Saturday, July 24, 2010

New Llama; Pink Eye Purple Hull Jelly and misc.

Still hot and humid.

We were delighted this morning to see the neighbor drive up with the llama!
I took a few pictures using the zoom. She was about 60 feet away, exploring and enjoying our good, cold well water. The steer almost went bonkers for a few minutes before he decided to check her out. Notice her ears when he got close.

I think I will call her Marlene, as in Marlene Deitrich because of those eyes.
From Llama
. If you click on the album there are three more pictures.

We won't put her out with the cows until she settles down over the move. I think we may get a second one to put with the heifers and bull. They will start calving late fall, early winter.

Gardening and Harvesting

I harvested my first pink eye purple hull peas, poles beans, several cherry tomatoes and a few peaches and a couple of peppers, maybe Ancho.
From Harvest 2010

I have never grown the peas. It is a slow process to hull them! We do love the green stage of them seasoned with a little salt and bacon fat. I learned about making jelly from the hulls on the Oklahoma Gardenweb Forum. I had just exactly the right amount of hulls to do the recipe and so cooked them down yesterday and made the jelly this morning. I just couldn't believe it would taste like anything. I was pleasantly surprised. It is a lovely grapey color and has a taste like a very mild grape jelly with just a hint of tartness. I doubt I do anymore but it was fun.

This is the juice I made yesterday:
From Harvest 2010 an

and the jelly I made this morning"
From Harvest 2010

We showed our neighbor the new garden and the very tall OP corn. It is now over 8 feet tall and just beginning to show tassels. He noticed some ripe tomatoes so, like Grandma, I gathered up my apron and picked the first of the main crop tomatoes. They were pink Granny Cantrell (I love that name)and Park's Whopper (I won't do again, very unimpressive for me). Granny C. is a much earlier than some heirlooms and is a great tasting tomato.

Speaking of aprons, I love them! Mine are all threadbare and I have to either buy some or make some more. I wear them in the garden, while doing housework, in fact almost daily. They are like a necessary tool for me. I can just see my grandmother in hers. She would go out to the corn crib, husk a few ears into her apron, gather up the corners, go to the chicken yard and toss out the corn to the hens.....then gather the eggs in the apron. Of course, she also kept her snuff in a pocket........I don't do that!

4 comments:

  1. Love Marlene, cute picture. Pretty jelly-never heard of doing that before-interesting.

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  2. So, where do you keep your snuff? LOL

    I want to see some photos of you in your aprons. Do you wear dresses? I remember my grandma wearing aprons. I used to wear one while cooking, but don't remember to very often, even though I have a bunch of them. I don't like wearing the older ones, because I don't want to stain them.

    Do you ever shop on ebay? I have bid on aprons there before. You may even find one you want to use for a pattern.

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  3. Oh, I enjoyed reading about your harvest and jelly making, too.

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  4. Bang on with the llama name. Those eyes! Even the real Marlene would die for those lashes. LOL

    I use T-shirts like aprons in the garden. I buy them oversized and turn myself into some kind of weird kangaroo to haul harvest, quick trimmings etc. Gotta love the Goodwill for cheap shirts. :-D

    ReplyDelete