Work for the Night Is Coming

We had snow yesterday. It even stuck. There was still snow this morning, but it did melt and has disappeared. The rest of the week is supposed to be pleasant. Sweater or jacket temperature or maybe a flannel shirt.

This old pan was someone else's pan and we inherited it right after we were married. This is our 'pop corn' pan. We have popped corn in this pan for forty-six years. I like to use this pan for the hot water bath. This was used this time for tomatoes. The pan is a bit deeper than any other pans I have, and I can get a good two layers of tomatoes in it.

For quite a few years I would just wash up my tomatoes well, cut the core out and run them through the blender skin and all, heat them up and can them.

About the late 1980s to 1990s we began seeing what we called 'stink bugs' in our garden. These nasty insects will lay their eggs under the skin on tomatoes and on other fruits and vegetables as well. That is what it looks like. They leave dots of what looks like eggs under the skin.

How they got to our fair shores I don't know, but they cause much damage and in this country there were not any of its natural enemies.

The Samurai wasp is a tiny wasp that comes from the same place stink bugs came from—Asia:

https://news.wsu.edu/2018/08/15/tiny-samurai-wasps-deployed-fight-stink-bug-invasion/

I'm hopeful my link will link like it's supposed to. The wasp is a natural control predator for the stink bugs.

Having chased that rabbit, the reason why I have gone back to the hot water/cold water and slipping the skin off of the tomato is to get rid of the stink bug stuff. It pulls off with the skin and I throw it into the compost bucket. The chickens scratch through our compost pile, and they naturally turn the compost and help digest the ingredients.

I also like the whole tomatoes to which I add onions, peppers of all kinds, salt and white vinegar, and make a salsa that we like to drink like it's V8 tomato juice.

I've been slow at finishing up garden stuff. The picture above is from July/August this year. You can see I've run the fruit through the hot water/cold water blanch, taken the core out of the tomato, and cut some of them in half. These are my heirloom tomatoes, all of the different varieties worked up together.

Some are red, some yellow, of course my favorite tomaoes are Italian Heirloom and Amish Paste. There are a few other kinds, but those two are my number one favorites.

This year hasn't been the best garden year, but any year that we get even a bit of garden in is an accomplishment.

We even had a few pumpkins. They didn't get orange but my chosen variety is an excellent one. The one I've grown is Dependable and I think I got it from Twilley seeds. I have grown all sorts of pumpkins. Indeed I still have quite a few varieties, but since I'm confined mostly to the house and someone else is in charge of the garden...

I was born to be a farmer, however. My phrase at the end of each year has repeatably been: Next year will be better.

Next year will be better when I've received my six million dollars I will hire a gardener...a cook, and a housemaid. Well, I can laugh, and dream.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, whither thou goest."

John 9:4 "We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work."