Vegan Waffles, and then some.

I was recently compelled to take photos of a delicious recipe I tried out – this is nothing unusual – the unusual part was the fact that I immediately thought, “I should put that on our blog…”

Vegan Chocolate Raspberry Waffles

So here we are.

Drew and I have been on many adventures since we last wrote!  In short, I became to overwhelmed with defeat after the squash bug incident killed off the largest and most beautiful plant in our garden – not to mention the incredible heat and sunlight that killed off many of our other plants – that I couldn’t bear to write about it anymore.  I felt that there was not much else to write about.  No one wants to hear about disappointment after disappointment which is all I felt mother nature was giving us.  As I wrote in the beginning: our garden was so much more to me than just a patch of dirt with some seedlings thrown in.  Drew and I labored (okay, Drew did most of the intensedigging, etc, but I watered lovingly every single night, frequently by myself, which is quite a task with no functioning hose) so passionately during the beginning summer months, that I had grown increasingly attached to our little plants, which grew up into big adult plants and started having baby vegetables.  I felt like a grandmother at that point and well, that’s when it got a little ridiculous.  .  None of our cold crops ended up sprouting (beets, greens, etc.) because of the rains we were pounded with in the early weeks of fall.  All our seeds were washed away, or molded.  Needless to say I was devastated towards the end of summer and had a very dismal attitude about the whole thing, and, unfortunately, the whole blog.

That, and of course, school began again right around the same time.

As many of you know, I began student teaching in the fall which was incredibly demanding within itself.  Drew was also very busy with an internship with the Park Service at Harper’s Ferry a few days a week and completing course work.  We saw each other every chance that we got, but, unfortunately we never really had the motivation left after crazy work/school days to continue to blog.  In a nutshell, since August:

Had a "Back to School" BBQ

I may have thrown Drew a surprise birthday dinner...and then he received this awful tank to

We went to my uncle Rob’s wedding in OC – the beach again!!

 

Of course, we had Halloween.I attended Remembrance Day in November in Gettysburg with Drew.

Drew organized an adorable event called “Friendsgiving” for all our friends to eat Thanksgiving dinner together the Tuesday before T-Day.

I begrudgingly dressed up for a tin-type with Drew as his birthday present – photo courtesy of Del Hilbert.

Drew helped me on some of my graduation announcement photo shoots.

Drew and I visited our friends Dan and Lindsey several times in Philly. Photo courtesy of Lindsey Bloom.

And here we are in one of many places we visited in Chicago, the current home of our friends Krystal and Paul, photo courtesy of The Shedd Aquarium.

As you can see, we go on so many adventures.  We tried to travel as much as possible over the winter break, because we knew that impending graduation would not only catapult me into the real world where I would have to work a real job, but also, I had to transplant from the Pink House in Shepherdstown, back home to Mt. Airy, where my parents live.  The transition has been rough, but some good things are happening.

Right now, I’m substitute teaching.  It’s a tough job, but, someone’s gotta do it.  Plus – I have a real paying job for the first time since last summer.  I’m also interning two days a week at the American Visionary Art Museum.  This has been my favorite art museum since I was seventeen, so it has been a real dream come to true to be able to spend time there giving tours and learning more about the art – even if I’m not getting paid.  It’s a blast!

Drew and I are trying to see each other as much as we can, though it’s much harder when we can’t just walk down the street and see each other.  Now it’s an hour drive, and much more planning involved.  We had to teach our selves how to talk on the phone, literally.  We had never done it before I moved – there had been no need!  We’re working on seeing each other more, but right now, trying to develop my career has taken priority, and I’m really happy that he understands.  Stay tuned for a post from Drew updating on his situation!!

Squash bugs

Believe it or not war has been officially declared in Shepherdstown! The Pink House Garden has been invaded by a menacing horde of insects of various types each with their own nasty array of problems. Emily and I have been noticing several insects that have inhabited the garden over the past few weeks but we did nothing due to a mixture of being extremely busy and an unintentional slacking in garden upkeep (mostly my fault). This weekend we were disheartened to discover that our lack of inner exterminator had caused a few “pests” to be a huge problem.

