right now

right now

Jul 25, 2010

What does a gardener do when it's 108º all weekend?

1. Well I don't garden, that's for sure! I will never again complain about 1 day of hot temps... this has been going on for over a month! I've been setting my alarm for zero-dark-thirty to go outside and water. It's very eerie seeing the birds out and about in the dark and strangely absent during the day. I guess they have it figured out too. Last night it was still 92º at 11 p.m.!


2. I had the kids shuck the corn we got at the farm stand, that took all of 10 minutes... what's next? After finishing up their stellar work, I froze the corn from 2 doz ears.

While we are on that subject, it came to my attention at a BBQ last week that there are some that don't know the "bundt cake pan" corn cutting trick! After you have blanched your ears, jam the pointy end in the center hole of the bundt cake pan, then cut. The corn stands firm and your corn slides right into the cake pan. No mess, holds about a doz ears worth before you have to bag it! If you already knew this one, pass it on to someone else, I hate seeing someone struggle with sliding ears LOL!


Check out the kids' work below: anyone want corn with built-in floss? :)


3. Go grocery shopping and contemplate the waste in consumer packaging. I store stuff in those clear bins in the background so all this waste hits the floor immediately upon unpacking. This was a small trip, you should see my floor after my "every 6 weeks" trip! Hey, I didn't promise any of this stuff would be interesting!


4. Decide to do "Fall Cleaning" early this year to enable me to have it all done so I can be outside enjoying the cooler weather come fall. Result: house is messier than when I started due to all the closets being dumped out to "organize".

5. Listen to kids practice piano and vioin (eeek!). Repeatedly.


6. Clean my desk. Set up sewing machine in a permanent place so that I will be motivated to learn to sew. Uh-huh.

7. Scowl at sewing machine hourly, this will never happen.

8. Let kids watch way too much TV

9. Vow to let the kids go to the outdoor pool at the Y, but when we get there they close it due to "heat lightning", this happened both nights - kids were not happy!

10. Let myself watch cheesy horror movies and knit. That's one thing you may not know about me, I am a die hard fan of the campiest horror flicks you can find!


11. We froze the grapes from the garden, yep - that was interesting too.


These sure made a yummy snack on a hot day


12. Brought recycled cleaned empty beer bottles to a wonderful family I just met that is just learning to homebrew. We have so many extras it was nice to reclaim some space, and nice for their new owners too since they have already been de-labeled and sanitized! What's the matter, doesn't every mom's car look like this? You should hear it when we turn, clinking bottles in the back... very redneck-awesome LOL!


13. Made a batch of vanilla ice cream with easy box brownies to get the kids to eat their beans. Hint: don't actually tell them the name of bean variety you are serving or you get whines of "I don't wanna eat dragon's tongues, I want beans WITHOUT tongues in them"...


14. Contemplate ripping out the whole garden so I don't have to worry about the work anymore but a.) that would require hard work in itself and 2.)lol, it's too hot to garden and do hard work!

15. Surf the internet and see that eHow has an article on how to make a redneck flower garden. Find myself entertaining the idea for awhile...

16. Fantasize about the future where the kids are grown and hubby and I have a little cabin on a lake far north of here, where all we need is a pot of cherry tomatoes on the deck, and maybe some lettuce. (yeah right... and spinach, and potatoes, and berries, and broccoli, and a greenhouse to grow peppers and melons, and...)!

17. Make a batch of Blackberry Lemonade with our frozen berry juice!


18. I did get my fall stuff ordered, all except my garlic and onions. I have plenty of shallots to replant again , but I never seem to have the garlic left over. That is a big accomplishment, since usually I am battling the garden with a set of canning tongs and too busy to plan a proper fall garden. Instead, it looks like the fall garden will be better than summer this year.

19. Put the kids to bed, and have my own glass of Blackberry Lemonade with a little something extra, and dream of all I will accomplish tomorrow (hopefully)! We are supposed to get a huge cooldown to 89º so I am hoping it will feel Arctic to me!


