More Sweet Peas

We do love our peas! Sweet green garden peas are the highlight of the garden - our favorite raw snack as we work in the garden, or stroll through the lush green rows showing off the crops to visitors. Sharing a couple of fat crispy pods of peas with gardening novices is always fun! Those fresh-off-the-vine peas have converted more folks to growing a bit of garden than all the books in the library, I'm sure!

Every garden season, our main focus always seems to be the PEAS. When to get them in the ground, is it too wet, too cold still, will they sprout, how are they growing, is it time to tie them up, are the pods filled out enough to pick, will the blight ruin the crop, are they tasty, and on and on, until the last pea is in the freezer for the year!

Shelling peas is such a family tradition, I can't even remember ever NOT doing it!! The back yard saw a lot of pea shelling and string bean snapping while we were growing up.
We used to have a dog that would lay unseen under one of our chairs as we gathered in a circle around a washtub of peapods, shelling the peas into pots at our feet. Buttons would quietly inch forward until she could gobble a mouthful of peas before we noticed her! We always scolded her, not for eating the peas, but for not doing her OWN shelling!

Mom has grown Little Marvel peas for a coon's age. Mom and Dad grew the Tall Telephone variety for many years when we were young. While super productive, they are very labor intensive, requiring extensive trellising - as their name suggests. The Little Marvels are only 36-40" high on an average year, although they have been known to ambitiously reach for the 5' mark. They usually have 7 fat little sweetly tasty peas to a pod.

This year I did plant a short experimental row of Early Frosty peas, and we were pleased with their growth, yield, and flavor. We may go for a longer row of them next spring

Mom's favorite part - they are in the bag, ready to freeze!

After all the work (which was a labor of love), we ended up with several dozen 1-cup baggies of peas to enjoy through those garden-less winter months.

Whether gently heated with a knob of butter and dash of nutmeg, or simply thawed and tossed into a crispy green salad, or included as a must-have in our favorite Tuna Casserole, the tender green peas are our bit of garden sunshine - worth all the fussing and bother, for sure!

Sweetpeas

There has been a dearth of Sweetpeas in my life - like about 10 years. This spring I was determined to break the famine. It was so satisfying to poke those round black seeds into little pots, put them in a mini-green house on a shelf near an east window, and wait patiently for the first green shoots to emerge. Happy day!

The back fence line, already secure with chicken wire, was a perfect place for the new babies. They have responded with zest!

One night, a week ago, I awoke to a gentle breeze drifting through my always-open window. The homespun scent of honeysuckle, growing 20 feet up a nearby alder tree, mingled with the ambrosia of sweetpeas, blossoming just a few feet away from the window. Pure Heaven. I lay awake for quite a bit, breathing in the comforting scents spun with so many memories.

I keep a bouquet of sweetpeas on the stand at the end of my bed, treasuring every opportunity to enjoy these perfumed jewel-like flowers.

I keep the flowers picked, to encourage more blossoms. It's so fun to share generous bouquets with friends and family - everyone loves the nostalgia of sweetpeas!

Oops - a little out of focus - but so endearing.

Sweet dainty butterflies of scented memories. Summer's kisses.

Green Cleaning - with a hint of Yellow

"Green" is all the rage now. Building green, driving green, etc.

I like to EAT green! I use a lot of fresh lemon juice, so there are those nice yellow rinds left over. One can eat only so much grated lemon zest.

Here's the perfect "GREEN" solution: clean the garbage disposal using the lemon rinds!
I cut up the rinds into 1-2" pieces, keep them in a little bowl on the sink. A couple times a day, several go down "George the Gobbler" to keep his gullet clean and smelling like - well, lemons!

Cleaning Green was never so easy. Or so Yellow.

Filling the Food Storage Shelves

It's no secret that Mormons are the champions of food storage - in closets, under beds, every nook and cranny - we even know how to make furniture with the uniformly-sized boxes from the Bishop's Storehouse!

Long a principle of our family stewardship, food storage is encouraged to provide not just for catastropic events, but for the increasingly common loss-of-job scenario, or for possible loss of income due to long-term illness, adult kids having to return to the nest for a bit, food becoming so expensive it's difficult to provide for outselves, etc. Just the ordinary events of our modern lives that can impact income and ability to feed the family.

