It's Been Awhile...

I can honestly say that it has been quite a while since I have really wanted to even think about digging around outside, but today has been absolutely gorgeous here and I started clearing things out. It's been a cold, snowy, icy winter here in Alabama, and I can honestly say that I'm pretty sick of it. We are supposed to have at least a week of temperatures in the 60s, so I'm going to go ahead and start working a little bit, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself since we will definitely have a hard freeze or two before spring.

First, I would love to tell you a little bit about how last year's garden finished up. I continued to get okra, bell peppers, habeneros, jalepenos, and poblanos well into fall, and closed the big guy up for the year in early November. I was incredibly tempted to go ahead and plant some winter crops like spinach, carrots, rutabegas, and turnips but I had to make the smart choice and take a break. I was pretty exhausted from the previous six months, and needed a little bit of a break.

I am very happy to say that the amount of food that I was able to set aside has been just about right. I ran out of salsa and frozen squash pretty early, but everything else has held out quite well. I still have pickles, relish, and lots of stuff in the freezer, including peppers, okra, tomato sauce, green beans. Did I mention okra? I have so much frozen okra that I don't think I'll ever be able to eat it all. I probably still have ten one gallon freezer bags of it, and I've had all that I can handle.

I am going to try to be a little bit better about updating over the next few months, so please check back soon!

What I've Been Listening To:

The Black Keys-Brothers
Iron & Wine-Kiss Each Other Clean
The Tallest Man On Earth-King of Spain
Eric Clapton-461 Ocean Boulevard

What I've Been Reading:

Great Dream of Heaven-Sam Shepard
Mystery of Grace-Charles deLint
Christine Falls-Benjamin Black
Baudolino-Umberto Eco