Grass and Garden Report, Saturday, August 27,2011

I've been going to physical therapy for the sprained right knee the last two weeks. The folks down at Elite are really great and are pushing to get me back on my feet and doing what I can with the twin knee noise makers "Snap" and "Pop." Add the new medication the orthopedist prescribed for the arthritic affliction and I was beginning to feel nearly normal again. (Well, as normal as I can be with these damn knees.)

As I stood out on the deck, I looked at the blossoming weeds and clover in a lawn grown high enough to hide my shoes when I go forth to pluck onions from the ground and cherry tomatoes from the one plant we've still got. The white flowers of the clover and the yellow flowers of one of the pea family looked pretty but they had to go. I last cut the grass somewhere around August 1 and it really needed to be done. I also hadn't had any exercise since August 5 when I sprained my knee.

Sooooo...I gassed up Mr. Craftsman and, along with Misters Briggs and Stratton went for a walk. A long, slow, somewhat painful walk. The grass was so high that even waiting until this afternoon didn't give it time enough to dry completely. It was so tall that I couldn't just let the mower mulch it back into the lawn. It was so tall that a side discharge, while possible, would have left rows and rows of clippings to be raked up. So I used the bag grass catcher instead. And the grass was so tall that the bag had to be emptied after about 50 feet of mowing. So I would start the mower. Push the mower 50 feet. Stop the mower. Empty the bag. Start the mower. Push the mower 50 feet. Stop the mower. Empty the bag. Over and over. I've now got a nicely cut lawn and a freakin' huge heap of grass clippings.

And sore knees.

I soaked them (and the rest of my sorry hide) in a nice hot bath when I finished and that helped a bit. I'm glad I don't have to do it again right away.

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Tomorrow I tackle the bushel of tomatoes Terry brought home from the market yesterday. I'll wash, boil, mash, simmer to the proper thickness, and can them for home made spaghetti sauce this winter. Terry also got some sausage and will whip up some spaghetti sauce to freeze--if she can find room in the freezer. There's a heap of string beans and zucchini bread in there at the moment.

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Speaking of string beans and zucchini...The darn plants do NOT know when to quit!. Terry's been getting a quart or more of string beans ever other day. And they are still flowering!

Zucchini have been super prolific also. Every two days there's another three or four coming into the house. Terry's been hunting up zucchini recipes to use up what we're getting as we get it, but the zucchini are winning. There are six eight on the counter as I type. I hate to admit that I'm enjoying some of the things Terry has been doing with the zucchini, but I am. I will, however, say no to the recipe for zucchini cobbler. Muffins are okay. I figure they're just miniature zucchini breads. But cobbler? Seriously?

And a slew of cucumbers waiting to be turned in to pickles. There's about a peck of cukes waiting pickling. And suddenly, after looking like hell all summer, those plants are starting to produce in abundance.

We're both about ready to pull up the bean and zucchini plants and call it a season. It's like catching walleye for the table. You wait and fish with anticipation for that first nice 18" walleye and feel great when you get it into the boat. The next 10 or 12 are great too. But that 100th fish...Okay. bad example that 100th walleye would be just as great as the first...even if you were allowed to keep them all and still had to clean 'em. You can NEVER have too many walleye filets in the freezer. NEVER!

Aerie Report, August, 11, 2011

Stuffed zucchini, zucchini casserole, zucchini ravioli, zucchini bread, grilled zucchini.... One of the things I've yet to gauge properly is the number of zucchini plants needed to adequately supply a family of two. Terry has been producing a zucchini dish every day trying to stay ahead of the prolific plants. In addition, she's stashed somewhere around 30 loaves of zucchini bread and an equal supply of shredded zucchini in the freezer.

Talking it over with Joe (who also has a bumper crop of zucchini) we figured one of the things that has thrown us for a lop is the lack of any vine borers. Back in New Jersey, every one of our plants would be long dead or nearly so due to the squash vine boring beetles. It wouldn't matter if we grew vine varieties or bush varieties, the beetle would get them. In four years, I've yet to see any borer damage to my zucchini. And from observations made while driving along and looking at the healthy plants others have in their gardens, I'm beginning to doubt there are any vine borer beetles in the area. Which, I would like to stress, is a good thing.

Should anyone attack the Aerie, I figure we can stack frozen zucchini bread in the window spaces like sand bags. (And we've a lot of window space!) The eight inch thick logs will do pretty well on their own. Alternatively, if I had a trebuchet, I've already got plenty of ammo.

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We've been pulling up some onions as the tops die back. There's a stack of mostly white sweet onions between golf ball and baseball sized drying on the covered porch. A few of the red Spanish onions have been plucked. The ones I started from plants are still growing strong. Their tops erect, firm and green. They may be among the last things harvested this fall.

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The freezer is now chock full. What with the zucchini products, string beans, blueberries. Meat will be our next purchase...IF we have room and IF I do not score during the hunting season. The halibut from Homer, Alaska is almost gone and the beef is pretty low. (Venison has been gone for a l-o-n-g time.)