Not much in the way of harvests, just a couple of tomatoes and some random overgrown cucumbers that I threw over the fence. I don't think my plants are too pleased with the weather situation either. Not very interesting, but it is what it is! I feel like I'm doing a January blog post!

So hubby, did you feel like you were right here with us? Don't worry, you aren't missing much right now except a cranky wife!

21 comments:

  1. Oh oh, Erin has cabin fever, thought that only hit in winter!! LOL

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  2. I'm feeling exhausted from reading about you doing nothing (you call that nothing?) all day.

    We had 85 in the shade today . . . but I guess I'd better not grump about that, eh?

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  3. It's been just brutal here as well. Heat lightning is such a rotten tease. It screws up your plans without giving you any of the much needed relief.

    Hope you guys have better luck tomorrow. School starts for us in two weeks and I'm more than ready.

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  4. Mama Pea, that's not one day, that's from Friday until now! Good God, if that was one day I would be on drugs or something LOL!

    Ribbit, long time no hear! Will have to hop over to your latest post!

    DaBeardedOne, it's like a reverse winter around here! I'm knitting and everything, minus a woodstove and hot soup!

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  5. All I can think of is water play -- watercolors in the tub, pouring things in shade outside, anything. That's too hot. And I bet you have humidity too. Bleah.

    Love the corn trick, although I don't think we ever do any freezing. And the packaging. . . There are days I just try not to think about it.

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  6. You stole my corn trick! I was thinking about that today, as I was cutting kernels from my mini-cobs, and lamenting the fact they were too small and would fall through the hole in the angel food cake pan. I thought to myself, "Self, you must blog about cutting your corn into angel food cake pans when you get some corn that's large enough for the photos". That's OK. I'll let you use my trick ;-)

    I think I'll go tear out my garden and take the rest of the year off. Or not. It's only supposed to be 103 here tomorrow.

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  7. ...Wow!! That's an active day!

    Also... Have you seen "Hard Rock Zombies"? I think you might get a kick out of it. :P

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  8. I didn't know that about using a bundt cake pan for cutting corn. Cool!

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  9. I've always thought you WERE on drugs or something! (I'll never forget that you said your mom referred to you as a runaway train. Perfect!)

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  10. Try to stay cool. My sister from DC is on her way and I hope to see her tomorrow. Try to stay cool. It wasn't too bad here today but we've had dew points in the mid 70's for the past week or so. I think it doesn't matter what the temp is when the dew point is that high. But, all said, I'm glad it is only in the 80s and not the 90s.
    Judy

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  11. Stefaneener, I wish we could be in the shade! The dewpoints are so high the humidity is unbearable. I used to be able to handle these temps no problem when I lived in the Imperial Valley of SoCal, here it is brutal. It's no cooler in the shade unfortunately.

    Granny you crack me up! I'm not sure where I picked that up anymore, maybe a home ec class or my mom? My mom froze a lot of corn with her garden but I can't remember the specifics but I do know that it's pretty much the only purpose for my dented cake pan since I'm not a big cake-baker LOL! The kids saw me doing it the other night and said it was "wicked cool"... moms always need cool points!

    EG, see? wicked cool! you can amaze all your friends! (at least the 5 & 7 year old ones)

    Kenneth, thats like 3 days! I can't even imagine all that in one day! I'll check out the movie... a few weeks ago I saw a zombie flick that was really wierd, like Japanese subtitled/just plain wierd/zombies... it was so awful but I just kept on watching it, glancing over my shoulder to make sure the kids weren't sneaking out of their room to watch LOL

    Mama Pea, I would be the WORST addict ever - I'm one of those Type A's whose biggest fear is not being able to control my actions and losing my presence of mind... if I did drugs I would be the one that would line up my intervention, rehab, which officer I want to arrest me and such beforehand LOL. I think with my mom it's more the "look" I get than anything - she speaks volumes without speaking at all, or it's just the shaking of her head behind her newspaper...

