John Cole Presents “This Fucking Old House”

Chopped up the five heads of cabbage, weighed it, measured out the salt, and threw it all in the crock:

As you can see, I just cut it by hand because I like a variety in the size, and my expensive food processor I bought a decade ago died last year and I never replaced it because it’s just easier to do things by hand with a knife or a mandolin and cleaning the damned thing was more of a pain in the ass than anything else. Plus, I just like using a knife. Then we kneaded, mashed, pounded (I had fun punching it, tbh), macerated, and rotated the cabbage until the salt did its magic and pulled out the moisture:

It’s about halfway through the process of here, and when it is finished with a plate on top and weighed down, there should be a good bunch of liquid covering it:

Two quick tips- make sure you don’t use too much salt. I don’t do anything exotic, we just made it with cabbage and salt when I was a kid, so there is none of that juniper berries or caraway seed or other horseshit those soft Germans in Bavaria do. Fuck you with your sugar in sauerkraut. But too much salt can kill the fermentation process, so make sure you measure carefully.

Second, I found doing all five heads of cabbage at once to be unwieldy, so I used a 2 gallon crock to prep and the then dumped it in the 5 gallon crock to ferment, then just repeated. Also, the five gallon crock was the right size for a dinner plate to push down the kraut and keep it submerged with the stone.

We’ll see how this turns out in a few weeks.

And Now We Wait for it to RotPost + Comments (38)

Busy day- processed a bunch more summer apples into applesauce (got 4 quarts out them), rubbed down a brisket and got it in the fridge for tomorrow, processed a couple more gallon bags full of tomatoes and got them in the freezer (gonna make sauce all in one day when my basil is ready), got the fermenting crock cleaned so I can make sauerkraut tomorrow, planted beets, put in a last four tomato plants that I found just shriveling up and dying at a greenhouse (so I said what the hell, might as well give them a chance and maybe I will get some late, late fruit), got in a bunch of cucumber plants underneath the tomatoes that are currently fruiting that will be done in a week so I can start to trellis them, and got the beets planted.

Tomorrow I am smoking the brisket (I got it already marked down in a buy one get one free deal, so it was only 12 buck for ten pounds!!!), pickling the first run of okra, and making the sauerkraut. Really excited with how much I am able to get out of a few beds- next year I want to try to plan it a little better and maybe put in two more beds.

Also, I was able to reach Scotian, and we chatted via text for a bit, and will talk tomorrow about setting up a gofundme. Which means that you all can STOP EMAILING ME, FACEBOOK MESSAGING ME, TAGGING ME IN FACEBOOK POSTS, TEXTING ME, AND CALLING ME FER THE LOVE OF CHRIST YOU PEOPLE. You all are so good. Just decent people. Well, a couple of you suck. You know who you are

Baud/Cole 2020.

Saturday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (75)

This is Samantha getting a bath:

She looks adorable, right?

Why is Samantha getting a bath at 11pm on a Friday night? Because sometimes Samantha accidentally eats one of Tammy’s two foot long hairs, and when she goes to do her business, it turns into something like those edible strings of candy, but with poop, and they follow her around the house and you only notice them when she does something like jump up on the ottoman with a six inch strand of poop hair attached to her.

How is your evening.

Samantha’s Awkward MomentPost + Comments (80)

It was dad’s birthday yesterday (#78), so I went and picked up Tammy and met my parents and my sister and her husband in Pittsburgh at a restaurant called Kaya. I gotta tell you, this is the best new (to me) restaurant I have been to in ages. Everything on it was in my favorite flavor profile, with peppers and lime and cilantro and goodness everywhere. We split a bunch of appetizers (my favorite was the shishitos), and for dinner I had the street corn and fish tacos. For dessert I brought with us a birthday cake called Death by Chocolate. We’re all still living, but if you gotta go, that is a good way.

Trump is awful.

I’m Tired and I Ate Too MuchPost + Comments (29)

Was just going through some old pictures and man, what a difference a year makes:

Just looking at these and it brings back the knots in my stomach every time I went outside and looked at the yard. Much better this morning:

I’m also laughing at all my old pictures because THURSTON IS IN EVERY ONE OF THEM. He’s like Where’s Waldo. It’s because he is the orneriest of the animals- whatever is going on, he has to be RIGHT THERE IN ON THE ACTION. When I am on my hands and knees planting something, he will butt in, get in my way, to personally sniff whatever it is I am putting into the ground.

Man, What a YearPost + Comments (31)

Spent a few hours and put up some more stuff from the garden (and the July apples I got at the farmer’s market):

Three quarts of applesauce, two quarts of beans, five pints of just regular beets, and three half pints of peas. Like I said, shit year for peas, but I also ate about probably six half pint containers worth the last week or so.

