Interesting! Hadn’t tried that. I’ve used hot lemonade for years, but this sounds better.

We made ours with a “steam juicer” – which works beautifully. (Bushes currantly not producing.)

I have to thank you all for the inspiring updates. I think I do a lot more around here than what I list. It just seems like part of life but it’s all work in the right direction isn’t it?

Thanks!

Blackcurrant juice is lovely hot in the winter when my throat is raw. Mmmmmmmmm.

Picked garden huckleberries and ate them. Nice. Sheet-mulched and planted corn, which hasn’t come up, and onions, which died.
Knitted the start of a scarf on my knitting loom.
Living without a car for a while. Yay Rioters!
It’s nice to get something done.

Plant: bok choy, two varieties of lettuce, kale, two varieties of large radishes for storing, arugula, tatsoi, a mustard green, dill, and cilantro. Moved extra pumpkin, butternut squash, and beet seedlings into holes in their respective plots.

Harvest: cabbage, collards, turnips and turnip greens, parsley, cutting celery, mustard greens, calendula and nasturtium flowers, a couple cherry tomatoes

Preserve: yet more calendula flowers, by drying (I’ve never had calendula last this long into the summer). Locally-grown cabbage, by making it into sauerkraut.

Waste not: rescued illegally-dumped windows that the guilty party put into the yard-waste dumpster in the next-door neighbor’s driveway (we didn’t report him because we removed the evidence). Otherwise the usual efforts.

Prep/want not: after thoroughly researching and working on the design for glassing-in the south-facing front porch, I learned that if instead we replaced the current porch roof with a retractable awning, we’d get as much solar heating from the existing windows and door as we would from a glassed-in porch, plus by extending the awning in summer, we’d avoid getting heat into the windows and door through the summer. So that’s the new plan.

Community food systems: nothing this week.

Eat the food: had two dinner parties this past week including foods out of our garden, such as coleslaw made from the cabbage, stir-fried greens made from the outer leaves of the cabbage, miso soup including the shiitake mushrooms my DH grew, and the peach wine we made last year from our friend’s peach crop.

Harvested: cucumbers, a few peppers and finally our first tomato!

Been eating locally as much as possible, primarily via CSA.

Mainly been working on loose end projects around the house to prepare for sale. Looking at land in the country to purchase. It’s a bit overwhelming, especially trying to figure out how much we need and evaluating the “quality” of the land.

Still conserving as much energy as possible. We only have electricity and I’ve been keeping detailed records for over a year now. We’ve been able to run the A/C for only an hour or so before bedtime and it’s maintained a comfortable temperature throughout the night and following day (opening windows whenever possible). It’s driving me CRAZY listening to all the A/C compressors constantly going off throughout the neighborhood when the temperatures have been in the low-mid 70′s and often upper 60′s!!! ARRRGH!

I’m a teetotaler, by physiology, and it’s always a little awkward sharing toasts at celebrations with my friends who have lovely wines in their glasses. And I have- water, or cran-apple, or coffee.

I discovered “Johannisbeeresaft” in Germany decades ago- “swarz, weiss, oder rot?”

Blackcurrant juice is an R rated beverage- (you’ll probably have to dilute it to make it drinkable) beautiful accompaniment to a fine dinner, and when you toast with it; it feels right.

Sharon

Tough week for us-lost almost all our chickens and all the rabbits to stray dogs. I have more coming along (chickens anyway), but eggs will be far and few until they are old enough to lay.

Otherwise, it was a productive harvest and preserve week!

Love reading all the updates and, as always, get so many ideas!