This is berry good news...

Recently I came upon an idea that got me very excited.  After doing my own experiment, I'm happy to share this new-to-me food storage tip.

Did you know you can store fruits like berries in the fridge, in glass jars, sealed up tight for a longer period of time than if you leave them in the containers they were sold in?   

For how long?  

I don't know for sure, but for quite a bit longer than not storing them this way.

I placed unwashed blueberries in a glass canning jar sealed with a canning lid and canning ring on March 19th.    I didn't remove any air from the jar, and it was only finger tightened.  On April 26th (over a month later) I opened the jar to use the blueberries to make some muffins.  

There was one small little puddle of blueberry juice on the bottom of the jar, but otherwise the blueberries looked perfect.  Not a single one was moldy, or had skin that was compromised.

At this point, I washed them off (for the first time since purchasing them) and let the blueberries dry on a paper towel:

Nothing appears to be wrong with these blueberries.  No smell, no mold growing, and they taste fine.

Now, do I recommend storing berries for over a month in the fridge just because you can?  Well, no...  mostly because I imagine they may have deteriorated in their nutritional content.  And I think these must have been incredibly fresh berries to begin with to have lasted this long.

I would not normally buy blueberries with the intention of storing them this long, but the point is... storing them this way will probably keep them intact and usable for far longer than just popping them in the fridge in their original containers - which for me, almost inevitably means I'm going to end up throwing out at least a few (if not many) berries before I get around to using them.    

I also tried this with strawberries and blackberries.  The strawberries lasted at least a week - maybe longer - before one started getting soft, and I stopped the experiment at that point.  I don't know about you, but before this I had never found a way to store strawberries so that they stayed edible for more than a day or two, max.  

I think I broke into the blackberries about two weeks after storing them, and they were fine. 

When I buy large quantities of berries on sale, my plan is always to wash and freeze quickly what I don't think we'll eat right away.  I will continue to do that, but from now on, I will be taking the fresh berries I expect we'll eat soon out of their plastic containers and storing them in glass jars that I can seal tightly with a lid. That way, if they don't get eaten right away I will have bought myself at least some extra days, maybe more than a week, before they go bad because I lost track of them.

Of course, your mileage may vary with this.  So many things can affect how long fresh fruit will stay edible once we've gotten it home.  How long ago was it picked?  How far did it have to travel?  What conditions was it subjected to before I bought it?  How did I treat it once I got it home?  The number of things that affect fresh produce is kind of endless, and most things are out of our control.  The only thing really in my control is how I store it once I get it home.

So tell me... did you know about this way of storing berries?   It's so incredibly easy, I don't understand why this isn't common knowledge?  Or am I just the last person in the world to know about this?

Smoothy time...

Seeing the cherry tree blossoming recently has put me in mind of harvesting fruit from it and the peach tree this summer, as did uncovering the strawberry plants and seeing a few blossoms there this week.  There is still some time before I'm ready to plant into the garden, but thinking of all of this reminds me that we need to finish up what fruit is left in the freezer from last spring and summer - so as to make room for new  fruit.  

The temps have also been unseasonably warm for much of April, though thankfully it cooled down again last night and we may return for a couple of weeks to temps in the 50's and 60's before heating up again.  That makes me very happy.

All of the blossoms and warm weather inspired me to pull out some frozen fruit and make a simple smoothy for a treat recently.  And I was reminded how wonderful a cold fruit smoothy is.  I don't make them often, but my typical smoothy contains frozen fruit, fresh spinach and just enough orange juice to make the concoction drinkable through a straw.  The smoothy below had spinach from the grocery, orange juice, frozen blueberries, and strawberries and peaches from our own yard.

The colors were so beautiful I had to snap some pictures!

Do you enjoy smoothies, and if so, what do you like to put in yours?

Outdoor spring work...

Spring is looking beautiful around here.  Our meal last night was accompanied by our first asparagus of the year - came in 10 days earlier than it did last year.

Based on this spring and last year's experience, right as the Bradford Pear trees blossom, it seems we can expect the asparagus patch to start to come to life.  And now that that's happened, I suddenly feel like I'm playing catch-up on spring.  How can I feel behind on spring when it's not even the middle of April?     

While feeling unwelcomed and needlessly self-imposed pressure, I have given myself a talking to and have assured myself that if everything I want to do doesn't happen this spring, it's okay.  I'm going to just pace myself and focus on manageable projects. 

So don't anyone get confused.  This post is not about challenging myself.  I don't need any extra challenges right now.  This post is simply a first documentation of what I hope will be happening around here over the next month or so.  

