Rain!

Last week we had four inches of rain, highly unusual in the valley at this time of year, and our remaining tomatoes and basil took a real beating. Today, it's raining again!

Friday I planted a few more lettuce plants and some snow peas, but didn't do any gardening on the weekend since we had house guests. I picked three tiny eggplants for our guests on Friday, cooked along with some farmer's market squash, the last garden peppers, a few tomatoes and onions. We will probably have enough tomatoes for salad this week, but next weekend everything comes out, and broccoli plants will go in.

Butchering a Deer

Last weekend cousin Don, our local provider of wild fish, fowl and game, invited me over to help (mostly watch) him cut up his deer. By the time I got there at 11 a.m., he had already taken care of the upper two quarters. It was interesting to see how the different
parts of meat lay out on the carcass—and the size seemed to me like a fairly large lamb. I took home about half the bones and trimmings to make stock and ended up with enough meat for a stew, plus bits that I turned into “burger.” A mix of half ground pork (from our pig) and half deer was about right, and the burgers were delicious. I froze the stew meat and broth for another time. Don joined us for dinner, bringing choice cuts of venison (which he cooked for us!)—it was an amazingly good meal.