Canned beets

Being half Ukrainian I love beets.  Really love beets.   I buy lots of beets and Donna cans them for me.  Last Christmas I bought Donna an electric pressure canner to make it easier. Donna likes her new electric pressure canner.

https://www.amazon.com/Presto-02144-Digital-Canner-Stainless/dp/B089P2W2N6?th=1

I may have enough beets for a year. Maybe, we'll see. I do eat a lot of beets.

30 quarts  (1 quart not visible in photo.)

Apple sauce, bicycle, air compressor

Donna dropped off 14 jars of apple sauce she made from the transparent apples.  She and her daughter got the rest of the jars.

Today I got my bicycle back.   Tuesday I had taken it into a bicycle shop to get the bottom bracket replaced.  I don't own a tool that would allow me to take the bottom bracket out of the bicycle frame.   Many decades I would have fixed the bottom bracket, but the bottom brackets these days are sealed units.  A sealed unit is good as they last a long time.  In the old days I would have to regrease, etc. the bottom bracket every few years.   The new bottom bracket cost me $20.  Add in the labor and it cost me $33 to get it fixed.  Worth it.   I got the pedals put back on this evening.  I'll put the chain back on tomorrow and go for a ride.

The old bottom bracket is on the right.  It had gotten a larger and larger wobble as I rode the past few weeks.  I think the bearings inside were disintegrating.

Jan had filled up her small utility trailer again with tree branches and I hauled them and dumped them on my tree branch pile.  Jan had an old (1977!) extra air compressor she didn't want anymore as she is cleaning her garage and getting rid of stuff.  The compressor has a seal problem.  Initially I didn't want or need the air compressor as I have a small one now, and I'm not the best at mechanical fixes.  Then Curtis stopped on his motorcycle as he was riding by and Jan and I were outside talking.  He looked at the air compressor and found a small valve I would need to replace.  I can do that.  So I took the compressor off Jan's hands.

Jan also had a few branches up high she needed to cut.  Since I have my 27 ft pole saw she asked if I could cut the branches for her.  I did.  And a number of other tall and dead branches.  Put a saw in my hand to cut branches and it is hard for me to stop.  She may end up halfway filling her utility trailer again with the branches.

Canned cherries

Donna's friend Mabel has a large cherry tree whose cherries were ripe and the birds were starting to eat.  So we all picked cherries off the tree.  The tree was tall and I had to climb up in the tree to reach those cherries.   We had many more cherries than we could eat so Donna canned much of what we picked, even though she is busy baling her hay with her newly bought - but needed to be tuned - hay baler.

The cherries are yellow to red/yellow.  They look to be Rainer cherries. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_cherry)

Fall colors, rain and pizza

In the pasture the Western Larch (Tamarack) are turning yellow and dropping their needles.  They are now past their prime color.

The rain didn't start in the morning as forecast so I was able to get some stuff done.  By late afternoon the rain started.  Now in the evening the wind is driving the rain hard against the windows.


For supper I had one of the Halloween pizzas I had gotten the other evening from Papa Murphys.

I lit the wood stove to warm up the house as the inside temperature was down to 51 degrees.  Daisy wanted to go outside in the evening as is her usual routine.  But when I opened the door she quickly decided against going outside in the rain.  She laid by the wood stove until I settled down into my computer chair.  Then she has laid on my lap all evening.  It would be great except she is passing gas every once in a while.  P-yew!

Canning pears

Earlier this week I picked Bob and Jan's pears from their tree before we had the hard freeze.  Today I helped Jan and Victoria can the pears.  It took all afternoon.

Jan had an errand to run and left Victoria and I to blanch and prepare the pears.  I had no knowledge of canning fruit and Victoria only did it once before with Jan (nectarines).  The pear skin didn't come off easily after blanching so I switched to using a peeler to cut the skin off without blanching.  That was quicker.

Jan had a pressure cooker where we could seal six or seven jars at a time. We canned 20 quart jars of pears.  Some of the jars sealed fairly quickly.  Just now I heard one seal - many hours after being removed from the pressure cooker.

Tonight Daisy was all wound up.  After running around the house like a crazy cat I let her outside.  When I went outside after dark she was running around on the house roof.  I ignored her attention seeking as I knew she could get down by herself.   She did.   After coming inside the house she took over my computer chair while I closed the house door.  And she didn't want to give the chair up.  I tried sharing it but she wanted it all herself.  She ended up getting moved off the chair and is now sulking elsewhere in the house.

Two strawberries

My four little strawberry plants have survived.  Today I found two strawberries on the plants.