What I'd like to focus on first is a large area that is in serious need of landscaping.  

On the south side of our house is this really large, what I've dubbed, "bed of despair":

When we bought the house in the fall of 2021, this bed was way overgrown and needed work, but I have to say it looked a lot better then than it does now simply because it was green and filled with life.   Nevermind that the overgrowth hid some unwelcome things...  like stacked bricks, and torn and deteriorating black plastic.  And weeds!  Most of what is seen in these pictures that is green is weeds. 

Sometime last year Greg began clearing out the unwanted overgrowth, and accidentally torched some desirable (to me, anyway) plants when he was attempting to kill weeds then.  I didn't have it in me last summer to overly care about any of it, but at the moment I've risen to the level of finally being bothered by it, so I'm starting to apply myself to tackling it (with Greg's help, of course).  Just before taking these pictures I treated the weeds around the perimeter of the house and detached garage with weed killer.  Next (probably next week) will be removing the dead stuff, the deteriorating plastic weed barrier, and maybe tilling the whole area before beginning to bring this area back to life. 

We've talked about planting a large portion of this bed to grass, sprinkling in some shrubs, and perennials.  The problem with that idea is that grass needs to be mowed - every week, sometimes twice a week in the spring and fall. And if we plant some perennials in there along with grass, weed-wacking would probably also need to happen.  It didn't take long for all of that to sound like just  way too much trouble.  

Another thing I considered was to plant some of this area with garden vegetables.  But then I realized that long before it would be time to trim it all back for winter it would just become a different kind of eyesore than it is now.  And next spring the space will pretty much look like this again.  

In the end, I'm concluding that we just need to pray that some of the bushes come back (or plant some new ones), and with some strategically placed perennials and some fresh mulch, maybe this spot can actually look pretty.  

A good place to start is looking at what we have to work with. 

Phlox.  I've never been successful growing phlox before, and since some is already established here, I have hopes that if I plant some more, it may do very well in this bed. Or maybe if given some decent soil, the phlox that is here will spread.  

On the back side of that evergreen shrub (above) you can see that it's half dead.  So, while it makes me sad, the shrub needs to go.  Not sure how thick are the roots, and how difficult it might be to plant something in that spot, but first things first.  We're planning on having a rogue mulberry tree in the back yard cut down soon.  We can probably also hire the tree cutters to grind the roots of this shrub after we cut it down. 

Other positives?  Above and below one can see some nice big rocks placed kind of randomly in this bed (and there are even more that didn't make it into the picture).   I'm thinking of planting some bulbs or even daylilies and sedum, maybe even phlox amongst the rocks - that ought to add some nice layered visual interest.  The phlox, I'd probably need to plant next spring, but I can transplant daylilies and sedum from other spots around the house as soon as I'm ready to. 

The bricks above, on the other hand, need to go.  Their presence is a mystery, and while we're not exactly looking forward to moving them, taking the job slowly, we can surely put them somewhere other than here for now and figure out their potentiality later.

And lastly, in this bed, toward the back of the house there are some good sized shrubs starting to leaf out, and some beautiful pampas grass that is just starting to grow again.  We shared some pampas grass recently with friends, but hopefully what's left will be showy again this summer and fall.  I do love the pampas grass.  If it wasn't such a bear to divide, I'd consider relocating some of that elsewhere in this bed.  Actually, I am considering it.  The question is, can we find the help we'll need to cut into it and divide it.  This pampas grass grows huge.  It can hide a multitude of things and boy, are there things on this side of the house that could benefit from being hid! 

