Morning At The Stove

It seems that I spend my life either taking things out of the freezer (fall and winter) or putting things into the freezer (spring and summer). The putting-into-the-freezer season is here, and I'd better get busy, if we want to eat next winter.

I harvested a big armful of rhubarb this morning.  I love those huge leaves, as big as elephant ears, and stack them on some wild rosebush sprouts that I'm trying to suffocate to death (it's almost impossible to kill a wild rosebush without using herbicides).  I chopped up the rhubarb stems and filled three one-gallon bags, each of which--with the addition of eggs, flour, oil and pecans--will make  a batch of six rhubarb bread loaves on some snowy afternoon.  When the chopping was done I was left with the trademark black fingernails that result from some weird reaction between the rhubarb juice and my skin and will take about a week to disappear.

I also picked a basketful of kale, which I tore into pieces and threw, stems and all, into the big vat of dog food that I cook every month.  In case you're wondering, this mixture of rice, veggies, eggs, oil, garlic and powdered milk does not constitute my dogs' entire diet--only about a quarter of it, the rest being a decent kind of kibble.  Wolfie and Bisou love it, though, and I feel that I'm ensuring that they will live forever....

The lavender has just started blooming, so I picked that, hoping to encourage the plants to produce more.  It's not been a good lavender year so far--lavender wants hot, dry weather instead of this chilly damp. I lost a couple of plants over the winter, and the survivors are putting out feeble little blooms.  I hung today's harvest in a bunch from the light fixture above the dining room table.  It doesn't look like much, but I can smell it every time I walk by.

I've been meaning to make arugula soup while the arugula, which does like chilly damp weather, holds out.  Also, my spinach crop has been negligible, but I should do something with it before the weather changes and it bolts.  Meanwhile, it's started raining again.  My green Vermont is so green these days that when I look out the window I almost feel like I'm swimming underwater in some woodland pond.