Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

My mom always froze the leftover tomato paste. She would put it on wax paper in a table spoon sized dollop and then dump them all in a bag when they were frozen. That way they were already portioned out and could be tossed into whatever recipe pretty easily.
 
I use ice cube trays for other things too. I love freezing chili in cubes so I can have quick chili dogs when I make hot dogs :)
My mom used the table spoon method so that they would already be measured out appropriately.
Very handy for freezing fresh herbs that way too!
 
I'm going to be canning some diced tomatoes today- I picked up about 25 lbs of paste-type tomatoes from the market stand yesterday, then got them peeled, seeded and diced; but I didn't have the energy left to can them, so that's for today. The last of my garden's chilies are in the dehydrator.

I have something unusual happening in my yard-- Big Boy, the one drake I had that looked the closest to breed standard for the Golden Cascades, has apparently been kicked out of the flock. Earlier this week I had pointed him out to DH and DS, telling them he was the drake I wanted to keep this winter for the Cascades. Within a day, I noticed he was suddenly being nipped and chased off by other members of the flock- both drakes and ducks. He didn't want to go into the coop with the others at night, and when we forced the issue, he came out the next morning with half the feathers from his back picked off. During the day, he stays at least 20 feet away from the rest of the flock; at night we've been allowing him to find his own hideaway. He looks very depressed.

Has anyone ever had something like this happen? Anyone have any ideas what happened? I can understand being the bottom of the pecking order, but that's the black Cayuga- he's at the bottom, but still allowed in the flock. Big Boy isn't even allowed to run with the flock.
 
Wow, big boy must have done something really bad for the whole flock to shun him like that. I've never had ducks do that to each other. i'll be interested to hear what other folks have to say
i have used the ice cube trick for years. i especially like to do herbs in the ice trays because they taste like fresh. hadn't every thought about the tomato paste dab thing, good idea
 
Got a chance today to watch the flock and Big Boy interact. I was walking out to the car and passed close enough that it caused Big Boy to move close to the flock. He actually ended up in the middle of the flock and I started to be happy for him, but one of the females came up and started nipping him hard. All the others were just standing around watching, and he ended up leaving the group again... *sigh*

I wasn't able to go to my water aerobics class today; the pump was out and they were repairing it. Instead, I ended up going over to JoAnn's Fabrics and bought some iron-on patches for my pants, most of which are several years old and have gotten REAL thin on the thigh areas. Then I went over to the thrift store my girlfriend works in; they had a Columbus Day special- 25% off everything in the store. The girlfriend told them she was paying for it, so she got her 20% employee discount stacked on top! I got 5 pair of pants for myself, 2 for DS, and 1 for DH... for $18!

Speaking of Columbus Day, I heard that Washington State decided to rename it First Peoples Day, or something like that-- because calling it Columbus Day glorifies the white man's abuse of native americans. PUH-LEEZ! I'm willing to bet that no one had put that spin on it until they were told to do so in the name of political correctness.
 
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