Cherries!!!

Cherries!

What a wonderful word.

Nature's original tree ornaments!

The first harvest of the year is upon us and it is a bit unexpected. Typically strawberries are the first thing I get off my little farm, but this year the cherry tree has exploded in wonderful little cherries.

Last year my little tree didn't even produce enough to make a pie but as you can see, this is not last year!



The view from my front window.



I have one sour cherry tree that I have in my front yard. I love it because not only is it very ornamental, it produces beautiful sour cherries that are fantastic in pies, delicious as a syrup on pancakes or ice cream, an excellent add in for homemade cough syrup and a powerful aid to help with arthritis. This year I plan on making all of these things and more depending on how many cherries we get.

 

This is what we got for just an hour of picking. As you can see my tree is not very large. I recently read in one of my gardening books that a typical cherry tree can typically produce up to 40 lbs of cherries. I'm thinking of getting a second one so I can barter with the local farm market for things I don't grow.



YUM!





From tree to table in less than
two hours.



In my next blog I'll show you what I'm doing with these cherries to get as much as I can out them and put away food for my family. We'll also talk about the Homefront Strategy as I put it into practice for my own family. I hope to inspire you to do the same. A trip to your local pick-your-own is not only a great family experience, it also helps to fill your larder. Take an inventory of what your family enjoys eatting and what they may be willing to try.

When you make your own ingredients, you can have a gourmet meal

that costs pennies!

Cat TV

Time for a true confession....



I'm going to get you.. "Ma-a-a-a-a-a "

As cute as they are, as fun as they are to watch, I feed the birds not for the sake of the birds but rather for the amusement of my furry children.. the cats. My cats are housecats so the closest they come to "hunting" is typically when Mr. Mittens swats off a spool of thread off the table and proceeds to make a force field of almost invisible and uncrossable means. So for the amusement of my three balls of fluff (i.e. our Lords and Masters) I set out a feeder where they can threaten to their hearts content, any who would dare to come close to their domain.

The birds for their role, simply ignore the cats. They fully know that there is no real danger regardless of how much it is threatened... and there are threats. The "Ma-a-a-a-a-a " sounds that I've only heard the cats make when they are "talking to the birds". Today I'm going to give you a simple receipt for making homemade hummingbird nectar.

We've all seen the bright red, not found in nature hummingbird nectar found in the stores. The reality is that we can make the same thing at home without the artificial dye. Essentially it is a simple syrup so what you don't feed the birds, you could always mix in your drink... just saying. It is almost embarrassing how simple this is to make...

Simple Homemade Hummingbird Nectar

1 part sugar
4 parts water

A part can be anything you want it to be as long as you are consistent.

In this case, I used a 1/4 cup measure so it worked out to be, 1/4 cup sugar to 1 cup water.

Pour your sugar and water into a saucepan and heat until sugar is dissolved, stirring frequently.

Take off the burner and allow to cool.

Fill your feeder and let the hummingbirds

know you are open for business!

Spring Cleaning 2, Detox: Taking One's Bitters

The phrase, "Taking One's Bitters" has come to mean facing up to a result which really wasn't the positive outcome you'd been  hoping for. But the concept of taking one's bitters was a reality for our great, great grandparents. After long winters of salted and canned food, the need to detox and prepare the body for spring and summer was a common desire. Certain herbs were taken in the belief that they helped to flush the body of toxins and "sludge" that had built up after a season of processed food and a somewhat sedimentary lifestyle. These herbs were, in general, bitter and ill tasting but were believed to clean out the system. Today, most of these herbs are available in any healthfood store and now, in most grocery stores.

Anytime I feel sluggish or nasty, I pull out one of these herbal teas to drink and after a few days, generally feel pretty good. Again, I'm not a doctor so take at your own risk, but I've never had a problem  with any tea. A secondary note if you are going to drink more tea gleaned from experience: let your tea cool down a bit and sip it with a straw. Weird? Maybe. Tea has tannins and WILL yellow your teeth. White strips will help to counteract that but white strip (peroxide) DOESN'T WORK ON CAPS OR DENTAL WORK. Trust me, I've recently replaced a cap.

