The Beauty in Simple Things . . .

As I took some raspberries out of the freezer to package them up today, I was struck by the beauty of the berries themselves.

As you can see, this tray full happened to be a mix of red and yellow raspberries which I think made it especially attractive. Just look at what beauty nature provides for us with only a bit of work on our part.

The berries sure are a nice, large size. Can you see the quarter I put in there for size comparison?

Here's something I'd like your input on. I'm planning on canning a bunch of frozen raspberries later on when I have the time. Can I do that? I've canned a lot of raspberries in my day, but I've always done it with fresh berries. Papa Pea loves canned ones . . . mostly because he thinks the juice tastes like wine! Plus, the canned raspberries (I do them in a light syrup) are wonderful over ice cream, pudding or yogurt so I really would like to use some frozen ones for canning. I'd appreciate you sharing any experience you've had canning raspberries that have been frozen first.

Now . . . I'm out to pick blueberries!

The Sunshine Room

Here it is in all its glory. Finished right down to the last shelf mounted on the wall. Finished but not yet stocked with all the goodies I want to stock in my pantry.

This is the door leading into my 8' x 16' pantry room. Well, those are the outside measurements so you know it's only 7'-something by 15'-something on the inside. Still a wonderfully roomy pantry by any standards. It's been a long time coming, but now I have it. (Hee-hee-hee!)

Open the door and you see the one window (facing north) directly across the room. My big freezer will be centered under the window.

Looking down to the right along that same wall will be a small chest freezer snuggled up next to the big one. A short length of shelves above the small freezer will hold back-up paper products, freezer bags, aluminum foil, freezer paper and such.

Across the room (on the same wall as the door) and to the right as you enter is the set of extra sturdy shelves hubby constructed.

More of a full-on view of the same shelving unit.

Standing inside the doorway and looking to the left, you see the U-shaped unit of closed cabinets below with shelves above.

Just a little different angle of the same storage area.

I am so eager to start filling shelves and cabinets. Papa Pea is trying to hold me back thinking we will need the space to temporarily store the contents of the present kitchen cabinets when we start tearing into them.

The frames of my current kitchen cabinets will stay the same, but I will paint the frames. New pine doors are being made to replace the old, worn and bonged-up doors on the cabinets.

However . . . (shhh, don't tell Papa Pea), I'm thinking only the lower cabinets in the kitchen will have to be emptied. We're keeping some of them, but also adding newly constructed ones for a different cabinet configuration. I will have to empty the lowers in order for them to be rearranged and then screwed back together but that should take no more than a day's time. I could empty them and stack everything on the kitchen table for a few hours. So I may employ a little guerrilla warfare today when Papa Pea is engaged elsewhere and start pulling things I have stashed in various (inconvenient) spots all over the house (yep, places like under the bed and in closets) to start making the pantry look like a pantry is supposed to look.

I will concede that we should wait to move the freezers into the pantry since the open floor space will be a handy spot to put furniture when we get the kitchen done and start on the living room. That would be a lot easier than trying to cover the furniture and work around it while doing the stairway, ceiling, walls and floor in there.

It set us back a day or so in the move-ahead scheme of things, but both of us are so, so glad I took the time to repaint the pantry walls. Yes, it's bright, no doubt about it. But I love it!

Life Is Just A Bowl of Berries

I harvested somewhere around two quarts each of raspberries and blueberries yesterday.

Thank you, dear husband, for taking pity on me and helping with the blueberries.

Lying in bed at 3:30 this morning (thinking), I realized I had harvested only two of the three rows of raspberries. Where was my head? (Obviously, NOT thinking at that time. At least about raspberries.) Must get back out there today to finish the job.

I kept out some of each of the berries for fresh eating and froze the rest. Well, I kept out enough blueberries to make Blueberry Buckle also.

I've had this cake recipe since we were first married, I'm guessing. It probably came from a Betty Crocker cookbook as Betty was the one who taught me how to cook. (I truly did not know how when first married.)

A "buckle" (as in Blueberry Buckle) is supposedly a sweet dessert made from yellow cake batter. A filling or fruit is mixed into the batter and after being placed in a baking pan, it is topped with a crusty sugar coating. That pretty well describes this recipe.