OPERATION SQUISH BUG

The Squash Beetle

Emily first brought these to my attention about a week ago when we were watering the garden one night. It looked as if a few Stinkbugs had somehow turned grey and were just hanging out near our squash plant. It was starting to turn dark so we finished watering the garden and thought nothing more of it. This however was a very poor decision, Saturday morning we awoke to find that a few grey bugs had multiplied to close to 100 squash devouring monsters, they were everywhere! Right away Em set out to find a way to rid our once beautiful squash of these menaces once and for all.

Squash with 7 Dust.

She began to scour the internet in search of the answers we needed, “How do we get rid of SQUISH BUGS?” We routinely refer to our squash plant as a squish because that is what Emily’s roommate Jenna kept calling it when we first decided to plant squash.  If you find yourself in an epic struggle with squash beetles as we have found ourselves feel free to follow these simple steps:

Step 1- Knock as many pest off of the plant as you can while squishing as many of them as possible.

Step 2- Once the pest are removed they will continue to come back unless (as much as I hate to say and use it) an insecticide is put into place. The bug

poison should keep them from coming back and should kill all of the eggs they have embedded on your poor innocent squash. Sprinkle the powder

lightly over the surface of the entire plant.

Step 3- Celebrate because as far as we know the bugs shouldn’t return. Keep adding the pesticide as needed when if and when the beetles reappear.

Operation Really Ugly Caterpillar

                                    The Horned Tomato Worm

A few weeks past I received a text message from Emily stating that she had found a really big, really ugly caterpillar on our tomato plants. I told her that it was probably a tomato worm and to kill it if she could, alas being the kind person that she is she tossed the little guy off the plants and out of the garden allowing it to live. On Saturday however while making my morning garden harvest and observations I spotted another Tomato worm but this time it would not be so lucky. I knocked it off the plant and stabbed it with a stick I found laying on the ground. In a sudden rush of cave man barbarism I proceeded to yell for Emily to look at the “beast” I had conquered. She was highly impressed and wanted to take a picture of the skewered insect but I quickly threw it into the compost pile .We are holding off on using a pesticide on our tomato plants but we are keeping a wary eye for more tomato worms to destroy.

Kale Creepers

We found these little guys underneath the leaves of our kale plants. We had been noticing that something was devouring the beautiful leaves but we were unable to catch the culprit. Finally we decided to look under the plant and to our surprise the plant was filled with several small red and green caterpillars! We immediately flicked them off the plants and I proceeded to squish them with my shoe and whatever else I could find.  The next step was to remove what appeared to be eggs from the leaves. I have not seen them back yet but I am sure that we will have more problems with them in the future.

This week we intend to begin planting our cool season crops! These will include, peas, beets, red and green lettuce and much more so keep an eye out for that blerg post.

a cantaloupe harvested this week!

cantaloupe gutz

Canning peaches (terribly)

So this past weekend, Drew and I set out to try something new: canning.  Originally, I had wanted to can apples this weekend, but after a trip to the Boonsboro Cronise Market, it became evident that it is time for canning peaches, not apples.  There are peaches all over both farmer’s markets we visit regularly so we decided to go with peaches for our first canning adventure.  I closely followed the Ball Blue Book guide to canning & preserving for this.  We also stopped by a semi-new shop in town called “The Source” that has a lot of handmade, fair trade, and second hand goods and we found a whole basket of free seed packets.  Some of them are expired, but we picked a few out just to try for our fall crops.  In addition, we bought pea seeds at the Boonsboro market which I am VERY excited about.  But we need to get them into the ground soon, and certainly before school starts next week.

Because I am somewhat of a germaphobe from working with children and in the food industry, this process was a little stressful for me.  I felt like I had all the burners on the stove running at once, and it didn’t help that half way through the process a huge thunderstorm struck up out of no where, amping up my anxiety even more!  But Drew was a huge help and peeled all of the peaches for me while I got everything else ready.  We ended up blanching the peaches to remove the skins more easily.  I was a little sad that we had to remove the skins at all, because this is my favorite part of the peach!  But I felt that I should follow the book as exactly as possible to avoid poisoning myself at a later date.

Hard at work!

