08.10.08
A gift of bounty.
A gift of bounty.
It’s amazing to me just how much produce we brought home yesterday. These gifts from Daniel’s father will last through the week, with one lasting into the fall – read on. I began to add up what the cost would be to purchase these vegetables in the supermarket.
$3.38 2 lb. Italian Bell Peppers
$2.98 2 lb. Green Beans
$13.41 9 lb. Red Tomatoes
$6.98 2 lb. Yellow Tomatoes
$10.47 3 lb. Yellow Chinese Cherry Tomatoes
$4.98 2 lb. Broccoli
$17.94 12 weeks Celery*
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$60.14 Total **
*Because the celery is a live plant and should last through the end of October, I can cut a fresh stalk or two whenever I need it. The plant fills a 5 gallon flower pot. I figure I’d buy 6 heads of celery over the next twelve weeks, most of which would go bad before I could use a head in two weeks. I’m going to try to bring the plant in over the winter to keep it alive. I have no idea what the life expectancy of a celery plant should be, but who knows my pale green thumb may just be enough to save it. We’ve had great luck with the Monstera Deliciosa aka “Breadfruit” plant, and I managed to keep 3 of the 4 Lemon Verbena shrubs alive over this past winter. Daniel bought them the spring of 2007, and I wintered them in front of a large window that gets 4 hours of direct sunlight a day.
** Over a weeks worth of groceries for the two of us.
We could have brought home so much more produce, but I would have felt guilty if any of it had gone bad before we were able to use it up. As it is, I think I may be making tomato sauce or soup by the end of the week.
Early this afternoon I drove to Mom’s to visit. My brother is back down visiting from New York. He had fallen asleep while watching the Olympics on TV in Mom’s bedroom, and he remained asleep during the hour and a half I was there. I went up to say good-bye in the hopes that he was awake, but he was still asleep. Unfortunately, a floor board creaked as I closed the bedroom door, and I woke him up. I said hello and good-bye and then went back downstairs. Mom offered me some fresh basil from her garden, which I accepted gratefully. I had planned to pick up some fresh basil to make tomato-mozzarella salad along with a gallon of milk on the drive home, so I only had to pick up milk. I was also going to buy some fresh chicken to grill today, but with the weather forecast, I decided against it. I wasn’t about to stand in the rain grilling.
Just after I arrived home, it started to pour outside. It had been raining intermittently all morning, but this was a deluge. I had under filled the pond during my morning maintenance with the expectation that it would be topped off from the predicted rain, but this topped it off and then some. There was a river running down the side yard.
I made the tomato-mozzarella salad and added Mom’s basil along with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Then I made a green salad with half of the head of romaine lettuce I bought last week, the last of the head of cabbage, a cucumber one of Daniel’s coworkers gave him, red onion, and a carrot. I cut up sharp cheddar sticks from a brick I had in the frig to go with either the salad or chili that I took out to defrost. You may remember the chili from two weeks ago. While I was making the salads, I cooked a cup of mixed brown and white rice to go with the chili. I got the brown rice to cooking, and after 25 minutes I added the white for another 20 minutes. I added a half tsp. of McCormick’s Chicken Base to the water to give the rice a little extra flavor. It actually looked quite nice with the tan and white grains mixed together.
By the time I finished cooking and chopping, it was 5:30. We ate dinner around 6:00. I ate the last of the leftover italian sausage with fried onions and bell pepper, and potato salad from last week. We watched some of the Olympics on TV, then we finished watching “Rainman” with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. We had started to watch this last Thursday night as a free movie on Comcast. While the movie ran I did another water change on the pond. This evening, the pond water is almost back to clear. I’ve been fighting the algae bloom for two weeks, but the past three days have been cool and partially cloudy. This has helped tremendously to control the algae, and I had cut back the fish feedings to every 36 hours to lower the available fertilizer.
Around 9:00 this evening Mom called to talk to Daniel. Seems she’s baked him a birthday cake, so Daniel and I are going to drive there tomorrow evening after we eat dinner at home to, as she said, “sing him ‘Happy Birthday’ and dance around a little.” It’s a peach cake made with her recipe for “Apfelkuchen”, German Apple Cake. Daniel was very happy after her phone call. He’s never tasted this cake, so he’s in for quite a treat. I’ll try to take a photo of it before we cut it and I’ll post it in tomorrow’s blog entry.
At 11:00 Daniel turned in for the night and I stayed up to read and write. I’m turning in right after I post this.
Good night everyone, sleep tight.
O.P.W.