CrossRoads Farm

Harvest

2003-10-02 - 9:33 a.m.

There is supposed to be snow today in the mountains. Snow! The weather report said that last night it was going to get down to 28 degrees. So I went out in the rain yesterday and harvested as much of my herbs as I could. I even potted up the thyme and the rosemary and brought them inside. When I got it in the pot I saw that he rosemary was vaguely Yule-tree shaped. So when I trimmed it back I went with that. It looks beautiful sitting on the corner of my desk. I filled my dehydrator to capacity with the littlr clippings and stray leaves that I couldn’t bunch. The bunches of herbs are hanging from the exposed beams in my kitchen.

After dinner D and I went out to save the tomatoes, jalapenos and pumpkins. E cut the pepper plants off near the ground and brought them in while I started on the tomatoes. We picked almost a bushel of tomatoes in various states of ripe. They are now laid out on the worktable in my Front Room. Most of them will ripen on their own.

We have two pumpkin plants in the far garden. They are a variety called Baby Boo. Instead of being big orange jack-o-lantern pumpkins, they are about 3-4 inches across and ghostly white. Really cute. The girls have been tending them and checking them all summer. So I threw a couple blankets over the plants knowing that a light frost wouldn’t hurt them in the least.

After all that preparation….it was 40 degrees when I got up this morning.

Have I told you my weatherman theory? Weathermen are demons in disguise. Ask anyone who’s lived through a Texas summer. Every night the weatherman tells you that “day after tomorrow we should be getting a little break from this heat….” When what he really means is. “You guys are screwed till October.”

During all of this herb preparation I was also making applesauce. I put a rack in the bottom of my big white pot and put in as many apples as I could. Now I don’t know if I did this perfectly right or if I got lucky but after about 2 hours I checked the pot and the apples had burst their skins, so I shut off the heat. D wanted to help with the applesauce project so I just left them sitting there for about a hour, until he got home. We have a strainer designed just for this purpose. It belonged to my Grandmother M. For anyone who hasn’t seen one of these it looks like a colander, but it’s shaped like a cone. There is a tripod stand type thing that you set the strainer in. You put a bowl under the strainer and press the cooked apples through it with something that looks like a wooden pestle. The peels and seeds stay in the strainer and applesauce goes into the bowl. Well, let me tell you. The applesauce I made yesterday is a wonder. It’s thick and almost creamy….luxuriant even. And pink. A beautiful shade of rosy pink. I think it’s because I left it sitting before straining it. The red peels bled into the pulp and turned it this gorgeous color. I think I’m going to make more today. About 30 apples made me 5 pints of sauce. I’m also making banana bread and freezer French fries today. Busy Busy.

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