Daily Notes- September 26

Rain.  Humidity.

I think it rained all night.  G and Riley told me.  I slept and didn't hear anything. This morning I opened the front door and walked out into 90 or 99% humidity.  Depending on which of the outdoor monitors you believe.

The windows out front were wet--so I went back in and got a towel and scrubbed them down.  I may go back out with some Simple Green and make them a bit cleaner.

I picked tomatoes while I was out with Riley.  We go out to "get the paper" and then he sniffs and wanders to see what has happened overnight.  Who came to visit.  When it's hot, I water the Grow Boxes.  And I use the plastic bag the paper comes in to hold tomatoes that I pick.  Today--well, it's the very end of summer out there.  Dead, dry tomato vines on some plants.  Some still hold a few ripening tomatoes.  Some peppers are turning from green to red.  The parsley looks good.  The fig tree has about 20 figs on it.  Remember we root pruned it early in the Summer.  I had hoped to see leaves grow--the figs are an added bonus.

Last summer I dragged the fig tree into the garage to keep it warm enough to ripen the figs so I could make fig preserves.  That didn't work too well so I just picked all the figs and had them in the kitchen with a very brown ripe banana to "gas" the figs into a ripe state.  It worked.

My daughter brought me a tall branch from another variety of purple smoke bush.  Larger leaves and more color to transfer to cloth (I hope).  If today continues to be dark--I'll make more cloth.  Use my rust water for the first time.  I also have some things--dead flowers etc--to use for cloth.  I wrap it tight, tie it with string and then steam it for 45 minutes.  This time, went the steaming is done I will let the cloth cool for a day and then open it.  More Time to transfer color. I use alum as a mordant.

I have many more tomatoes to blanch, peel and freeze.  Enough green beans for one more pot of vegetable soup (for me).  G is on his second batch of Tomato Basil soup.  I have kale and beans for my second favorite soup. Unless I use the kale to make a frittata.  I like that, too.