Sweet Deliciousness

I've been itching to can lately, and I just couldn't stand it anymore.  We went to our local orchard, and bought a half of a bushel of "grade 2" peaches.  They were half the price of the "grade 1" peaches, for no good reason!  There were no bruises, holes, or anything wrong with them.  Their loss!  Aren't they pretty?

I washed the peaches off a batch at a time.

While water was boiling to prepare the peaches for skinning, I made a simple syrup of 1 part sugar to 3 parts water.  Yes, it's clear, you're not missing anything here.

I boiled the peaches for 30-45 seconds, then threw them in a (cleaned) sink with ice water.  I cut them in quarters, and the skin just about fell off.

I'm using the hot pack method.  So I took the skinned peaches and put them in the simple syrup.  I kept them hot as I funneled the peaches and juice into the jars.

So gorgeous!  (You can even see more peaches hanging out in the sink.)

 

I used a hot water bath to can these, even though I used a pressure cooker.

I only did an eighth of a bushel, and this is what I canned!

I had some peaches left over, so I made my mom's famous peach cake.  Oh, is it good.  I've never quite made it as well as she does (and I over filled this pan below) but it will hopefully be pretty good.

 

Mom's Peach Cake

4 cups Jiffy Baking Mix
6 Tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 cup milk
2 egg, slightly beaten
4 Tbsp. shortening, melted
Blend together batter ingredients and spread into 1/2 mix on bottom of prepared pan. Cover with layer of sliced and peeled peaches with juice. Add other half of mix.  Put as many peaches as will fit (with some juice) on the top of the cake.  Bake 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

What Simplicity Means to Me

I know exactly the events that precipitated my launch into blogging.

1. On a trip to Hartford, CT, I picked up a magazine from the airport called Organic Style.  I was enthralled, and I read it until it went out of print a few years later.
2. This new found appreciation of things organic led me to do a project on alternative energy for a college course, and sent me to the site for the Center for the New American Dream.
3. From here, I learned about voluntary simplicity.  I subscribed to a newsletter from SimpleLiving.net.
4. In researching other sites like this, I found Shirley's blog (Choosing Voluntary Simplicity).
5. At about the same time, at about 4 am one morning, I watched a 20 minute PBS special on Tasha Tudor.  I was in love.
6. From Shirley's blog, I found Mrs. Mordecai's blog Be-It-Ever-So-Humble.
7. From Mrs. Mordecai, I was introduced to Mormon principles, including the idea of preparedness, which fell in line with my dream of self-reliance.  And I found a whole bunch of other bloggers that I've come to respect.
8. From there, I started my blog.

I've been meandering around in my bloggy-ness since then.  In my wanderings, I've kind of lost sight of what I'd been heading toward.  Total boredom on a road trip pushed me to buy two magazines that have re-inspired me: Mother Earth News, and The New Pioneer.  Mother Earth News is older than dirt (or at least older than I am).  The New Pioneer is so new that the issue I read is their first issue, and I can't find a website for them.

I can't nail down the time or place that most closely resembles the life I want to lead.  I know that I want old trees, some meadowland/farmland, space for gardening.  I want a solidly built house, with environmentally responsible electricity, heat, and water.  I would love to have a pond of some form (especially one like Shirley's spring fed ponds).  I would consider myself lucky to have chickens, sheep, and cows.  Especially cows.  I love them so :o)  I'd like to keep bees, even though I'm mildly allergic.  I want to have a cellar, with shelves of home canned goods lining the walls.  I want to have homemade soaps and candles.  A wood stove and/or fireplace would be amazing.  I would be thrilled if I could have tap-able trees to make homemade syrup.  I'd really love to learn to be alone and to be quiet.  Growing up in the space age means that I have a hard time not multi-tasking.  Even at this moment, I'm watching the History channel as I type.

Simplicity to me means knowing where things come from.  It means being responsible for your own survival.  It means possessions being not only pretty, but useful.  It means having time to enjoy nature, friends, and family.  It means being relaxed and serene.  It means providing for your own physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

Garden Goings-on

I hadn't had enough time to spend in my garden over the past few weeks, so I decided to use my free morning today working in the garden and getting errands done.  I didn't get pictures of it, but I had mushrooms growing in my garden.  I ripped them out right away.  I can't believe I've been so neglectful!  She doesn't look too bad though:

 The garden (plus a hose) is doing well.

Our mess of a tomato patch

Just one of about 7 gorgeous green bell peppers

Our lovely parsnips - I'm so excited to try these!

Our carrots have gone crazy

The lima beans are slowly coming back from an infestation of some form

The marigolds are absolutely thriving and flourishing

More yummy tomatoes - beefsteak

Even more tomatoes - Romas

This one we're not going to talk about.  We're just going to giggle and squeal and hope the bugs don't get to it.

The nasturtiums survived their move and are beginning to flower again

Coneflowers, aka Echinacea, are sprouting up everywhere

Our lone surviving sunflower is growing smack-dab in the middle of our lawn

Now that I've been able to fill the feeder more often, the birds are back

A butterfly enjoying our flowers

Our gorgeous hibiscus bushes - I love them so!

Our newest addition - we've looked for pineapple mint for MONTHS since our old plants didn't survive our move.  This big boy was on sale for $2!

Our second tomato harvest!

Check out An Oregon Cottage for others' garden posts :o)

Contentment

Today has been a perfectly lovely day.  Last night, I stayed out entirely way too late.  I got home around 2:30 am.  We celebrated a good friend's 25th birthday with the card game Apples to Apples for a good 4 hours.  It was good, clean fun.

