there are no sad polka dancers ...and zucchini

I spent Friday and Saturday in East Lansing at the Great Lakes Folk Festival. This fest is great as it is 2 miles away and free! Friday night I arrived in time to hit the dance tent when the polka band was playing. It is such happy music. Nobody is moody or teary eyed when polka is playing, in contrast to the Cape Breton celtic band who played on the main stage later that eve. They had great music too, but that style can bring out all sorts of emotions, wistful, longing, deep, dark sea moods as well as happy little jigs.

But polka...is always polka, fun, happy, goofy and full of laughter. Cajun is the same way, a walking party with music.

I mowed the lawn yesterday. I love a freshly mowed lawn. It has been so hot here lately that my lawn stopped growing. I am sure the lack of consistent rain helped too. Somehow, the weeds always manage to grow as they are so well adapted to their climate. So, really, I just mowed the weeds. Just the same, everything is the same height now.
I received news this morning, exciting news, that my privacy fence will be going up on Tuesday. Oh happy day!!!! To once again have privacy in my backyard will be so nice!!! I recently removed two very large and tall cotton wood trees from my backyard and several little trees that were along the fenceline with the cotton woods had to be removed too, as well as the chain link fence that was in place. So now my backyard opens up into the neighbors, a neighbor who has been very sullen about the tree removal repercussions. He is a renter with a dog and now has to actually pay attention to his dog so that the dog stays in his yard. His fence was removed too to make the tree removal easier as his yard opens up into a parking lot. So, for a month I have been looking into the parking lot of the two neighboring duplexes and incurring all the nasty looks of my neighbor. His dog is however, very content now. The neighboring landlords put up a new privacy fence this week and wow did that help. I gave him a bunch of garden tomatoes as a peace offering two days ago. He planted his tomatoes in the shade. They are about 1 foot high, with no blooms.

Ok, this blog is getting decidely boring. Time to change topics.

My garden is now producing faster than I can eat anything, so I am taking tomorrow off to can hot dilly beans (pickles), blanch and freeze beans, swiss chard and collard greens (love them! great in winter soups) and can and dry some more tomatoes.
I wonder if I could blanch and freeze zucchini? Do I really want zucchini that badly in winter? I made a point of only planting one zucchini plant this year and it still gives me more than I can use. Last year I spent a lot of time slicing it and putting it in the food dehydrator so I could put it in soups all winter.
Did I? No, not once. I still have dried zuc chips. I am thinking the squirrels might like them.

Somehow two cherry tomato plants ended up in my garden. I really dislike cherry tomatoes, they have no true flavor compared to a real tomato. I checked the tags I planted with them and sure enough, somebody switched them at the garden center as they are definitely not Roma's. Disappointing, but at least I have 6 other Roma plants and they all weren't cherry tomatoes. Here is a pic of last year's tomato harvest. I planted lots and lots of heirlooms. This year I cut back on the heirlooms as they are not really for canning and I can't eat them or give them away fast enough. But they are tasty and beautiful!



Did I mention that on Friday I made the best margarita I have ever tasted? I will post the recipe another day. The secret: key lime juice and great tequila.

i'm out