Greenstorm's Journal

Did a canner batch of "beef stew" (healthy canning) with half a bottle of jerk seasoning instead of the recommended spices, slightly less potatoes and carrots than recommended, and no onions. Used a little salt, and better than bouillon instead of stock. 2.5kg pork (plus 1kg onion and potato) make a full canner.

Did a second canner batch of "pot roast in a jar" (healthy canning) using my gooseberry wine instead of the recommended white wine, and using one bay leaf per 500ml jar (these are the bayleaves Josh brought me from my mom's tree). I used only one onion for 4kg of pork, and put in 2tbsp of onion powder and 2tbsp of onion powder for the batch, and that's it for alterations. I like the proportions on this one.

Definitely like raw pack better than the "boil first" ones for ease of use.

Edited to add: "pot roast in a jar" was a little too salty, I'll want to eat those jars over mashed potatoes or noodles and reduce the salt for next time.

Canned a box of tomatoes today, roughly 17lbs or so after bad bits were cut out (they'd been waiting for Josh to leave so I could give them attention).

Popped them in the oven in the biggest pot for a day on 300ish, strained them through the chinois to get a (thinner than I like) sauce, added some finely processed jalapenos, hot peppers, and celery as per the minnesota mix recipe on healthy canning (omitted onion, added a touch more pepper) and cooked with a couple bay leaves in there for about an hour. Canned with citric acid as per the recipe, water bath 40 mins for 500ml jars. It it definitely on the spicy side for tomato sauce, but isn't anywhere near condiment spicy, so should be perfect. Maybe I wish I'd put a touch of garlic in instead of the onion, or dried garlic powder. I guess I can do that on the far side.

15 jars.

Makes for a lateish night though.

Need to figure out what I'm doing with the rest of the peppers, they can't all go in sauerkraut.

I made garden signs for all my roses and gooseberries. Soon will do cherries and haskaps and apples, at least the ones I know the names of. These are signpost-style, with a stake and painted sign screwed to it. My plastic tags were not holding their marks, I guess sharpies have been reformulated, and so I lost some names that way. I lost some other names because crows and geese like the tags. So, wooden signs seem both practical in an enduring way and kind of charming. Now if only I had pretty painting handwriting, but I was not turning this into a stenciling project.

I found two more squash out there that looked pretty ripe, hiding among the weeds where they were sheltered from frost.

Josh helped me find a dairy crate full of relatively ripe cascade ruby gold cobs, so I'm calling that more of a success than I earlier anticipated. We'll be looking through the painted mountain today. The plants were definitely frost-nipped but I don't think the cobs themselves were harmed.

It's neat to be out in the corn and hear that dry, rustling noise of the leaves. Humans have been listening to that sound for many thousands of years as they bring in the harvest.

I've done a bunch of mixed pickles as documented on my preserving site, urbandryad on dreamwidth (I just keep recipes there). Basically I've done a couple gallons with my zesty brine at half strength for salt and sugar, a couple gallons with a lightly sweet brine, and I'll do a couple gallons with a salt-only brine. all have bay leaves and pepper, I forgot the garlic in the lightly sweet ones. Oops. The veg mix was largely brought up from the big farm on Josh's way from the city, it's more-or-less 1 part cauliflower, 1 part carrot, 1 part green beans, 1 part hot peppers, 1/4 part celery. The goal is a moderately hot pickle mix to eat with charcuterie, everything bite-sized.

Meanwhile Black Chunk (who has still not got a better name) had 8 piglets, and she's doing well with them. Lotta piglets this fall it seems. Ugh I guess I need to castrate, better do that while Josh is here. I will probably miss Tucker's calming presence for it.