After boiling the jars and lids for ten minutes, making an extra light preserving syrup of sugar and water and Drew had finished peeling the peaches, we were ready to pack our jars.  We did a “raw pack” so we didn’t cook the peaches (besides the blanching) before packing them into the jars.  Right before we were to begin packing the jars and I was pulling the jars out of their boiling bath, I dumped a bunch of boiling water onto the stove stop due to my hyped up nerves!  Drew immediately sprang into action and saved us from sudden death by sopping up the water with every towel in the house but I still feel silly.  Mean while the thunder was rolling outside and we set out our watering can to collect the valuable rain.

We filled the cans with no problem and then set them into the canning rack in the giant pot to process for thirty minutes.  Then some of this happened:

Me & Basil in love

All seemed to have gone according to plan until we pulled our peaches out…and they looked like this!

They seem to have been sealed and preserved properly but the heat must have made them shrink and all float to the stop so I have a bunch of wasted space in the jars.  Still, I’m thrilled that it even worked and lesson learned for next time to make sure I pack in all the food I can before processing.  Next we will try apples and apple sauce once we see more of the fruit appearing in our local markets.

Also!  We seem to have lost at least three plants out of our garden – including the squash.  While I was pretty sad about this for a few days, I realize that now we have more space for fall crops so I am becoming okay with it.  We also lost a cucumber plant, which is fine because they hadn’t been producing in the heat, and our sugar baby watermelon plant, which also saddened me but we still have our larger watermelon plant going.  The other day, Drew found a melon had fallen off a vine and we assumed it was the cantaloupe because all the melon plants are right next to one another, so I brought it in and put it in the fridge for breakfast one morning.  Well, this morning I cut it open and it turned out to be a baby watermelon – completely ripe, no bigger than a baseball!  So our little watermelon plant did give us fruit, even if it’s gone now.  I almost feel creepy about eating it, like it’s providing fruit from beyond the grave. R.I.P. Sugar Baby.

B-reakfast!

Canning & Sauce

Okay GET EXCITED because today I bought my very own…

CANNING KETTLE!

I felt like such a nerd driving home from Walmart* with it in my card, all giddy and imagining all the great things I can can for the winter!  It is classic Granite Ware, and was about $19 and came with a small instruction manuel (if anyone tried to can using just that, God help them) and a rack for lifting the cans out.  At most it can hold seven quart jars.  The cheapest pressure canner there was about $65 so it was a tough call, but I figured I should go with the cheaper option since I still need to add to my “professional wardrobe” for student teaching.  Aside from reading about it in the Ball Blue Book Julie gave me for my birthday, my sister-in-law, Jill, just shared with me this awesome blog called Food In Jars that is all about canning.  Really, really beautiful canning.  I’ll definitely be blogging more about my experiences in the upcoming weeks.

In other news, we still have a ton of tomatoes, which I’m sure is the anthem any gardener is singing this time of year.  A couple weeks ago I made a chunky, quick simmer tomato sauce and ate it over pasta, but this time I tried a slow simmer recipe that was smoother.  It took four hours to simmer!  This recipe involved blanching the tomatoes to get the skin off which was a new experience for me.  By the time I finished, the kitchen looked like a murder scene:

Why did I need so many knives?!

I made my own version of chicken Parmesan with whole wheat pasta, and had enough sauce left to freeze about two servings, though the tomatoes cooked down quite a bit.  In this case, a “serving” is equal to about what one or two people would eat because I hardly ever cook for more than that.  With our next large batch of tomatoes I am going to try salsa.  I love salsa and I can’t imagine how good garden fresh would taste.  Drew’s Dad made a bunch last summer and froze it and we are still eating it this summer.  I can’t wait to have a garden large enough to eat from all year long.

Also!  I bought turkey burgers today.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I love a good sandwich.

Here I used spinach, sprouts, tomatoes, onions and ketchup.  The sprouts and tomatoes we grew ourselves, it is nice to watch the percentage of how much we grew ourselves grow in each dish.  Now it is only a small percentage, but hopefully someday it will be at least 75%.  I think getting into canning will also be a huge step towards cutting down on foreign food dependency during winter months, and ultimately a great investment.  I will also include a post in the future about growing your own sprouts, something I got into in the early summer.  It is so easy to do, and one of the most nutritious foods you can eat.  Stay tuned!

