Edythe, dear, you really must be more thorough when you share a recipe.
A while ago I showed a photo of my onion heads in a bowl, waiting patiently for seed saving. Yesterday I finally got around to cleaning the seed. Cleaning seed means separating the seed from everything else (pods, stems, coating, etc.) that you don't want.
For biennial onions, the hardest part of saving seed is overwintering the onion bulbs so they flower the second year. Once that's done, and pollination is successful, the rest is fairly easy.
Wait until the heads have finished flowering and set seed. You want the seed pods mature, somewhat dry but not too dry - otherwise the seed will fall before you've had a chance to save it. Put the heads in a bowl, bag, or whatever so the seeds that do fall aren't lost. Wait a week or three until the pods are completely dry.
Scrunch the dry seed pods into a shallow sided bowl. Rub the pods between your fingers to break them open. Not overly hard, though -- you don't want to damage the seed. Gently shake the bowl so the heavier seeds fall toward the bottom of the bowl.
Now here's the delicate part. Very carefully and lightly blow into the bowl, aiming away from you. You're trying to blow the lighter chaff (bits of dry stem and husk) out of the bowl without blowing out the heavier seed. This is what's known as 'winnowing.' Be sure to wear safety glasses while doing this part - a piece of chaff in the eye is not fun. I know this from experience!
Continue with the rubbing, shaking and blowing. You may blow some black seeds out of the bowl. This is ok - the lighter weight seeds are usually not viable. And if you blow out a few good seeds, it's not a big deal.
Eventually you'll get to the point where you can't blow any more chaff out without blowing out seeds. It doesn't have to be perfectly clean - the photo above is plenty good for my needs. If you were selling seed by the ounce, you'd probably have to be more picky.
Voila! From those six onion heads I got about 3 tablespoons of seed. Which I will tuck away in a small jar until February when seed starting begins. Onions are the earliest seeds I start, because they take a long time to reach planting size. This year I'll let some of my Red Wethersfield onions stay in the ground, for seed saving next year.
It begins - apple processing. Today Hubby and I attacked the first box of apples picked from one of our mature trees.
We have two mature apple trees - one sweet and one more tart. I have no idea what variety they are. These apples came from the sweet tree.
Peeling, coring and chopping. The chopped apples are put into a bowl of water and lemon juice. Old episodes of The Saint keep our brains occupied while our hands are busy.
The first quart-sized freezer bags. We did 24 bags total. These will be used for future pies, cakes, breads, and smoothies.
And crisps, which are Hubby's favorite. With lots of cinnamon and oatmeal. The kitchen smells divine.
My character sheet from today's D&D game. Middlest son G was the game master. Hubby played a cleric, B played a sorcerer and I played a rogue. My character had a good day - several natural 20s and lots of sword swinging and swash buckling. (How exactly do you buckle a swash?)
Hubby's character didn't fare as well. She (a female dwarf) fell out of a tree while trying to sneak up on goblins, hammered herself in the foot while fighting those goblins, and fell while trying to jump over a pit, landing in a piranha-infested pool. I had to laugh at her - it was part of my character. You have to play your character, right?
I found this poster on a FB group. (It sure sounds like I spend a lot of time on FB, doesn't it?) Hubby is a big pro-wrestling fan, so I shared it with him. He really enjoys the local house shows that pop up in small towns around us, and he would have loved this one. Especially since he would have been just nine years old.
Hubby loves pro-wrestling but he's not one of the screaming idiotic fans that you see in the audience sometimes (ok, often). He appreciates the stories that are told, and the characters that tell them. He's been a fan since the 80's, knows a lot of the history, and enjoys listening to wrestling podcasts about behind-the-scenes stuff.
Because we've been together since the 80's, I've been exposed (like second-hand smoke) to a fair chunk of pro-wrestling as well. I wouldn't say I actually enjoy watching it, but I tolerate it for the purpose of marital stability. My favorite wrestlers: Al Snow, William Regal, Mick Foley, Edge. Least favorites: Scott Hall, Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, The Miz.
And of course, Brock Lesner. Nearly everyone (except Vince McMahon) hates Brock Lesnar. And not in a 'hate him because he's a heel' kind-of-way, but hate him because he sucks at wrestling and can't tell a story to save his life. Literally, he cannot tell a story - because he rarely talks. It's one of his gimmicks. When he walks out into the ring his manager comes with him, and does all the talking for him.
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| It's probably a good thing that Brock doesn't speak. |
Hubby likes a good heel almost more than he likes a good face. Thus his love for Chris Jericho. Jericho makes a great heel. He just has so much fun with it. You can usually tell when the wrestlers are enjoying themselves, and that makes it much more fun to watch.
