Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Britesea]

(Lathyrus sativus) Sometimes it takes a while for things to come back into fashion. This unusual legume is said by some to be among the first cultivated food plants, predating even grain based agriculture. Once a common peasant food in Central Italy, Cicerchia had fallen off the map a bit until interest was recently revived by Slow Food Italy and a presidium dedicated to it’s revival. And, get ready for it... there’s a festival held for it each November in the commune of Serra de’ Conti in the Marche (how many different harvest festivals could you possibly squeeze into one country?) Also known as Chickling Vetch, Grass Pea, Khesari, and Almorta, among other names, the legume has played an important role in the diets of drought prone regions of the Mediterranean, East Africa, and India for centuries as an “insurance crop” on account of its extreme drought tolerance, but therein lies the rub. When eaten daily for months as a primary protein source (such as during prolonged drought periods when it was the only surviving crop), it can cause irreversible nerve damage and even paralysis due to low concentrations of a compound, diaminopropionic acid, found in the seed. The disease is even named “Lathyrism” after the Latin name of the plant. Moderate consumption is not considered dangerous however and the bottom line is: Cicerchia is delicious, sometimes described as a cross between lentils and chickpeas, hearty and earthy and with a tender skin. The “beans” are angular little, white, pebbly things and grow on 3-4 foot vines that, appreciate a little support but really need very little from you, as they are well suited to poor soil and general neglect. Sometimes grown as forage in India they are also one of the best nitrogen fixing cover crops known and can be an excellent component of a crop rotation and soil building regimen. We encourage you to try this unusual and ancient food.

Here's what someone else had to say about them....
I emailed Ken. "Um, I have a bunch of these beans. Should I eat them?" Ken said sure, and in his book he says, "eating the beans now and then poses no danger, only excessive consumption every day for several months. Thorough soaking and cooking also purportedly leaches out most of the neurotoxin." Well, hell! I just played around with sassafras, which some say will give me cancer. Screw it, let's cook some cicerchia!

 

[Britesea]

Got the last pieces of furniture into their final spots. The living room especially looks a lot nice- I finally have all my nice antiques on display now. But I need to get new curtains because the dark burgundy ones combined with the dark wood of the antique buffet combine to make a really solid bank of dark... makes the whole room kind of lop-sided. So when DH's disability check comes in, I'm gonna see what I can find in a cream or beige.

I still have several bags and boxes of "stuff" that I took off various surfaces while moving things around that I want to go through and decide if we'll be keeping them or throwing them out. I've already got 3 moving boxes full of stuff for the thrift store, and a smaller box with some odds and ends of depression glass that I'm gonna see if I can sell to an antique dealer.

My cicherias have little tiny pods forming already. This is my first year growing them, so I really don't know what to expect.

 

[Britesea]

Today I worked in the garden again... been missing that. I got all the grass pulled out from around the raspberries and now I'm all scratched up, lol. I put some plantain ointment on, and the itching is starting to go away. I also managed to weed the asparagus bed, and spot weeded the other beds. DS and DH helped out by lugging cartloads of wood chips for the paths. We have temps in the 30's forecast for the next 10 days, so in the spirit of "belt plus suspenders) I pulled out the frost cloths again and set them up on the more tender veggies. I transplanted my lemon balm and lemon verbena into some 3 gallon pots since it doesn't look like I'll have time to put in a second herb bed anytime soon.

Harvested my first english pea and first strawberry! we all shared the goodies.

 

[Britesea]

More work to do in the garden today. The beds are overdue for feeding and mulching. I also want to work on something to keep the wild birds away from the ripening strawberries. I also need to set up the freeze-dryer so I can start on the pork and chicken my friend is storing for me in her freezer.
My mom's house is ready for a quick clean-and-polish and then I can list it for rent. Hopefully I'll get a good tenant!

I'm going to be leading the Tai Chi classes for a bit again because the teacher is having issues at home; she thinks her husband may be going into dementia. Among other things, she found out from the bank that he hasn't been paying the mortgage- it's 4 months behind. There was no reason NOT to pay it; he says he thought he had. I'm just glad I'm in a position to help in some small way.

We had some more of the leftover tongue last night; I made an asian-inspired dressing and put it on a salad. But now I'm pretty much out of salad for a while until the plants can catch up again. So tonight I've planned on smoked sausage sauteed with cabbage, kale and onions.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Even though I only work per-diem, which USUALLY amounts to 1 day/week... I find even THAT cramps my style. I will continue doing so as long as the hours are available, and my body holds up to the task, cause the extra $$ is a blessing. But, truth be told, I'd much rather be home playing in the yard!

 

[Britesea]

Whew, I'm tired! I brought in the 1 1/2 gallons of sauerkraut I freeze-dried, and now I have a full load of beets in there (cooked, peeled, sliced) I have 2 gallons of fermented kosher dill slices in the cooler to work (it's too warm in my kitchen, so I fill my ice chest with cold water, float a frozen water bottle in it, and that provides the 65F that they need for optimum fermentation). Then I have a full dehydrator (9-tray Excalibur) with sliced tomatoes. I still have enough cucumbers for another 2 half-gallon jars, but I ran out of garlic. So I will be picking up more garlic tomorrow and finish those up.

I ran an ad in Craigslist for the rental finally. I'm holding open house Sat and Sun so people can look it over and hopefully fill out applications. I need the money from the rental-- we are tapped out right now. I had to dip into the money I had earmarked for the property taxes in November to pay one of our medical bills. Thank goodness the garden is still providing lots of food and the chickens are laying and the freezer and pantry are full.