*A student I had over the summer gave me a Walmart gift card for $50 as a ‘Thank You’.

Good news and bad news

We finally got rain yesterday!  When I woke up yesterday I just laid on my stomach and peered out my window at the rain, enjoying the breeze and the first time the window unit could be turned off in days.  Gardening and growing my own food has endowed me with a new appreciation for rainfall.  Before, I used to hate rainy days, I would wake up and not want to get out of bed, and be miserable all day – I’m the type of person that needs sunshine to brighten my mood.  However, now that I’m a little more in tune with the plant world, I understand how grateful I should be for rainy days, especially during a summer like this.

Our sad and wilted squash plant

The world’s weather continues to concern me – with earthquakes, flooding and tornadoes all growing in frequency around the world – not to mention tsunamis, and now the extreme heat and in some parts, drought of the summer, it becomes increasingly evident that Mother Nature is not happy with us.  Anyone who feels that global warming is a fallacy, just open your window and turn off your AC.  This is the summer it became real for a lot of people, I think, and unfortunately, it may be too late.  There are simple things we can do to change our effect on the environment but a lot of the time it shocks me how little people know about such things.  Working towards growing our own food, buying locally and therefore reducing our oil use are important steps Drew and I are taking, and I we can one day reach a satisfying and humble state of self-sufficiency.  In my mind, this summer was only the beginning step to a long journey.

Wilted leaves of the sunflowers

Even the tomatoes - while still big producers, are feeling the effects of the heat

So the garden is not doing well.  Between the “all natural” clove herbicide my landlord decided to use on the fence covered in weeds directly to the right of our garden and the extreme heat, we may lose some plants.  I am especially upset about the squash.  I loved it’s big beautiful leaves, it’s prickly stalks and gorgeous, blousey blooms.  Now all that is left (a tree also fell on it, due to my landlord’s expert tree removal skills), is some crunchy leaves and a thick, green stalk that holds what I hope is not a false promise of further recovery and flourishing.  The rain this week should help but nothing can undo the herbicide.  Why would something that is designed to kill live, plant weeds not harm our garden?  Shaking my head, that is all.

On a lighter note, our sunflowers finally blossomed!  It definitely makes the dehydrated garden look a little more cheery.  It has been fun to watch them in their various stages of life.  I used to always plant the sunflower seeds we used as bird seed when I was a little girl, and they would sprout, but never turn into actual flowers – probably due to my inattentiveness and their tiny homes of red plastic cups.  These however, are big girl sunflowers.

They start are spiney green balls!

Beez!

Hooray!

Since my summer job ended last Saturday, we’ve been able to sleep in and relax a little bit before I start my student teaching at the end of this month.  Drew and I went out to get breakfast at Mellow Moods a couple times this week, one of our favorite places where we’ve been getting coffee since before we even started dating.  Then we moseyed through the book store in town called The Four Seasons which is also a favorite now, and found a lot of treasures as usual.  We agreed that this book called The Urban Homestead is something that we’ll have to save up for.  Something I read that I thought was really cool in there was about guerrilla gardening, a technique that involves making clay “seed balls” that one can lob into areas they wish to plant flowers inconspicuously.  The clay protects and holds the seeds together, but when it rains, will soften and disperse the seeds amongst the ground.  I thought it sounded fantastic and we have hundreds of gourd seeds from hollowed out gourd birdhouses I had the children in my program make this summer, that I plan to disperse all over Shepherdstown.  People will be so confused.

Also, Drew got this old film strip project that we figured out how to work after breakfast one day.  We both love old things and he can fix pretty much anything known to man, so we had ourselves a nice little educational presentation, and, I finally got to watch one of the old film strips a partnering teaching gave me during one of my practicum courses: “The Prarie Dog and The Mountain Goat”.

Why didn't I use this to study for the Praxis?!

ta-da!

I spent the rest of the morning reading about canning in the informational booklet Julie gave me for my birthday along with twelve quart jars. Yesterday, Jenn bought me a magnetic lid-lifter and a wide funnel, so now all we need is a large canning kettle and rack. I am excited to try this but am studying up hardcore before hand because I am wary of food poisoning and botulism. I had no idea it was such a scientific process, it is quite interesting. I want to try apples, peaches and cherries!