B is the only one of our sons who shares this appreciation. He and hubby go to the family-friendly local shows - it's a great outing they can do
together. B's favorite wrestler is one he sees there - Arik Cannon. He also likes A.J. Styles, and made his own A.J. Styles costume for Halloween one year. With his long hair and fake goatee, it wasn't a bad likeness.
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| It's hard dressing like a wrestler when it's 45 degrees outside. |
One of the many COVID casualties this year has been the local wrestling shows. There's one this evening in Ellsworth WI near my sister's house. Hubby and B would have gone to it in a heartbeat. But missing the shows is hardly a hardship, just a bit of an annoyance. They can look forward to going again when this is all resolved.
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| At a local show a few years ago. Hubby and B with Hubby's brother and son. And some famous wrestling guy. :) |
I still make homemade soap from time to time, although not as often as I'd like. I belong to a couple of soap making groups on FB and have learned a lot from those folks. One member, a Russian soapmaker who owns a cosmetics business called Lab.Mila, has shared photos of the gorgeous soaps she makes. Look at these beauties:
She is so talented. She makes her own soap molds from silicon, using a technique called bas relief. After drooling (yeah, I know I'm weird) over her pictures and watching a bunch of videos online, I decided to try making my own molds.
Step one - gather materials. I ordered clay, plaster and a silicon molding kit. The total cost was about $50. $35 of that was the silicon kit. This would not be a cheap experiment.
Step two - collect the things you want to show in the relief. You can use whatever you want, as long as it will make a clean mold impression in the clay. I decided to use plants and some jewelry.
Step three - create the clay impression for your mold. This was tricky -- rolling out the clay, trying to get it smooth and even, trying to get the size and shape right, trying to press the plants deep enough but not too deep. I kept telling myself this was just an experiment and it didn't have to be perfect. After I made the clay impressions, I cut them to size and put them inside Pringles cans and butter boxes.
Step four - pour the plaster over the clay impressions to create a plaster cast.
Step five - pop out the hardened plaster casts, and use pottery tools to smooth the rough edges. The square cast came out wonky, because the sides of the butter box were pushed out by the plaster.
Step six - make the silicon molds. First I had to make a mold for the mold. I used foam board as a base, and empty yogurt containers with the bottoms cut out for the sides, for circular molds. I cut the yogurt containers down the side so I could shape them to the size I needed -- about 1/4 inch bigger than the plaster casts. I used a hot glue gun to attach the yogurt cup sides to the foam board base.
Then I put the plaster casts inside the cup, and poured the silicon inside and over the cast. This is really hard to describe, without having photos. Did I take any photos of this part? Nope.
Everything had been going fairly OK up to this point. However, as soon as I poured the silicon in the mold, I realized I had made a big mistake. The hot glue had not had time to harden. The liquid silicon was leaking out the bottoms of the molds. Good thing I had put everything in a tray lined with butcher paper, otherwise I would have had liquid silicon oozing all over my work table.
Step seven - let the silicon harden and pop the molds out. Trim off the extra bits.
Step eight - make soap in the molds. I've yet to do this step.
From the two pounds of silicon I had, I ended up with four molds. I probably could have gotten two more if I hadn't screwed up with the hot glue. So, six molds from $50 is about $8 a mold. The cost would decrease if I bought supplies in bulk, obviously. But I'm not sure I want to spend this much on an occasional hobby. I did enjoy making the plaster casts, as tricky as it was, and might play around with that process a little more.
I've just learned that another old friend of mine has recently passed away. I don't remember how I first met Marjory Lindholm, an elderly lady who lived a few sections over from us in Prior Township. But I do remember how she took me, a young mother newly moved out to rural Ortonville, under her wing nearly twenty years ago.
She brought me into the local U of MN Homemakers Club, a group of ladies who shared a fondness for the art and science of keeping a home. I was the youngest member by a good thirty years. The club met monthly, rotating between our homes, with the hostess providing a sweet snack for the group after club business was taken care of. I always enjoyed hearing everyone's updates and stories over a piece of cake or pie. That group of little old ladies were the only friends I had during those early years in western Minnesota.
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| The Ortonville Independent, June 2011 |
I have several vivid memories of Marge. I remember once how delighted she was when I brought her a buttercup squash one fall, an extra from my garden. She told me it was her favorite kind of squash, and I never doubted her. Her warmth and happiness was so sincere.
I remember driving a sick friend of ours home after a doctor's visit. Marge was waiting for us at her home, and helped her come inside and lay down on the couch. As I watched, Marge knelt and placed her hands on her friend's arm, and softly yet fervently prayed for God to bring her back to health.
At one of our Christmas meetings Marge served rice pudding. My mother had made rice pudding many times, but she had always baked hers in the oven. It was more of a rice custard than a pudding. Marge's, however, was cooked on the stove top. It was rich and creamy and spicy and tasted like heaven.