The hen that was sitting on a nest of eggs gave up and left them, BOO! We had just last week changed out the dud eggs for some fresh ones since she seemed to be determined to keep going, but I guess 6 weeks was all she was good for... sigh... now these eggs have been sat on for just long enough that I don't want to eat them, and we don't have an incubator. Guess we should buy one, but again... we are tapped out right now.

coupla photos of the Big Visit:

Samwise with Millie

Grandma with Samwise

from the left: DH, me, grandson, DD, DSil, Millie in front.

 

[Britesea]

Well, it's been crazy busy for the last week. The garden is busting out all over; lots of tomatoes and cucumbers. The greens (kale, collards) all have aphids, so I need to get busy with the soap spray. I finished picking the beets and they're in the freeze dryer now. Even though I only planted ONE summer squash, it's taking over-- we are bringing armloads of the suckers in every day, I swear. Luckily, one of the ladies in the Lions club with us said she can use all we give her-- she does lots of cooking for her group in the SCA. Looks like the serrano chilies are gonna give us a respectable harvest after all which surprised me because the plants looked so spindly. The cabbages are resprouting from the roots, lol. I wonder if I'll actually get a second harvest?

We held our Open House for the rental over the weekend; several people came by and picked up applications, but only one family actually filled one out and handed it in. I ran the screening process (credit check, rental history, criminal check) and everything looked great so I let them know today that they can move in... they will be doing that over Labor Day weekend. So we will have some money, and I can stop stressing over the house.

The tom turkeys have been banished to the fenced yard connected to the coop. The one just kept getting aggressive, but only to me. I can handle him except when my hands are full of produce or tools or whatever, and that's most of the time. I managed to break a chicken egg trying to deal with his repeated attacks the last time... so he's in confinement. We put the beta tom in there too, just in case. The hen is fine so she's allowed to scratch and forage with the chickens. I just found out today though that she is an egg eater... caught her eating her freshly laid egg. grrr. Glad these guys are only gonna be around for a couple more months.

 

[Britesea]

Summer is definitely drawing to a close. The days and nights are getting cooler. My freeze dryer has been running almost non-stop processing tomatoes, peppers, dill pickles and sauerkraut (yes, they can be freeze dried and still keep most of their vital probiotics intact), salad shrimp (sale at Cash N Carry), basil leaves, beets, green beans.

I planted some garlic and shallots today, and harvested a a small mountain of bell peppers and serrano chiles, tomatoes, parsley and basil. Tonight I will be making pesto and chimmichuri. The freeze dryer has the last of the salad shrimp, and some asparagus that was frozen in the spring; and when that's done, I'll put in some of the peppers. I canned up 9 pints of leftover pozole earlier. We are trying to figure out how to process the tom turkeys since we don't have any room in the freezer. I guess I'll have to can most of it, freeze dry some, and freeze a few meal size portions.

I plan on also making a salve of calendula and basil for wound care... we'll see how it measures up against my comfrey/calendula/honey salve. Basil tincture apparently can reduce blood sugar... might try making some to take on those days when I overindulge the carbs?

 

[Britesea]

First I gotta get through all the garden produce that I'm freeze-drying-- bell peppers are next, and I think I have enough for 2 loads, with more on the plants. And serranos- I've got a quart size ziplock of them in the freezer, and that's just the bare beginning of the harvest on them. I hope the cold weather holds off a little longer; end of September is the average first frost date here.
I got some garlic and shallots into the garden earlier this week, but there turned out to be room for some more garlic in the bed, so I'll be picking up some more from the feed store probable.

The mice are trying to move into the house. We had a small fire in the oven which I was able to put out with a couple scoops of baking soda. When we opened up the bottom of the oven, which was where the flames were coming from, we found that a mouse had been stealing dog kibble and storing it in the oven. So now we have to make sure every speck of kibble is out of her bowl for the night-- we used to leave a cup or so of the dry stuff so Millie could nibble if she got the urge. I also went through the pantry and pulled out everything that wasn't in mouse-proof storage and started filling canning jars and tins, and some in buckets. Found some stuff that wasn't good for anything other than chicken food, but most of it was still intact. We've been setting out traps and have caught 3 now... the last one was a juvenile, so I'm hoping we are making inroads on the population. We threw some bait into the crawl space under the house, and from the smell when you open it now, we got at least one there, too.

 

[Britesea]

It feels like I've been studying non-stop for the last 4 days; I'll be taking my Ham Radio Technician Class exam tonight. I've been averaging 89-91% on the practice tests for the last two days (up from 57% when I started testing) so I'm feeling a little more confident now-- I only need a score of 71% to get my license. Wish me luck!

We had to cover the garden last night-- it got down to the mid-30's last night. We picked everything that was ripe or close to it, in case it got too cold for even the covers. I've got a milk crate full of cucumbers, another of bell peppers, several handfuls of serranos and tomatoes, and almost a shopping bag's worth of basil, and 2 more melons (only one big one left on the vine- I hope it is allowed to ripen- they are delicious!). I can stick the chilies in the freezer with very little prep, but the rest is going to take some prepping, and I don't know how much I'll get done before I have to leave for the test. It looks like we might get a slightly early frost this year- it already snowed yesterday at Lake Tahoe, not that far from us. I'm crossing my fingers that the apples and plums will make it before any hard frost. We haven't had much of a harvest from either of them the last few years.

I fixed a Porketta roast last night, and we still have a little over half of it left, so at least we can do leftovers and that's one thing off my list; just need to come up with some sides for it... probably some creamed kale and maybe a vinaigrette salad with tomatoes, garlic and basil?