Anyway, below is an immunity tea receipe that I have from a herbal medicine course I took in 1995. If you take any medication, again, check with your doctor before using herbs. They are medicine and what many medicines are made from. You need to know how they will interact with anything you are taking. A part is any measurement you desire as long as you are consistent. 1/2 cup is 1 part throughout, or 1/4 cup is 1 part throughout.. whatever you deem the quantity you want to make:

IMMUNE SYSTEM TEA

4 parts Pau d'arco (bark)
2 parts Echinacea (root)
1/2 part Goldenseal (root)
1 part Burdock (root)
1/2 part each: dried orange (peel), cinnamon (bark), licorice (root)

Use 4 to 6 tablespoons to a quart.

Bring a quart of cold water and herbs to a simmer, covered. Let simmer for 20 minutes. Strain. Add honey if bitter.

Spring Cleaning... The Spring Detox #1

I'm big into alternative healing and when it comes to Spring Cleaning, I start from the inside out. Obviously you can't be there for other people if you don't take care of yourself first. That being said, today I'm going to talk about a controversial subject that I personally practice at least once a year and that is Ear Candling.

Now, I'm a firm believer in taking care of one's health and that while allopathic doctors are a definite necessity, we don't have to drug ourselves for any and every problem. I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility when it comes to my health. I assess the risks and benefits and for me, I believe ear candling helps loosen the ear wax that we constantly compact in our ear canal every time we shove a cotton swab on a stick in there to clean our ears after our showers. There are many others that claim what we see inside the candle is simply wax...honestly I don't believe that. That being said,  if you choose to do ear candling, I suggest you read the information that is out there and assess the risks and benefits for yourself. Ear candling does present some dangers and if you choose to try it, you do so at your own risk. (Common sense tells you anything with an open flame near your body does.) You know your body better than anyone and it is your choice what to do with it but like anything, you need to be informed and know the dangers prior to engaging in it.

 I am simply presenting the way I do it as I've made the decision that it is right for me.

Ear Candling 101

Equipment:

1 helping assistant to monitor the candle
                      (hopefully not too mocking!)   
1 wetted washcloth
1 pie plate
1 pair of scissors
2 ear candles (one for each ear). These can be found online or at most health food stores.


I personally do not do ear candling when I am currently having issues with my ear. I choose to do it when my ear is not compromised with a ear infection or swimmers ear. Also, I choose to do it in the spring or fall when there is less chance of a windy day that could cause a problem with my ears. You are effectively, cleaning out wax and wax generally has a purpose, just not impacted wax, so I don't want to strip that coating  and then go out in a windstorm when I need that wax to protect my ears. You wouldn't walk outside in the middle of winter without a coat. Don't ear candle and then go out into a windstorm.
                                                                                                      


Cut a hole only slightly bigger than your ear candle.

 

I believe in safety so my first step is to cut a hole in the pie plate big

enough for the "candle" to go through. An "ear candle" is actually

a rolled up cone with one end smaller than the other that you put in

your ear. It is typically made out of waxed linen.

 

I wet a washcloth to
help extinguish the fire
if it comes to close to the ear.



The next step is designed to prevent the candle from getting too close to your ear. You should also have someone around that is monitoring this for you as well but I like to make sure I'm doubly safe. Also, should any ash actually fall, conceivably the wetted washcloth would put it out.



Prepared pie plate with wetted cloth.




I put wetted washcloth around the hole cut in the pie plate like so.







Then I insert my ear candle.

The complete package.

My final step is to find a quiet place to lie down or at least have my head tilted at an angle. The candle is lit and the helper watches it so it doesn't get too close to your head or light your hair on fire! The candle will smoke a bit and with the candle inserted gently in the ear, a gentle vacuum is created. Its a very soothing feeling. I generally hear a bit of a quiet whooshing sound (I think of it like putting a shell to your ear) and some quite pops and snaps. Amazingly it is quite a peaceful feeling even though there is a flame above one's head. When the flame gets as just as close as I feel comfortable with, I remove it from my ear and blow it out. After it cools I inspect the inside. (It's gross so I'll spare you). Today there was about 1/2 inch of wax that was extracted.



