Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[abifae]

That is wonderful! I had a neighbor once with cherry trees who let us pick all we could reach. Mmmmm!!

Nice when they'd rather you do the work and keep the fruit

 

[rathbone]

I am not sure how, but somehow in all of this I missed your jewelry. Oh My! I adore the cameo bracelet.

 

[Britesea]

Thank you Rath That piece was supposed to be featured in a magazine about wire jewelry, but they folded before that particular issue came out... so much for my 15 minutes of fame

I have been very busy this week, picking fruit and getting it cleaned and into the freezer. Then yesterday I brought home over 35 lbs of nice meat from Cash and Carry-- Today I have to cut and freeze that, plus I have several pounds of broccoli I found on sale, and a 25 pound bag of carrots to dehydrate. The freezer is also holding 60 pounds of tomatoes, 12 pounds of elderberries, 6 pounds of chokecherries, 5 pounds of wild plums and a pound of rosehips. I also have 5 pounds of crabapples on the counter that I have to do something with before the fruit flies get to them.

I'm not sure what to do with the plums. They turned out kind of bland. I dried some, and they didn't turn sweet at all- just very very tart.

Well, there's so much to do I really can't spend much time here. I'll see you all later!

 

[moolie]

Make plum jam, a little lemon juice and some sugar should spark them up!

And, crabapples don't keep at all and lose nutrients quite quickly as they degrade (over the course of a couple of days in most cases) so best to get on that crabapple jelly and butter asap (what everyone makes out of their crabapples around here).

 

[Britesea]

I got a lot done this weekend and it feels good Cash & Carry had a good sale on pork leg and chuck, so I bought a 'gobbet' of each. Froze a couple of roasts and several large steaks from each, then cubed the rest and canned them, along with some chicken breasts I had in the freezer. It made 10 pints of pork, 15 of beef and 5 of chicken. I also picked up a 25 pound sack of carrots and dehydrated the lot. Last night we had one of the beef roasts braised with onion soup mix, red wine, dried carrots and potatoes and celery leaves and garlic. After 3 hours in the oven, it was falling apart good, and the veggies were tender but didn't disintegrate like fresh ones do. In between all that, I also made up a fresh batch of dog food, and did the laundry while DH baked the week's bread

We had rain yesterday while I was in church, and it stayed rather cool all day; I ended up wearing a light long sleeved shirt. Today I HAVE to plant the winter garden before it's too late.

Donna and Roger, the neighbors that gave us permission to harvest their fruit trees in the pasture, were out walking their little dogs, so I ran out and was able to give them a jar of elderberry jelly. They seem to be really nice people (I've never had much opportunity to talk to them before)with similar values to us. They told us that a white fawn has been born to one of the local does, which is really exciting! I've heard of white deer, but only back east-- not here. I haven't seen it yet but I hope it stays white.

 

[savingdogs]

I think the white deer are albinos. I think they have a hard time making it with the predators, since they have no camouflage Do you have mule deer like we do? I have NEVER seen a white one.

What is a gobbet?

 

[rathbone]

Dear BriteSea -I wish I could come and visit. Sounds simply heavenly at your house. Busy but peaceful.

 

[Britesea]

Savingdogs, according to the dictionary, " A gobbet is a small chunk of meat, roughly the size of a mouthful. It is derived from the Old French gober (to swallow) which is related to the modern word gobble" I was under-exaggerating the meat I had bought-- I actually bought 15 pounds of pork and 19 pounds of beef.

Our deer in this area are mostly Blacktail which are a lot smaller than the mule deer you have, plus sometimes you will see what is called a 'bench-leg' which is a hybrid of blacktail and mule deer.
As I understand it, the white deer have a harder time during the summer, but an easier time in the winter because their white coats blend in with the snowy landscape. We have a herd of about 25 deer that wander through the town, eating everyone's fruit and veggies and flowers. They are fairly safe from predators because they stick close to the confines of the town- the biggest danger they face is the automobiles.

Rathbone, I dearly wish you could visit; I would love to have coffee with you under the pine trees. It is so peaceful and beautiful here-- even when my house looks like someone tossed a grenade through the window, lol

 

[savingdogs]

We have deer like that here, too, I mean fairly tame ones. There is a resort near us and people there feed the deer all the time so they are not domesticated, but they also don't fear people. When you drive by them in the car, they don't move out of the way in the road, they just kind of stare at you!

All of ours are mule deer or elk however, we don't have any black tail.

 

[Britesea]

I got to see the white fawn today. It doesn't appear to be a true albino-- just very very light colored. It will probably darken as it gets older. It's still cool though!

Got another gift of food-- this time it was two sacks of Valencia oranges from a neighbor's house in California; the house up here is slated for retiring to, but he mentors med school students and can't leave quite yet. Anyway, I spent all afternoon juicing them and then scraping the white membrane off the peels. I've got everything in a huge pot with some sugar to make orange syrup for pancakes. YUM. I'm calculating about 12-14 quarts of syrup, so I want to can some in smaller jars- maybe 1/2 pints- for holiday gifts. Only problem is, I'm all out of 1/2 pint jars Maybe I can buy a case tomorrow. I have to wait until then to can the syrup anyway- I'm too tired to do it tonight.

The apples are barely starting to blush. It's taking so long!

I got some 5 gallon buckets from the Safeway bakery here He told me he would set them aside for me from now on. I've got enough wheat, rice and beans to fill up 10 buckets now, so it's time to order some mylar bags and oxygen absorbers and 2 more buckets and set up a sealing session.

I've finished the embroidery on one of the two door hangings I've been working on for the living room. We have two door openings (without doors) and these will help with keeping warm or cold air in the room. I just need to hem it and hang it now.

I am also working on some valances for the windows that will match.