A chicken in the bottom chicken run got huge adobe balls on her claws, they must have accumulated through iterations of mud (the ducks splash by the water a lot), dust (everywhere else in the run, it's been a dry summer), and straw/wood shavings from inside the coop. It took Josh and I roughly 3 hours to soak them (did nothing), chip away at the very edges with pliers delicately so as not to hurt wherever her toes were in the balls, and then finally pry the last bits off. I do not know why she got it and no others did. Her toes inside the balls were fine, though she did lose a fingernail by getting loose enough to shake her foot when we were part done and... you know, just don't think about it too hard, let's just say it was another weird and uncomfortable farming moment. She's good now, I gave her a penicillin shot for the one raw bit of the toe where the mud was rubbing and the toenail, I figured her body could use the help, and put her back in with everyone. She's lifting her feet ridiculously high as if trying to compensate for the weight that is no longer there, but is walking and perching just fine. Poor girl. Also I'm much less suspicious of cobb houses now, my goodness that stuff was durable. Clay soil, wow does it behave in unexpected ways sometimes.

Meanwhile I am going to keep one of the americauna roosters from my friend in town, and give another to a friend who has a couple hens and wants to let them hatch out more chickens in spring. That means 7 going into the soup pot this week, which is manageable. I've had the propane ring on the deck and that makes canning a lot more comfortable given the humidity situation in here, not sure if I'll can the roosters immediately or freeze them a bit but I'm more likely to can them now.

Asparagus planted. Daffodills, chiondoxia & relateds, and muscari ordered. These are all supposed to be vole-resistant, we'll see how it goes.

So the trial is mostly done, we had our first frost on the 15th. Things went out mostly June 10th and were planted indoors March 7th. I brought in a ton of green tomatoes. The early indeterminates Cabot, Cole, Minsk Early, Mikado Black and Katja and Taiga made up a huge % of the harvest, especially of the harvest-when-ripe-or-nearly-ripe. Leaving a fruit on the plant when it was transplanted really did slow the plant down until that fruit was ripe.

Tomatoes and notes:

Alexander B: ripened one fruit, brought in a couple more green ones, not productive.

Ambrosia Red: fairly prolific, some splitting, ripened late Aug. Grow again to test against another red cherry.

Big hill (lofthouse): several big beefsteak type tomatoes that didn't fully ripen. Brought them indoors to ripen but probably not worth growing again.

Bloody butcher: big vines, early (one of the earliest) with a gap before ripening a bunch more, medium prolific. Sprawling is annoying. Will grow again in indeterminate patch.

Cabot: one of the mid-august producers, slightly less prolific than Minsk Early but not too bad, fairly uniform fruit, not a bad flavour. Grow again against the early reliables.

Carbon: I wasn't expecting to get anything from this and found one ripe-rotten fruit under the plant in mid-Sept and several other green-ripe fruit. Oh well.

Cole: one of the mid-August producers, pretty prolific, reasonably tasty. Grow again against the early reliables.

Cherokee chocolate: big sprawly vine, nothing ripened before frost, reasonably prolific but really takes over.

Czech bush: had some of the very first fruits but didn't ripen any past that before mid-Sept.

Exserted orange: not a heavy producer but somewhat reliable, tasty fruit, early. Grow again. Also probably has some nice crossed fruits in the saved seed.

Galina: didn't start ripening until late August but very tasty yellow cherry. Reasonably productive, probably the most productive cherry. Grow again.

Glacier: another mid-august/early producer but very erratically sized fruit and not much for production. Try a couple again against the early reliables.

Gobstopper: didn't ripen before frost.

JD's special c-tex: didn't ripen before frost.

Jory: some big tomatoes just starting to whiten/blush before frost, prone to blossom end rot.

Karma miracle: started to ripen early Sept, lots of fruit that should ripen indoors so very late for a normal year but sweet and tasty. Hard to see if fruit was ripe. Grow again.

Katja: didn't do much to start, but pumped out a lot of very large slicers that ripen mid-Sept; prolific and tasty enough to try again, may need to ripen indoors on cold years. Definitely do again. Most fruits ripened indoors by Sept 18th.

Kiss the sky: one ripened and tasted amazing, kind of purple/brown/black? Not prolific. Try again for fun.

