Writing a Book is HARD! I QUIT! No!… must… persevere…

Seriously.  I had no idea.  I mean, I’ve written a lot of stuff in my day, but this is the first complete, cohesive, book-form project, and getting started has been a bear.  As I worked through the outline, I realized that I had a lot to say about backyard farming.  One book started looking like two… two became three… and pretty soon I was thinking I’d just put a cover on the outline and have a work of some heft right there.

I had a nice talk with Robert at The Urban Farm Store.  We commiserated about trying to write what you want to write rather than writing what you think (or are told) that will sell.  Coincidentally, Joel Salatin, the relatively famous farmer and author, was there giving a little talk.  I didn’t catch the talk, but Robert gave me a little synopsis, and it was remarkably similar to what I’d just been writing about with regard to the motivations for backyard farming.  That was encouraging.  At least I’m not way off in left field.

Is it a how-to or a discussion of the phenomenon?  Do I trace our food culture through those changes that are pushing people to grow their own or leave that to Pollan and gang?  The whole point was to write something different for the actual people that I know who are interested in getting started.  I don’t want to create some John Jeavons style techno-manual.  I don’t want to rewrite Animal, Vegetable, Miracle– I was tired of that one before I got halfway through it (not entirely her fault, I was just saturated with books on the subject, and honestly, it’s a little repetitive).

Anyway, the irony, of course, is that as I sit on my butt writing, my garden is going to hell in a harvest basket.  I just hope no one wants to discuss my qualifications in the context of my weed patch… or… uh… highly-efficient food production facility I mean.  Hard to present yourself as an experienced expert on glassblowing as iced tea runs down the interviewer’s sleeve because of all the cracks you left in her glass.  I’m going to have to follow people around saying “uh, yeah, don’t eat that… not sure what it is… oh, sorry, that’s rotten, probly don’t wanna touch it… jeez, did you step in that?…”

STOP JUDGING ME!!!

Yeah, yeah… I’ll stop writing about writing and start writing.

In the Kitchen:

Roasted tomato and onion sauce: take about 3 lbs. tomatoes, a few cloves of garlic, and 2 onions, chop them up and roast them with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and whatever herbs float your boat at 350 or so until they’re good and soft.  Run the whole scalding hot mess through a fine screened food mill to get the skins, seeds, etc. out.  Then, cook the whole thing down in a pot until it’s nice and thick.  It’ll net you about a pint or so of the best sauce you ever tasted.

Rhubarb Crisp: this recipe is pretty close to what I use.  Served with good (homemade?) vanilla ice cream, it is to die for.  Darling.  Fabulous.

I think Clarke said it best in 2001 with: “My God… it’s full of zucchini!” Surely HAL had his own way of preserving the summer squash, though I wouldn’t have trusted it.  I’ve been freezing it.  You can blanch (water or steam) it in either shredded (for baking) or chunk (for other cooking) form for a couple of minutes first, and then freeze it.  I do mine in 2 cup portions.

Likewise, the big bucket of Walla Wallas is going into caramalized onions (ala Crockpot) and chopped up for freezing (no blanching needed).

In The Garden:

Two words: Powdery Mildew.  Speaking of squash… anything even slightly vine-like is covered with the stuff.  I suspect our crazy 110->65->100 weather, with its periodic heavy rain, has contributed to the plants succumbing to it.  The fact is, around here, there’s not much to be done about powdery mildew.  I’ll go all multi-modal on it to fight it back, but the mildew’s going to win, I’m just stalling for time.

Various ideas you can try to make yourself feel better that you’re doing something: baking soda, milk, neem, Serenade, sulfur, prayer, fire, pointy sticks.

Still, the fall plantings of cabbage, broccoli, beets, carrots, lettuce, etc. are looking good, and we’re pulling out scads of good stuff to eat– with tomatoes pulling into the lead.  The peppers are starting to turn red and the eggplants continue to produce.

Livestock:

The hens are definitely slowing down a bit.  We’re average more like 2-3 eggs a day rather than the 3-4 we’d been getting a few months ago.  Margaret has a bare hiney for some reason.  She seems in good health, though, so I’m going to chalk it up to a molt rather than some horrible flesh-eating fly.

The bees are, you know, “busy”.  It looks like Adams is getting infested with ants over the last day or two.  I’ve noticed that the bees are sort of agitated, and I’ve seen several ants making their way up the sides of the hive in that path-following way they do.  Time to break out the Tanglefoot, I guess.

OK, back to writing.  You can pre-order your copy of the book here.  Or here.  Hmm… I guess the links aren’t working.  Maybe when I get to 100 pages.