Resilience

Hello, friends.  I hope you are doing well.  J recently visited family members in Eastern NC.  His Mom sent him home with several things, including canning jars, which I was delighted to get.  I put some of them to use right away, in canning vegetable broth and eggplant.  Before canning, I set aside a little over a pound of eggplant to try a new recipe, and it's a keeper.  I harvested a large amount of basil, and made batches of pesto, then froze it.  This week's harvest included green peas, eggplant, tomatoes, green beans, and the last pawpaw, which was used in a fruit salad.  While canning tomatoes one day, I shelled peas while keeping an eye on the canner.

The next day, I canned peas and recanned broth.  I've been having lots of seal failures the past couple of weeks.  When I've redone them with different jars and lids (but same brand), I get the same results, which makes me think it's the lids.  I had started using some no-name canning jar lids we got, and am not having a great success rate with them, so J placed an order for a brand with high ratings.  A pan of GF bread ends was turned into bread crumbs.  The chickens get the two banana peels from my breakfast smoothie in their mash, but if I also have a lunch smoothie or freeze bananas, and have additional peels, I've been putting them in a jar with water, to turn into fertilizer.  Every few days, I water different plants with the liquid, and usually put the peels around rose plants.  On Sunday, I got the windows washed, all but the one with diamond panes in the bathroom, which doesn't lend itself to using the squeegee.  I am still loving that system, which only requires a couple drops of soap and water.  No spray bottles or rolls of paper towels, and it's so much quicker.  It will soon be time to bring in all the house plants, with a forecast of temps in the 40's, so now the windows are ready for them.  

  

With this second round of green beans planted from our seed, we've gotten some noodle beans mixed in.  I've just been cooking them together in the wok, which I think makes a pretty dish.  I am so very proud of my niece.  She returned to her Asheville home this weekend, to begin helping hike food and water into inaccessible areas.  She's an avid hiker, used to carrying a pack, so this seems the perfect fit for her.  I've not mentioned this before, but a few years ago, she had signed up with the Peace Corps.  She was talked out of going, due to family dynamics I won't get into here, just hours before she was to board the flight taking her to her assignment in Africa.  It broke my heart for her, and hers too, but she's resilient.  I hope this is helping heal her heart, in her desire to be of service.

Forget-me-not

I'm not sure how much of the Helene aftermath is still in the news.  I've been keeping up with what's happening on Facebook and various Youtube channels.  It's hard to comprehend how bad things actually are.  Some of the more heartbreaking news I've seen is a family that hiked 22 miles... 11 miles out and 11 back, for supplies, as there is no access.  They were able to have a family member provide an ATV, so they will no longer have to hike that distance.  Another was of an elderly woman, crying as rescuers reached her home, having seen no one for eight days.  A story that had me bawling was about a church in Fairview, the little community we just returned from.  Two hundred people were found in the church, none of whom had had anything to eat for 6 days.  Can you imagine?  Update: it looks like the story about the church may be a story passed along that is not true, but you don't have to look far to find other stories of suffering.  Hold your loved ones close, and stay well, friends.