Potatoes

I am thankful for potatoes.  And for being done harvesting potatoes this year!

This picture is of most of my potato crop, minus what we have all ready eaten, and minus the 1/2 bushel DH dug for me a couple of weeks ago that is still sitting in the garage where he left them.  These seven baskets, equaling about three and a half bushel, are what I've dug this week.    They are sitting in the basement at the moment, where I left them when I hauled them in from the garden.  Considering that each 1/2 bushel basket weighs about 30 pounds, well, I think I can justify giving them a pit stop by the basement door on their way from the garden to the cellar!

Plus, before they go into the cellar for storage (where they will last until approximately April) I want to sort through them and fill the baskets according to size and color of potato, not just leave them in the jumble they became as I tossed them into the baskets when removing them from the garden.  The tiny ones are great just scrubbed and boiled as the base for potato soup, or for tossing into stews or pot pies without having to take the time to peel and dice large potatoes.  The biggest ones are for baked potatoes and french fries.  The medium ones are usually what end up on my table as mashed or boiled potatoes (skins on or off).  And the small ones make good steamed potatoes with herbs.

I think this is probably the best potato harvest I have gotten yet, and I've been growing potatoes pretty much all of DD2's life. (She is 16 now).  I had absolutely no potato bugs on the plants this year, and I'm convinced that had a lot to do with it.  I'm not sure if my lack of potato bugs was a fluke, or if it had to do with all the horseradish I planted in my potato rows this year.  I had heard that horseradish repels potato bugs, and last year I planted it at each end of each row of potatoes.  Still had potato bugs, but mostly in the middles of the rows, with the plants closer to the horseradish not being as badly infested.  So this year I put a little horseradish sprout about every four hill of potatoes.  Since DH had run over part of my horseradish patch with the tiller, he had chopped the roots and effectively spread horseradish plants around the garden.  Really all I did was take a trowel and remove them from where I didn't want them, and replant them in the potato rows.

Next year I will definitely repeat this technique, and see if I have the same results.  To never have to pick potato bugs again would be wonderful!

Anyway, I am thankful for our abundant harvest of potatoes.  We eat a lot of potatoes, in many forms.  This many potatoes will definitely carry us through winter and leave me with potatoes to plant as seed for next year's crop.

Kayaking

I am thankful that I was exposed to kayaking.  While canoes do not inspire any sort of interest for me, I do truly love kayaking.  Since I first sat in one last year, I have embraced every chance I've gotten to kayak some more.   Each time, I've done a progressively more challenging river.   I have gotten wet, but only because I have now kayaked through rapids and 'rock gardens',  under bridges, through culverts, underneath fallen trees spanning the river, through tight turns in currents running 16 miles an hour, and down drops as large as about three feet.  Kind of hard to do that without getting splashed once in a while.  And there was that one time this summer, when I got caught in the current while trying to avoid a kayak wreck immediately in front of me. . . That was the fast, tight river with lots of fallen trees as obstacles.  Did a lot of kayak limbo-ing on that trip.  (Kayak limbo is what I call when you have to lay backwards on your kayak to get low enough to clear a fallen tree so you don't have to get out and portage around it.  'Cause portaging would mean getting out, and getting out increases my chances of getting wet, even if it is just my feet and legs!)

When I began kayaking, I had a theory that if I could relate it to what I knew about riding horses, specifically, riding dressage, I would pick up on kayaking technique very quickly.  The more I kayaked, the happier I was to find that my theory held.  By taking what I know about balance, using individual muscle groups versus an entire side or section of my body at one time, and 'feeling with my butt' (you gotta be a dressage rider to understand that phrase), then testing that knowledge in my kayak, I just had more and more fun and quickly got more and more skillful.  My first major conquest was the Sturgeon River of northern Michigan in August of 2012.  DH confessed, when I had been the only one of our group to stay upright during the most challenging stretch of river (everyone else in the group has done this river yearly for at least five years), that I am the only person he has known to do that portion of the Sturgeon and not flip.  Was I rather proud?  Oh yes.  Mostly because it was clear he was impressed and proud of me.

I repeated my performance on the Sturgeon River this August,adding in a more expert level stretch that the majority of our group bowed out of, staying at camp while us die hards floated for five more hours .  And next year, if the weather is warmer, I think I will do the Midnight Float, which is a traditional part of the Sturgeon trip with our group (well, DH's group; he's been doing the annual Sturgeon trip since about 1999, I'm pretty much the newbie still.)

