Summer's Midpoint

Hello, friends.  I hope your week has been a good one.  Several small chanterelles were harvested throughout the week.  Some were dried, and others were added to our dinners.  I tried a new recipe for GF tortillas.  I'll try adding more water next time, as it was small and dense.  I had to quarter the recipe, as I only had enough of one ingredient for that much.  Making tortillas is a skill I've not mastered yet.  I'd bought a large pack of portabellas.  We had some in sandwiches one dinner, and the other two were frozen, after steaming them.  That's a new to me experiment, so we'll see how it goes.  Speaking of experiments, I've been meaning to report back on the yeast/sugar fertilizer for the cucumbers.  It did seem like it might have given them a little spurt soon after, but nothing significant since.  I held off doing a skoolie post this week, as not much had gone on, but there was good progress over the weekend, which I'll post about next week.

I began the week gathering pears off the ground that the squirrels had knocked out of the tree.  They'd been gorging themselves for weeks.  The tree started out with 200+ pears, and by Friday, it was down to 11 small pears.  I found the fruit picker, and harvested all but one.  Hopefully, I'll have enough to do a small batch of jam.  We enjoyed one in salads with toasted pecans and feta (mine vegan & J's goat cheese).  I started a new batch of nettle and comfrey tea, and made a batch of hummer food.  A brief, strong storm came through one evening, and we lost power for 5-6 hours.  Our solar batteries were depleted, and the generator wouldn't start, and while researching the issue, one of the batteries blew up and drenched J's legs with battery acid.  He quickly washed them in a baking soda solution, and thankfully there were no lasting effects.  The outage happened just as dinner was finished being prepared.  We usually eat dinner with at least one beeswax candle.  That night, I added a few more.  Then we read, J by flashlight, and I by headlamp, until bedtime.

J did end up relacing both generator batteries.  I'd been drying the herbs and elderberries on trays in our kitchen lately, which worked fine until the last batch of elderberries, which started to mold.  Into the compost they went, and the next batch of elderberries went right into the dehydrator, along with stevia and lemon verbena that had been air drying.  The next day, some of the thyme I'd been working on was added.  We got broccoli and cabbage seedlings planted for the fall garden one evening, before a good rain the next morning.  The first zucchini was harvested.  Tomatoes were frozen, until I have enough to process.  I've seen several mentions online of summer being almost over.  I understand that things seem to shift, and the light noticeably changes once August arrives, but August 7th is actually the midpoint of summer, so we're just now in the middle of it.  We've got many weeks left, before Fall arrives.  I'm not wanting to wish the days away, and will enjoy these remaining summer days.  I hope you'll join me.