Sunday postcards

I'm feeling the need to step back a little bit at the moment. First of all, I'm running out of things to say about summertime and my slow and subtle project progress. I've been working on digging out the foundation where the greenhouse is going to be for weeks, (7'2" x 8'9", six inches deep; that is a lot of dirt) and have nothing particularly exciting or interesting to show for it, except a dusty hole in the rocky red clay earth. It's rewarding to me, but sharing it here would glaze your eyes. 

Meanwhile, the garden continues to be amazing, the weather continues to be bone, bone dry. 

Our weeks, and our lives this summer are boiling down to Sunday evenings. It's the best part of the week, those acutely distilled four hours. We mix cocktails with garden herbs, we grill, we sit in camp chairs, we sigh as the dew falls, we watch fireflies. Last night we had a fire. Last night we ate honey-lemon-vanilla custard with blueberries, and grilled black bean cumin burgers, and horseradish potato salad with chunks of dill pickle. It was heaven.

I think the rest of this summer is going to take the shape of postcards. Blog postcards. A couple of captioned photos is all you really need, after all, and I'm funneling so many words into other areas of my life (assignments!) that I'm feeling a little short on words to share here. So, let my month or so as a photo-blogger commence!

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Summer eating: Tostadas

I tend to lean back from recipes in the summertime. Partly, it's the giddy privilege of the gardener, I think: you pick whatever's ripe and work with it. Over the years, we've gotten pretty good at figuring out the whole summer eating thing, at keeping on-hand the things that can be paired with garden produce in endlessly variable and delicious combinations. In summer, we keep in the house at all times a tub of block feta (which lasts ages in the fridge), red onions (awesome in salsas, salads, and on the grill), and frozen blocks of cooked dried beans-- white, chickpea, and black. Cans of beans could also be subbed (and we keep those on hand for emergencies), but soaking and cooking our own is worlds cheaper. And tastier. We keep tomatoes in the house, too, during June and most of July before our garden's tomatoes are ready, because my husband is a tomatophile, and restricting his fresh tomato intake to August and September feels cruel. Also, in the house at all times during the summer (and most of winter, too) we keep tortillas. 

There is something festive about a tortilla. They're cheap, they keep really well, and they make a terrific foundation. For tostadas, we coat them with vegetable oil and grill them on one side, then flip them, top them, and grill until the bottom is done.

At the top of the post, we topped them with marinated mashed chickpeas (like chunky hummus) with lemon juice, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper; grilled broccoli (cooked while the tortillas were grilling), mozzarella cheese, and a bruschetta-like tomato salsa.

For the picture above, we went a little more traditional with black beans, sharp cheddar, sauteed kale (gotta get the greens in!), piquant salsa and, for me at least, a liberal dose of fresh cilantro.

By the end of this month, I imagine, we'll be topping tostadas with grilled zucchini and tomatoes from our own garden... they're getting there, slowly but surely, and my goodness, we are going to have a lot of tomatoes. Next week we'll have green beans, the first zucchini will probably be ready Sunday, and oh my, the cucumbers. I pulled up the pea vines and planted long rows of winter carrots and beets. I am happy for July. May and June are eager anticipation, but, in the good years, July is triumph.

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Garden scenes

Corn poppies, just in time for Independence day.

First carrots! Dinner last night involved only two ingredients not from the garden.

Tomato flowers. Lots of sizable green tomatoes-in-progress, too.

If my garden was its own country, this would be the flag.

Loving the borage. Grabbling new potatoes. Squishing cucumber beetles and stink bugs. Watching hymenoptera in the cilantro flowers. Already beginning to plan, and to anticipate, next year's garden.

It never ends. What a blessing.

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Sunday

 

It's really not too strong a statement to say I live for days like these. Northerners, this is why we go through winter after grueling winter: summer, when it comes, is a gift. I've never been a fan of fantasy novels, because I don't need a novel to help me imagine a parallel perfect world. All it takes is someplace quiet and dreamy on a warm evening. 

Yesterday, we splashed around in the brook, got ice cream, integrated the little chickens with the big chicken (so far, no fatalities!), and improvised a pretty stellar dinner on the grill. Then, we sat in our camp chairs on the lawn (by the chicken run) and watched the fireflies and the moon rise... My goodness, this is it. This is what it's about. The customary pre-dinner stroll in the garden for ingredients, bare feet on the front porch and cracking up watching the chickens over a few beers at twilight. Living, loving, and eating. And chickens.

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You've Come A Long Way, Baby: Shed edition

I don't think I ever posted this picture on the blog. For good reason. It's ancient, as these things go: from our 2010 anniversary camping trip to Gilbertsville, before I'd breathed Word One of our grand plan. We stopped by the house we knew would be Our House, someday, and with no car in the driveway we walked around taking pictures, true befores.

It's dizzying to think of how far we've come, when I really step back and think of everything that's been done. I've sung that tune a hundred times before, I know, but it still hits me.

This is what we had to work with, inside the shed. Squirrel-hole-riddled homasote stuffed with gnawed hickory shells, rafters stuffed with swim noodles. The shed had no foundation. It was too close to the house, acting as a barrier between it and the rest of the backyard. So, we moved it, and now we've done some sprucing, with far more yet to come.

The quaint little potting shed in my mind is beginning to take shape. I slapped together some little shelves between the studs, to hold pots, and in between them I put two long pieces of 2x4 across two ledger boards, and set atop them a piece of project wood that was just waiting for its day in the sun.

(You know what it really is? Look here. Go all the way down to the bottom where I start talking about archaeology. It's the old stairwell trap door.)

I love the view from here. Window needs a-washin, but that can wait. For now I just want to put my chin on my hands and look at that purty garden view.

We replaced the almost-completely-rotted-away sills with nice new 4x4s, and replaced the bottom course of siding with new pieces. We primed them on both sides, to keep away rot, and ants. They look silly painted the dark tinted-primer color, and sillier still is the fact that we probably won't get around to painting this shed until after the whole house is done. 

Sigh. 2022, do we have a date?

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Bridal shower

  

... and a great shower was had by all!

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Garden tour

Next year, I need taller pea fence. I need to suck it up and pull more volunteer cilantro, for come June it shades the bean rows. Next year, the lettuces need more space, as do the broccolies, and the chives need dividing.

But some things are perfect: the California poppy seeds I scattered down my potatoes, which only took about 45 days from seed to blossom. The shocking blue borage opening its bashful woolly heads among a forest of volunteer dill. My tomato plants, for whatever reason, are kicking butt and taking names. I gave them more space than last year-- maybe that makes all the difference? I planted cilantro in amongst my broccoli, on the theory that its flowers might attract enough beneficial bugs that the cabbage loopers wouldn't show. And I'm pleased to report that once the cilantro got tall enough to rise above the broccoli, the loopers disappeared. I will keep you posted, but so far this seems like a pretty smart deal. Last night we ate Sesame baked tofu with peas, and the night before that we ate a mountain of broccoli braised in garlic with white beans and pasta, and tonight we'll eat a mountain of lettuce. 

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

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