Can you believe we used to watch these in middle school for educational purposes?  Man, public education has really gone down the drain since then.  Have a great weekend!

Pigtown Fling 2011

As promised, the super easy pesto recipe is up on the “Recipes” page!!  So get your hands on some basil and try it out.

Warning: this blog post is not necessarily about the garden.  But it is about pigs.

  Our trip to Hampshire county this weekend proved to be a long-awaited vacation of sorts for Drew and I.  After finishing up my summer Americorps term last Friday, and Drew working his butt off all summer to make ends meet, we needed to get away for a little while.  We took off early in the afternoon Saturday after some much needed sleeping in and headed to meet my best friend Julie in Romney so she could shuttle us to the infamous Pigtown Fling (see previous post for explanation).

The Fling was exactly as Julie had described to me, music all around and so much food.  It is not an official music festival but more of a giant gathering of friends and family of the property owners, Paul and Lisa, whom the Ritzs have known for a long time and Drew and I were lucky enough to be invited via Julie.  The even lasts three days, but we came for the main event, Saturday, before dinner was served musicians sat around in circles playing folk and bluegrass music.  Julie’s Dad, Steve, is one of these avid musicians.  Drew, Julie and I caught up on a blanket surrounded by music until people began lining up for dinner.

Stevesies is in the back, white shirt and guitar

Julie is one of the most photogenic people I know. Also, one of my favorite people I know.

Dinner was incredible, I’ve never seen anything like it.  Julie’s mom, Cindy, kept telling me it was a “covered dish” affair but I didn’t know what that meant.  We lined up early to get first choice of food.  The amazing part is that all the people who attended – there must have been a hundred or so – all brought at least one dish so there was enough for everybody.  I was amazed at how people can come together and make for such a warm and enjoyable event.  What we saw was long tables laid out with every dish imaginable, homemade bread, watermelon, potatoes, green beans, mac’n'cheese, meatballs, friend chicken, deviled eggs, and don’t even get me started on desserts, they had their own table or two.  At the start of the line you grab a plate and begin with the roasted pork if you choose, then I found the challenge to be making everything you wanted to try fit on one plate.  Regretfully, I did not get a photo of our plates before we dug in, but I did capture the aftermath…

Pig aftermath.

Drew promptly fell asleep, while Julie went to sell t-shirts and I perused the music scene.  Bands were beginning to assemble on stage, so I laid out a blanket to enjoy the fine sounds of West Virginia.  I kept thinking back to a year ago, when I would never have agreed to listen to this type of music, or even five years ago, when I refused to admit I lived in West Virginia.  I felt proud to be able to let go of my stereotypes and personal boundaries and instead, choose to enjoy life and new culture.  I even knew some of the songs and…well don’t tell Drew and Julie but when I got home I downloaded a Punch Brothers album, which Julie has been trying to get me to listen to for about a year.

 

 

Stevesie on the far right in white, with guitar

I normally have a hard time relaxing, feel guilty about eating great tasting food that may not be the healthiest, and usually have to be doing something else while listening to music.  This event helped me to just sit back and enjoy life, it was something out of the norm for me but…I did enjoy it immensely!!  Also, there were a ton of adorable little children running around, one of home hopped up on stage and serenaded the audience not once, not twice, but three times in a row with “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”.

These kids love their heritage!

Needless to say, Drew and I had a fantastic time.  The next day we woke up and made breakfast with Julie, then headed even further west towards Grafton, Drew’s home town, and visited family there.  On the way, Drew took me to Cool Springs, which is a natural spring that emerges from the side of a mountain on route 50, there is a charming train graveyard, small petting zoo and rest stop there.  Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera, though Drew took me to see these amazing waterfalls only a few miles away from the house he grew up in.  I regretted leaving my camera behind because words cannot describe the color of the water and this photo I found online doesn’t either.  I have never seen water so blue-green outside of the Caribbean.  Drew said this state park is so famous for it’s beautiful falls that people have been known to have their wedding photos taken here – or even get married there!    We played around there for a little while then met up with family.  That night we went to a drive-in movie, which I thought was super cool because I didn’t even know they still existed!  Oh West Virginia, you continue to impress.  It was a double feature but we had to head back to Romney to spend the night, so we left around 11 after the first movie (Captain America, I wasn’t impressed).

