Frog and Goat

Hanna moved through yesterday and we got three inches of rain. The better-half and I remarked that if we didn’t know it was a tropical storm we would have just thought we had a big rain storm. The only casualty of the tropical storm was the garden. The tomato plants are mostly toast. The tomato plants overwhelmed their cages once and for all. I just went out and picked as many tomatoes as I could get to without sinking to my ankles in mud and once things dry out we’ll go in and pull up the plants.

The pepper plants may have a little more in them but I picked a ton of jalapenos, habaneros and anaheim peppers too. Truthfully even those plants may be pulled up and composted. We have so many peppers. The green pepper plants are about done as well. I think there’s one pepper still out there that could use a few more days to get bigger. The only plants that aren’t on the definite pull up list are the eggplants and the weather may be the end of them. They don’t like cool temperatures so I think once we start cooling off they’ll kill themselves off. Suicide in the garden.

Last night we made a riff on beef bourguigon and ended up throwing a whole habanero into the pot for about an hour, mabye an hour and a half. The pepper gave just enough heat to the dish but did not overwhelm. The dish was rich and perfect for a rainy day–even though it wasn’t cool yesterday it seemed appropriate to make a hearty meal.

Last night we cleaned some of the lingering items out of the refrigerator. This morning I packed a lunch that includes this wacky assortment:
1 can Barq’s Root Beer
1 jar of the homemade white bean dip
1 plastic bag of pretzel chips, everything flavor
1 container of leftover wheatberry salad
1 container of mini carrots
A knife and a fork

Who wants to guess how soon I’ll be hungry after lunch? Hopefully the bean dip will be filling enough to tie me over to dinner. The better-half and I are going out after class.

Speaking of class, I certainly hope I don’t have bad thoughts about my professor like I did last week. She asked me to talk about specific portions of my school blog and then she proceeded to talk over me the entire time. If she wanted to co-train, she should have said something. Instead my frustration level peaked at 10–it’s not like it took much to pump that level up last week.

Last night I put the jars of pickled jalapeno in our cabinet and I thought to myself that I didn’t even try the finished product before I processed them in a hot water bath. I hope they’ll taste good when we open them later this year.

I have tons of habanero and anaheim peppers already picked and, frankly, the peppers don’t seem to be letting up yet. I know we’ll make some more habanero oil but as far as what to do with the other massive quanitites of peppers, I’m not sure. I think we’ll have to figure out the dehydrator function on the oven and dry some. It’s not like there’s a big audience for hot peppers like there is for squash or tomatoes. You can’t just take a basket of peppers into the office and expect people to snatch them up.