Huckleberries

I am ready to crash.  I got up early (before 6 am!) to go pick huckleberries with Joyce.  She was here at 7 am.  We arrived at the huckleberry patch at 8 am and promptly started picking huckleberries.  Four hours later (which flew by and felt like only two hours to me) Joyce had picked two gallons of berries and I picked one gallon.  Joyce - in her late 70s - is a fast picker and she has not slowed down since we last picked huckleberries four or five years ago.

The morning was cool and our time spent picking huckleberries had moderate temperatures.  Once we left the mountains and returned to the Valley we were back in the blast furnace heat.

As the huckleberry bushes are low and I am tall I spent a fair amount of time on my knees in order to save my back.  The knees of my pants are stained purple.

Supposedly this is a banner year for huckleberries as there are lots of them.   Ads have people selling them for $40 to $45 a gallon.

Pears

While mowing the grass that the horses didn't eat in the fruit tree and garden area I noticed pears have started falling from the pear tree.

The pears look good but they are hard and dry to the taste.  I guess time is required for them to ripen more and soften up.

Fair in Eureka

Tammy is going to be selling her Tastefully Simple products at the Lincoln County Fair in Eureka this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  She has a spot outside on the fairgrounds as all the inside the building spots were filled. Thursday she and I drove the 60+ miles to Eureka to set up her tent and tables.

Tammy's tent

View from the fairgrounds.

Before heading home we stopped at the Powderhorn Cafe in downtown Eureka.  It is a very small place.  The cook (owner?) was friendly but one heck of a relaxed dude.  Maybe a little stoned?  Who knows.


I had a regular size:

The Big Timber 

Pastrami, Roast Beef, sauteed mushroom, red and green peppers, onions on a Fresh baked bagette, garlic herb mayo.

Tammy had a regular sized:

Sidewinder Grinder
Ham and swiss cheese, onions, lettuce, tomato with our herb mayo.

Both our sandwiches were very good.

We were the only customers at 6 pm on a Thursday.  About the time we left the owner took down his open sign though he said he was still open to the locals who knocked on his door to get some food.

Grilled cheese

Tammy loves grilled cheese sandwiches.  And as you can see... the bigger the better.

Grapefruit plate

Tammy peeled some of her grapefruit today.  Here is her snack this afternoon.  Tammy loves grapefruit!

Nuts

Thursday when Tammy were grocery shopping we found the mixed nuts were on sale.  99 cent a pond.  Wow!

Time to buy some nuts!

We filled a few bags with almonds and hazelnuts.  Tammy asked if this was enough.

No....

I remember how many bags we bought last year when they were on sale.  Both Tammy and I love nuts and the nuts didn't last until May.

I wanted more bags.

And more bags.

And more.

We pretty much cleaned out the bin of almonds and got half of the hazelnuts.

After we left Tammy said an older man was watching us.  He went to the bins of nuts and didn't look happy we took almost all of the almonds.

We got lots of comments from the checkout cashier and the bagger and the bagger working the next lane.  We bought 13 bags of nuts: 9 bags of almonds and 4 bags of hazlenuts.

The total weight came to 90.17 pounds.

They may last us until June or July.

The two bins were the same level when we started.

We did have some other groceries under the bags of nuts.  Bread unfortunately.  One squished loaf of bread.

Tammy loves honeycrisp apples.  $2.99 a pound.  That's $14 and half dollars sitting there.

Oh yeah.  Another store had a 12 hour cereal sale and another store had a 12 hour fruit and veggies sale.  Tammy got four bags of grapefruit.  Tammy also loves grapefruit.

Good thing we took Tammy's mini-van for our shopping adventure.

Pineapple pie

One of the grocery store's bakery department makes pineapple pies.  I usually get one when they discount the price.

When my uncles were here last May to help with the bathroom remodel I had gotten a pineapple pie along with a few other "yum-yum" goodies.  My uncle Curt who loves deserts decided to be brave and try the pineapple pie.  He then tried to convince us it tasted bad - but he would be a good guy and finish the pie so it wouldn't go to waste.

Ya... right!

Actually it tastes good.

Thursday the grocery store had three more pineapple pies.  Since my uncles aren't here I only got one pie.

Yum!

Now to put some whipped cream on top and then wolf it down.  Here's to you Uncle Curt!

Harvesting Potatoes

It's potato harvesting time. Last week the potato trucks started running to the warehouse down the road.  The trucks run six days a week all day for quite a few weeks.  That's a lot of potatoes.

Last week I dug up for Bob and Jan, their potatoes and onions. I had planted the potatoes and onions for them late Spring this year.  They gave me half of the produce.  The potatoes are two varieties: reds and Yukon Gold.  Yum.  Tammy and I already ate some of the really small potatoes in a crockpot meal she had made.

