirt ... by hand it would seem. Using the back stitch and french seams it's taking forever but in the end I'm hoping it'll be pretty stable. I may end up using the machine as I feel it's more secure. Perhaps I should just make smaller stitches. I did come across a neat trick. Wax your thread. Keeps it from tangling as easily and allows it to glide smoother through your fabric.

NOLA skirt

Then on Wednesday my sister brought her children and took me strawberry picking. Fun stuff and I now have enough strawberries to make some jam. On top of my Strawberry Balsamic jam I'll be making Strawberry in Pinot Noir. It's going to be yum! I just need to remember when I'm at my sisters to hijack her stock pot.

Keeping Busy

This is how I show my depression to the world. By putting out crafts of all types and keeping myself very busy so that I might not have to think about that which is killing me inside. In the past few days it hasn't been helping but with time I imagine this pain will become as manageable as all the others. In light of my crying myself to sleep and waking up with those horrid crusty eyes I treated myself to a Starbucks Soy Pumpkin Latte and a warmed blueberry muffin after dropping Daniel off at work. He's driving my rental home tonight. Since I'll be heading back to Virginia in the morning with father and cousin Esther. My pumpkin cozy still fits Starbucks cups beautifully!

My quote of the day "You're really spoiling me this morning!" They got a kick out of that. The guy who rung me up said they try or always or something like that ... I can't remember (it's my alzheimer's kicking in).

So yesterday; my day off, I spent the whole time either in front of the stove or my sewing machine. I started by waking up really early (10am ;3), grabbed a backpack, and hopped on my Saoirse and took off for The Andersons. Totally without eating breakfast first. I warn you, don't try that at home! Lucky me they were making things all over the store so I helped myself to some samples ... watermelon, apple slices with honey peanut butter! So yum! Anywho, I filled both my backpack and saddle bag with Pint Ball jars, rolls, grapefruit (because I was freakin' hungry), some liquor, Darjeeling loose tea, half a gallon of apple cider and a large red bell pepper. Then tromped home!

My colors! Don't you love them!

Once there I put everything away, jumped back into my jammies and started cooking. I put the bell peppers in the oven (I had some green ones from mothers garden) and sat down to sew.

I made a lovely knitting/crochet needle scroll that I have been meaning to make for quite some time just never got around to. I realized after I was sewing on all the pockets that the lovely tan fabric with the brown reliefs is reminiscent of fall and the other two are more spring. In the end as long as one doesn't look too closely it still works. I blame the ornery children who were distracting me while shopping for these fabrics!

Once the peppers were scorched I put them into a calonder in a bowl and covered them for 2 hrs (which I continued to sew during).

1hr till time, I put the apples, cider and water on the stove to cook. After about 30 min I had to take them off and puree them then put them back on with spices and sugar. At which point I had to do some juggling. I had to make sure the apples didn't scorch and peal and seed the peppers. I actually was able to do all this with out making too big a mess. Since I was not actually thinking freely but rather concentrating on each task at hand I never thought to take photos so sadly there's no photos of my peppers or apple butter ... sorry! I did get photos of my peaches and Jalapenos from my other jam I made!

I'm sure you can guess what these are!

All in all I finished cooking at about 5pm. I didn't finish my scroll until 10:00pm. Then I had to take a damn shower! Oui! My day off went by super fast!  I clearly slept in too long!

I got 3 and a half pints of apple butter. The half I brought to work this morning for everyone to enjoy. & I got 1 jar of roasted bell peppers with garlic. I'm so getting ready for winter ... can ya tell?! Next up I believe is pumpkin butter. I just love pumpkins! Unless of course mother wants some roasted peppers.

I'm slowly adding to this span but in the mean time it's all paternal.

I found this on my jump. I made it a while ago when I was really board. It's my blood line following my for fathers, going back till I reached the bonny shores of England at which point it gets harder ... for me anyways. They were all listed as farmers which I guess is were I get my desire to have my own land to toil in. Slowly I will be adding their other children and making it look less like a tree branch and more like chaos!

Also without a photo is the blanket I'm knitting for Bare Baby Photography. It's a chunky knit with i-cord edges for her newborn photography and a pair of fingerless gloves I'm making for a friend client. I'm slowly getting a lot of commissions, I think everyone is realizing I need the crafts to stay sane.

Thai Peaches Jam

So last night I made some Peach Jalapeno Jam with Thai Chilies. Long story! Okay, no twisting my arm! I started out with 1 Jalapeno pepper. Before I added it I sampled it for both freshness (not that I doubted since it came from Debbie's garden) and heat. Sadly they only had a little heat so I busted out a Chili from the same garden and cleaned it up. Wow did that hurt! As soon as I touched a sliver to my tongue it lit my mouth on fire. That one I dropped in whole about half way through cooking it since the Jalapenos weren't heating things up any. Even after introducing the Thai chili I wasn't getting any heat. I'm not sure why either. Very disappointing that.

Anywho, I cooked it longer than I should have. It didn't mess with the flavor or burn at all but I did mess with my quantity. I was hoping on at least 4 half-pint jars but only got 3. Sigh! I blame it on attempting to get some heat in there. In the end I even kept the Thai Chili in the jam rather than pulling it out after I got it hot enough. I still possessed 2 of the jars for later consumption or as gifts and kept the 1 with the Thai Chili out for sampling at work.

I can say at least that the jam looks pretty. I left the skin on since the peaches are from Lynd's Fruit Farm only scrubbing the fuzz off. So there's bits of skin and mushy chunks of peaches. Then there's bits of green jalapeno. The red Thai Chili blends in with the jams color a bit.