The next day we came home and found the garden in disarray.  It was terribly wilted from the extreme heat and lack of rain, though we had friends water while we were gone.  I also think pests are beginning to get to it, and an all natural clove weed killer that my landlord used on the fence directly next to the garden.  That is a post for another day.

A Very Late Post

Well as you might have guessed from Emily’s previous post, I have been slightly neglecting my duties pertaining to this blog. We are getting ready to head to Romney, West Virginia for the weekend so I figure now is as good time as any to end my procrastination. The last couple weeks have been very busy in the Pink House World!  Emily just finished up her job teaching West Virginia youth and I am in search of a new source of employment.  Emily did a great job teaching her students and I am pretty proud of her…lame…moving on to GARDEN TALK!

            Almost a week ago now, I’m behind on the times I know, we decided to go all out and cook with everything that was ready for harvesting in the garden. The materials we had to work with were what felt like an endless number of cucumbers, a few green peppers and onions, newly arrived tomatoes, and the treasure trove of produce we got from the farmer’s markets we frequent. I was on a special mission on this trip to make up some homemade lemonade. I was inspired to do so after I received homemade lemonade at the Funkstown, Maryland Civil War Reenactment the weekend before.  At the farmer’s market in Boonsboro I purchased several lemons and limes that I believe the cashier rang up wrong because some how I received almost a 75% discount on the items. I looked at the receipt to make sure they had charged me for everything and sure enough they had so I wasn’t going to question it.  Next I purchased an orange and set about making the concoction.

             I started juicing the 6 lemons, and 4 limes into a measuring cup. I also juiced the orange and mixed the fruit juices together. I added the mixture to 6 cups of cold water and mixed in 2 cups of sugar.  For added flavor and an appealing visual presentation I cut up the peals and remaining fruit and added them to the juice. I let it chill in the fridge for a half an hour before I tried it. I must say it was the most incredible thing I have ever tasted. The whole pitcher was drained in what seemed to be a matter of seconds! It is certainly something that we must do again.

            Next we fired up the grill and cooked up pork chops, which I marinated with basic A1 sauce, and since Emily and Jenna don’t like chop of pork I made them some chicken breast.  While I was doing that Emily was making cold cucumber soup. She blended together several cucumbers and Greek yogurt, milk, garlic, mint and salt and pepper. The finished product was a cool refreshing soup that was perfect way to end the really hot day. We also mashed up sweet potatoes and added bacon bits that turned out awesome.

            That’s the very late run down of the Pink House Garden as of a week ago. Look forward to another post from me by the end of this week. I have to keep up with the blog a lot better than  I have been. I enjoy contributing and love telling you guys about our experiences, I just keep procrastinating until it is too late.  So here is to me being better at this!

Unusual breakfasts

Left overs can make for unusual, yet delicious breakfasts.  Just about every morning since I got back from visiting the Ritz family in Romney, I’ve been fixing my eggs like Julie’s father, Steve Ritz – or as I have affectionately nicknamed him: “Stevesie” taught me.  I like my eggs scrambled, but always manage to make them dry, brown and crusty, a true embarrassment if cooking for someone else.  Steve showed me how to crack the eggs ( I use one full egg, two egg whites ) right into a small hot skillet, then continue to stir the eggs until cooked all the way through.  The constant stirring may seem laborious but the eggs cook in no time and the pay off is that they don’t brown on one side and stay wet on the other.  My eggs have turned out perfect every time, I just add a little salt and pepper.  Our landlord, Joe, is chicken-sitting for the folks across the street this week and loaded me up with farm fresh eggs, so needless to say I’ve been breakfasting like a queen.  Featured here on the side is left over pasta and pesto from earlier in the week.

I mentioned my trip to Romney, a small town in Hampshire County, WV, briefly in the last entry but I wanted to elaborate here because Drew and I are returning this weekend for an event called, “The Pigtown Fling”.  Don’t get me wrong.  I used to make fun of Julie endlessly when we first met for her variety of Pigtown shirts, one for each year of her life, and moreover refused to admit that I lived in WV (it’s a stone’s throw from a western part of MD, truly), claimed I was moving as soon as I was accepted as a transfer student to another college and would never, ever, even be in the same room as folk or bluegrass music.