We are counseled to build a deep storage of basic items such as wheat, rice, pasta, beans, augmented by sugar, oil, salt and then whatever we deem necessary for our family. A year's storage is ideal, but sometimes a more do-able goal is for a month, or three months. Whatever you can work on. The trick is - don't wait. Begin now, even if it's just buying two cans of cream of chicken soup instead of one, and tuck that extra one on the shelf.

I just taught a fun short class on starting a basic practical food storage built upon what your family eats daily. We're encouraged not to wait until the emergency to begin using our storage items, so we will know how to cook with stuff like whole wheat. You don't want to scare the children with strange food!

Recently mom and I were able to add to our stores by canning some of our chosen items. The church has home canning equipment in the form of #10 cans and the gadget to seal lids on them. Our local branch took bulk orders of goods, and brought the machine from the storehouse in Oregon City to the coast. This once-a-year project helped many of us increase our provisions.

We are grateful for our generous friends Carl and Cheryl Boucher who always offer their space to set up, fetch the hundreds of pounds of food and equipment from the storehouse, and help each of us with the canning.

Some of the goods can be purchased already canned, from the storehouse. We can buy large amounts of bulk items either from the storehouse, which has the best prices and great quality of products, or find our own sources for special items. We wanted to have Krusteaz Pancake mix, which only requires water - a good buy in large sacks at Costco. Transferred to cans, with a desiccant packet, it will keep for a lot longer. We found basmati rice for a good price in 25-pound sacks at the local Mexican market. It pays to shop around!

So now we have a number of cases, holding 6 cans each - easy to stack and store. We also have a good supply of our "everyday" type meal storage in the kitchen pantry. Our garden is providing fresh greens, peas, root veggies, onions, green beans, and with fingers crossed hopefully ripe tomatoes before long!

It's a good feeling, to know we have provided for ourselves, and our neighbors if necessary, come a time of need.

We have been taught a true principle, and see the value of it daily.

The Wisconsin Farm Family - June, 2011

They clean up good, don't they?!

From left back: Collin (14), Brent, Carrie, Than (16); from left front: Max (7), Jayden (9), Lee (12).

That's my gang! (double click on picture for a larger view - then hit "back arrow" to return to blog)

Soapy

Boy, this stuff could give Jello a run for it's money!



After setting 24 hours, the laundry soap did indeed "gel". The instructions said it would be lumpy soup-like. I don't know what I did, other than not stirring it at all, that it turned out so solid. But - it was very easy to stir with a whisk, breaking it up and making it more homogenous.

Then it was suitable for ladling into storage jugs. In the some of the jugs, I included several drops of lavender or lemon essential oil (Young Living).

Using the Lemonade jug worked well, easy to handle. But I made SURE to label it.

It does look lemonadey, eh? The white vinegar goes in the rinse. Soft, fluffy towels, and no it does not leave a vinegar odor.

So now I have borax, washing soda and Fels Naptha bars in my year storage.

And besides, it was fast (about 10 min.) and fun to make a couple month's worth of really nice, environmentally friendly laundry soap.

Give it a try!

Tiny bubbles, in the....

This probably isn't what you were expecting, after a loooooong break, which included 3 weeks with grandpunks. Should be some photos of THEM, eh? Give me a minute, here. This is cool STUFF!

Lemon pudding?? Nope. Banana Cream Pie filling? Nope.

'Tis SOAP!! Laundry soap, specifically. I'm teaching a little class on Provident Living, which involves food storage and such. I've made other kinds of soap over the years, but never tried this. So, in preparation to teach, it is best to know of which you are teaching. Works better that way. This is my "learning how" batch.

Simple ingredients. A bar of Fels Naptha Soap. Some 20 Mule Team Borax. And some Arm & Hammer Washing Soda.

Grate the bar of soap, melt it in 12 cups of hot water over medium heat. Then stir in 1 1/2 cups EACH of the borax and washing soda. Pour 8 cups HOT tap water into a clean (of course!) 5-gallon bucket, then stir in the soapy mix. Add another 2 gallons of hot water to the bucket, give it a stir, and let set for about 24 hours. Stir it once in awhile if you just can't stand leaving it alone...

Oooooooo.

Yikes. Looks like cat pee. It will semi-gel by tomorrow. Then I get to try it out. I think I'll add some lemon or lavender essential oil to it, just for kicks and giggles. It just smells "cleanish" right now, like good soap usually does.

Report will follow. Soon. Promise. With pictures of the punks.