If you are wondering why I am doing all this, it’s several fold. First, I got sick and tired of wasting stuff that I grew in the garden and then buying inferior products at the store six months later. I spend all this time nurturing seeds, planting them, watering the plants, dealing with insects, picking them, and then I either give it away or it goes bad. Didn’t make sense. So I made an initial capital investment of about 60 bucks to get a bunch of mason jars to compliment the ones I had around the house and could find at flea markets and the like, and now I am just going to do this more often.

Second, I think it tastes better, I know exactly what is in it.

Third, it’s a useful skill, and one I had let get away from me. Dad used to can everything when we were kids, and I always remember doing it. I’m getting the crock back from my sister and going to make some sauerkraut this summer, too. Homemade sauerkraut is always superior to anything you can get from the store.

Fourth, I like it. It’s fun to me. I like the whole aspect of going from start to finish- when I get the seeds in the mail in January to growing the seedlings to planting them in the garden to peeling and preparing them to finishing them off. Also, company is much more appreciative when you make dinner- it’s like a big deal for people to eat something that was grown in your own back yard.

Several years ago when I quit drinking I was worried what I was going to do with all the new free time I had. What I have discovered is I don’t have a ton of free time because I am doing all sorts of new and fun things. Like canning!

I also have realized that I am really at my most relaxed when I am doing something as simply or mundane as peeling apples, or shelling peas, or cleaning and cooking down berries. I just zone out and really only think about the task at hand. It’s nice. I mean, my mind still wanders- like, for example, while shelling my nine bazillionth pea I thought “anyone who has ever had to prep their own food would definitely pay a quarter more a can so that farmers and migrant workers can get paid more.”

The final thing I like is that this is something I can do for the rest of my life. I sometimes worry what I am going to do when I get older and more infirm. Need a bunch of hobbies I can do forever. This is one of them.

So that is that.

Today’s HaulPost + Comments (28)

Been an eventful couple of days around here. As I mentioned last night, we had all kinds of storms which knocked out the power, the cable and internet, and then inevitably the cell service (which dies after a couple of hours of the tower not having any electricity. The proximate cause of the outage here in town was the giant ass tree that fell and took down about 4 or 5 telephone poles:

As I mentioned elsewhere, my parents, who lived complete and full lives for 2/3 of there existence without the internet and then spent the next ten years INSISTING they did not need the internet can now be counted on to call me within five minutes of an outage to ask me if my internet is out. Which, since we live 200 yards from each other and just experienced the SAME exact storm and use the SAME exact internet company, is invariably, a yes.

I’ve spent most of the week with some sort of low grade cold or flu, which seemed to reach a crescendo last night with me vomiting, sweating, and convinced I was dying. I slept for about 14 hours, and feel better today, but things are still suspect.

I posted a picture the other day of the last of the broccoli and the beginnings of the tomatoes and some pears, but I can’t remember where (if I had no power it just went on fb or twitter):

At any rate, I am now up to my ASS in tomatoes, which is always good, the broccoli is done until the fall broccoli, and I pulled up the remainder of se in the past, they didn’t all ripen evenly so that I could never really get a bunch at a time, and I would guess I only got about 6 pints (I’ll know for sure tomorrow when I can it all). I put all the old plants in the compost, and am going to let the bed sit overnight and tomorrow I am going to put in some beets and cabbage.

At the farmers market on Saturday, an old fellow was just basically giving away big bags of July apples for 2 bucks a bag, so I bought a couple OF bags and am going to make some applesauce. Figure I will just do the peas, the first of the green beans, and the applesauce all at once tomorrow. No need to get the pressure cooked out more than I need to, I guess.

Flowers are all looking great, but some of the gladiolas fell over so I just cut them:

That’s that great vase I got for like 2 bucks at a flea market. What a steal.

In site news, I am having a call tomorrow with Watergirl, and I believe we are nearing testing. Christ, it seems like it is taking forever. But so far I like what I see.

Politics is awful. And stop worrying about the Democratic in-fighting. It’s summer, no one but the dorks pay attention.

Bad Year for PeasPost + Comments (44)

Spent the last 50 hours with intermittent power and cell service, and no internet or television. Read a couple books and did a bunch of things, but mostly I slept because I have had a low level cold/flu that is getting consistently worse. I just slept from 6:00-9:30, and now I am nauseous and feel like I might shit myself while simultaneously having chills with cold and clammy skin and hot flashes. Is this ebola?

Feh.

