Zucchini & Green Fried Tomatoes

There are so many jokes about zucchini, I happen to love it and eat it year around. It is great sauteed for breakfast with a couple of scrambled eggs cooked into it. I add a little salt and pepper and some goat cheese. And of course there is the zucchini bread, the zucchini cheese casserole that my mother used to make, and zucchini pickles. I also have fried up green tomatoes at the end of the season. I don't recall that I liked them much. Sort of tart.

I also like to cook zucchini and tomatoes with chicken; on the stove top I saute chicken legs or thighs with rounds of summer squash, sliced onions, and tomatoes. By the time the chicken is cooked through the vegetables have taken on the delicious flavor of onion and meat. Add a little basil for an Italian twist. Very tasty. For more recipes see The Classic Zucchini Cookbook

Yesterday at the garden I talked to my neighbor and she told me about zucchini pancakes. They are a mix of grated zucchini, onions, eggs, salt and pepper, and flour. These can be fried up and put in the freezer. Then year around you can enjoy them. I would try making them with rice flour or with spelt, as I am gluten intolerant. My mother used to make potato pancakes with leftover mashed potatoes. I bet one could mix eggs, leftover mashed potatoes and grated zucchini and fry it in pancakes. Yum. Well obviously I'll need to make breakfast soon, as I'm pretty hungry despite my upset stomach.

Now for the garden of my life news: I'll be moving my furniture this weekend from my ex's house, a.k.a. my house. So after tomorrow I won't post until Saturday late or Sunday morning. I have a sick feeling in my stomach from all of this, a feeling that reminds me of my last divorce, how sick I became and stayed for a long time after we split the sheets. This one is more devastating in some ways, since our lives were very invested in each others emotionally, financially, and career wise.

I'm working now on trusting the universe, that everything is in right order, that everything is in place to take me to my next stage in life. Why not let go? I think I've discussed this before—well, how does it work? I mean, it isn't something that is physical, like taking the trash out, it is actually a mental and emotional process. Perhaps the why is because I'm so afraid. People say I'm the bravest person they know. Well you know that bravery is just doing things despite the fear. So off I go, moving through the next step, feeling like I'm getting ready to have a surgical procedure without being put under.

Wish me luck,

Flower

Deer me!

Well, the deer have really been at it, even biting off limbs of my Green Zebra Tomato plant, which was doing pretty well. Now it is pruned quite significantly. Since it is nearly the end of July, perhaps it won't matter. We don't have that much more tomato growing season here in the PNW.

The garden was beautiful yesterday evening, and I have many finger-sized zucchini on the vine. The lettuce and spinach and chard doing well. I planted the broccoli-raab and some parsley. I weeded a bit and finally found my trowel. Another gardener said, nothing gets stolen here, just ends up in someone else's garden. So there is was, just a bit of the blade picking up the evening light. I'd just hung up a sign for whomever had it to return it. How it got back in my garden, mostly buried, I don't know.

One thing I noticed yesterday that I hadn't before, is the abundance of plums on the plum trees edging the garden. There will be a good crop, perhaps enough to dry some. I have a dryer, a five-stacked layers of black plastic trays with a little heater fan at the bottom. I've dried a lot of cherries and tomatoes and pears and peaches on the thing. The house always smells so sweet and fruity when I prepare the crop this way. It's been years since I did it, so it will be interesting to have a go at it.

Today the grandbaby comes. He has a little cold so we may not get to the garden. We're still going for our morning walk, and perhaps we'll see the train. He has a love/hate relationship with it, as I do. It wakes me several times every night. For him, it's how loud the whistle is. It passes while we're on the board walk that meanders over Bellingham Bay. We're quite lucky here in Bellingham to have so many trails. I'll be going to one this Saturday with a kind man I've met. He isn't a love interest, as my heart isn't ready for that, but he's made a good companion the few times I've spent with him.

All for now. Happy Gardening,

Flower

Thunder & Lightning

I dropped by the garden yesterday and while I was watering the tomatoes, the wind came up. In the distance I heard the rumble and could see the cumulus tops of the anvil clouds building just past a patch of thickening clouds. The tops were catching the setting sun and had turned pink. I felt so charged up—like a pacing animal, buy the wind and electricity. And later after I got home, more thunder and then a brilliant light show--flashes of lighting forking out, reaching across the dark night sky. Wow, it was fabulous.

My mother always told me to never leave the windows open during a thunder storm. There is a possibility of lighting coming in an open window. She also said that a ball of lightning rolled through her house once when she was a child growing up in Virginia. Now that would scare the pageebeew out of me and I'm guessing it did her, since she was so afraid of storms. The windows all slammed shut as soon as the wind started; I swear she sat in a corner holding her head.

Anyway, out over the Grangeville prairie along the Clearwater river, a big storm came through when I was a fire tower attendant in the 70s. It pounded the prairie with bolts of lightning and continued moving toward us, up the mountains toward the Corral Hill. I was frightened. The forest was catching fire with each strike and flames were blocking our exit route. Then as it started to pour and it poured all night. All the fires were put out.

A guy got struck in that storm. He came to see us on the tower later, when he'd recovered some. He said he felt like he'd been beaten up in a bar fight. Huh, guess cowboys know that kind of thing. He was walking along a fence line when the strike came up from beneath the ground. I still don't understand how it works; it's a si-fi kind of thing and I like it.

As for the garden, Mike had dug up an area within my plot for beets and it looked better than the rest of the plot. The woman next door was watering and when I said, doesn't it look great, she looked at me and nodded reluctantly. Really, I must get some manure on this garden. I know that will improve the look of my puny plants.

Ciao!

Spinach and the Space-Time Continuium

Hey, hey, hey--the sun is out. I spent a couple of hours over there today, and I feel great. I planted spinach and kale. I'm keeping with the cool weather crops because it's supposed to cool down again after today. I think this might be the summer that wasn't. People are calling it Junuary--ha, ha. We've had other summers that have remained cool and rainy all summer--but I think this one is record cool so far.

Now for the space-time continuium. We're always traveling in time, to the past, to the furture. It is rare that we stay in the moment. This is one of the things I've been practicing, staying in the moment, for some time--and the garden teaches this. I think it does because it is closeup and immediate. In writing the immediacy of the scene keeps the reader present and focused. In life, we daydream about what could be or what has been, we skip around in time a great deal. If all our experiences are piled up like a shish-kabob, then perhaps we can time travel and at the same time be present. I'm experimenting with this theroy.

Now for Findhorn--I went to the site to sign up, and things got a little confusing. I'll go back adn look again, see what I did wrong in the sign-in process. I have had two friends who've visited Findhorn, and I'm so interested in that place. So when I know more, I'll let you know. As for nature spirts, I only saw the one in the photo.

Ciao!