Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

Britesea said:

so, now that I've gotten the ham test out of the way.... Now I'm looking at getting certified as a Tai Chi teacher. I'm also still working on my herbalism classes. I guess I'm just a masochist, lol

Click to expand...

Tell me about your "herbalism". What little exposure to growing culinary herbs, harvesting wild things from my yard, making salve, I'm enjoying the process, and can envision myself doing more of it as time allows.

The movement patterns of Tai Chi are very beneficial for maintaining good muscle balance, and all of the associated benefits that go along with that: balance, improved motor control, strength, mental well being.

I'm taking the beginning class on herbalism at The Herbal Academy (https://theherbalacademy.com)- about halfway through that. Hoping to do the intermediate one next year.

Tai Chi is so much more than old people sneaking up on trees, lol. What I like best is that, because the movements are done slowly, if a move is going to hurt you, you have plenty of time to realize it and pull back before it's too late.

I've got a full load of serrano chilies in the freeze dryer today, after doing all the bell peppers (came to about 2 gallons total). I still have the rest of the cucumbers to turn into fermented pickles, and I need to freeze cubes of melon (3 medium melons- doesn't sound like much, but this is the first year I've been successful with ANY melons).

After shelling them out, I have just enough cicheria beans to make one meal... not bad for the small space I alloted them, but I think I'll hold off on ANY shelled beans for a while-- my garden is really too small to tie up that much space for such a small return. Same thing could be said for the melons, but I wanted to see if I could actually grow them. DH wants to try sweet potatoes next year...

I've got a batch of ham and cabbage soup in the instant pot for dinner, and we're noshing on some Vinete (a Roumanian eggplant dip) and crackers for starters.

The plum trees all came ripe at the same time. The guys have been picking them and I’m in the kitchen processing them. I’ve got a big pot of jam working while filling up the dehydrator, then I need to do a second batch of freeze-dried, and probably will need to can a couple loads as well. I took a bowl of plums to the Lion’s meeting last night, and gave a bag-full to the guys that came to pump out the septic tank today as well. Plums for dessert, plums at breakfast, plums with my afternoon tea… I told DH that I want to save as much as possible because this is the first time in 4 years that we’ve had a decent harvest; who knows when the next one will be? I didn't put plums in the dinner though-- we had Chicken Piccata and Cucumber Salad with Za'atar and Feta.

In the meantime, the tomatoes and cucumbers are chugging along. I think the serranos are done; and we picked the last melon yesterday as well. The fall beet bed is doing very well; I finally got around to thinning them and some already had little beets the size of my thumbnail on them. I hope they can deal with the cold front coming in; Weather forecast for tomorrow night is a low of 27F, 40% chance of about 1" of snow. I guess summer's over.

Ok. Break time is over. Gotta go back to work. Thanks everyone for posting interesting reading material while I take a break and sip a cup of tea.

27F.....we are still in the 90's during the day...… (now where is that sweating emoji??)

One day my plum tree will give me fruit again...or will be meeting with a chainsaw. It's had a reprieve as past two years to WEATHER presented a too warm week ahead of norm and the tree blossomed. Then, a late frost &/or storm, tore all that off. No fruit either year. This may be the last year of special considerations I allow. There are far nicer "shade" trees to be had. Sorry but, fruit or firewood?

Our climate is way to unpredictable here. As I've said before, there are records of snow falling during every month of the year. If I only grew the plants that would consistently produce a crop I would be limited to something like.... radishes. This year, we got a fantastic plum crop; but the apple trees aren't quite ripe yet, and it was snowing earlier today.

radishes can be good.

It is disheartening when we have these "freakish" episodes of weather. I mean, we work to control a good crop in the best times...then, those times change unexpectedly.

When these things happen, I just think...better than 6' of snow in Alaskan wilderness or 120 degrees in Death Valley.

Radishes are good, especially sliced and served up with a dollop of peanut butter on them. I need to plant some more. Last planting is sized up, and ready to start harvesting.

I like radishes too! The problem is, I also like green beans, and squash, and tomatoes, and......

And, the beet goes on!!!