Food, Food, and More Food!

 That sums up my August so far.  A great (busy) August it has been, with 10 days yet to go! Who can complain about too much food?

My big batch of broilers for the year were processed on August 1st.  My normal processor retired last year (without telling me!), and I was scrambling for a while to find a new one, as the other local processor I've used in the past told me on June 16th that they were booked solid until September with a 6-page waiting list.  Not good news when you have a brooder full of chicks that need to be processed in early August.

What at first seemed like a horrible predicament to be in--31 birds to be processed and looking like I might have to do it all by myself--turned out just fine, as I found an awesome processor only a 45 minute drive away that is a) cheaper than the local processor that wasn't available until sometime in September; b) very pleasant to deal with both dropping off and picking up birds; c) has an impressively clean and well run small facility.  Guess who will be doing all my poultry processing from now on!

Anyway, August first found me cutting and wrapping eleven chickens for the freezer, as well as bagging 12 whole for the freezer (roast chicken dinner, mmm), and handing over 8 to DH to deliver to a work friend of his who had asked me to raise some for him.

After that, the vast majority of my food-related hours have been devoted to vegetables, as the garden is doing amazing this year!  Best year ever.  Literally.  In 17 years of living here, this is the most productive garden I've ever had.  

The wild blackberries out in/near the woods were also prolific this year.  I managed to gather enough for a batch of blackberry jam for the first time in a long time.  I canned some in 4 ounce jars to give away as gifts; it seems like most people can't use up a regular size jar in a suitable period of time (unless they have kids that don't mind seeds in the jam).

I planted both bush beans and pole beans this year, partially as a precaution against crop failure (ahem, last year), and partially because I love the bean mix at Annie's Heirloom Seeds (a mix that of course I cannot find on their website today as I look for the exact seed offering to link to).  The bush beans started producing much earlier than the pole beans, as you can see in the above picture.  And just when we're about tired of the colorful blend, the pole beans (I always go with Kentucky Wonder pole, as that is what my grandma grew) start coming on to finish out the season.

Backtracking a little bit, the cucumbers really started before the beans.  They were hot and heavy for about a month, and now are almost done.  We're down to what I call the "ugly pickles"; the funky twisted or asymmetrical little cukes that the vines produce late in the season. That's okay, there are about three dozen quarts of dill pickles down in the cellar from this year's garden.

Currently it's tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!  The cherry tomatoes were the early winners, and they've been our daily snack for weeks now.  It's hard to resist popping a few in your mouth as you are working in the garden, or passing by the ever present bowl of them on the kitchen counter.

Now my canning tomatoes are getting in on the action.  Just this week alone, I've canned 33 pints of tomatoes.  One more batch through the canner and I'll have met my quota for the year.  Then those lovely round maters will become salsa. I do have to confess that we've already enjoyed them as freshly made pico twice (this week!) and as margherita pizza (also this week, with basil from the garden).

The tomatoes I plant for making sauce and paste out of are just now ripening.  I've made 3 pints of sauce this week, all using Federle tomatoes (seen in the picture with the cherry tomatoes).  I love this variety, found at Seed Savers Exchange.  I also plant Amish Paste, but have had more consistent results through the years with the Federle.

It's been a great year for sweet corn.  We've eaten a lot of that this month too.  Mine is nearly finished now; I'm not sure if there's even enough out there to bother canning.  I might just treat the whole family (kids and grandkids) to one more meal of freshly picked corn and use up what's left on the stalks rather than going through the process to can it and only ending up with a few pints. Then again, if I can it, it will be as cream corn, which is an occasional treat here, so a few pints is enough for a year.

So far, I haven't mentioned zucchini.  Yes, I have zucchini too.  My track record with zucchini is either it all dies and I get only a couple of zucchini, or it all lives and I get way too many zucchini.  There is no such thing here as zucchini in moderation.

This year, it all lived.  Not only did it all live, but somehow I planted double what I intended!  I thought I had one row with four plants.  Turns out I had two rows--in separate sections of the garden--with four plants each!  Good thing that chickens love zucchini.  Any that have gotten away from me and become too big to be palatable went straight to the chickens. They magically turn zucchini into eggs. I'm so tired of zucchini; although I'm planning to try a new recipe this weekend: butterscotch zucchini blondies.  LOL.  I definitely prefer zucchini as a baked good than as a veggie.

Yarn Along: August

I'm hoping to link up with Ginny at Small Things for this month's Yarn Along.  I'm off by a day, as today is Thursday, but so far, so is she.    

The past month has been super busy, so busy that I haven't written a single post since the July Yarn Along.  Much time has been spent between the garden (weeding, watering, harvesting) and the kitchen (cooking, canning, freezing).  I have managed to get a bit of knitting in most evenings, after dark and before going to sleep.

Little progress has been made on the final section of my Hue Shift afghan.  I think I have done not quite 2 squares in the past month.

    

Where I have lacked attention to my afghan, I've showered on a new knitting project. Which, of course, is a pair of socks.  (I bet nobody who knows me ever saw that coming. . .)  I've completed sock 1 of the Ephemeral Stream pattern, which is a free pattern by verybusymonkey, who is a favorite (sock) designer of mine.  Her patterns are so easy to follow, while giving you a finished project that looks really complex.

I also finished reading the book I talked about in last month's Yarn Along, and am about 2/3 of the way through The Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett.  This is the third book of his Century Trilogy, and I am enjoying it just as much as the previous two.