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Got a call this afternoon from the doctor's office. The MRI showed no tears or cartilage which is good. It did confirm a calcification of the soft tissues at the top of the patella. They want to send me to an orthopedist for an exam and consultation. They said they would make the arrangements and get back to me as to when the appointment would be.

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The weather has been simply gorgeous if you ignore the 30 minutes of rain showers that come sweeping through now and then. Yesterday we had two or three of those showers. Last night and today, none. Last night it dropped into the upper 50s. Today it was a breezy (mostly) clear 75 degrees. Tonight it may dip down into the 40s.

Lovely weather and I'm here sitting up on blocks with one injured knee and one that's having pangs of empathy. (Or maybe it's just wondering why IT didn't get the MRI treatment two years ago? Is it because it's the left knee it got ignored? Do I like my right knee better?)

The Zucchini Verdict

Joe's zucchini bread recipe produced a bread that's denser, a little drier, less sweet, and less spicy. Not surprising since it contains less oil, sugar and cinnamon but more flour and zucchini. More of a bread than a cake like Terry's. Still, it' s quite good as a light snack or breakfast with a cup of coffee or tea. A schmeer of cream cheese would improve the flavor. (In contrast, Terry's bread requires a glass of cold milk and a napkin to wipe your fingers from the oil. Not that that's a bad thing!)

I give Joe's 4-1/2 stars to Terry's 5 stars. Then again, Terry's is what I'm used to. (And I have to live with her.)

Zucchini Bread

Terry tried out a new recipe for zucchini bread this morning. She got it from her cousin Joe as we were picking blueberries on Monday. His recipe calls for two cups of shredded zuke for every loaf instead of just one cup as per Terry's recipe. (I think she's trying to use up the zukes without filling up the freezer with too many bricks of bread.) She mixed up a batch this morning and ended up with three loaves instead of two. (She said she didn't want to fill the pans to the brim afraid that they might rise too much and run over.) There's some ginger and lemon zest in these that Terry normally doesn't use. There's also about half the cinnamon. They cooked faster than Joe said they would (probably because of the under-filling of the pans) but look great. The taste test will come later today.

Zucchini breads cooling on the rack.

I've said it before: Zucchini bread is like manna from heaven. It's difficult to imagine how much is too much. (At least until you start adding up the cost of flour, sugar, cinnamon, etc.)

Zucchini Invasion

Yesterday was a beautiful day with clear sunny skies and humidity down around 50%. The temperature itself never got much above 75 degrees and the breeze blowing up the hill from 9 AM until around 7 PM made things incredibly comfortable. As a result we did damn little around the Aerie yesterday.

Terry cooked up a nice zucchini and yellow squash casserole to go with some boneless chicken breast. While it was delicious, it was also an act of self defense. She had picked up the yellow squash at the "free" corner I mentioned a couple days ago but the zucchini are all coming from the eight plants I put out this spring.

Please understand that when we lived in New Jersey, I would put out eight or ten zucchini VINES and the VINE borers would attack them and we would get all of five or six zucchini squash if we were lucky. The plants I purchased at Agway were BUSH zucchini--a variety I had no experience with. Apparently BUSH zucchini are impervious to the VINE borer. Heck one has even survived having a bear sit upon it.

Anyway, I bought this little four pack of baby zucchini. Each cell contained two tiny little plants having just their paired seed leaves. They looked so cute and fragile. So fragile in fact, that I did not even separate the plants from the first two cells and simply placed each cell 18 inches from the other in the soil of the raised bed in front of the cabin where they would get lots and lots of sunlight. The other two cells I did manage to separate the plants and put them in the raised bed near the bird feeders where they don't get quite as much sunlight but there's more organic material in the soil.

Well, let me tell you! Those cute little plants have grown and grown and grown! They have produced one huge orange-yellow flower after another. Now some of those flowers are males and stand upright and proud on a thin little stalk. After a day or so, they wilt and fall off. The other flowers, not quite so large and deeper down beneath the huge plant leaves are the female flowers. They are to be found on the ends of short, thick stalks that will become zucchini squash if all goes according to plan.

Hooo-weee! Something went according to plan. Not long after I brought home those four zucchini from the neighbors to be made into a dozen zucchini breads, OUR plants started to produce. We have had zucchini oiled and spiced up on the grill, zucchini slaw, and now zucchini casserole. And still they are stacked up on the counter llike cord wood.



Or perhaps it's more like bombs on the flight deck of a WWII aircraft carrier. This could be an invasion!



There are currently 13 squash in the stack right now and that is after using 3 yesterday in the casserole. Terry says there will be 4 or 5 ready to harvest this afternoon. She has purchased more vanilla, sugar and flour. There's still some room in the freezer. I can see zucchini bread becoming a regular at the Audubon Society meetings and the Embroidery Arts Guild meetings (6 meetings a month). After all, I'll need room in the freezer when I get my deer---or two.