Chapter Three

It was a very domestic Cat weekend! On Friday I played Hostess with the Mostess and had Jen and Ariel over for dinner. We had mojitos, cornbread, four bean salad, teriyaki beef and chicken kabobs, and ice cream from the ice cream truck for dessert.

Saturday Ryan and I went for a drive in the country, in particular, the area of the country that's close to his work and a prime candidate for our next house. More and more I'm thinking that I would like to settle down in this area and will take whatever job is nearby rather than searching far and wide for jobs prior to relocating. Moreover, it seems that we would be able to afford a nice house with 2-5 acres of garden/farm space. Ryan's commute would be the same distance but less trafficky than it is now. The roads would be perfect for Ryan's biking, and I'd probably join him sometimes since the main reason I don't now is the traffic and crazy drivers. Plus it's only a little bit out in the country, so there's still a CVS, Walgreens, Shoprite, and Superfresh within 15 minutes. We are thinking that we want to pay off the mortgage here first, though. I think we could do it in five years without much change in lifestyle, possibly four years if we really put our minds to it.

Where was I? Oh, we went for a drive in the country. The main point of the drive was to go blueberry picking. NJ is the source for most of the east coast's blueberries. They are only $1.60/lb to U-pick, and of course I'm itching for more farming, so it was a perfect way to spend a Caturday morning.

It's me!

It's Ryan! This picture really shows off how loaded with berries the bushes were. Hopefully my future blueberry bushes will be just as successful. I asked the lady working the place if she knew how old the bushes were...she said from the 1950's! Ideally mine would live as long but still produce plenty of berries in their younger years.

5.5 lbs of blueberries.

Blueberry cobbler, using Ryan's grandma's recipe. NOM! That used 8 cups of berries.

Sunday, with another 8 cups of berries, I performed my first canning ever! Canning is fairly particular since you have to follow instructions precisely in order to not get botulism. It was quite stressful, with me not used to the routine and all the boiling liquids, so Ryan helped a lot. My jars formed a an airtight seal, though, so I think we're good. These are blueberry syrup. I got the idea because we had waffles the other morning and I used the liquid from the bottom of the cobbler as syrup. Very tasty. So I looked up an actual recipe for canned blueberry syrup and followed that. Now we can enjoy New Jersey farm goodness in the middle of winter.

There's still one cup of berries left, so tonight I'll be making blueberry muffins. Then tomorrow morning I go back to Maine :( But Ryan will be coming up after about a week for his vacation.

There are a few noticeable changes in the garden since last week:

First honeydew melon of the year! It's kind of flat on one side. Sometimes that means that only part of the flower was pollinated, so not all the seeds were fertilized and the unfertilized part of the fruit doesn't develop as large as the rest. We'll see...well, Ryan will, because I'll be away :(

Potatoes have sprouted en masse. These are the "Yellow Finn" variety, which are supposed to be similar to Yukon Gold. In the back you can see I ordered more seed potatoes than we had room for, so I'm growing some in old Tidy Cat buckets. You plant them with the bucket half full, let them sprout a bit, then fill the bucket to the top. That elongates the underground stem from which they put out the new potatoes, increasing the yield dramatically.

On the left, a Yellow Finn sprout. On the right, a Mountain Rose potato sprout. They have pink skin and flesh, and apparently pink tinges on the leaves, too! Hmm, come to think of it the inner parts of the Yellow Finn leaves DO look kinda yellow...