BLUEBERRY BUCKLE

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 cups fresh blueberries (frozen work well, too)

Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup butter

Thoroughly cream sugar and butter. Stir in egg and then add milk and mix. Add flour, baking powder and salt. Combine well. Batter will be stiff.

Fold in blueberries.

Spread in a greased and floured 9" square pan. Stiff batter will have to be spread out with a spatula.

Make the topping mix by combining the first four ingredients and then cutting in the butter.

Sprinkle topping over batter in pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 minutes.

Guess what we had for breakfast this morning?

This first piece was so absolutely deliciously bursting with a wine-y blueberry flavor . . .

. . . that I had a second piece in a bowl with milk here at my desk.

Running on Fumes

Ha-ha, those would be polyurethane fumes! I got the very last of the painting and polying done in the pantry today. Tomorrow the door can go back on, we'll have a way of closing it off and we can see how cool it stays in there in this hot summer time.

The good news is I don't think the temp hit 80 today. (I know, some of you would do desperate things for a day down in the 80s.) The bad news is we had such humidity that my underwear has been stuck tight to me all day long. I went out to pick blueberries before noon time and really felt yucky by the time I came in. And it was even a gray day without any sunshine. But that heavy air laden with about 96.5% water was a killer.

Did you know that the Sweet Pea flower actually forms a pod that looks a lot like . . . well, a pea pod?

Yup, it surely does. The pods seem to be developing early this year (because of all the heat?) so I'm going to try saving the seeds for planting next year. If they don't seem dry enough by the time our wet, cold weather hits in the fall, I'll hang the pods inside to dry thoroughly.

When we made the decision I shouldn't try to do the full-blown garden this year because I'd be so busy with the remodeling, we both agreed that we should also nix any new plantings or garden additions/expansions of any kind. Guess who came to me very sheepishly this spring with some Jerusalem Artichoke tubers that had just arrived in the mail, ones that he had "forgotten" he'd ordered?

I planted them in one of our raised beds because they will spread and take over the acreage if not contained in some way. Haven't they done well so far this season? Tall, sturdy and very healthy looking. We're looking forward to seeing what kind of a crop we get this fall when the tubers can be dug.

Remember I made mention of the bed I had our cherry tomatoes in last year? And the 4,000 volunteer plants that sprouted there? I finally got around to doing a quick pruning in that bed today and was pleased to find we actually had some little green tomatoes forming. With luck, we'll have tomatoes for our salads one of these days.

A couple/few years ago, I planted a clematis waaay over at the side of the yard against our 7' high deer fence. It really was a poor choice of location because the yard boy (aka Papa Pea) has mowed it completely down two times (or is it three?) and I tend to forget to give it any TLC at all. Despite this concentrated neglect, it's blooming its little heart out this year . . . but only at the very top of the fence. There are two spindly bare nekkid vines climbing up, up, up to the top of the fence where it spreads out and gives us this lovely show of huge, purple flowers. Ya gotta love a plant with a will like that!

Shall I Read My Grocery List?

I want to keep blogging during this busy, unorganized, harried and harassed time if only for my own records. It kind of keeps me going to think that next summer I will reread the blogs written during this non-gardening/remodeling summer and smile knowing how good I feel that it is . . . over!

But I'm afraid anything I have to put into a post will be of no interest to anyone else. It will sound about as interesting as reading my grocery list.

Bananas
Yellow peppers
Pine nuts

Okay, you have been forewarned. Feel free to X me out and skip on to someone else's blog to be entertained, educated and enthralled. Following is what has been going on around here lately.

My desk top has disappeared. I know there are at least a couple of bills in the mess somewhere and if I have any sense left, I'd better spend an hour or so sorting, cleaning and organizing said desk top.

There are raspberries and blueberries out in the garden to be picked. Again. Fortunately, they are both so easy to process compared to strawberries.

Papa Pea and I just went out and harvested a little over two quarts of blueberries. Pick them clean, spread them in a single layer on cookie sheets, stick in the freezer until frozen and pack them in freezer bags. Deal with them at a later date. Of course, eat as many fresh as we can. Yum.

