Lots To Do

I have lots to do.

I should have known! At around 7 a.m. I came out to the back porch to sit quietly and enjoy my morning cup of coffee. That was almost four hours ago! I am still sitting here, enjoying the breeze, the birds, the insects pollinating the garden, the rabbit and the squirrels. The breeze makes it bearable, even pleasant out here, sitting. The heat is beginning to gather, the thermometer say it is 27C, the weather people say the Humidex is 36C, and it is beginning to get warmer as the sun reaches around the house towards the porch. I am hungry, as I didn’t eat before coming out here. But I am loath to go inside, because once I do I will be in the air conditioned house for the rest of the day.

My to-do list is a long one, nothing is urgent though, except eating something. It is a little late for breakfast, so if tarry on the back porch, admiring the garden, for a wee bit longer, I can call my first meal lunch.

Today I am tackling what will probably be this year’s last batch of Dill Slice pickles. The Pickling Cucumber plants are spent, and will soon be pulled out to make way for Kohlrabi seedlings, and there are currently no new English Cucumbers growing on the vines. If we do get a few more English Cucumbers, we will be using them to garnish our Falafels. I need to bake bread. I need to can the frozen Strawberries and Rhubarb as pie filling. I need to get the saved jars and plastic containers sorted, so that what we aren’t keeping can be set out for recycling. And I will stop the long list right there, and divert my thoughts towards why we have all these jars and plastic containers.

The thing about preserving a lot of our own food, is that it must be stored in something. Containers. Canning requires a specific type of container, canning jars, so that one is easy. Dehydrating demands jars or plastic containers with airtight seals. Freezing requires plastic bags, and plastic containers. I avoid storing things in glass in the freezer whenever possible, because it is so brittle and breakable when frozen, and because it will break if the head space is not the correct amount or shape. Fermenting is done in wide mouth mason jars, or the crock. So most of our food is either canned, frozen, dehydrated, or fermented. And it all takes containers.

When I was a single Mom and bought most of our food, rather than preserve it myself, the containers were put in the recycling bin on the curb. They didn’t accumulate, but flowed through the house, in one door, and out the other. But now that I have the opportunity and means to preserve a lot of the food we eat, I must have containers to put it in. And the containers aren’t going anywhere, they come in the door, then they have to be stored, either empty or full, they need to be stored on site.

Container management is a big deal when you preserve a lot of your own food.

Food that we do buy in containers, such as sour cream, margarine, jars of olive oil, offer an opportunity to acquire high quality, food grade containers at a very low cost. So we wash and save almost all containers that come into the house, right down to those flimsy filmy plastic produce bags that you take off a roll in the produce section of the grocery store. Most days you will see a collections of washed and rinsed plastic bags hanging on our clothesline.

After living here for five years now, there is quite a collection of containers in the basement and the garage. We won’t be keeping them all. The current phase of the basement reorganization is managing the container situation. The bags of containers will be sorted through, and those that might not be needed will be put out at the curb for recycling. The volume of jars and plastic containers at the curb will be substantial this week.

Not much in the way of recycling and garbage leaves Mist Cottage, we compost most food scraps, and reuse containers. Our most wasteful purchase, in the way of excess containers, is beverages. We still haven’t got that one figured out, how to access juice and coffee without the disposable containers.

Well the thermometer says it is 30C in the shade, the sun is creeping up on me, and I am really, really hungry, so I will end this entry now, and head into the house to begin working on my projects for the day.

It has been lovely though, sitting out here this morning, chatting with you all!

Stay safe dear friends.

Worldly

Weather

26°C
Date: 10:00 AM EDT Monday 24 August 2020
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.5 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 25.6°C
Dew point: 22.6°C
Humidity: 83%
Wind: SSW 16 km/h
Humidex: 35
Visibility: 24 km

Quote

“Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.”
Jawaharlal Nehru
1889 – 1964