    Hi Mom! You didn't know that about you did you? All you have to do is "give a look" and I know what you are thinking. That's talent! I know you will never comment since you are effective with so few words :) (unlike your wonderful daughter, hey that's me!)

    Judy, I bet your sister is glad to be headed your way, it's miserable here. Although as I speak it is thundering and a breeze is starting to blow in. At least I won't have to water tomorrow!

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  12. Oh my goodness, I couldn't get past 108F! Wow, that is hot. I shouldn't complain about my 95F today. LOL. Those grapes look great! Those are from the garden? We are growing grapevines too. We planted them this year. How long before your vines grew grapes? The ice cream and brownies look amazing. I'd eat my veggies for that dessert anytime.

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  13. We all know these words are for your sweetheart, but none the less I am always drawn to what you have to say. The blog entry was so much fun, you have such a brilliant mind! You think it is mundane, but your writing is strong like a perennial rooted in real life and blossoming truth. I did not know about the bundt pan thing, so thanks. We are struggling with heat here as well and am too planning a stellar fall garden, I can always dream. Peace

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  14. You be HYPER!! :)

    I think we'll all be happy when fall comes this year. It's just been so damn hot out this summer.

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  15. In my house, calling something Dragon's Tongue beans would be the perfect way to get my son to eat them!

    And then there's the family story of when my uncle was little, and wanted to know what the hole in his slice of ham was from. My grandmother told him it was where the thermometer had been. This was back when children still had there temperature taken rectally. He decided he did *not* want *that* slice of ham!

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  16. Beer? Ice Cream??? I'm moving in!
    Cabin fever in the summer is the worst--it LOOKS nice out, but ugh.
    Your temps are awful, I feel for you!
    And it sounds to me like you have plenty keeping you busy. Hope it cools down soon.

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  17. Ms. Erin, you've been quite busy! Love the horror flick! It's been a long time since I've seen a good suspenseful horror movie. I think the last great one that I saw was The Descent. Nothing better than a bunch of white women stuck in a cave.

    I feel like it's always over a 100 degrees where you are. What's going on??? It that normal?

    Oh, the green grapes look awesome!

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  18. :) You make me smile. That heat must go.

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  19. meemsnyc, my grapes are in their 3rd year, I would have loads more if I had them trellised properly and took care of them LOL! I use them mainly for the grape leaves I get to keep my pickles crispy, and as a magnet for the Japanese Beetles. With grapes around, they don't even look at my other stuff - I have 3 grape plants.

    RuralRose, it's not just for hubby, you all are sometimes the only adult "conversation" I get some days with him deployed, I find writing is a great outlet, even if my life is one big run-on sentence LOL

    Dani, it's "stupid hot"!

    Allison, too funny!

    Sue, it was only 87 today, yippee! And I searched for you a couple of weeks ago and it was nice to see you blogging again! I followed you again and can't wait to get some free time to come over and see what you have been up to. I surfed a few quick pics and the place looks great!

    Thomas, white women stuck in a cave LOL! The Japanese subtitled bad one I saw was gay Japanese zombies... do ya think they are running out of ideas? LOL And no, these temps are definitely not normal, maybe a few days in August where it's unbearable, but this has been a constant since the middle of June, and the humidity is similar to Louisiana or the Amazon, not sure what's up but I made a comment last winter that I hoped our snowy (unusual) winter wasn't a sign of a brutal summer!
    Hmmm, green grapes... yeah, they are supposed to be purple, but the birds were stealing them so I took them! They are quite good frozen, like a sour lemonade-ish popsicle!

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  20. Oooh do you pickle grape leaves for like stuffed grape leaves? I've been thinking of doing that maybe next year when the plants are bigger. If you do and have a good recipe for the pickling of the grape leaves, I would love to know it!!

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  21. Just too funny. How we can all relate. Esp. love the music video. Both mine play piano and dd plays cello. They both play beautifully now, but there was that day.....

    Glad I caught this post while catching up on belated reading. It made me lol.

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