I asked for the recipe, and she was happy to print it out for me on a card.
Her obituary evens mentions her infamous rice pudding. Along with her love of family, involvement in her community and her unwavering faith.
I lost touch with her after our move, like I did with so many. I have relied too heavily on the Book of Faces for staying connected with people, and those not on FB have slipped through the cracks. I must do better.
It seems that Marge spent her final years surrounded and cherished by loved ones. I very much hope so.
Best newcomer award goes to ....
Bangkok Thai Pepper from Johnny's Seeds!
Hundreds of small, very potent peppers on each of the two plants I grew this year. Very lush plants at least 12" taller than my other sweet bell peppers.
We don't actually use hot peppers for anything, since both B and I hate anything spicy. I just like growing them for the novelty. The last few years I've given them all to a friend who makes his own spicy venison sausage after hunting season. I'm glad he's able to use them.
G does like to give a tiny piece of hot pepper to his friends when they come over. It's a tradition now, to see who tolerates the heat and who runs crying for the milk jug.
when the harvest starts in earnest. For soybeans, anyway. There's a lot more corn grown these days than either beans or wheat in southern Minnesota. Heck, I think I saw only one or two wheat fields this season. I guess there's just more money in corn. Year after year after year, corn field after corn field. It gets pretty monotonous.
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| A combine harvesting soybeans |
I just wish farmers did more crop rotation, rather than pumping so much fertilizer into the ground. Corn is a nutrient-greedy crop, and leaves the soil empty after it's grown. Soybeans are legumes and fix nitrogen (an important fertilizer) into the soil, which works well with crop rotation. But I guess money is more important than soil health.
A few years ago I took a different way home from work and spotted a field of sorghum about ten miles from my house. I was so excited I had to stop my car and just stare at it.
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Sorghum - stock photo |
The corn harvest won't start til October. And depending on the weather, can extend into November. I remember one year that we still had standing corn the first week of December because October and November were so wet the farmers couldn't get into their fields. They had to wait until the ground froze in December before their huge machines wouldn't sink into the muck.
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| Corn field |
If they just grew wheat, which is harvested in August, they wouldn't have to worry about the rain. They could just sit back, chill and drink mimosas on a beach in Tahiti while the corn farmers bit their nails watching October weather reports.
Most of what's grown around here is field corn, destined for animal feed. Sweet corn is harvested in August and early September. The Del Monte cannery in Sleepy Eye closed last year, which was a big hit to the community. Boy, that place was hopping during harvest. Once a few years ago I drove to the cannery and parked along the back fence. I watched truck load after truck load of sweet corn being dumped on the paved lot inside the fence. Tractors with blades pushed the piles toward a large hole in the pavement. Underground elevators would then carry the ears up into the factory. The whole area smelled of warm corn and August sun.
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| Photo from Sleepy Eye Herald Dispatch |
It's a unique smell, that of harvest corn. You can sometimes catch it while driving down a rural road after dark in October. When the farmers are working late into the evening, trying to get everything in before the next day's rain. Bright headlights of combines in the field, moving slowly through the tall rows. The night is cool and still and the air is heavy with corn stalks and husks and dust churning together.
Here are the other four-legged beasts who roam the house.
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| Kelly and Daniel |
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| Corey |
A recipe from my great grandmother, on my mother's side. They are a family favorite and very easy to make. We usually bring a bag of them to Thanksgiving at my sister's house. With Thanksgiving plans on hold for this year, however, I might have to ship a box-full to her instead.
I love how old recipes don't give an oven temp or time. Just 'bake.' Ha! I believe we bake these at 350 for about 11 minutes. Mileage may vary.
Bright and early Thursday morning Hubby, B and I ventured east towards Rochester for our semi-annual visit to the Mayo Clinic.
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| The main entrance. |
I love love love the Mayo Clinic. It was here, in 2015, that we finally discovered B's bronchomalacia, after FIVE FLIPPIN' YEARS of wrong diagnoses from half a dozen other doctors.
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| Funky glass sculptures hanging over the parking level stairs. |
Doctors kept telling us his symptoms were caused by asthma and allergies. Despite the asthma medications that didn't work, the worsening symptoms, and the symptoms that didn't make any sense for those conditions. FIVE FLIPPIN' YEARS of illnesses and emergency room visits for B, and unrelenting stress and anxiety for me. That anxiety is the main reason I stopped blogging.
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| The whole place has a vague art deco theme. |
I finally requested a referral to see a pediatric pulmonologist at Mayo, who listened carefully and set up several tests. One, a methacholine challenge test that would determine once and for all whether he had asthma (spoiler alert - he didn't!). Another, a bronchoscopy that would send a camera into his lungs to see if he had any physical deformities (spoiler alert - he did!).