Drew and I with the Ritz and Zelkowski families - my best friend Julie and Jenna are cousins, on the far right you can see Steve and Cindy Ritz whose home I visit in Romney

This was in 2007, and needless to say, I am a changed woman.  After four years, I find West Virginia to hold some of the most gorgeous landscapes I have ever witnessed, especially when driving home with Drew to Grafton.  I find the agricultural lore fascinating and the community and family relations admirable.  The hospitality I have experienced in parts of WV such as Romney make me feel better than most things I’ve experienced in life.  And of course, it also helps that I fell in love with a true West Virginian, Civil War re-enactor.  In my opinion, the people of West Virginia care about what really matters: enjoying life, and they aren’t afraid to admit it.  They are hardworking, but highly value some of the most pleasing things in life such as good food, great music, the outdoors and of course, the love shared among close friends and family.  This was hard for me to accept at first.  I come from a moderately sized family in Maryland, grew up in what I would consider the upper-middle class and while I was very loved and taught great values growing up, I don’t know that enjoying life was so focused on as much as obtaining a degree and working hard to earn money, supporting your family comfortably and climbing the proverbial career success ladder.  I am not saying all the people I know in WV are impoverished and toothless as the stereotype would have you believe because that is so far from what I have experienced.  Yes, in areas, poverty is a huge issue – one reason I participated in the Energy Express Americorps service program this summer – but there are few states that can say they don’t have a poverty issue.  In opposition, the families I have spent time with in West Virginia are completely dignified and hardworking.   However, I am not commenting on the socioeconomic class here.  I am commenting on the shift in cultural values.  In a time in my life where I am constantly pushing myself to work harder, be my very best academically, and stressing about eventually finding a job once I graduate that will pay me well and financially secure me and a future family for the rest of our lives…I find solace in West Virginia.  Where things are little slower, I can spend an hour shopping for my food at the farmer’s market (or my own garden!) , an hour cooking my meal and another hour eating it with friends, and enjoy life, rather than eating convenience food, standing up or while working, fast! in order to get more work done, which is a way I frequently find myself acting if I don’t remind myself to s l o w  d o w n.  Enjoy it.  Life goes by so fast and we only get to do it this one time.

Dinner at the Ritz's!

This is in no way a shot at my own family or upbringing.  I had a truly amazing childhood and feel very fortunate to have the parents, family and home that I do have.  But it is always nice to experience the culture of some one else, and take away the bits and pieces that you like.

My feelings for West Virginia can mostly be summed up with this Facebook status posted after my return from Romney last week:

Emily Jane West Virginia is just so charming.

July 23 at 11:27pm · Privacy:Friends Only · LikeUnlike ·

• Claire C. Love-Burrito, Andrew Rowand, Dirick Cummins and 3 others like this.
• • 

    Andrew RowandOh really now? I had no idea!

    July 24 at 12:27pm · LikeUnlike
  • 

    Emily JaneI’ve denied it for too long.

    July 24 at 3:09pm · LikeUnlike
  • 

    Shoshana i have to be honest – the south scares me a little

    July 24 at 4:58pm · LikeUnlike
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    Emily JaneI don’t blame you – it’s taken living here off and on since 2007 and being accepted into the homes of several amazing families to change my mind. There are definitely still parts of WV that still freak me out, like where I lose cell service, where they still use dial up internet, or when I see a man walking by the side of a country road with a knife in his hand. But the landscape is gorgeous, the farms are admirable and the people are hospitable in a way I haven’t experienced anywhere else.

    July 24 at 7:28pm · LikeUnlike · 2 people

Dinner last weekend and some of the best corn on the cob I've ever had.

So this weekend we’re headed out again for music, friends and food at something called “The Pigtown Fling” where I shall finally acquire my own t-shirt.  I’ve got to start packing, Drew will be here any minute and I’ve been blogging while I should have been packing!!  Hopefully this weekend will involve more of this…

Can’t wait to see y’all!  (hahaha…I never thought I’d be comfortable saying that word.  Even Drew doesn’t indulge in that one)

Have a great weekend!