Spring cleaning!



I enjoy doing ear candling at least once a year. I've done it for many years and have never had any issues. There are many out there that don't believe in it or state that it is dangerous. I only know that it works for me. Like anything, read up before you try anything. You only have one body. Namaste!

Planting the Spring Garden for the Fall's Pantry



So beautiful!


It's SPRING! The lilacs are in bloom. The Rochester Lilac festival just ended. One of these years I'm actually going to go to it. http://www.rochesterevents.com/festivals-events/lilac-festival
Lilacs are my second favorite "flower" in the whole world. They have such a wonderful scent and are here for such a fleeting time.I just love them as my yard here shows...


After blooming, remember to prune 1/3 of the bush away.
This is the only time you get a chance to do it.



But it is spring and it is time to get down to the business of what are we going to plant now to fill the pantry in the fall. My gameplan this year involves the usual suspects, LOTS of tomatoes (I typically put up about 72 cans of tomatoes alone, not to mention pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, summer sauce, bbq sauce, etc.), some peppers, lettuce and beans. This year I also planted corn for the first time in a long while. I planted four rubbarb plants and it looks like two of them have survived. Additionally this year,  I put 100 strawberry plants. When I plant my garden, I general think about what I can get around here cheaply from the farm markets and the pick your own orchards. I then figure out what is still going to cost me an arm and a leg even there. Strawberries will still run you at minimum $2.50/pint and $3.25 at a pick your own and $3.50 if they pick them. 100 plants cost me about $14.00 so the cost savings are excellent and as I still have volunteers sprouting up where my old bed was, I know they will take well even in my clay based soil. This year I think we will try to make strawberry ice cream for the first time as I still have a massive amount of strawberry jam left. (Athough it doesn't get any better than warm strawberry jam over vanilla ice cream!)



Strawberries

 In addition to the garden, it is time to start looking at the fruit trees and the berry bushes. I have a sour cherry tree that I keep hoping one of these years to get a decent harvest (last year it got black spot and I lost many of the cherries). It has a lot of cherries budding so here's hoping.



Cherry tree blossoms and emerging fruit



It also looks like the raspberries made it through the winter. Raspberries have been a bit difficult for me to grow for some odd reason. I have this wild blackberry bramble that causes havoc everywhere it touches down (even the roots have thorns) but after years of trying to irradicating it, one year it produced over three gallon bags of berries. I  have a love/mostly hate relationship with it as it doesn't produce berries every year. But it's the raspberries I've lost in the past when we've had rainy springs but it appeared that they weathered it through. The blueberries are still hanging in there. I didn't expect them to make it after last year's dry summer. The grape vines also came alive! I thought I lost those as well but they are back. Yeah! I still have the two gooseberry plants. Hopefully I can get two more and maybe have enough of a harvest to actually make jelly this year.



Oregano



The herbs are going gangbusters in the herb garden. I've had an herb garden since I was about 15 years old and I just love them. In addition to the typical herbs, I've also grown lemon verbena, salad burnett and hops. After five years, it appears that my "annual" salad burnett that has come up every year has finally given up the ghost as it was there earlier this spring but the frost we had seem to have done it in.

The oregano is my garden bully and as much as I give it away, it keeps coming back. I'll do a separate blog on the herb garden itself. It's my pride and joy.

What I can't grow on the "farm", I will go to one of the many orchards around here to pick my own.

Pick your own is a great way of filling the freezer with wonderful cherries, blueberries, plums, raspberries and apples if you don't have the space to grow these in your garden or your garden's supply isn't adequate.

Below is a listing of when these things are available in the Rochester/Niagara area of western NY. This is totally lifted from one of my local pick your own. Locate any pick your own on the web for dates for your area:

Rhubarb

May 5th-June 10th

Strawberries

June 10th-30th

Sweet Cherries

July 4th-August 1st

Sour Cherries

(The best pie cherries ever!)

July 15th-August 10th

Blueberries

July 4th-Sept. 1st

Red Raspberries

July 4th-October 10th

Black Raspberries

Early July

Currants

Red, White & Black

July 5th-August 5th

Peaches (Yellow & White) 

Mid July-Early Sept.