I've just finished repainting the pantry walls. Took down all the shelves, brackets and tracks and covered up that awful not-beige-but-sickly-pink paint. We're both extremely happy with the new sunshine yellow color. Friend and carpenter B says it's gawd-awful bright and we're not really serious about using the same color in the kitchen, are we? Yup. Yesterday I slapped some of the paint on a couple of spots in the kitchen just to see what it would look like. I love it. We shall have a sunny kitchen regardless of how many dismal, dark, dreary weather days may come our way in the future.

I have lots and lots and lots of polyurethaning to do and will do as much of it as I possibly can outside in the fresh air. This may be difficult to accomplish with, for instance, the door frame of the pantry, but when it is possible, I will be standing with brush in hand at my polyurethaning station outside in the fresh air.

Today I need to pack more books away. Because that particular bookshelf over that particular window needs to have the window framing and paneling around it torn off because new kitchen cabinets are going there. We are fast running out of places to stow boxes of books and construction supplies that will be needed in the next couple of weeks. I also have a (new-to-me) treadle sewing machine currently sitting in what will be our living room. It's a beautiful Singer dating from the early 1900s that someone recently wanted to get rid of and offered to me. I could not resist.

I managed to get my cherry pie baked yesterday. It boiled over and dripped onto the bottom of my oven and filled the house with smoke. (We were outside at the time of this calamity chatting with folks who had parked their trailer in our back yard overnight. They arrived to pick it up yesterday morning and when we came back inside, we could hardly see for the smoke roiling out of the oven.) Pie came out fine. Floor of oven may never be the same. Papa Pea and I had a little "discussion" about why I don't put a cookie sheet or aluminum foil or something under pies so this doesn't happen. With regularity. It seems. To him at least.


I wanted to make a special trip into town to the post office before the 7:20 a.m. outgoing pick up this morning because I stupidly neglected to get the birthday card for my brother in the mail earlier. His birthday is on Sunday so he probably still wouldn't have gotten the card until Monday. Sigh. Makes me mad when I don't do things in a timely manner. I was in town last Wednesday and could have mailed it then so it would have arrived on time. I mean his birthday is on the same day every year. It's not like it was a surprise this year. You'll note I said, "I wanted to make a special trip into town . . . " We didn't set an alarm last night because we were both so tired. At 5 this morning, I got up seeking bladder relief and almost stayed up . . . but didn't. We didn't wake until just before 8! Oh. My. Gosh. And ugh. Feel a little behind already today, Mama Pea?

Got a lovely 6-page handwritten letter via snail mail yesterday. From a delightful gal who is busier than a one-armed paper hanger and yet she enjoys sitting down and penning a handwritten letter. (And, no, she herself is not old and computerless. She is quite computer savvy and blogs regularly.) Do you know what a treat it is for me to receive these communications from her? What is it about receiving a personal letter in the mail that seems so special?

Apples
Vanilla ice cream
Cheddar cheese
Mushrooms

Okay, that's my grocery list post. Bo-ring. Anybody still here??

A Shared Harvest

So friend and carpenter extraordinaire, B, is working in her shop on additional cabinets for our kitchen. She called this morning, checked what lumber supplies we had on hand and decided to stop and pick some things up when she came into town for gas and did a couple of other errands.

As an aside she asked me if I wanted some pie cherries from her tree. Oh. Gosh. Gee. Groan. Uh. Well . . . You must understand that I love cherries. Bake just about anything with sour cherries in it (especially pie) and I will fight everyone else off with a stick.

But here I am knee-deep in paint and polyurethane with at least six other household-y things that need to be done, including harvesting and processing my own raspberries and blueberries. Do I have time to pit and process cherries? Heck no.

Then B reminds me that these cherries don't have to be pitted. Huh? Oh, that's right! A week or so ago she was telling us about these wonderful cherries she has. If you pick with a little bit of care, the stem and pit stay on the tree and you get the pitted cherry in your pail.

That cinched it. Yes, yes, YES! I would love some of those cherries.

So the above is what she dropped off when she came to pick up lumber. What a prize! What a bounty! What a gift!

In case you're interested, the variety of her tree is Evan's Bali and it started bearing the second year after she planted it. (It's six years old now.) The cherries are small. Matter of fact, I think they look just like cranberries.

I assured B that we would ALL be having cherry pie made from these cherries. Now I just have to find time to fit in a little baking . . . like soon. I can hardly wait to taste these!