Does This Thing Still Work?Post + Comments (110)

Around the corner from my house is an abandoned property. It’s a little pre-fab ranch that was put up in violation of town ordinances probably about fifteen years ago by a lady who lived there for a few years, then sold it to two kids who went to school here from Florida. When they graduated, they basically never did anything with the property and not it is just an eyesore that various people around town take turns mowing the damned grass.

It’s a small lot, but in front of the house are two trees, one of which is a peach tree. It’s never been properly attended to, and it was never trimmed appropriately and the limbs can’t support all the fruit, and no one ever picks it and nurtures it the way it should be taken care of to grow properly.

At any rate, I drove a fertilizer stake in it last fall, and decided this year I was going to something with the fruit rather than let it rot off the tree. So I picked a bunch of them, and they were hard, but the problem was that I couldn’t wait for them to ripen on the vine because they would rot or the deer would get them. So I put them in paper backs, let them ripen, and then peeled and cleaned them and cut out the bad parts. It was pretty labor intensive to get a decent sum of fruit off them, because they are clingstone and small, but I got enough to make some peach jam. I had a bag of cherries in the fridge that Tammy bought but had lost interest in before she left, so I pitted them and threw them in:

It came out pretty ok, I think, but the proof will be in a couple weeks when I open one to test it:

The next mini project was to take all the peels and stuff left over from prepwork, throw it in a pot, and boil it (and no, I am not processing home made cyanide). Let it boil all the flavor out, the ran it through a chinois, and added a metric fuck ton sugar:

Currently the syrup is cooking down to the desired thickness, and then I will can it and have some peach syrup to use when I have company. Fun.

***
Every time I post something about the garden, or garden pictures, or some project I’ve done, or something I have cooked, etc., there are inevitably a couple people saying in the comments “I wish I could do that I don’t have a green thumb” or “I can’t cook” or some variant, and I chuckle. I don’t have a green thumb and I am not some master chef, either. I just am completely undeterred by the potential of failure. Gardening and cooking aren’t something you need to be afraid to try. It’s not like I am packing my own chute before jumping out of a plane. I made jam.

Today’s ProjectPost + Comments (67)

Long day- half day in Pittsburgh, then some work, then town council. I’m tired. Here are some more flower pictures I took today:

My favorite thing about my garden is that while there was planning, there wasn’t too much planning. I just put in a bunch of perennials, and then threw in bulbs where ever.

And, of course, the prettiest Lily:

I just love everything about her- her delicate eyelashes, her fuzzy little ears, her big eyes, that wet black nose.

Open ThreadPost + Comments (65)

Busy day today- had a doctor’s appt., got my car inspected and street legal for another year, and got the dog’s their licenses and proof that they are immunized or vaccinated or whatever. As I noted elsewhere, Steve is still off grid. I keep forgetting you need to license dogs and not cats, which seems ass backwards, like licensing ice cream cones and allowing free range tactical nukes. Tomorrow I have my annual eye checkup and dental checkup. I guess when I scheduled this shit my thinking was “just get it all over with in as short a time as possible.”

Also, the paperwork has been received regarding the godson’s dog, so allow me to present Tulip, Scourge of the North:

I have to confess she is a touch scourgey.

All Hail Tulip! First of Her Name!Post + Comments (53)

I’ll post pictures later, but really, gardening is like playing CIV IV with the disaster mode on random and extreme. Last year, in a two day period when I was not at home, an entire bed got RAVAGED by tomato hornworms and I had to spend a day like a crazy person screaming and plucking the bastards off one at a time and then burning the bodies and sprinkling diatomaceous earth on the bed (which I don’t like to use because it is an indiscriminate killer).

This year, I have one bed completely ravaged by leaf spot. I’ve removed all the diseased leaves and am going to go throw them over the hillside since I can not compost them, and I am going to try some baking soda and water and some neem oil. You can’t cure the disease once it occurs, only control it. That also means that this year I have to make sure there is NOTHING remaining in the soil for the disease to stay over the winter, and I need to plant something else in that bed next year, which is ok, because I had planned to anyway.

Issue #2 is that my pole beans are under assault by Japanese Beetles. They like the beans, and they like the giant sunflower leaves, it appears. So, again, picking the bastards off and burning the bodies, spraying with neem oil to kill off future generations, and I’m gonna leave a couple cans of fruit cocktail out for the fuckers to drown in.

One of my formative memories as a child was my next door neighbor, a Syrian immigrant from Beirut, out in her yard sprinkling salt on slugs and individually cursing and hissing at each offending slug. My dad and I were sitting there watching for at least an hour, neither of us saying anything, and my dad finally quipped “I think I finally understand Medea.”

I am now my neighbor.

Allow Me a Moment to Bitch About My GardenPost + Comments (99)