A Short Vacay, Then Back To Work

Editor's Note: This column was submitted on Oct. 22.

We took a trip out to Crescent Bar, which is just past Quincy, Wash., on the far side of Spokane. Dennis's baby sister lives there. Although we didn't do much beyond visit and golf, we enjoyed the vacation. Next trip there, I'll insist they take us to at least one of the many local wineries.

One of the golf courses is watered by a center pivot irrigation system. There were semi-paved grooves where the wheels of the pivot roll through. At the start of the course there were a lot of trees that were weirdly trimmed short. At least, I thought they were odd until I realized they were cut that way so the pivot could easily pass over them. (The pivot was at rest at the back of the course, where we hadn't seen it.) I should have taken photos.

We saw a lot of apple orchards as well as lots of grape vines. There's a 10-mile stretch of road where the local FFA has erected signs next to the fields letting you know what crop is planted there. There were fields of beans, potatoes, timothy, alfalfa, field corn, sweet corn, and one labeled pasture. We thought that a great service by the FFA.

We arrived home the day after those tremendous 40+ mph winds here. Of course, that meant I had tons of downed tree limbs to collect as well as bushels of dead leaves to mow up. After I did those chores, I tackled taking down the remaining pea enclosure fence from the garden. Those three posts resisted being pulled. Mostly I had to dig them out. The netting has been folded to use again next year. One of the loosely woven sections is wadded up, it being too breezy for me to handle alone. It kept rolling over itself until I got frustrated. The other section needs to have the runner bean vines cut away from it - or thrown out. We'll see how much more frustration I can take.

On Saturday I decided to get a bit more serious about finishing up my harvest. I pulled all the remaining beets, some of the carrots, and dug up several hills of potatoes, both red and white. Tomorrow (I'm writing this Sunday evening) I'll work on the carrots. The deer have been munching on the carrot tops. They've even pulled a couple of those out of the ground, but didn't eat them. And of course there's more leaves to mow...

Two recipes from my file were combined to pickle the beets. I used a sugar-substitute because I'm again in a session of the Whole Life Challenge. There were four large beets while the rest were pingpong-ball-sized, so I boiled those large ones for 15 minutes before adding the rest to the pot. I saved the leaves for another meal or two:some in a salad and some steamed and doused with vinegar.

Ginger Beets plus Orange

12 medium beets

2 C cider vinegar

1 C sugar

1 (3/4") piece fresh ginger, peeled

1 tablespoon peppercorns

1 orange, zested and squeezed for juice

Wash and trim beets, leaving root and 1" stem intact. Put in large pot, cover with water, add 1-2 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, cover pot, lower heat and simmer until tender. Drain, rinse with cold water. Wearing gloves, slip skins from beets. Slice or quarter beets, put in glass bowl or jars. (You can add sliced onions and/or peeled hard boiled eggs.) For syrup: in medium saucepan, stir together the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; reduce heat & cook, uncovered, 10 minutes. Discard ginger and orange peel. Pour over beets. Refrigerate overnight. Can serve cold or heat if desired. Keeps 2-3 weeks in the fridge.

I sorted through all the tomatoes I'd picked before we went on our trip. They were mostly green when picked. I'd stored them in single layers (only two), not touching each other, with newspaper below, between, and atop the layers, in shallow cardboard boxes. Those boxes are kept in a dark, cool room. If I had a basement or root cellar, that's where they'd be. Only a couple had become overripe and oozing. I tossed those. That's the reason you don't want them touching. I had all the green peppers loosely wrapped in a plastic bag, and stored in my "overflow" dorm-sized fridge. That fridge was bought with summer watermelons in mind - others might have bought one for beer storage. Anyway, I had the ingredients handy when the Prairie Star newspaper arrived with this recipe. I can recommend it now. Again, I used a sugar substitute.

Fire and Ice Tomatoes

3/4 c cider vinegar

1/4 C cold water

1 1/2 tsp mustard seed

1 1/2 tsp celery salt

1/2 tsp salt

4 1/2 tsp sugar

1/8 tsp red pepper

1/8 tsp black pepper

6 large tomatoes, quartered

1 medium onion, sliced

1 bell pepper, cut in strips

Bring the vinegar, water, and spices to a boil, stirring. Boil 1 minutes. Pour over the vegetables in a glass bowl. Cover and refrigerate several hours before consuming.