Since my first Sturgeon float in 2012, I have been exposed to even faster and more technical rivers.  I have loved kayaking more and more as the challenge level increases.  Guess that's the bent and twisted side of me :0)

Will I ever white water kayak?  Probably not.  White water rafting holds no fascination for me.  In fact, along with bungee jumping and going to a casino, it's on my 'over my dead body' list (the bungee jumping aversion seems odd when I tell people I'd love to try skydiving. . . but for some reason free falling is okay to me while free falling then getting yanked back upward to repeat several times is not).  I see white water kayaking in the same light. It's just not something I want to do.  But taking a kayak and exploring every windy, twisty, fast moving river in Michigan?  You betcha!  (But I'm still not gonna get wet if I can help it; I'm still the kayaking diva.)

The Great Salsa Experiment

November #6 (yes, I was supposed to post this yesterday, on the 6th, but computer time was hard to come by).  I am thankful for what DH and I came to refer to as The Great Salsa Experiment this summer.

You see, our onions, tomatoes, and peppers grew very well this year.  So well that keeping up with them became rather a challenge.  Usually if we get enough of all three (well, four if you divide the peppers into hot peppers and bell peppers, both of which go in salsa) ripe at one time and can get a batch of salsa canned, we are grateful.  This year, we had salsa ingredients coming out our ears, taking over the kitchen, piling up in the garage. . .

So we set out on a quest to come up with the perfect salsa.  The recipe we'd used for years, which had originally been given to DH by a co-worker in the late 1990's, just wasn't the exact taste and consistency we wanted.  We'd tried tweaking it a bit, through the years that we were fortunate enough to have ingredients for making salsa with, but hadn't yet hit on our perfect version of salsa.

Enter about 100 pounds of vegetables just begging to be made into salsa.  We ate fresh salsa, aka pico de gallo, nearly every day for a month.  And we had a revelation.  The canned salsa we wanted wasn't much different from the pico de gallo I was making.  But could it be canned using the water bath method?  Or would it have to be pressure canned?  And if it was pressure canned, would those lovely pieces of tomato, peppers, and onion become just an unappetizing mush?

Thus ensued a searching of the internet for canned salsa recipes. Specifically water bath canned salsa recipes. And comparing those recipes, down to the tiniest ingredient, with my pico recipe.

Finally, we came up with a recipe that sounded like it would taste good, be high enough in acid to be safe for canning without pressure, and should also not be too watery once it was done with all it's processing (the biggest complaint of our 1990's recipe).

Batch number one was made.  It came out tasty, but the consistency still wasn't what we were hoping for.

Some more adjustments were made, mostly in size of veggie chunks and the addition of cooking down half of the tomatoes into a sauce-like consistency first.  Thus batch number two was canned.

Still not perfect.  Then DH had a light-bulb moment.  He got out the blender.  He pulsed some of my freshly made pico in it.

Aha!  That was it!  That was the texture he had in mind.

And so batch number three got whizzed through the blender before being put into jars and processed in the canner.

Now we have our taste, our safe level of acid, and our texture.  We have our perfect salsa to make forever more!

I'm thankful that we had the garden bounty to conduct The Great Salsa Experiment this year.

Garlic and Onions (November #5)

I am thankful for garlic and onions.  I love to eat them.  And I seem to have gotten the hang of growing them, so we are rarely without either one at this little place here.

Venison is awesome with garlic and onions.  My favorite beef pot roast recipe calls for big slices of onion cooked on top of the roast.  Sloppy joes also require onions, as do hot dogs and hamburgers.  And pizza!  Pizza just isn't the same without onions. Sometimes I just saute an onion in butter and eat that for lunch.  Mmmm.

Some people say not to eat garlic or onions because they give you bad breath.  I don't care.  They taste good.  Besides, they keep you healthy.

Yes, garlic and onions keep you healthy.  They boost your immune system.  They contain allicin (especially garlic), and allicin is a naturally occurring antibacterial and anti fungal compound.  Eat more garlic and onions, get less colds and other infections.

Good taste, and better health.  Sounds like a win-win to me.  Pass the garlic and onions, please!

My Eldest Son

Today is DS1's birthday, so my thankfulness #4 post is about him.