I woke at 7:30 in order to get into work on time.  It was a fairly productive time, even though the air conditioning was dead and it was 102 F outside.

I got home, had an awkward email freak out from my dad.  But I quickly recovered by getting out of the house.  We went to our first ever estate sale.  It really creeped me out, but it was interesting.  The house was amazing - probably nineteen-teens or so.  After we found nothing, we explored the local countryside for a good hour.

We found an amazing, inexpensive restaurant in a nearby town.  I had a crab cake, and *B* had the most fantastic french dip and brie croissant ever.  It was really brilliant.  I will definitely be getting that sandwich next time.

After that, we rushed off to Saturday evening Mass.  I don't remember the last time that I went to church two weeks in a row.  *B* and I have decided to make church a regular occurrence, and I'm very excited about it.

We're ending the night with one of my all-time favorite movies, The Holiday.  I love Christmas movies set in Britain.  So much so that we almost had hot chocolate for an evening treat, despite the raging heat wave.

Simple Pleasure Thursday

My simple pleasure for today is having time to clean my house.  Because today was the last day for kids at my camp job, I will have a lot more time to take care of my home in the future as well.  Tomorrow is camp clean up and Monday is a trip to an amusement park for a counselor treat.  After that, my mornings are totally free and open.

To celebrate this new-found free time, I crossed a bunch of stuff off of my to do list.  I vacuumed my whole house (minus the basement), I took care of the animals, I visited the garden, I helped *B* clean the kitchen.  I look forward in the coming days to being able to take proper care of my home.  I've been neglecting the very things that I love so much.  Rhonda at Down--to--Earth had posted on the joys of taking care of the home.  It's absolutely true.  And I feel so much better now that I've been able to fill that role again.

Marriage Preparations

On Saturday afternoon, we had our reception planning.  We're going with - shocker - Christmas themed food considering we won't be home for Christmas this year.  We're having roast turkey breast, mashed potatoes, root veggies, cranberry chutney - yummm!  This will be tasty!  The cake needs to be worked on, because I hadn't even given it any thought.  What kind of cake should we get?  We were thinking a chocolate first layer, a lemon second layer, and a vanilla/chocolate third layer.  I have some work to do.  Well, more work to do - the invitations came in (correctly!) on Friday.  I will be addressing for weeks!

On Saturday night, we met with our sponsor couple.  They're very nice people from the parish in which we are getting married.  We really did enjoy spending time with them.  They have three children - 14, 11, and 9 I believe - so they're a bit older than we.  We did some exercises on how well we know each other and ourselves and exercises on our respective backgrounds.  Soon, we will be taking a "test" to see which areas we should focus on discussing and working through as a couple.  I'm very happy that we are working on our marriage before anything happens, rather than controlling damage afterward.

On Sunday, we went to Mass.  The husband in our sponsor couple had mentioned that he was going to 8:30 mass that day, so we decided to check it out.  *B* even gave me breakfast in bed/on-the-couch-where-I-fell-asleep.  We made it there just in time, even though I was sure we'd be late.  It was much better than the last two Masses I had been to.  I'm thinking that I'm really making some breakthroughs here.  I could really see us going to Mass there from now on.

Simple Pleasure Thurs- errr, Friday - err, Monday?

Oops!  I meant to post yesterday, Friday, but my simple pleasure is exactly the reason I didn't post.  My simple pleasure is reconnecting with my fiancé.

Our first and only real argument, though we never raised voices, was a few weeks ago.  Father's Day to be precise.  We had gone to Mass in a neighboring parish.  I had meant to go many times, but I never got to it.  It was right after Camden, and I had felt really connected to religion for the first time in a while.  The Mass was awful.  Really awful.  I hated it.  But I knew that it was the priest, not the Church, that I was unhappy with.  So on the ride from the church to *B*'s parent's house, we discussed religion.

*B* wasn't raised with any religious education or association.  He had only been to a Bible camp with friends once, and they told him he and his family were going to Hell.  Most recently, he had been exploring non-Christian religious ideas.  I wasn't thrilled with it, but considered it harmless.

When we decided to get married in the Catholic church, we knew we had to answer affirmatively to three questions:

• Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?
  
• Will you love and honor each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives?
  
• Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?
  
  

When the priest had first told us these questions, he put the third one as "will you expose your children to the law of Christ and his Church?"  *B* was okay with that.  When the priest at the Father's Day mass reiterated the question as posed above, *B* started to get worried.

So anyhoo, the whole way to his parents' house, we talked about religion.  Since his awful experience with Christians (of some Protestant denomination), he was very leery.  To be fair, I was inordinately dismissive of his current beliefs.  Either way, I felt so cut off from him.

Last night, we went out to dinner.  We had been having a good conversation, so rather than going home, we went for a drive.  We got back on the subject of religion, but in a much better way.  I asked him what he actually believes (because even though you categorize yourself, no one believes all of what their religion says 100%).  The things he identified were not mutually exclusive from Christianity, and forms of it are actually present within Christian teachings.  We talked about how unlikely it was that some dude died for something he something he did wrong, even though he hasn't done anything.  We talked about taking the Bible literally versus investigating the metaphors behind the passages.  Then, we got home and picked out the readings for our wedding.  I haven't felt so connected to him in a long time, and I certainly haven't felt connected to him in that context.