Lime green salad: Just starting to ripen in mid-Sept this year, compact dwarf plant, prolific for the space it takes up. Try again.

Longhorn: didn't ripen, made a fair amount of fruit that I brought indoors to ripen here. Not worth trying again just for season length constraints.

Manitoba: didn't ripen but lots of big green fruit that will ripen indoors. Neat looking calyx. Mediumish high productive. Grow again in the early indeterminates just to check.

Martino's roma: just starting to turn red in mid-Sept, haven't tasted it yet, maybe try again but it's probably not a keeper.

Maya and Sion's airdrie special: earliest beefsteaks but kind of shut down after that, I was impressed with this last year but barely got anything this year. Maybe try again? Compact indeterminate.

Mikado black: early (late Aug), beautiful, tasty, plant so many of these next year.

Minsk early: productive, early (early Aug), not the greatest taste but ok. Plant lots of these.

Native sun: started ripening early to mid Sept but has done better in the past, was mild then. A fair quantity of fruit to ripen indoors. Try again.

Northern ruby paste: pretty productive but not ripened by frost, brought indoors to ripen. Try again next year.

Old italian pink: a fair number of green fruit on the patio. I just like this one and want it to work but it didn't ripen anything before frost.

Ron's carbon copy: ripened a handful of cherry tomatoes but they were really good. Probably sad to discard or for breeding work? Looked like it would have been more prolific with just a little more time. I did bring in a bunch to ripen and there were some just turning. Try again next year.

Silvery fir tree: big producer, started ripening early Sept but the bulk is coming in green in mid-Sept. I'll always grow this one. It's just pretty.

Sugary pounder: huge tomatoes, didn't ripen by Sept 15 but may ripen indoors.

Stupice: fairly compact indeterminate plant produced a couple clusters of ripe/blushing/white fruit before frost even when planted late. Grow again with indeterminates.

Taiga: ripened or near-ripened 5 big hearts per plant, grow again, tasty and not super productive but relatively compact and very early for a gorgeous bicolour. Definite grow-again.

Store green cherry: we know I love this tomato. A little sprawly, crunchy, sweet-but-good, ripened a bunch fairly early on (mid-late Aug?). Will continue to grow.

Sweet apertif: it ripened some, it's tasty, but it's not prolific. A little sprawly.

Sweet cheriette: not as early as I thought unless it was in a pot indoors, but prolific and very good for patio growing. Fairly determinate indoors. Will grow to the size of container. Tasty. Very small fruit.

Alpharora: didn't ripen but did blush before frost, was planted late, set a couple fruit. Part of the citizen seed trial project.

Uralskiy ranniy: this one may have got mixed up with some others, I think it ripened some. Grow again.

Van Wert Ohio: super bushy, just very lush indeterminate bush of tons of foliage. Started to ripen by frost, not tasted yet. Grow again. It just has so many more leaves than other tomato plants.

Violet noir: I didn't have a sign for this one, did I even plant it?

Wildling polyamorous needs its own post.

Siberian: This ripened well and set lots of fruit but is a bit sprawly indeterminate. Grow again.

Rozovaya bella: first black to ripen, had a ton of weird crazing/russetting on the surface, not sure what's up with that? Waiting on the second flush for serious tasting. I liked this a lot last year and it ripened so it's in for next year.

I love that feeling when a hobby circles around and feeds into another hobby.

F'rinstance, farming --> excess produce --> preserving --> booze --> distilled stuff
farming --> fertility and weed control --> extra eggs --> preserving

distilled stuff + eggs = advocaat and aged eggnog

It just feels good

We've had a thaw here: huge full moon over halloween and up to 11C or so, brely dropping overnight. The snow is gone, the water atop slush is gone. Mars (?) has been bright in the sky lately whenever I look.

The BC election has come and gone. The NDP, a labour/traditionally left but becoming centre as society catches up party, got I think their first ever back-to-back governments, and turned a minority government into majority. The greens kept their 3 seats. It's cautiously hopeful.

