First Broccoli

Cut two nice center stalks of broccoli for supper tonight.  What a fresh, green treat - and a nice way to start the Thanksgiving weekend feasting!  Drew, Abi, and Andrew West were here.  Melissa was in Cary visiting her aunt and uncle.  Noah will arrive later.

Butternut Squash Soup

Used our last butternut squash to make this delicious soup for supper tonight...

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 medium potatoes, cubed
1 medium butternut squash - peeled, seeded, and cubed
32 ounces chicken stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
a splash of 1/2 and 1/2

Directions:
Saute the onion, celery, carrot, potatoes, and squash in the butter for 5 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Add the chicken broth, enough to cover the vegetables.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer 40 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.  Mash with a potato masher.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add a splash of cream.

My Best Broccoli To-Date

We've been enjoying fresh salads out of the fall garden.  Spinach, arugula, beet greens, mixed lettuces... delicious!  The kale, mustard, and turnip greens are just getting big enough to cook.  The cabbage is heading up nicely, and my best-ever crop of brocolli might be ready to cut this week... just in time for all the family feasts around the Thanksgiving holiday!

Top of the Morning

The sun has climbed the hill, the day is on the downward slope.
Between the morning and the afternoon,
   stand I here with my soul, and lift it up.
My soul is heavy with sunshine, and steeped with strength.
The sunbeams have filled me like a honeycomb.
It is the moment of fullness,
   and the top of the morning.

D. H. Lawrence

Dirty Work

Today was a fine day for digging sweet potatoes. Thanksgiving is coming, and the sweet potatoes must be cured and ready to eat. We haven't had a hard freeze to force me to dig them. Plus, we've recently had so many wet days it's been hard to find a weather-appropriate day to do it. I missed the warm, sun-shiny days the weekend we travelled to NYC.

I planted an equal number of plants (9) in each of two raised beds. The bed closer to the house produced nicer, more filled-out, tubers. The other bed produced lots of skinny roots... many too small to be edible, and many that I'll call "fingerling" sweet potatoes. Overall, a disappointing harvest.  You can be sure that we'll enjoy what we got.   The tubers are laid out to cure on a table in the basement.

The difference in the development of the tubers from one bed to the other may have to do with the amount of sun that shone on each bed over the season.  But the disappointing harvest may have more to do with when I planted these plants.  I didn't put them into the ground until my other potatoes were harvested... July 4.  Turns out sweet potatoes need 150 frost-free days to fully develop.  Hmmm... mine had 142 frost-free days.  I guess the length of the growing season really does matter!  Live and learn.

Bye, bye, birdies!

The ducks have a new home!  My friend, Betsy, has prepared a duck habitat at her house, complete with bathtub swimming hole.  Today, after our music practice, she and I secured the ducks in the "safe" zone of the chicken yard, got them into a dog crate (easier than expected), and loaded them into the back of her car.  I hope they have a successful transition.

I'm a little worried about the two young barred rock hens that share the chicken yard with our original nine dominickers.  Without Elvis to keep everything in order, the young girls have definitely taken a place at the bottom of the pecking order.  They've been hanging out with the ducks since we first brought them all home in early July.  I hope they're not bullied too much now that their body guards are gone.

Hurrican Ida Moving Through

It rained all last night.  It's been raining all day.... a nice gentle soaking rain.  Couldn't be any better for the garden, the landscape, and the water table.  Forecasters are predicting up to 6 inches here in central North Carolina.