Saturday, October 1, 2016

october 1, 2016....there will never be another one!

wow! october. and we are just getting our indian summer. we get it every year. a full week of weather that starts with cold nights, cold mornings and then almost summer-like days - such a nice treat with autumn right around the corner. jambaloney went fishing for striped bass/mackeral...


no striped bass or mackeral this time...


no worries - we still have a ton of beautiful wild fish in the freezer but he did manage to win my love again for eternity:


(eternity only lasts until i get my next mussel fix!). jambaloney only ate 2 mussels...he's not terribly fond of them. me? i scarfed that plate back like a madwoman!!! i love my shellfish!!!

we made a ginormic pizza.


the crust was very foccacia-like with lots of air holes and quite chewy and gooey.


we topped it with EVOO, crushed garlic, oregano and basil from the garden. pizza tip for all of you - after you have spread your sauce whether it be EVOO-based or tomatoe-based: always add a little mozzarella before any of your additional toppings - you'll thank me later! then we added fresh-grated parmesan, goat cheese, a little goat feta, then tomatoe slices fresh off the vine and green and black olives. followed by more goat mozzarella, goat cheese, goat feta and parmesan - it was a delight!

speaking of delights - how about planting your own garlic seed from garlic that you saved yourself in a bed of beautiful, rich loamy dirt full of decomposed seaweed and comfrey??? i know - yummeh!


how about planting another whole bed of it?


how about we planted about 260 garlics??? woohoo! we were high-fiving each other for hours. what can i say? we don't go to restauraunts, movies, clubs, etc. and the only time we go to town is when we absolutely HAVE TO!!! so we have to find our entertainment in other places - bahahahahah!

in other, more sad news.....jambaloney needs the plastic from the tomatoe cages to finish putting up the insulation in the basement. as it is october 1st...it was time to pick the last of the tomatoes. here are my sad-looking tomatoe plants after i stripped them:


and a free shot of the rat cat (edgar). he is finally growing his hair in, he is the stumpiest little cat ever and he weighs about 80lbs!!!!

i was able to part with my tomatoe plants because of this:


that's only one half of the greenhouse - there's more tomatoe plants on the other half - woohoo! fresh tomatoes until at least the end of october!!!

today was a bit of an odd day - bright and sunny early this morning and then turned to queer and cloudy - it was still a beautiful day!


here's the last of the beautiful, ripe tomatoes from our plants.


they'll be turned into our favourite pasta for tomorrow night's supper. and here's the last of the "turning tomatoes" that should ripen over the next week.


and here's all of the tiny greens.


they will either ripen in the next few weeks or they'll be added to last year's bag of frozen green tomatoes to make chow with. waste not, want not, kids.

although we have frozen more blackberries than we can possibly eat - they are still coming in like gangbusters so we eat about this many a day and have for the past month.


and then - lo and behold! jambaloney saw a woman at the side of the road, picking something. he smiled and waved at her and then went back to check on whatever it was she was doing.


HUCKLEBERRIES! and a ton of them!!! guess what we're doing tomorrow??? your guessed it! going and getting a ton of huckleberries!!! apparently they make great wine and since we plan to try our hand at wine-making this winter - finding these free berries is a goldmine. we're big believers in gathering as much free food as we can!!!

my blogroll is still wonky...actually, it's just gone. a big thank you to 1st Man for trying to help me get it back. but it looks like i am just going to have to add all of our favourite blogs by hand...which i will do in the next few days. if you want to be listed in our blogroll and you have 5 mins to leave a comment with your blog name - that would be great!!!

10 comments:

  1. Oooh looks like a good haul all round. What do huckleberries taste like, they look a bit like blueberries, are they sweet? You should have enough garlic this year to keep away all vampires for a whole 12 months. Enjoy the last breaths of summer xxx

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  2. add a handful to pancakes or instead of pineapple in pineapple upside down cake. Almost like garlic or butter...you can never have too many huckleberries!

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  3. You inspired me and I planted some garlic!! We shall see. I have a notoriously brown thumb.

    On the bright side, I have some volunteer basil growing in the pots that were in the stand below the ones I grew it in this summer ... so I should have a little more this year. (plus I have some I packed in sea salt in my fridge, per your instructions)

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  4. looks like you kids are busy. I have a new toy...a bread machine like Ms Vicki has, but I can make fresh BUTTER !!!! i will post on it in a few days...hugs...Your MN Gopher..

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  5. One tip on huckleberrying...look out for WASPS! On our last trip of the season we stirred some up. They weren't ground hornets but they sure did pack a wallop. We went a little late in the season so that was probably why it happened.

    Those look pretty good sized. What a great find! Around here no one would tell you where to find huckleberries. It's like asking for their first born (which they'd probably give you rather than give up any huckleberry sites).

    Keep us posted on your wine making activities!
    ~hobo

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  6. Some people have all the luck. I have to gulp my shellfish fast otherwise my wife will beat me to it!

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  7. I need to get my garlic in, going to do a bulk order with some freinfo for some fresh stock as mine was all covered in rust.

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  8. It sounds like a veritable Garden of Eden up there! I love, love, love shellfish! Thanks for the reminder - my garlic needs to go in next weekend!

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  9. It's turning fall here too, Kymber. We had our first fire in the fireplace this week. Still in a drought, though. Our river is so dry that you can walk across it without getting your knees wet, and it's usually four or five feet deep.

    I'm glad things are going well up there for both of you. As always I like your pictures and especially the pictures of the water and the beach.

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  10. All the pictures are excellent as usual. But the mussels are making me hungry!! Yum

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