That's it for now.   While there are other places outside around the house that need work, if this large area can be made to look better this spring and summer, I think it will give us a real boost.  Our goal has been to improve and simplify the landscaping here.  Last year was all about removing the ugly and half dying.  This year begins the rebuild of a simpler, cleaner landscaping around the house.  Easy care perennials and mulch will go a long way toward that end.  I have experience with shrubs like boxwood, forsythia, burning bush, hydrangea...  and perennials like peonies, tiger lilies, daylilies, tulips and daffodils, and now iris and sedum.  I'm curious to learn about perennials you enjoy where you live.

~~~~~

When the lights go out...

A lot can happen in a few days.  And sometimes a lot of nothin' happens.  And the difference can be just a few miles (or blocks, or even feet, as the case may be).  In the storms that tore across the country on March 31st and April 1st, we were fortunate to only lose our power for 48 hours - and with the loss of power we also lost running water.  Fortunately, we had about 10 gallon-size containers filled with water for just such an occasion.

In town, a lot of trees were toppled.  Some were uprooted; some were snapped off in the winds.  And in the smaller town a few miles further north, a  tornado ripped through, completely destroying many homes and buildings that housed businesses - including some newly built warehouses near the interstate.  The interstate was brought to a standstill several times over the weekend.  At first because the building materials of those new (and maybe unfinished) warehouses were littering all six lanes, but the next day, we didn't really know what was causing the traffic jam.   Maybe they were still cleaning the mess up.  And I have no clue how the farmland on either side of the interstate that was strewn for miles with drywall and insulation gets cleaned up. 

I find it amazing that to date no deaths have been reported in that town.  According to emergency services, "all have been accounted for".  It may have helped that many people were probably gone for spring break - many who in the next day or two would make the trek home to start school and work on Monday (today).  Can you imagine coming home from a vacation to find out your home no longer existed?

In comparison, our being without power for 48 hours was merely an inconvenience.  Without power we decided to take a drive on Saturday and charge our phones in the process.  The toppled trees I took pictures of don't begin to capture the number that we passed, but all are minor compared to the devastation experienced a few miles north of here.

Stories have been coming out since Saturday.  Some make it on the evening news, some just get spread word of mouth - like...  A man at church told how his daughter was in her car (with a passenger) when two trees crashed down on the car pinning them inside.  The trees needed to be cut off the car before they could get out, and miraculously, neither the driver nor the passenger were injured.

It took many workers a number of days to get everyone back online in this area.  We are so thankful for their skill, and that day in and day out they do a dangerous job just so we all can have the luxury of turning lights on, or watching TV, or perusing the internet.

It was exciting at about 1:20 am this morning, being still awake, I got to witness the lights pop on.  I immediately set to work washing dishes (in the dishwasher and in the sink) so we could wake up to a fresher house than we'd spent the previous two days in.  It's been a pleasure to do laundry today, catching up on all that was left undone over the weekend.  And I was super happy to find that little food was lost in the power outage.  The freezer was packed full, so I supposed that helped everything to stay frozen over two days.  We enjoyed some very soft ice cream on Saturday, before throwing out the rest.  The power came on in plenty of time for me to survey the freezer's contents and decide if anything should be pitched into this week's garbage.  It turns out very little ended up in the garbage can that is now sitting at the end of our driveway ready to be hauled away in the morning.  The timing of everything couldn't have been better for us.

And yet I am not callous, nor am I gleeful over our blessings knowing there are people a few miles north who have lost their homes, and some have lost all that they own.  As a weather man noted tonight, "weather may be somewhat predictable, but it is not rational".  Two houses stand side by side.  One is flattened, one is completely untouched.  A garage is destroyed, yet tools sit on the workbench right where the owner placed them.  A child's outdoor playhouse finds its resting place in what was the living room or kitchen or some indoor room, while the walls of the house have completely disappeared.  Those kinds of pictures just silence me. 

And today we hear another set of storms is coming in this week.  I'm not overly concerned, but we might just fill the tub up with water this time.

The top of the tree above ended up in the yard across the street:

This is as close as we were allowed to get to the warehouses:

Approximately where the torn-up warehouse is, once stood a farmhouse that friends of ours used to live in.  Considering the possibilities is sobering.

And back home to lights-out.  The worst part of it all for us truly was being bored out of our gourds occasionally over the course of two days, and cooking in a kitchen lit with flashlights.   That said, I am very thankful for a gas stove.  And it was kind of nice to read for as long as I wanted without interruption.   And, I was happily surprised to find I didn't really miss the TV.  In fact, except for tonight's evening news, I haven't watched anything since the power went out after midnight Saturday morning.   We even played an old fashioned game of Twenty Questions and had some good laughs over our guesses.  

By the way, I possibly knew this before, but I was reminded...  when the lights go out inside and one needs to rely on flashlights, one gets a better view of things by pointing the flashlight up toward the ceiling.  If the ceiling is white (or light colored), it will bounce the flashlight's light back down and spread it out further than the beam does that comes out of the flashlight.  Ideally, one has two flashlights.  One to point upward creating a somewhat lightened space overall, and one to point at specific items in order to see something more brightly.  

One of the nicest things was having this gas fireplace to enjoy, and the fact that it wasn't bitterly cold. If it had been bitterly cold, this fireplace would have been a lifesaver.   I heated up some water on the gas stove and washed my hair in a sink on Sunday and I felt like a new person.  It truly made the difference in the last day being pretty decent vs something to simply tolerate.  

Drying my hair by the the heat of the fireplace was pretty nice, too.  Sometimes it truly is the little things...

~~~~~