Harvest Time and #GTT by @JacquieRogers

 Harvest Time and... #GTT

by Jacquie Rogers

This is such a busy time for me!  Besides keeping up with my regular chores, there's the fall harvest.  And boy howdy, did we ever get a LOT of produce!  Right now, I have delicious red-ripe tomatoes everywhere I look.  Green ones, too.  

I'm saving this beauty for a BLT in the morning!
Makes me drool just looking at it.

We'll only get another week, maybe two, until it frosts here in SW Idaho, so I'll have to figure out how all these durn maters are gonna get processed.  So far, my daughter and I have canned tomatoes plain, and we've also canned them with Indian butter chicken flavor, chili flavor, stewed tomatoes, and tomato juice.  We've canned lots of salsa, too--mild and hot.  We never seem to manage to hit the medium mark. Hahaha.

Mostly plain tomatoes and chili mix in 
the latest batches.

Right next to the boxes of jars is the dehydrator.  It's brand new, and believe it or not, I've never dehydrated veggies before.  I've dried herbs in my toaster oven but that's about it.  My daughter suggested that I could dehydrate veggies and make my own soup mix to take with us when we travel.  Good idea--throw some meat, broth, and dried veggies in the Instant Pot and voila! Soup.  The bags of veggies would be less bulky and weigh far less then canned goods, so I'm going to give her suggestion a go.  We do have to pay attention to weight in our new Casita (which we've named Tillie the Tank).

Only the peppers were grown in the garden, 
we bought the carrots and celery.

All this while Mr R is still working on the kitchen remodel (it's now officially a year into this project--we don't call him Mr. Speedy for nothing).  The latest accomplishment...okay, so it's not done yet but is functional...is the oven/coffee center.

Top left is the microwave and under that, the Advantium 240v oven.
The right side is the coffee center.
Mr. R is still working on the cabinet, obviously.  In case you're wondering,
the drawers will be painted purple and orange. 
I like color.

Meantime, I thought you might like to know what it's like to stare at a screen with only 70-80,000 words left to write.

The writers who see this will know exactly what this means. LOL.

So what's #GTT?

Well, in the olden days Southerners often had to give up their property and a lot of them headed to Texas, so they'd write GTT on the door or gatepost and leave.  Later, GTT was used for an outlaw who was on the lam--they'd Gone To Texas.  Didn't matter where they actually went, people still said they'd GTT.

And we're headed to Texas in a few weeks, so #GTT.  We're not outlaws but we'll be visiting some pretty dicey characters, among them the famous author Caroline Clemmons.  That woman has a wicked sense of humor and keeps me laughing so this is gonna be a ton of fun, for sure.  We'll see how patient Mr R and Hero are with us.  Throw in their daughters, and we know for certain we'll have a very, very lively and entertaining week.  Oh yeah.

Stovetop oven in our dinky Casita travel trailer.

I'm really excited to have an RV this trip.  I have food allergies so we needed a place where I can cook my own food.  It's never fun when you stop by a burger joint and they try to poison you.  The Casita is a dinky little fiberglass travel trailer, but we can cook, poop, and sleep in it so I'm happy.

After we leave Caroline's house, we'll be headed to Arizona to see my longtime buddy Ann Charles.  She's always a hoot, and I'm looking forward to visiting with her and her crazy family.

I guess I better get some words on the page before someone starts throwing rotten tomatoes at me.

Until next month, Happy Reading!

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Misty Mountains, Autumn Leaves, and Garden Tidying

Now and forever more I will associate the pungent minty scent of catnip with my fall garden. I'm in tidying mode, pulling weeds, grass, catnip seedlings, and struggling to root out large mounds of the fragrant herb. It's not that I dislike this old-time plant, not in the least. But several years ago, daughter Elise planted four clumps at either end of the vegetable plot to act as beneficial companions and attract pollinators, which catnip does well. Butterflies favor the blossoms and potato bugs can't sniff out their desired food when potato leaves intermingle with catnip. Since then, hundreds of their offspring have graced every corner of the garden. Flower beds also play host. I'm fond of this potent plant so leave seedlings here and there, and on it goes. Catnip will inherit the earth. So will mint, comfrey, and dill...but I love them all. And, of course, the cats are mad for it.

(Catnip growing in with tansy)

We haven't had hard frost yet, but soon will. As I work outside, I pause to gaze over the meadow and hills rising beyond our farm and admire the changing leaves. Yesterday's overcast sky only muted the beauty--which I don't mind--and the mist made the mountains appear even more mysterious. While walking the dogs into the field I call the back forty, I summon halts to savor the beauty. The dogs stand, nose to the breeze tossing my hair, and sniff appreciatively. Country scents of cows and new mown grass float around us. Barnyard geese honk, birds call, and cows let me know they see us. Pockets of mist hovered between the hills this morning, the subdued bronze and orange in the trees showing through in places. When the sun comes out, these autumn hues will shine. The woods above our meadow are called 'Burnt Woods' by locals because of their flaming color in the sun. Glorious.

(Maples in our meadow)

(Sugar maple at our pond)

(Hills and the neighbor's farm behind our pond. See the Old Order Mennonite Church?)

(Misty mountains in the distance seen on my walk with the dogs)

Meadowlarks still trill from the tall grass, reminding me of spring, while wild geese fly in V's overhead. I've left tangles of asters, bittersweet, and clematis in places in hopes of attracting the wrens who visited our feeder last year. They like a bit of untidiness, as do other birds.

(Fall asters and last of the dahlias above)

(late ground rose)

(Pocket of flowers)

I've been on a bulb planting craze lately, hiding them like Easter eggs to discover in the raw winds of March and balmier days of April and May. These early flowers elicit such joy, how can I resist adding more? I also sprinkled hardy annual flower seeds around for spring color like larkspur, violas, wall flowers, poppies, and sweet alyssum. Spinach is seeded for early greens. By late winter, we're starving for them. This is when the new leaves of dandelions are appreciated for cooked greens.

Hubby Dennis's mother made a wonderful creamy dressing to pour over dandelion greens with bacon and hard boiled eggs. That stuff made anything good. I found her recipe in an old cook book. I could post it for you in spring. She also used it on watercress. One unfortunate spring, the whole Trissel family, apart from baby Dennis, contracted typhoid fever from consuming contaminated water cress. Seems a man who lived above the spring where the cress grew was a typhoid Mary type of carrier with a leaky outhouse. Who knew? All of the family survived because new medicines were available by the early fifties. 

Back to the garden. This garden was my mother-in-law's before I became its caretaker. The first years that Mom Trissel and Dennis's father lived at the farm they had no indoor plumbing and only one electric outlet. She boiled up her wash in an outdoor kettle. And this old farmhouse was built soon after the Civil War. But that's another story. There are many tales to tell from this beautiful valley.

(Our land leading to another farm and the hills seen on our dog walk)

(Gorgeous trees at the church up the road from our farm)

Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees. ~Faith Baldwin, American Family