Blackberries

August

Nectarines

Late August-Early September

Plums

Late August and September

Apples

Sept 1st-Nov. 1st

Pumpkins

October

The Vacation that Almost Wasn't... Or, When Vacations Attack!

So sorry for the hiatus.... we are finally recovering from going on vacation...

My family doesn't take many vacations, in fact, in fifteen years, we've taken all of three. In this case we had decided to go to Florida, to visit Legoland for the first time. We had decided to drive to save the money on airfare and a rental car as that expense can be ridiculously high... little did we know how expensive the trip would become because of this decision....

Our 2004 Vibe was in good condition. We had taken it in to have it checked out before the trip and were all set. AAA had set our course to go through several states and little did I know, through several mountaneous states. I hate heights... seriously, if I see a video of people riding a rollercoaster, my feet begin to tingle. And three states of hills and mountains were not my idea of fun.

Well all was good when we set out that Friday morning until we hit what Pennsylvania ubiquitously calls "hills". All of a sudden, this car behind us jettisons up behind us and my husband quickly speeds up and swerves us into the next lane to avoid getting our back end bashed in. (We think the guy's car just suddenly clicked into gear and he couldn't slow it down fast enough). That was the death blow to the Vibe.



Down but not out in Pennylvania.



Suddenly the "check engine" light came on and we rushed to find the nearest gas station. We poured four quarts of oil into the car (saw nothing coming out) and were able to get the check engine light to go off but only for a moment. We called the nearest gas station that was open and on a wing and a prayer attempted to make it there.

We didn't.

On an entrance ramp in the middle of Washington, PA our car began to buck like a bronco in heat.

It was over and in one last gasp she died.

We called AAA and were told it would be half an hour until they could get a tow truck that could take the three of us to the dealership...this was at four o'clock on a Friday. An hour later when it still hadn't arrived we called back only to be told by a snotty clerk that it could be HOURS until they could get a tow truck to us that would house all three of us. It was now five o'clock on a Friday. Not good odds at gettingour car fixed at all. My husband made a quick call to the dealership who kindly agreed to pick up at least my son and myself, but luckly that wasn't required as the tow truck showed up immediately after that call. (Clearly the second agent had no idea what she was talking about thank goodness.)

So, now we are in another state, far from home and our car was dead. They couldn't fix it so what do we do? We could rent a car and go back home, but then we have to pay for the tow to have the car sent home and we still have to look for a car. Or, we can buy a car that we had no intention of doing at this point.

Well, we bought a car. The car is very nice and Washington Chevrolet is a phenomenal dealership that I would do business with again in a heartbeat. They truly went over and above for us and because of them we were able to continue our vacation and have a safe car to do it in. When we set out we had no idea we'd be putting ourselves back into debt for another six years... but then it could have died anywhere... it just choose the exotic vacation land of Pennsylvania to do it in.

BUT THATS NOT ALL FOLKS....


I'm going to die... I'm going to die..OMG!
OMG! OMG!



You see, West Virginia and Virginia surprises you with their mountains...you come around a curve it's like, "yep, here it is"... so while you know you are are in the mountains, it kind of sneaks up on you so you don't have the anticipation omnipresent...

Not Pennyslvania... Pennyslvania lays it all out for you so if you have a fear of heights it shows you the 5000 mile view to say, "You could die here...you could fall of a cliff there....Just look how deep that ravine is...

" Eeeeiiik!

Couple that with a brand new car you know nothing about and my husband, being a typical man,  wanting to explore all the new features ......while driving around death taunting curves.

I was white knuckling it all the way.



White knuckling it all the way...

We finally made it through to our first night in Winston-Salem, NC. There was a famous BBQ place there that was within walking distance of the hotel. The doorman assured us it was a safe walk even at 8pm at night. So, we made the walk and got there just fine, but the walk home was a bit more frightening. As we were walking back to the hotel, we passed a bunch of older youths outside a church yard discussing how one of their friends had just went to jail. We walked up further and passed a street that had been blocked off and this menacing looking guy came out and started to follow us. Our car dyng and now we get to be mugged too? Wow, what life experiences we were having....

