A Day of Nothing – Work Related at Least
Mr Chiots and I both work from home, which has it’s benefits and drawbacks. We really love it and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it’s difficult to take time off. If we’re home, we’re usually working. When we go out, we usually have work related errands that we tack on to whatever we’re doing. It’s extremely rare for us to take an entire day and do nothing work related. Yesterday we finally had…
…work related at least. We did work a bit in the morning, but at 9:30 am we headed south to Portland to see Skyfall, the new James Bond movie at an iMax theatre. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know my love for 007. If you are my friend on facebook you know how much I’ve been anticipating this new movie. After the movie we went out to Flatbread for a late lunch/early dinner, then we stopped at Portland Architectural Salvage to look around. A night out is not complete for Mr Chiots if there’s no ice cream, so we stopped for that as well.
While we were at dinner we were talking about how weird it was to not be working. Normally we would have had a meeting scheduled or something else work related. I didn’t even take my camera (hence the word images above). Even though my blog is a hobby, it can be like work sometimes. The day was perfect, exactly what we needed.
When was the last time you had a day just to yourself? What did you do?
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Round Two
Last year I purchased a box of black mission olives from Chaffin Family Orchard to cure. I tried a few different curing methods and found that the Kalamata style fermented olives were my favorite. No surprise there since Kalamatas are my favorite kind of olive. At first I was skeptical that they’d turn out, curing olives seems like it should be harder than it is. When I tasted my first one I knew I’d be curing my own olives for the rest of my life.
This year I decided to add green olives to my curing routine. A large box was ordered from Chaffin Family Orchard and it arrived last Saturday. These are much larger than the mission olives so they don’t take as long to cut for curing. Last year I felt like I was cutting for ages, but these only took about an hour to get all the olives in their respective soaking liquids.
If you don’t like olives, make sure you try traditionally cured ones before your write them off completely. I never liked olives when my only experience was with those little black rounds that come from a can. Then I tasted my first Kalamata and was hooked. Don’t even let me near one of those olive bars at the fancy grocery stores!
I saved a few olives out hoping to make a how-to video. Curing olives is one of those things that is intimidating but is actually really simple. Hopefully I can encourage more people to try it at home. Not only are they delicious and healthy, you can save some serious money curing your own olives! I’ll happily spend a few hours curing 20 pounds of olives so I can eat organic olives all year long. I also know a few people who would love to receive olives as gifts.
Olives – love them or leave them? Which is your favorite kind/color?
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Around the Run
On Cultivate Simple, our podcast, we have an Around the Run section each week. In this section we talk about what’s been going on around here. For those of you who don’t listen to the podcast, I figured it was time for an update. The weather is leaning more towards winter on the scale than fall. It’s been getting COLD, down into the 20’s at night and in the high 30’s during the day. There’s a burning bush out front that is still blazing red, the last remnants of fall in the garden. On Monday I noticed a few snowflakes falling from the sky. It won’t be long now until we’re snugly tucked under a blanket of snow.
Now that there’s a nip in the air, I’ve been working to cover my fall crops with my low hoops. So far, only the celery and Japanese bunching onions have been covered. Hopefully the rest of them will be put up by this weekend. (if you’re interested in how I made these hoops, here’s my how-to post).
I’ve also been busy cooking up delicious seafood, making sourdough biscuits, staying warm by the wood burner, and putting in many hours of work in the office. Truth be told, most of the meals we eat don’t take long to prepare since they’re fairly simple. When you have fresh scallops what more do they need beside searing and generous amount of butter?
I still need to get my garlic planted. The plot is prepared thanks to some help from the chickens, but the garlic sits on my table waiting. Hopefully that will in by this weekend. It’s a good thing garlic is so forgiving.
Sometimes, I wish fall wasn’t this busy. I’d love to have a little more time for hiking and exploring the new areas around me. I’ll have plenty of time to do that this winter and over the coming years. That can wait, the garlic can’t.
Do you have any impending chores that need done ASAP?
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Belfast Farmers Market
This past Friday Mr Chiots and I headed over to Belfast, ME to hit the farmers market. It was amazingly well stocked with root vegetables, seafood, cheese, yogurt, baked goods, soap, and even water buffalo meat.
We grabbed a few items like goat milk yogurt, brussels sprouts, beets and a few scallops (yes there was seafood at the market). Mr Chiots snagged a big chewy triple ginger cookie which was made with real ingredients like butter, organic cane syrup, and fresh ginger. I’m really looking forward to trying a water buffalo steak next week, it’s such a unique item to see.
What’s the most interesting item you’ve spotted at your local farmers market?
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Cultivate Simple 5: The Dark Side
In this week’s show we discuss the dark side of keeping animals. Death is a part of life and it is the only thing that is guaranteed for everything. But “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” so “Let your food be your medicine, and let your medicine be your food.”
Around the Run
- Song in the show: I’d Rather – Ellery
- Susy’s Calendar from last year
Fermenting Recipes:
Books of the Week
Listener Question
Answer for Josie: Apple Aperture – Adobe Lightroom
Answer for Kiskin: As with most weeds, being consistent about pulling them up for a year or two will be your best defense. The first year dig up the bed and remove as much of the plants and roots as you can. During the first and second year pull any new growth you see ASAP, especially in the spring. This will help exhaust the nutrients in the roots/rhizomes. There’s a reason it’s called goat weed. If you can have them, goats will be one of your best lines of defense against noxious weeds. In the show notes there will be a great article about using goats.
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:27:31 — 60.8MB)