I should have picked up some peaches from Reverend Larry's garden while in Virginia for my straight up peach jam!

I've also been working on knitting ... no surprise there! I've got a nice purple cable beanie I'm working on and I'm going to make a pair of matching let warmers. It's all newborn size so it'll work for photographers or people with newborns who want them.

Self photography!

I've worked out a deal with my sister on this as well. When her clients chose the prop they want she's going to offer them the prop if they wish to have it. Obviously they'll be purchasing it but it'll be cheaper then if they bought it from my website and had it shipped.

I also had a meeting for a fair coming up. The lady suggested I hit up Boho with my jewelry. She said that it would benefit us both (the boutique owner and myself). I was flattered when she told me "this is quality work." as she was browsing my jewelry collection and that if she ever needs a baby gift she knows were to go. Even if nothing else comes of this meeting I'll still be happy knowing she likes my work. However, I hope I can scrounge up some artists and get in this show!

Labor Day in Virginia

Blue Ridge

Over the Labor day weekend some of my family went to Virginia to visit with my sick uncle. He's doing better than he was during the Rendezvous but unfortunately as we were leaving Monday afternoon he was heading to the ER. It was most unsettling!

However before then my cousin and I were taking my other cousins senior photos. It was such fun that I might attempt to do other senior photos if the opportunity arises. Granted I wont have access to such wonderfully majestic sights but we do have some nice locations to work with in Columbus. There are quite a few funny photos that bring out his personality and then the typical serious portraits.

Knowing that there were horses down the road I made an effort to walk there and get some photos. Little did I know that it would rain and that there would be a family of deer waiting when I got there.

Between my cousins and I we got a lot of photos. I wish the horses didn't have fly masks on but there was nothing to be done for that.

Gorgeous black horse and deer family

 There were 2 Tobiano Paint's and 1 big black beauty. If I had to guess I'd say Morgan but I'm not sure.

Raining hard

Among my cousin's photos was this fun shot of me taking the photo above. I'm all wet! My poor camera got wet as well but it wasn't too bad since I was hiding under a tree.

Me taken by Philip

We had some excellent food while in Virginia and I finally got to go to Sweet Things to enjoy there excellent ice cream and milk shakes. I got a Chunky Irish Girl Scout Smoothie and tried their Peach Habanero which is ironic since I'll be making that flavor in jam today. All in all very good! But sadly we never did make it to Michie Tavern. They have some of the best food on Earth. My favorite is their stewed tomatoes, to which I have the recipe and home styled fried chicken. Maybe next time.

 As I was skimming through my SD card I stumbled across this photo of little miss Evelyn. Taken a while back when I first got my new lens. I was really just the spotter but I figured that since I have a zoom lens I would just take some photos from the back ground. As you can imagine since I wasn't getting in Evelyn's face that I didn't get the best shots and I have yet to get any since my sister is keeping her all to herself. Unless of course she needs a baby sitter. I guess I could just pose here when sis isn't around but as a photographer who hasn't worked with babies much I would feel more comfortable with a spotter. So I guess I'm out of luck! All well it's still a cute photo! [I played with it in Photoshop a wee bit and smoothed out her face and darkened the photo some.]

Baby Evelyn

Blackberry Peach Hat

Ah! Finished! That was perfect!

I only have 3 jars left. Of course I had a commission prior to even cooking this batch! So happy! Ah but the smell! I just love blackberries and can I just say that every year I miss blackberry season. I almost missed it this year. And I was sad that I couldn't use my friends white peaches for this jam since they were too soft by time I got the blackberries. My belly liked them though! Num num num!

I'm thinking of altering the recipe slightly so that the peaches can stand out more and getting rid of the seeds so that Daniel can possibly eat them.

Then I also finished a lovely little baby hat. It's based off of the sack hat style but I added a wee bit of patchwork. Not any major alterations! Then I wove in a lovely whimsical silver ribbon.

 

Thanks to jam making I missed bike night! While everyone was out racing about Columbus I was home being a homemaker! Pfft such choices!



Strawberry Balsamic Jam

Heidi Knitting

Got my jam on with Heidi. After work on Thursday we went to my apartment to do some knitting and make some jam. I fully used her for stirring the goopy goodies whilst I poured in the sugar. But for the most part she was practicing her knitting.

It smelt so divine! For my first time making jam and without any instructional help I'd have to say we did a damn fine job. Didn't take all that long from start to finish. Which might have something to do with the fact that I already had the strawberries washed, cut and cleaned; so there was none of that to slow us down. All I had to do was measure out my ingredients, prep my jars and cook.

Strawberries in a pot!

We did run into a hitch when pouring them into jars. By that I mean we ran out. So while Heidi finished cleaning off the rims and putting lids on I quickly washed more in water that made my hands hurt it was so hot. See I have this thing with glass ... I fear it'll shatter. So I was so nervous on this step I'm surprised I didn't make a bigger mess. Once we got the jam into the jars we cleaned the pot and put the jars into a water bath. This freaked even Heidi and Daniel out because the jars were doing a jig in that damn pot.

And done! They sat in the post boiled water for a wee bit then Heidi used the tongs and placed then in my mitted hands to be set on the counter to cool. Once we made sure everything was turned off Daniel and I took Heidi home with a nice warm jar of jam. I could have driven her on my motorcycle but she didn't seem to want to hop on. Not sure why!

I left the jam sitting out all night and this morning made sure all the tops were compressed and stored them in the curio cabinet. Made myself some toast and slathered on some fresh, still slightly warm strawberry jam. It set up nicely.  A soft, creamy jell that just melts on your tongue. The strawberries are very prominent and the vinegar gives a nice depth to the jam.