WENT TO A GARDENING CLASS TONIGHT

This is a darling woman who lives in my neighborhood. She has an amazing garden, you would never know it is in the middle of a city.

She has three ponds.

And many fish.Here and there are working garden tools and implements that are beautiful little still life's.

She is a school teacher and so doesn't begin to garden until June. You could have fooled me and all the other woman that attended the class.

I learned a lot, the most important bit--because our soil has so much clay in it--is to add every bit of organic matter to the soil that you can get your hands on.

Many thanks to a generous woman, generous with her time, her talents, and her plants--she is going to let us have starts, bulbs, etc, and perhaps most important she is generous with her laughter. You just can't help but feel good when you are around her, this amazing gardener.

THE FROST IS COMING--THE GARDEN IS GOING

Last night we got a bit of frost, the tops of the zucchini and cucumber plants were wilted this morning. We knew it was coming so yesterday we picked all the tomatoes and today picked the beans. While I was picking beans it snowed. Okay, only about twenty flakes and the snow storm lasted about thirty seconds, but it was snow.

Some of the tomato plants. Phil makes trellis's for the tomato, bean and cucumber plants. He is Mr. Wonderful Gardener.
These are grape tomatoes. A wonderful tomato, they don't split as readily as cherry tomatoes and they ripen, ALL of the green ones. Year before last we ate tomatoes every single day on salads up to Christmas.
These will be sliced and go into the dehydrator as there are too many to eat.
All the ripe romas will also go into the dehydrator. The bean plants.
I got two bowls--my largest stainless steel bowl--this isn't it--full and HALF of them were too old. I could cry. All that work. They had to be picked, washed and then when I was snipping the ends off I could tell they were too old. I got only nine quarts of Dilly Beans and all the family loves them. It seems like I "bean;d" all the live long day.This is my "cooking straw" photo. Actually I snip the dill and simmer it in the brine so I won't have dill in the bottles of beans. I put a little strainer in top of the jar and then pour the "straw brine" in. My daughter -in-law, The Yoga Empress supplied the dill. Her garden has a forest of dill. For some reason my dill did not reseed itself this year. Because of my bad bean harvest I didn't use all of the dill. Now I feel like a greedy-dill-taker. I will give her a jar of Dilly Beans as a thank-you.

The finished product. In about a month they will be all dilled-up and ready to eat but do you think I will let anyone touch them? No way. They were too much work.This reminds me of a story of my childhood friend. Years and years ago it was canning season and for some reason there was a sugar shortage. The cost of sugar was astronomical. My friend had to have some sugar so she bought a ten pound bag and then she couldn't bear to open it so they cut back on sugar. The price of sugar eventually returned to normal. She bought new sugar but could not bear to open the expensive bag. She used the new sugar up and bought more. This went on for at least a couple of years that I know about. The expensive sugar was not opened in all that time. I wonder if she ever opened it.

DRYING TOMATOES and MAKING PEAR JAM.

It's that time of year. Harvest time. This is a picture of the tomato plants in the garden.

The tomatoes are ripening and so it is time for me to start slicing the Roma's and put them in the dehydrator. This means I watch mindless TV in the kitchen. Today it was the Today show and Rachael Rey. When Phil had to go to BYU I tagged along and spent an hour in the bookstore.

There is nothing like a bookstore to restore your creativity. New ideas for books sprouted and festered and then I fled before they boiled over and made a mess that I wouldn't be able to explain.

The regular tomatoes are also FINALLY ripe and so I fixed a plate of tomato and basil sandwich fixin's, right on the breadboard where I cut the Roma's. Then back to the tomato-cutting grindstone. I watched MASH, and The Barefoot Contessa where I learned how to make truffles. It looked so easy. And delicious. Doesn't that look delicious? Here's the link in case you want to put it on your Christmas To-Do list. Oops, did I mention Christmas? Forgive me. It's only September, after all. I'm not mentioning Halloween yet, so that was really a slip.

