Too Old For This

Earlier this week, when I went to the garden to get a couple of tomatoes for a dish I was making for supper (recipe to follow), I noticed that the new bean and pea rows were full of grass and morning glories.  So, yesterday evening, I dragged the tiller out of the shed and went to work.  The temperature was probably still in the low 90s, and I was already sweating by the time I got the tiller cranked. 

I swear that tiller gets heaver and more ornery every time I use it.  With the tines running in reverse, it squats down and digs like a mole, and it tries its best to aim for the rows instead of the middles.  With the tines in the forward gear, it sprints down the row like a racehorse.  Even with the speed switch set more toward the turtle than the rabbit, it will try to run off, dragging the operator behind it.  When it does this, the smart course of action is to turn loose of it and raise both hands in surrender, at which time it lurches to a sudden stop and sits there, idling, snarling, "Go ahead, smart*ss...squeeze that trigger again." 

After about an hour of wrestling the beast, I gave up and steered the tiller back to the shed.  The outer edge of the first butterbean row didn't get plowed, and the outer edge of the last purple hull pea row didn't get plowed, but screw it...I'll mow them with the lawn mower this weekend. 

By the time I came back to the house, exhausted and dripping with sweat, I realized that I had strained a muscle in my left forearm.  It hurt just to pick up a drinking glass and hold it long enough to wash down an Alleve. 

I am too old for this.

Thank goodness for the left-overs in the refrigerator.  Speaking of the left-overs, I'm calling this dish "Tuscany Beans and Sausage."  It's quick, easy, and delicious (even better the next day).  Here's the recipe:

4 - 5 links of sausage (Italian, bratwurst, etc.)
1 small onion
1 - 2 cloves of garlic (optional)
3 medium tomatoes (or a 15 oz. can of tomatoes, if you don't have fresh ones)
2 cans of cannellini beans (white kidney beans), drained and rinsed (navy beans work just as well)
3 - 4 bay leaves

Brown the sausage links in a skillet.  Remove from pan.
Soften the onions in the same skillet.  Add the rest of the ingredients, stirring them around to get all that good flavor off the bottom of the skillet.  Slice the sausage and add it back to the pan. Put a lid on it and simmer it for 15 minutes.

This is wonderful served over a thick slice of toasted bread.

Bon appetite!

Late Garden Experiments

I've been planning for two days to get down to the garden, to see how the beans and greens are doing, and to throw a little water on the beets and carrots in the horse trough.  Finally, this morning I suited up - hat, gloves, and crocs - and went down there.

The veggie trough is several water hoses away from the hydrant.  Nanny has one of those new stretchy green water hoses that's supposed to shrink when the water is off, and I have a hose cart with about 150 feet of duct-tape-patched hose on it.  I turned on the water, pulled the green hose over to the hose cart, and flipped a switch on the green hose to temporarily shut off the water while I screwed the green hose to the hose cart.  Before I even finished tightening the connection, I heard a poof! and a whooshhhhhh!, and looked back to see water spewing from the middle of the green hose.  Blow-out!  I felt bad about wrecking Nanny's hose.  Last week, when I was trying to perform the same feat, the shut-off valve blew out of the green hose.  I replaced it with the one from my own stretchy green hose.  Now it looks like I'll be giving her my whole hose. 

I will not be buying another stretchy green hose.

In any case, the garden is lookin' good.  I hooked up the Miracle Grow sprayer and laid into the beans with it.  Folks say that beans don't need much fertilizing, and they probably don't, but we're working against the seasonal clock with this second crop of beans and peas, and I thought a little insurance wouldn't hurt.  I did only one row of the purple hull peas, an experiment to see if that row makes more peas, or makes them sooner.  I also dosed some of the tired old tomatoes, to see if they'll get a second wind.

The okra needed cutting, and there was a lot of it, so The Husband cut a plastic shopping bag full, and I brought the okra back to the house to pickle it.  Some of the okra was too long to fit in a pint jar.  By the time I culled out the tall boys, I had five pints of okra.  As I was lowering the jars into the canner, the bottom fell out of one jar - don't know what happened there, unless there was already a tiny crack in the jar, and the heat from the pickling brine finished it off.  Had to fish out the okra and the glass in the pan, throw out the briny water (and the okra and the glass), and start over with one less jar than I started with. 

This is the second batch of canning that has gone wrong this year.  I think I'm losing my touch!

Labor Day Weekend

Once again, I'm sitting here at my kitchen table, blogging while the canner is boiling - 4 quarts of tomatoes, and a batch of pepper jelly fixings waiting their turn.

I actually started this process about 7 hours ago.  By noon, I'd picked, peeled, and chopped the tomatoes and had them heating on the stove.  Just about the time they started to boil, we had a storm that knocked the power out for nearly 5 hours.

That little storm brought us a good rain, just in time.  The peas, butterbeans, and beets that I planted a week ago have sprouted and are growing like crazy.  When I was in the garden this morning, I made plans to go back and turn on the sprinkler this evening.  Thank you, Mother Nature, for saving me the trouble! 

Funny, when I planted peas and beans late this spring using this season's seeds, they came up "skippy," and I had to do some replanting in almost all the rows.  This latest batch of seeds are seeds I bought on sale last year at the end of the season and had put in the freezer, and it looks like every seed sprouted and is thriving.  My fingers are crossed that we'll have a late frost so that they'll have time to make beans.  It sure would be a lot nicer to pick beans in the cool autumn than in the boiling hot summer.