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| Note the piano - sometimes there is a player, but not today. |
The doctor found a spot in his right bronchial tube that was almost collapsed. The cartilage in that area is either missing or too weak to hold open his airway. It's open just enough for air to go through in normal conditions, but when he is sick, breathes heavily, gets his chest squeezed, or whatever, the tube collapses even further and he loses his breath.
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| The ceiling of the pediatric center. |
Malacias like this (broncho, tracheo and laryngo) are frequently misdiagnosed in children and in adults. Most physicians don't even consider them when patients complain of wheezing, shortness of breath and a persistent cough. It's so much easier just to say 'asthma' and send them home with an inhaler.
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| The 19th floor - our favorite place to chill between appointments. |
Anyway, over the past few years, since the correct diagnosis and proper treatments, we have been able to manage B's condition fairly well. A couple of FB groups devoted to this disease have been life-savers. At today's appointment, our doctor said B's PFTs (pulminary function tests) looked good, which is totally awesome.
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| The view is pretty great. |
We have another appointment here in November for our annual check-up with the pediatric GI doctor, to check on B's reflux disease. That's a whole other story of medical mystery and anxiety. Being a parent of a kid with chronic disease is an adventure, to put it mildly.
I've mentioned before that I am a seed junky. I love seeds in all shapes and sizes - from tiny basil seeds to massive runner bean seeds to hard shelled chestnuts. It is the patient promise of life, held still and quiet, yet ready to burst into growth given the right conditions. I gleefully read stories about ancient seeds found in archeological sites or frozen in ice. Like the date palm grown in Israel from 2000-year-old seed, or a flowering plant from Siberia grown from 32,000-year-old seed.
I have a few jars of vege seeds in my freezer. I think the oldest are 20 years old. I'm not a prepper, but I do play one on TV.
So I enjoy this time of year, when plants all around me are going to seed. Fortunately I work in a park where I am surrounded by the seasons.
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| Yarrow |
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| Exploding milkweed |
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| Prairie going to seed, including Canada wild rye |
At the park we spend a good amount of time harvesting seed. Native seed can be expensive to purchase, so we collect by hand and by machine. When using the flail vac to harvest, we have to spread it out in large tarps to dry. We turn it every morning so it doesn't get a chance to rot.
I do a bit of seed saving myself, depending on the gardening year. Right now I've got several cups of tomato seeds fermenting on a shelf. And I've got a few onion heads drying in a bowl. Onions are biennial, which means they flower and set seed their second year. These are onions I had let overwinter in the garden from last year.
Shaking the heads a bit, you can see the small black seeds loose in the bowl.
In a few weeks I'll pick the over-ripe zucchini and cukes that I've been growing out for seed, and I'll pick the dry runner and wax beans off the trellis. I think I like saving seeds more than I like planting them.
Speaking of descendants, here is Freya! The barn kitty that we brought in from the cold in 2009, while living in our country house in Ortonville. Her mother was Pepper, whose mother was Calico, whose mother was Momma Cat. Momma Cat was the original matriarch of all the outdoor cats who took up residence in our farmyard in Ortonville.
Freya is a beautiful beast. You can see an old (young) photo of her at my old blog.
Eddy and Oliver, our other cats from Ortonville, have passed on. Since moving here, we have acquired three newbies - Kelly, Corey, and Daniel. The are all helping to make quasi-isolation a little more bearable for the family.
The sunchoke bed is thriving. To be honest, I haven't harvested chokes in several years. Considering that pretty much no one in our household (besides hubby and I) likes them, their harvest is fairly low on the fall task totem pole. Plus they are fairly challenging to harvest (because I foolishly planted them in my yard, in clay soils, rather than in a nice friable raised bed).
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| Sunchokes. No yellow flowers this year. |
Never matter, the chokes are happy to keep growing year after year. I instruct my husband to mow around the patch, and each spring the patch gets a little bigger. These plants are the great great great (plus a few more greats) grandchildren of the roots I got from friends Rick and Chuck back in 2011 and 2012. I love that I still have these descendant plants, long after the original gift of tubers was made.
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| Comfrey |
I have a few other descendant plants, from other gifts - rhubarb from Susan in Ortonville, comfrey from Audrey in Watson and JoAnn in Maine. I have day lilies I dug from the residence at Fort Ridgely State Park and yellow irises from the residence at Big Stone Lake State Park. I have pink peonies from the very first house hubby and I bought, the little yellow house on 4th Street in Ortonville. I have purple irises from the house on State Street in New Ulm. I have aloe plants in my sun room from my sister-in-law Jenny.
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| English ivy |
My newest descendants are the two ivy plants in my kitchen, grown from cuttings given to me by my sister Karen, who smuggled the original cuttings on a trip years ago to the UK. Hopefully no one from the USDA or US Customs reads this blog. I think I'm safe, since my posts are averaging about four views apiece. :)