You'd think I had kids at home. They always talked about holidays months and months ahead of time. I heard about what Halloween costume they were thinking about wearing right after Easter. That is enough to drive a mother crazy.There are mothers, all over the nation with glazed looks in their eyes from hearing, for the 78th time what their kids are going to wear for Halloween. Even mothers in countries that don't celebrate Halloween can understand.

Okay, back to the subject, sort of. After I filled the dehydrator I didn't have my quota of mindless TV today and so I watched some more TV while I made pear jam. A neighbor had given me a sack of pears and we have eaten pears until we are pear'd out. I couldn't throw them away--I should have sliced them and put them in the denydrator but it was full.

Phil reminded me later that we don't like pear jam. It's true. We don't. Actually we don't eat hardly any jam at all but I have jam-genes and it's hard not to answer the call of the fruit at Harvest time. It's a hypnotic call, you'd recognize it if you grew up in my house with my mother. It's sort of a haunting, do-not-waste-anything sort of a call.So, here is my pear jam, which we don't like. There was a bit left over. See the lovely chunks of pears in there. I also added some lime juice. I don't know why. It was the jam-gene, mutating.They all sealed--all the jars of jam we don't like. How lucky for us.

While I jammed I watched a movie so bad that even I was appalled. It was Final Days of Planet Earth. Daryl Hannah was the star. That should have been a clue. Finally it was coming to a close when...the sequel started. The SEQUEL! So, I made soup because I had to find out if Planet Earth really was having it's final days. I'll save you the pain. Planet Earth still has more days left.

I couldn't find the pinto beans in the basement and so the Kale and Bean Soup was made with kidney beans which, I'm sorry to say, was a mistake. If you try this soup DO NOT use kidney beans. You will loose faith in me as a cook, a pear-jam-maker with mutated genes, and a movie reviewer. But, I had made a double batch and so I froze four containers of the soup with the evil kidney beans. I'm sure I will be grateful by Halloween, when I don't have time to cook because I have to dash to the store for more candy for the greedy little goblins and ghouls, who have known what they were going to wear since Easter.

SIX WORDS FOR CHARMING

Red door, corn, tomatoes, sunflowers, backyardmonstrosity

TOOK SOME PHOTO'S TODAY

A friend of mine, Superwoman, showed me this house yesterday. I think it's charming--I wanted you to see that charming houses are still being built in America.


Superwoman does it all, by the way, she writes like a maniac--a good maniac. She quilts. She knows who designs what fabrics--that is unbelievable. She has two sweet boys. Her photographer husband is funny and charming, like this house, although maybe the house isn't all that funny. Superwoman never stops. Her house always has a new floor, a new wall color, a new interesting doo-dad. She serves gourmet food to friends who stop by to discuss books. She is always changing, learning, growing. She knows a little bit about everything, and a lot about more things that I even know a little bit about. That's why she's Superwoman.

This lovely window box was just around the corner.
And since we're speaking of charming, I think this little pocket garden is charming. As is this one.
And this one too.
And another little house that has a charming fence, all clean and tidy.
This house didn't photograph as well as it looked when I drove by. A neighbor followed me for blocks and blocks, around corners and onto new roads, probably taking down my license plate number in case I was casing the joint. She drove up next to me at a stoplight and I looked over at her, prepared to give her my most innocent smile but when I looked her way she pretended the road in front of her was fascinating and wouldn't look at me. She wasn't even on her cell phone. My best innocent smile, wasted.This garden looked wild but I think it was carefully tended. And then, right around the corner I saw this:I think I will send this person a nice little note, suggesting that a trumpet vine would be a great addition to his back yard sculpture--also known as Backyardmonstrosity.

Don't you think that is a dandy idea?

I always say I'm going to send a little note and then I never do so if someone sends you a little note it was not from me. Unless it was a kind note, and then I'll take the credit.

NEIGHBORS BEARING GIFTS

Tonight three neighbors came over to sit on the lawn swings and visit. Honestly, I don't know how I rate such great friends. Not only do I enjoy their friendships but they brought gifts. Genny, whose garden is always at least two weeks ahead of ours, brought crookneck squash, the cutest tiny zucchini and bunches of broccoli. My crookneck hasn't even bloomed yet and my broccoli was interesting. You know the meaning of "interesting," don't you? It means, "Holy cow! What happened here? This isn't how things are supposed to go!" Then if things get really interesting you say, "Hey, this isn't my real life! Someone else has my real life. What is this anyway? Some weird person's life!"

