the bugs are itching

I have all kinds of bugs itching me and they aren’t the little black ones you think I’m talking about.  In fact it’s been cool here, really cool, so most of the bugs are gone or going away.  But my red wine bug is waking up, I’m craving a nice zinfandel, and perhaps a syrah.  The cool weather has also got me thinking about camping or at least having a campfire.  R is too young for camping but I like to remember the cool morning waking up in a tent and I look forward to this in the future.  I have a combo bug of really wanting to finish my two quilting projects or at least get them to the point of basting.  That is my goal before I start two other projects that are itching to get going.  One is Ryker’s halloween costume.  There’s a deadline for that one so I’m really being to think about it.  The other is a Christmas project w/ some fun Christmas fabric I found.  A recent email from N in Germany reminded me that I wanted to learn to knit cables and I would like to knit R a winter hat.  Not sure that’ll get done but the itch is there.

Finally I have the bug to cook.  Two weekends ago in Chicago at Mom’s we canned up her huge harvest of tomatoes.  We just canned them whole so that they can be used for sauce or soup or chili or whatever.  We also pickled her harvest of green beans.  That’s what’s in the two photographs.  With the very cool weather this week I’ve given up hope that my many tomatoes will turn red.  So I’ve picked them green and plan to make more green tomato chutney.  It’s quite good so not all is lost.  With the few tomatoes that did turn red I made a tomato sauce that I used with spaghetti the other day.  It was fabulous.  Also we discovered that our pear trees did marvelous this summer.  Nice big pears with very few blemishes.  I’m not sure if its b/c we pruned this summer or what.  Wednesday I picked a ton of pears, gave some to the neighbors and still have pounds of pears left.  I’m hoping to make some pear sauce similar to apple sauce.  I want to make some pear jam.  Maybe candy up some pears.  Pear bread to freeze for later.  Or I could do a pie.  I have a lot of pears but in reality not a ton of time.  We’ll see how much gets done and how good it is.  These pears aren’t really flavorful, but they are very crisp, so they need help with the sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla to make them taste good.
That’s my plan for the next few days and over a week or so.  We’re keeping busy and have lots of fall plans.  I’m happy fall is here, I feel my bones relaxing in the cool weather with the smell of leaves in the air. 

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