Enjoyed a berry nice visit from my mother over the weekend. She arrived early Saturday, and first stop for us was a mixed flat of organic love from the Eugene Saturday Market. The flat carried teeming pints of picture-perfect melt-in-your-mouth blueberries, cherries, blackcap raspberries, and logan berries, again all organic and so sweetly ripe. Not too mention, expertly picked/cleaned as we later found hardly three stems in the whole thing…

Sunday morning, momma made a nice raspberry cream cheese spread for bagels that was perfectly blended to embrace the flavor of the raspberry, yet not too sweet as to overwhelm the cream cheese, a culinary combo surprisingly harder to properly proportion than one might suspect… Bravo! ~

For Sunday dinner, we enjoyed organic carrots, green beans, and delicious tiny new potatoes, also from Saturday Market farmers. For dessert, I crafted a quick parfait of cherry yogurt, dark choco nibs, and crushed cashews that was quite decadent… Yesterday, mom left in the early morning. It was a great visit and I’m excited for her upcoming adventure in Korea. She’ll be enjoying a little more time in the midwest before the big flight.

For me, turns out my weekend berry adventures was only just the beginning, as later yesterday afternoon, a friend made a quick surprise visit, conveniently just in time for dinner, where I’d used a few handfuls of berries mashed through a strainer and reduced, to burst a flavor explosion into another of Ray’s BeerBQ sauced creations… Blueberry Moon Pork Chops.

And also last night, well before the berries had a chance to go bad, I turned the rest of the flat into a double batch of freezer jam, yielding 2 pints and 6 half-pints, all sweetened with brown sugar and honey. I was a little nervous the pectin wasn’t going to set well because it was rather runny going into the jars, and if had been the case, no worries, perfect for a tasty froyo topping, but alas this morning, the jam had gelled, and is perhaps perfect, as good as it gets.

So after my morning french press of coffee and toasted spelt bread with jam, I knocked out a half-hour of chores. While feeding Burp some grain, I spotted several ripe brambles of blackberries on the other side of the pasture. So I re-used one of the berry cartons, and picked my first pint of fresh blackies that grow abundantly all over the property, and are just now starting to ripen. There are gazillions more that should ripen over the next few weeks.

Open to any ideas and suggestions for more BeerBQ berry recipes… =)

So I planted a small garden this year, started a little late, but it has been flourishing. I have two raised bed planters, one with two tomato plants and six bell pepper plants, and the other with seven varieties of spicy peppers. I also have a nice pot of raspberries that are starting to really take off.

Today I decided to clip a bunch of the peppers. So I got 20 green bell peppers, smaller than ones in the grocery store, but infinitely sweeter and completely natural, no pesticides! I also cut 17 spicy peppers, including one Patron Habanero that is absolutely perfect. I got about a half-dozen cayenne peppers that look great, as well as several green chili peppers, I think serrano. There are also three of some rare purple pepper that are amazing looking as they started to turn from purple to this beautiful crimson.

Finally, I clipped two small red tomato and two larger green tomato. The two tomato plants have at least 50-60 more on them. Plus the gallons of basil I’m getting from a friend who is overgrown with it, I will definitely be making all kinds of delicious spaghetti sauce for the winter. What a fun deal. I hope to have a HUGE garden next year. Plus I’m going to talk my landlord into letting me build a little chicken coop in the backyard, give the dogs something to guard and/or chase.

Heading off in a few minutes to the Lane County Fair to volunteer at the Master Recycler booth…

Two big tomato plants and six bell pepper plants in one bed, the other has seven different kinds of chili peppers

Tomato plants doing well.

Enjoying the colorful and varying degrees of spice of the seven types of chili peppers in my garden!

So much has been going on these last couple months, it’s hard to begin, where to start. So in early June, I moved to Oregon, and even though it’s been a little rough starting out in so many new directions, I’m absolutely loving it. The new job is going great for the most part, though it’s certainly been a change of pace. The bosses are pretty cool and the coworkers are okay. The job itself isn’t exactly what I was expecting, but it seems to be going well. Lot of work/my time that’s for sure. Things are still a little hectic. We’ll see how it shakes…

I rented a nice house in Springfield. It’s comfortable, though quite expensive. I’m making okay money at the new job, but rent is eating up a big chunk of that. Luckily I have many side gigs, or I’d be SOL… There just weren’t many options with the two big dogs. People can be stupid, I’d rather rent a place to big dogs any day of the week. I’m sure 99% of neighbors and landlords would rather have my dogs than < 30 lb yapping rats. Speaking of neighbors, mine are getting on my nerves. The worst are the ones behind the house. Bunch of annoying fat women who argue constantly. I think there are three of them there now, plus a kid and a baby. I am really getting sick of hearing them argue. Plus they let their dog run around like crazy, and that definitely annoys my dogs, which annoys me. There is also a stream of “studs” in and out of that place. One of the them has been flirty with me, but she couldn’t pay me enough. There are an incredible number of morbidly obese women here…

Obviously I’m sick of the city. This is a lot quieter than Phoenix, but there are still lots of people who drive way too fast. At least this place is month-to-month, so as soon as I find a place in the country, I’m heading out. It sucks to move, especially since I have a ton of stuff, but who cares… At least the move here wasn’t too bad, lots of friggin driving and I got most everything out of Phoenix, but I still haven’t quite got everything sorted. The garage is still a bit of a mess. I also have a storage unit full of stuff.

My raised-bed garden is doing well. It was getting late, but the first weekend I was here, planted a couple of tomato plants and a half-dozen bell pepper plants. The next weekend I planted 7 different kinds of spicy peppers, including Chitzen Icha habanero. The purple serrano peppers are coming in very nicely, already 3-4″ long. In the front yard, there are all kinds of shrubs, succulents, and flowers. I planted raspberries and sunflowers. Long term, I’m looking forward to having a much larger garden, but short term, I’m looking forward to having a BLT with a tomato fresh from the garden — now that’s living!

Probably the biggest news is that I found a horse. After missing that great one in Arizona a couple years ago, I figured I’d really have a tough time talking myself out of this one. Lucky I waited, this is a lotto winner, Two-year gelding, super sweet and gentle, absolutely a pleasure, and already lots of good training and ground work done. Parelli natural horse training. Plus he’s really good looking, and HUGE — part draft horse and part indian paint. His hooves are twice the size of most horses. He’s staying at a ranch south of here about 15-minutes. Some people there are working with him almost every day, but I’ve been trying to get there 3 days a week for training, more for me that for him. He’s great, I’m a bit green. Hopefully next year, we’ll be out elk hunting, though maybe a year later…

Wish he was ready to go now, since my VW Bus is crapping out… Actually to be precise, the cylinder head stud bolts are loose, and will not tighten because the engine case is stripped. I need to have case-saver inserts machined into it. Lucky, I’ve got a great Volkswagen shop right down the street. Unfortunately, I think it’s going to cost a little coin to get Betty the Bus back to where she needs to be. Even luckier, I live close to work and bike there, so it’s no big deal. Just sometimes a bit inconvenient to run errands, etc.

Well, that’s enough for now. I’m going to run a few errands…