My broccoli grew, started to make broccoli heads--tiny ones--and then, almost overnight it bloomed! I didn't get ANY broccoli. So, I am thrilled to have my neighbor's wonderful broccoli. I love broccoli. And I love my neighbor, Genny.

The other neighbor, Jo...let me backtrack. I am always trying to get my friends to join my personal history group. Perhaps I nag. Okay, I'll be honest. I nag. So, Jo was on the receiving end of my nagging. I'm sure I drove her nuts. She finally said, "I'll do it on my own." And she did!

Her daughter sent her one of those memory prompt books and told her mom, "I want this back on my birthday next year," but it didn't suit Jo's needs so she wrote her history and had it bound and gave it to her daughter for her birthday. She brought the finished product for me to read. I covered up her last name, in case of shyness.

I am on page seven and its been fascinating. I can't wait to read the rest of it.

This picture was taken about the time we moved in, years and years ago. I can't remember Jo looking like this, that's what happens when you are around people for years and years--you change, they change and you hardly know it.

Her daughter, the one in the middle in the back is one of my dearest friends, too. She is a gem. She came over tonight with Jo. She is always interested in my life, just like a good friend should be and I am interested in her life too. She has a fascinating life. But, not interesting, either. Her life is interesting in the non-wide-eyed way.

I am lucky. I have great friends. I hope you do too.

PRICES GOING UP ALL OVER AMERICA--EVEN AT J-DAWG!

The price of gasoline is forcing the prices up all over America. Our favorite quick-lunch place raised prices today. Phil and I bought J-Dawg's yesterday--cost $2.75. Pam and I bought J-Dawg's today--cost $3.00.





Now I know it sounds unreasonable but today's J-Dawg tasted better. Maybe because it was made by the owner so it was worth the extra quarter.





Now look at this young man. Doesn't he look all of 14 years old? And yet he is the owner of J-Dawg. I hope he earns a million dollars a year, three bucks at a time.






I don't want to make you hungry or anything but here is what goes on a J-Dawg. I ask for extra sauce--because I am so saucy.


And extra banana peppers. Because I am so hot. Well, once I was hot. In the summer I am still hot==but it looks like we are not going to get summer here anytime soon so there will be no hotness in the land.

We are a spoiled nation, we want to drive up and order things through a speaker that distorts sound so we don't know if the guy on the other end thinks we want "fries with that" or "flies with fat."--I always like fat flies, don't you?--This doesn't happen at J-Dawg.



You have to speak with a real person and you have to walk up to do it.

Even if you are the UTA bus driver has to walk up. But he goes to the back door to pick up his pre-called in order.

He was out of there in less than a minute.

J-Dawg isn't the only one feeling the crunch of trucking prices. Look at this ad:

Three cans of tomato sauce for a dollar? A couple of years ago you could get 8/$1.00 and recently 6/$1.00. Not only is this sale ridiculous but look at this!

You can only buy two dollars worth! Hold on folks, if this is a hint of how things are going to be in the future I suggest you plow up the back lawn and put in a garden. Pronto.

Get the children to help. It will be good for them to learn to plant and weed and then eat the lovely produce and you will grow closer as a family.

Then you can all go to J-Dawg and take the 14 year old owner a fresh garden tomato and a tidy little pile of green beans and everyone will be happy. There will be much rejoicing in the land. And licking of the fingers so you can get every last bit of special sauce.

PS And why--you are asking yourself--did I feel the need to eat a J-Dawg two days in a row? Have you tasted a J-Dawg? As my friend Michael says: "Judge Not," until you have walked a mile in my moccasins and eaten a J-Dawg for yourself. I added that last bit because Michael lives in the land way north, where bears snack on photographers and he hasn't had a J-Dawg for himself. Yet.