Sweeping Changes

For the past couple of months, I've not had a vacuum.  The refurbished one I'd bought a number of years back finally gave up the ghost.  So, I've been sweeping the floor.  I've noticed how I enjoy the quiet, and the peaceful rhythm of it.  Thankfully, I have all wood floors, which makes it doable.  The floors, however, are 1930's era, from a schoolhouse up the road that was being torn down.  And they were a first experience in laying wood floors, so it's not as tight in some places as others, making some cracks where dirt can get down into.  So, I don't love that piece.  When I mop, I notice the floors are not as clean as when I vacuum. 

For a few years, ever since I read an article on a simple homemade system, I've been thinking about installing a central vacuum.  The things I don't like about vacuuming are the noise of it, the smells of an old unit, and the dust it emits.  The central unit takes care of all of these things, as it lives outside the house.  We found some used, though in great shape, hosing online, with attachments.  So now we just need to get a new shopvac, and the floor pieces that you connect the hosing to*.  I've asked J if he can get it set up for my birthday in a few weeks.  *He ended up buying a used central vacuum module, instead of the shopvac.

Despite the heat and dryness, the garden is producing quite well.  This week, I've canned more dill pickles and tomatoes, frozen okra, and shelled lots of limas.  The above picture is of the heirloom limas I wrote about recently.  They're quite a prolific variety.  I canned elderberry jam today.  I have a good amount of syrup left from last year, so wanted to try jam.  One of the women who came to the open house makes tea from dry berries in the winter, so I'm going to dry the next round of them.  We ate our first canteloupe yesterday, and I've got a basket of crowder peas to shell today.  It's good to know we'll eat well this winter.  How is your garden growing?  I'll leave you with a most appropriate cartoon that was in my inbox this morning. 

The Abundance of Summer

It's a nice thing when life brings some new friends. Last weekend, we had a visit from Bob & Camille. Bob is a biodiesel instructor, and the owner of Blackspot Tempeh. He makes his tempeh in small batches, with love, and has quite a following. Camille works for The Abundance Foundation, oversees groundskeeping at Piedmont Biofuels, and writes a heck of a blog post. They have a website full of many things, including pictures of the numerous places they've lived abroad. I haven't had time to look at a lot of it, but will definitely be checking out the recipe and beer sections. Did I mention Bob brews beer? He shared some hoppy brew with us on Sunday. Good stuff! They've led an interesting life, these two.

I've been waiting all summer long for some corn. We had a most excellent patch of corn in the garden, which the local wildlife declared theirs. And they weren't into sharing any of it. Since then, we've been looking for some organic corn to buy, but it's been a rough year for corn around here. Yesterday, I spotted some local corn at Whole Foods. It wasn't organic, but guaranteed to be GMO-free. We ate it tonight. Now it really feels like summer!

I juiced a batch of elderberries today. I think I'll be turning this batch into jelly tomorrow, instead of the usual medicine. I hear it's pretty tasty.

Rain & Passionfruit

The passionfruit are doing so well. Lots of fruit on the vines, & I love looking at the flowers everyday, which the bumblebees adore. We spent another day in the garden yesterday. Joseph prepared beds, moved our Egyptian walking onions & planted much of our fall vegetables. I harvested vegi's, shelled lima beans & prepared a batch of elderberries for tincture. Today we're canning another round of tomatoes, while the rain comes & goes. So far this year, we're not doing a great job of calculating how much there is, so each canning session finds me running to the pantry for some more jars. Not a bad thing, to be sure. The peach season in the Sandhills is in progress, so after we finished our chores yesterday, we put the top down on Joseph's convertible & went in search of peaches. A good way to end a good day.