Painting and a Garden Invader!

I know, I know, we haven’t posted in a while. Drew was away at a reenactment in Manassas last weekend – and eventually left because of the extreme heat, while I was visiting my good friend, Julie’s family in Romney, WV. We both had great weekends, but it was nice to come home Sunday night, especially because this is my last week of service with Americorps! I have had a great experience and learned a lot during my time serving, but still, I will be celebrating tomorrow when it is over. I am ready to move on and prepare for student teaching which begins on August 24…and of course to relax a little.

This is a watercolor I did a while ago of Drew in the garden when we got our first cucumber.  The paper isn’t the greatest, but I still like the way the hands turned out.  I bought some new watercolor paper today, so hopefully I will be turning out some more stuff.

Dear Basil, prepare to meet your maker.

On Monday, the ASL interpreter in my classroom who is a kindred gardening soul, gave a couple huge bunches of basil as she had promised on Friday when I told her our small basil plant didn’t have a big enough crop to make pesto with.  Truth be told, I dreamed about the basil all weekend, hoping she would remember and I would receive it on Monday as promised.  Sure enough, it was there on my desk at school on Monday with her personally recommended pesto recipe.  I will post it on the “Recipes” page, it turned out quite well with a few of my own personal adjustments

In a blender! From this:

To this wonderful green goo!

It was my first time making pesto, and Drew’s first time consuming it.  We both agreed it is worth doing again, and made a double batch, freezing half for later.  We also made turkey meatballs, an a homemade quick simmer tomato sauce from the garden as well.  We are proud of our finally reddening tomatoes, that are high yielding daily now.

Look at those beasts!  The possibilities are endless.  I see bruschetta and gazpacho in our future.  Last but not least, I found a pesky intruder in the garden the other evening.  It scared me at first, then I thought it was cute, then I thought it was disgusting.  I was watering the garden by myself and came upon this big, fat, green caterpillar with unusual while cylinders on its back.  Since I’m a first time gardener, I wasn’t keen to what it might be but I removed it anyway because it seemed to be enjoying our pepper plant a little too much.  When I disturbed it, to my horror all the aforementioned white bits fell to the ground.  It was very unusual to see but I came to the conclusion that they were probably baby caterpillars so I washed them away (hopefully) with the watering can.  It was.  Gross.  Here is photo to illustrate the invader.

creepin'.

I texted Drew to update him right away to which he responded, “Did you kill it?!”  I didn’t but I did throw it far away from the garden.  I think he called it a tomato worm and that I was probably right about the white bits being baby worms.  The whole thing felt like an alien encounter to me.  More updates to follow soon.

Tidbits

Today was pretty sad, because I found one of the baby watermelons on the ground, knocked from its vine.  Recently, our landlords, who happen to also be our next door neighbors, deciding to cut down two trees in our backyard.  On the one hand, this helped us out by giving more sunlight to our tomato plants and now they are turning red like it’s their job (well, it kind of is) and one of the trees had nasty sour apples on it, which will no longer fall in our garden all summer.  On the other hand, when the apple tree came down, it fell on part of our fence.  I think this tree removal business may be responsible for the fallen fruit.  My heart felt heavy when I saw it, and I cradled it as I carried it to the kitchen, to at least get a look at the progress of its insides.

It was kind of one of the saddest things I ever did see.  It was just barely becoming pink, and the faintest scent of a ripe watermelon wafted out when I cut into it.  It had little to no taste.   At least we can take comfort in the fact that it will go into the compost, and possibly help fuel future watermelon babies.

Also!  I had been wanting to share this news story my sister-in-law recently shared with me:

I think it’s pretty neat.  I think the possibility that lies within a single seed is a huge part of why I love gardening so much.  To me, it is just incredible that the power of life, a giant plant!  Can come out of such a tiny little vessel.  Obviously this woman feels the same way and has found a way to spread goodness via gardening.

And one more thing!! Another garden/farm blogger has commented on here and I’ve been enjoying reading up on the adventures of a fellow WV gardener. Check out Liesel and Lars at Green Gate Farm, also in Shepherdstown.

Have a great weekend!