It was a rocky start, finding out at 17, and most of the way through my senior year of high school, that I was pregnant.  There was the being in over my head with the overbearing boyfriend, there was the whole 'you can't be visibly pregnant in school' thing of the late 1980's still happening, there was rocky times with my parents over whether or not I was actually going to have the baby.  From the moment I realized I was pregnant (one morning in the midst of a lecture during Algebra 2, lol) I wanted to have and keep my baby.  However, most everyone who knew my predicament tried to convince me against continuing the pregnancy.

I went round and round with the boyfriend, with my parents, with a few other adult mentors I respected.  Time marched on, and after a while it was "too late" for any of them to force me into terminating the pregnancy.

So, I hid it from the school officials, not wanting to be kicked out of school or made to attend adult ed so close to finishing my high school career.  Very few of my friends even knew until after graduation.  I graduated, with the rest of my class and with honors, in the fourth month of my pregnancy. Thank goodness the fashion was for baggy clothing!  My own brother and grandparents didn't even know until I was nearly six months along.

Anyway, my struggles to even be allowed to have DS1 (remember, I was only 17) and then to keep him, had a profound effect on me.  I realized what a jerk, loser, abuser, my boyfriend was.  I found the guts to break up with him.  I found my own voice, and the strength to stand up to others.  I worked hard. My son always came first. I vowed to myself that if I had to be a statistic--an unwed teenage mother--that I was going to be a success statistic, and not one of failure.

Well, today DS1 is 24 years old.  He is definitely a success statistic.  He is hard working.  He is kind, compassionate and loyal.  He is a veteran of the military.  He is a father.  He is someone I am very proud of, and thankful to have in my life.

Still Knitting. . .

November Thankfulness #3:  I am thankful that I am still knitting.  The lessons I took in January really turned me on to a useful hobby that I enjoy.

My knitting slowed down over the summer, with so many daylight hours and so much outdoor work needing to be done during those daylight hours.  I did manage to knock off a few dish cloths, a pair of socks for DD1's birthday, a pair of socks for DD2's birthday, a shopping bag, and a hat that I am donating to a charity that collects them and sends them to soldiers serving overseas in those months, but didn't spend nearly as many hours knitting as I would have liked to.

I also managed to talk myself into having more than one project on the needles at a time.  Having several different sizes and types of needles now makes this possible.  Because, of course, socks are done on much smaller needles than hats or shopping bags are made with.

Currently I have a shawl and another pair of socks (toe-up this time instead of the top-down method I stuck with for the three pair I made earlier this year) and pieces for making a stuffed horse.  And I have about three more projects I'd like to start, as soon as I have a set of needles free in the correct size.

Scylla patterned sock (pattern free on Ravelry)

Second sock in this pattern is about 1/3 finished right now.

To top off my thankfulness for knitting, yesterday was the 2nd Anniversary of the opening of the yarn shop at which my lessons began.  I stopped in for a while to join the festivities, eat the yummy treats and the chicken chili, to purchase some yarn and needles for a project DD2 is starting, and to knit a bit in the company of many of the other regulars at the shop.

As part of the anniversary celebration, the owner of the shop was doing drawings for door prizes once an hour until the shop closed for the evening.

Well, I just happened to be there for the final drawing.  And, guess who just happened to win the grand prize.

ME!  Two luscious skeins of 100% Merino yarn, pattern to make either a beret or scarf from those skeins, the needles needed for the hat and the scarf, a bag to carry the project in, and a $25 gift certificate to the yarn shop.  Wow!

Yes, I'm thankful that I decided, nearly a year ago, that it was time for me to learn how to knit. I'm thankful that I love knitting, and that I'm still knitting.  I'm thankful for my local yarn shop, and the generosity of it's owner.

Second Hand Stores

Thankfulness #2:  I am thankful for second hand stores.

Really.  I've been shopping at them for over 24 years now.  They've saved me a ton of money, and by being choosy at the second hand stores I've been able to outfit my family, and my house, with no one being the wiser that I didn't pay top dollar and buy those items brand new.  Not unless I told them, anyway.

Some people love to go to the mall.  Me, I love to go to Goodwill!  The selection is ever changing, you never know what you are going to find:  prom dresses, jeans that still have tags on them, luggage, baskets, yarn and fabric, end tables, sewing machines (my first sewing machine came from Goodwill, $20 including the cabinet it was in), heated water buckets for the horses, furniture for dorm rooms. . .