And tomorrow is election night in the US. For future reference, this is for Trump's second term. Things feel like a powder keg: there will be a very slow return of all the votes because many people mailed or voted early with covid, neither side -- because there's nothing in the US right now that doesn't feel like it has only two diametrically opposed sides -- trust that it will be a fair election. So for those to whom the country isn't already an irrelevant sideshow there is tension, and a waiting breath.

Tomorrow Tucker and I will spend the evening together, doing little projects and trying to keep distracted. Benefit of living in Pacific time is that if there's something to be known by end of day we'll know it before sleep.

Things I can do:

Tidy the plant shelf and start microgreens for winter, I miss eating green things.
Jar up the sauerkraut and the jalapeno carrot pickles and either find room in the fridge and/or pasteurize some of them.
Make another big batch of italian sausage, and maybe a batch of bangers, and freeze or can. I pretty much take all my sausage out of casings anyhow, so I might as well not bother to put them in.
Brush a dog or two.
Make a super old-school boiled pudding with lard instead of suet, is this doable?
Bottle booze.
Sex.
Yoga.

Meanwhile the antidepressants are working well, bringing me definite hope that I have the capability to be happy. The last two days weren't the best but I am going into the worst part of my cycle. The side-effects so far are pretty tolerable: very occasional ringing in my ears that is banished by a change in background sound, a little bit of digestive upset, sleep is a little more fragile than it was but still possible to get with a little more care. And the benefits, well. I brushed the dogs today and we cuddled. Just... something I do because we both enjoy it, not because it's a chore. That's good.

I also spent a bunch of the day reading through the whole Franklin Veaux relationship harm thing. It came up, and last time I paid attention there wasn't such a well-curated site about it. I appreciate reading a range of perspectives on how folks are impacted by various behaviours, and using that to consider my own behaviour and my own boundaries. I feel so so far removed from any poly groups or poly community now, and to be honest I met some neat people in those communities but I don't think I could stomach them now. Poly itself has diversified so much from those days, too; I think there's a set of relationship standards and skills that I share with a bunch of folks who may or not be under the poly umbrella. So it brings back echoes that I'm well away from, but also gives me a bit of a playground to see folks' relationship stuff. And I do like seeing folks' relationship stuff.

A couple more days before we freeze again. It'll be a rough freeze: everything is wet and muddy right no and I think we're supposed to have a sharp drop to -14. Better get everyone tucked away in good deep straw.

I am so curious about what tomorrow brings. Fingers crossed.

Got another round of straw picked up, though it was raining so it's likely somewhat damp. These things happen. We're going into freeze soon so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Also got sauerkraut into the crock, which always is a nice ritual. I also taught mom to make sauerkraut, including wrapping a leaf over the top of the shreds to hold them down and puncturing it to let gasses through, so she has her own jar to take home.

Now I have a bunch of cabbage, some pears, some apples, and some tomatoes left to do.

The temperature has dropped enough that the woodstove is more comfortable to run, though it still needs to be intermittent. The humidity is dropping down again; normally we get dry summers but this summer it never stopped raining and it never got dry anywhere. It'll be nice to have things dry out.

We've been having a lot of cold drizzle lately, which is not my favourite.

The work line finally called me to schedule a counseling appointment in a couple weeks, so that's good. It feels nice to be remembered and not left.

I've been having intimacy dreams about folks I care about, and thinking a little about dating. My current constellation has involved physical and some domestic/support intimacy with Tucker, but not a lot of back-and-forth discussion about plans or feelings which is a pretty rare thing for me. I'd been talking with Josh a bunch for that aspect, but he's been pretty busy lately and he's also just pretty far away.

I'd been going to meet-ups with some of my former co-workers: we'd get together on the deck for "coffee" (I always bring my own tea) and chat on Saturday mornings. It's been really good, but I missed one for covid self-isolation while waiting my test results and a second for straw pick-up. That helps, I like those people and enjoy the conversations, but I don't fully fully trust them in the way that I could say anything.

