Jun

Just Another Summer Morning

The weatherman was calling for a rather warm, humid day with a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, so I decided to get an early start this morning. First on my agenda was running to my Amish neighbor, Rose’s, house to help her butcher a few chickens. She had promised to give me a refresher course in chicken processing, since I’ll be doing my own at the end of the summer, and haven’t done so since I was a teenager. Apparently, chicken processing is a little like riding a bike, and it all came rushing back to me. Rose gave me a chicken to take home for dinner, and it’s currently soaking in buttermilk in my fridge for Buttermilk Fried Chicken from the cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks. One of these days I’ll have to sneak some pictures from a distance of the Amish working in their fields, or a buggy passing by for you.

Anyone know what to do with a gallon of mulberries? After placing an old sheet under a mulberry tree along the pasture fence row and giving it a good shake, I’ve got a gallon I need to decide what to do with. Sorbet for dessert after fried chicken tonight?

I spent a little time with my garden, pulling a few weeds, and picking some out of control greensl. I suppose those should become part of dinner this evening also. That’s spinach in the foreground, cilantro behind it, flowering arugula in the back, and dill in the upper left hand corner. When I’m done writing this post, I’m going to go back out and pick the sugar snap peas.

Because I garden in raised beds, space is at a premium. I always grow one or two zucchini plants, and they tend to be a bit problematic, thanks to their sprawling tendency. I picked up a tip on pinterest that seems to have solved the problem. I placed an upside down tomato cage over the plant, and as it has been growing, I pull the leaves up into the cage. It’s holding the main stem relatively upright, and preventing the plant from creeping out of its designated space. We’ll see what happens as the plant grows larger.