With the sun beating down, the tomatoes are ripening at an alarming rate. Today’s high is 89°. Tomorrow’s is 91°. Fortunately, it was cool last night. I just sat down to fill the freezer bag. I was cutting the cores out before tossing them into the bag.



Of course, in the middle of it all, the power fluttered and then went out. I’d really like to know what causes that at almost 5 pm on a Friday. Was the load too high from air conditioners? Did a part break before switching over to a backup system? Did some idiot hit a post? Or did US steel fire up all their burners at the same time? That happens with a lagging system when the current draw is too high all at once. My original thought was, “Oh no, don’t make me can these right now on an open fire”. Two minutes later the power came back on. Thank goodness!

Conclusion: I am not crazy for not putting all my eggs in one basket. I will not totally depend on the freezer for storing food anymore. Next batch of tomatoes goes into the food dehydrator, after the heat breaks on Sunday.

I was totally unaware that there was even an internet challenge on putting up food for winter. I mean it makes sense. It is peak harvest season. Personally, I don't have time for internet games. I stumbled across the challenge while looking for recipes. Searching the internet helps me to see someone actually making the same recipe I want to make.

One of this year's goals was to learn how to use a pressure canner. It was something my own mother was terrified of. Two years ago I bought the canner. I waited for local classes on how to use it. Honestly, those classes scared me more than even my mother. Then back in January, Sutton's Daze ran a Canuary event. I watched and by the end of the month was game to try it. First I needed to call Presto and get a replacement part. When I assembled my canner, I broke something on the pressure dial.



Originally my goal was to can one recipe per week. Well, who can afford that much meat? It's been off and on. I have actively worked on filling the shelves with canned jams and jellies as well as using up older jam jars. Even though we rarely eat beans, I started with those since they are cheap.



Fast forward to present day. In the last week, despite working several days and 90 degree temperatures, I managed to can the beef bolognese, onion jam, bread n butter pickles and today, peach butter. Still to come will be dill pickles. It is a lot of work. Tomatoes are being picked and dried or frozen. It's been a marathon of dishes and hot kitchen moments. The push toward saving food, whether from the garden or the farmer's market, has been strong. It's almost as if food won't exist anymore and what we've saved will be all there is. I am not sure whether that is just the normal urge to be a squirrel readying for winter or whether it is something more. A lot of people are feeling the same. It's almost like the calm before a storm. It feels worse than I have ever felt it.



The total food that the garden has supplied this year already beat last year's total. Last year was 68 lbs. of produce. I am pushing 80 pounds. It makes a big difference when you don't have deer eating everything in sight plus a ground hog. The fence made a huge difference. The Canadian wildfires did not hurt our tomatoes as they sometimes do. Nor did we get a 14" rain event like Milwaukee just did. There is some scary shit going on in the world. I am just so grateful for what the garden has supplied. I have more ideas for next year.

And the skunks? I suspect my neighbor made good on her promise. The scent of moth-balls wafts over the garden. Yes, I know they are carcinogenic, but she routinely uses Bounce in her dryer. I can't stand that either. For now, that will do. Papa skunk still lives under the front window. At least, the babies quit coming into the yard in daylight. I am thankful for that as well. Yes, there is more to be done. In theory, tomorrow brings rain. (which I will also be grateful for)

Like every August that ever was, (and I can count back a long way) the weeds are winning. Rather than make things in the kitchen, I worked outside today. It's been 2 days of clearing weeds on the back patio. It's been lamb's quarters bindweed, creeping Charlie, lemon balm and black raspberry canes taking over the entire area. I cut and clipped, making a huge pile, sort of a mini-hugel mound. I need to build up soil in one area and figured this was the way to do it. Before it gets too dry, I burned the Barbary bush roots. They were more of a stump. I lit a tissue on fire and the whole thing went up. Whoosh. I don't burn directly on the ground. I use a metal wash bin on cinderblocks. I have to think these bushes are dangerous fire hazards when dry. It was a fast burn, one hour start to finish.



The hose was out and I watered the ground well. I clipped back any vegetation. After a couple of hours, I excavated 4 dye buckets and two stainless dye kettles under the lemon balm. I also dug up my fire ring garden bed. It got cardboard compost and perlite. That was one solid mass. I'm hoping the perlite loosens the soil and the cardboard provides some organic matter once it decomposes. That bed was fallow this year. I'll make it a compost pile for winter but may move the whole thing come spring. It's not in a good location.



Shadows:
From Fall Equinox to Spring Equinox, the house casts a shadow across the yard. The winter sun does not reach the area where the fire ring is. It makes it hard to grow anything in that area. A lot of the yard is in shade, making "shoulder season" crops hard to grow. For succession planting, some folks can get 3 seasons of production out of their garden. Early spring crops or cold weather crops cannot be grown in half the yard. There isn't enough sun. The above picture is in December. Only the garage garden gets winter sun. At equinox, the sun only covers the patio area where the fire ring currently resides.





The patio area is good for summer crops. We've had pumpkin and tomato volunteers show up from time to time. It does get sufficient sun for that. Currently, I am slowly working on cleaning up the area so the back porch can be rebuilt. Keeping things out of harm's way, you might say. I am still repairing what the last batch did to my fence. To get ladders up, they removed the fence T posts but tried to put them back in without the pounder device. Didn't work.

August Dyeing
Yarn is on order. Calcium carbonate is too (for cotton). There is tarragon, tansy and oregano to be harvested for dye. Skeining and synthrapol are on next week's agenda. I have new yarns coming in. We'll see if the economy is up to it. At least, I bought before the price goes up again. I have two shows in September but then nothing until May.

I thought this short piece was well produced.

https://youtu.be/VA8xjOQr2AI?si=Zttf754WckrRFQeE

The obvious answer is no. Our economy is so interconnected, we cannot separate items from the long materials list to produce even a cup of coffee. I enjoyed the reporter’s approach. I often just think about food. Watch it and enjoy. There are some gems in her piece.

Meanwhile, I am struggling with how to buy goods for my own business. We live in interesting times. My own reaction, having lived through this before, is that goods right now are cheaper than they will be next year. However, use extreme caution and never buy on credit. Credit is a hole you dig that only gets deeper and harder to get out of. The possibility of both high inflation and recession is very real. If you’ve lived through Stagflation before, you know of what I speak. With no work and only random gig jobs, my mother had to sell her house and move to a cheaper place in another town. Mortgage rates were 18% at the time. Yes, you read that correctly. No one could afford to get a loan through a bank. Owners had to self-finance the buyers. Talk about risky business. She survived. I did too. A lot of other people were seriously hurt by Reaganomics. I almost didn’t finish college. It was too hard to pay for. At the time, colleges were tied in to a preset tuition price but inflation drove costs super high. They came up with a surcharge to cover it. Nowadays, we have Walmart implementing dynamic pricing. If you’ve haven’t experienced it yet, you will. They can change prices at any time based on new tariffs, natural disasters, and anything else that impacts their bottom line. Most stores do this at night but it is possible that the tag on the shelf changes by the time you reach the checkout.

Welcome to 2025! (Living in the age of constant uncertainty)