Luckly we speeded up our trek and got back to the hotel.

HONEY, TURN OFF THE ALARM.....

But it's not the alarm in the room... it's the hotel alarm...going off... at six am.... and we are on the seventeenth floor....what do we do? Visions of "Towering Inferno" start going through my head...

There is no directions from the alarm other than they will tell us what to do when it's over. I looked out out window to see the fire engine coming down the road. It reaches the hotel, stops, turns off the lights... and drives away..... I'm hoping that is a good sign...

Then the announcement comes over the loud speaker that the emergency is over and we can go back to our previous activities... um..SLEEPING... highly doubtful at this point and right before a ten hour drive...

Anyway, we did reach our destination and had a good time and luckly the rest of the trip was uneventful (in a bad way I mean). We got to stay in Mt. Airy on the way back. Mt. Airy Life is the birthplace of Andy Griffin and the town he based his mythical town of Mayberry on. http://www.visitmayberry.com/ We didn't get a chance to tour it as we we had to get home to go back to work, but it looked like a great place.

So, our vacation wasn't as restful as we'd hope but we did have many interesting experiences. We did have fun and we got a good story out of it.

Creamed Tunafish on Toast... or Biscuits & Gravy's Trashier Cousin....

Snicker if you must, I realize this will  never appear on the Food Network, but this is the favorite breakfast of my brother and I growing up. Many a morning we would get up for school and my father would have a delightful pan of the rich milk gravy laced with whatever leftover meat we may have had or with our favorite version, tuna fish. Now, I'm not fond of canned tuna fish normally, but this is absolute ambrosia. The fact that my father, who worked third shift and, along with my working mother, had a farm to take care of, would take the time to make this for his children truly demonstrated that we were loved.

True, this the not the food of the rich and many a former soldier from WWII or Korea may recognize this as the colloquial SOS* (Sh*t on a Shingle for those not on this side of the pond) if made with chipped beef, but this is the food that I'd like to think my Great Grandma Nellie fed her children and working man husband during the Depression when money was short and there were many mouths to feed. This is a recipe that could have quickly been put together out of pantry staples and put on the table fast. If for no other reason than the fact that this was humble food served by honest people trying to stretch a bunch in a bad economy, you should try this meal. In many ways, the same thing could be declared about today's economy....

So try Creamed Tuna fish on toast. It may not be totally good for you but it will warm your soul and your belly and put a smile on your face! Enjoy!

Creamed Tuna fish on Toast 

Simple Pantry Ingredients

Ingredients:

• 1 Stick Butter
• 1/2 cup Flour
• 1 can Evaporated Milk
• Milk to Thin
• Salt & Pepper
• Tuna or whatever leftover
  meat you may have
• Toast to serve it on

Step 1: Melt your butter in a pan over medium heat taking care not to burn it. Next add  your flour. You can add as much or as little as you like depending upon how thin you want your gravy. For
general guideline, we'll start with a 1:1 ratio.
One stick (1/2 cup) of butter to 1/2 cup flour.
What you are essentially doing is creating a rue much
like you would to thicken anything, mac & cheese,
soup, a stew, etc.

Make the rue, taking care not to burn it.

Make sure you get out all the lumps. After you add
the meat, it becomes impossible to do so.

Step 2: Once the rue begins to thicken, add your
evaporated milk. This may be enough of a gravy
or it may thicken up on you depending on how
much flour you put in.


Add the milk and ...



Stir to combine.                                          

Who could go wrong with butter and flour?

















Step 3: Add  your chosen meat. Here we are utilizing
my personal fav, drained tuna fish.
Mix well.

Perfect technique for using up the holiday turkey or ham.
Or if your not that imaginative, put in sausage.

Step 4: If necessary thin with milk to your desired consistency.



Mix well.

















Step 5: Salt and Pepper to taste.
Stir in.

In the home stretch!

Step 6: Serve over toast and ENJOY! From my family to yours.. although honestly, I can probably eat the whole pan myself.....so if you don't like it.... pass it my direction...YUM!!!