Someone recently started a queer BC outdoorspeople group. It has potential. I am super uncomfortable with the term queer, but that's not really the issue with the group. The issue is that northern BC is really, really big with few people in it so getting enough folks in the group to have nearby co-campers or whatever seems difficult. On the other hand, I bet it's the kind of group that could have some camping meetups and those are easier to travel to than day trips.

I've been enjoying a podcast called "Gender Reveal" which is basically a series of one-hour interviews with mostly non-cis folks about their experiences.

So, yeah, I guess I'm lonely? I miss the kind of conversation where it's an extended amount of deep, intimate rubbing your thoughts against someone else's, and where they answer with their own thoughts, and it spirals around for hours. I seem to be fine for casual or passive conversation stuff, and there are folks who will listen to me. It just sometimes feels like talking into the void.

This morning I woke up, turned on the heat under the tomatoes to boil them down, refreshed the chips in the smoker under the bacon, sliced turnips and beets into pickles and set them in the crock, and then went to work.

I came back to the laptop to start work, then thought: "I'm hungry. What do humans eat?"

Not a bowl of tomato sauce topped with salty raw turnips. I guess I need to figure some actual food out.

Working from home again, it's been awhile since I've haven't had to go in for something whether it be a meeting or a field day. It feels so good to be home. I made some rose cedar soap, canned the last of the rhubarb (after scraping the last of the very very burnt sugar off the bottom of my pot), and now I'll get to go outside. The quail have been sized up to a bigger brooder now that they don't need heat anymore.

Plans for this week include sorting out hay (there's someone doing small squares in town, it looks like), cleaning out the chicken and quail barns and adding cages to the quail house, putting the sides on the woodshed, and figuring out the pig housing/field situation. I've also found a new ancona drake since mine seems to be shooting blanks, but he's a five hour drive away so that'll take logistics. I'm also going to pick up a pekin duck trio for some larger meat ducks that are hopefully a little less independent than the cayugas.

Bathtub Goose, with whom I have bonded really closely, isn't seeming well today. She was limping a little yesterday, so I gave her some nutritional yeast, but she's not walking much today. We'll see how it works when I get her outside.

The potatoes are flowering in dazzling array of colours and shapes. The piglets are fat and healthy. The americauna chicks are growing nicely. There are berries to pick and maybe canning to do.

It's ok.

In honour of Lughnasadh and just generally having mental health, I gave myself a harvest day yesterday. I picked 4kg of rhubarb, a bunch of sweet ciciley seeds, two kinds of mint, a snack's worth of snap peas, some dandelion greens, and some borage flowers. Borage went in white wine vinegar, mint went into bunches to dry -- the dehydrator is great for some things but has no soul for herbs -- macerated half the rhubarb with sugar and cooked the other half down into sauce, and now have to can the rhubarb.

I was also super exhausted all day and had something like 4 naps, but at least I got some stuff done.

Sweet ciciley really is an excellent and generous plant. Hopefully I can naturalize it in some spots. I do really enjoy things that actually ripen here.

On the other hand I'd like to move some perennials out of that space so I can put pigs in to plough it.

The day before I spent some time with Ron - we picked up take-out and sat by the river and chatted. I always forget how much I like people when I'm not with them. That's a lifelong thing for the most part: I fold so contentedly into myself after awhile in solitude that I can't imagine that an outside presence could be pleasant, and then it is pleasant. I mean, I think Ron is a good friend? He cares about me for sure, he knows and has boundaries and respects mine, we enjoy each other's company, and we have some hobby overlap (he's making yarrow salve right now, but also has been doing a bunch of canning and we talked about the texture of canned sausage a bunch).

There's a chance Ron will be hired to a fairly high staff position in my office. It would be nice to feel like someone has my back there, and nice to work in proximity to Ron without him being my boss directly.