Harvesting apples

We have had a very nice Fall.  A week or two ago it froze several nights in a row with a record low of 24 F one morning.  The frosts sweetened up the apples while the nice weather during the day allowed the apples to keep growing and turning red.  So I let them stay on the tree. Until today when I picked all the apples.

I got tired of the deer getting to the apples that fell from the tree before I did.  Last night Tammy and I got back home after dark after setting up the room for her Women's Expo today.  I only found four apples and most of them had been chomped on by the deer.

The apples I had gathered earlier and kept in a bucket in the patio to feed to Momma were found by the deer the other morning.  I found a number of half eaten apples around the bucket.  It seems as if the deer ate a third of the bucket of apples. 

I filled three five gallon pails with apples.  Now I need to go through them to weed out the ruined apples to give to Momma.

Another reason to pick the apples:  the black wasps and ants were busy feasting on the apples on the tree.  Ya... not a pretty sight.  Two more apples for Momma.

Black currants

Tuesday night I watered the raspberry bed, fruit trees and bushes.  After the damaged caused by Firefeather the plants and trees needed a boost.

Prior to letting the horses into the fruit tree area I had fenced the bushes to protect them from the horses.   My two black currant bushes escaped the horses.  One bush even had a handful of berries on it.  Here are the few berries left before I stopped eating and decided to take a photo.

One of my service-berry bushes had a few good berries and the buffaloberry bush had some bitter berries.  The other bushes are hanging in there.

Temporary bachelor

Tammy is in Minnesota visiting her kids for the Memorial Day holiday.  And her youngest child is graduating from high school.  So I am on my own - back to being a bachelor.  I have to make my own meals once again.  Saturday night I cooked venison steak, corn on the cob, and mashed potatoes.  Yum!

Tex mex skillet dinner

Today Tammy flew to Washington State to visit my relatives and attend a Tastefully Simple conference.

I'm on my own.  I have to fend for myself.  I have to make my own food.  I'm gonna starve!!!

Oh wait.  I know how to cook.   Never mind.

So tonight I made a dinner that Tammy wasn't interested in.  A Homemade Gourmet Tex-Mex Skillet Dinner.

http://recipes.homemadegourmet.com/recipe.asp?code=9886

Tammy didn't think she would like Tex-Mex seasoning.  And this dinner was an opportunity to use up some ground beef.  Tammy is not much of a red meat eater.  And she likes her meat fresh.  No more than a few months old.  The ground beef I have in my freezer is more on the order of 'more than a few years old' and Tammy won't eat it.

Since Tammy will be away for a few days and I need food to tide me over until she returns...I got a little carried away. I added a little more of my rice to the amount of rice that came in the Homemade Gourmet packet.  Then I had to adjust the amount of water.  Then I decided to add two pounds of beef instead of just one pound to balance the rice out.  In hindsight I should have added one more can of diced tomatoes to balance the meal out.  Oh well, there is always leftovers to experiment with.  (That is if I survive after eating my 'old' ground beef.  Tammy keeps telling me I will die from eating it.  I haven't yet.  Tune in tomorrow to see if my lucky streak continues.  Or wait... the expiration date on the rice and seasoning was back in 2011.  If I kick the bucket tonight that could be the reason!   Yikes!)

By the way... I like the meal I made and am looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.

First thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tammy and I had our first Thanksgiving together here in Montana.  She made a delicious meal and I am full after eating it.

We got a frozen 11.61 lb turkey Wednesday.  Tammy was concerned about the turkey thawing in time so she soaked it a while last night in warm water in the kitchen sink.

I already carved half the turkey before I thought of taking a photo.  The gravy is homemade by Tammy.

Green bean casserole.

My full plate.  I don't mind if my food mixes together before I eat it.

Then for desert Tammy made Pumpkin Pie cheesecake.  It was one of her Homemade Gourmet products from when she used to sell Homemade Gourmet food.

Skillet Burrito Mix

A few weeks ago I got adventurous and made a Homemade Gourmet meal on my own - without Tammy's help as she is back in Minnesota.  Tammy said she wasn't fond of burritos so I made myself the Skillet Burrito recipe. The recipe can be found here: Homemade Gourmet Skillet Burrito recipe.

Yum!  I loved it.    And it wasn't hard to make.

As the recipe is for a serving size of eight I had plenty to eat for days afterwards.

While the recipe called for one cup of Mexican-style cheese I added a little more than one cup to the pan.  Then, when I made each burrito, I sprinkled more of the cheese on the filling.  So I ended up using two cups of Mexican-style cheese by the time I ate everything.

In the second photo, that is the recipe's Cilantro Spiced Sour Cream Topping. That also tastes good.

I also made and ate a Mexican Black Bean mix, but it appears Homemade Gourmet has discontinued that recipe as I can't find it on their web site.