Dried Apricots

Ratio of good (in jar) vs moldy (counter) apricots

The dried apricots were a mixed bag of success and failure.  Most of the pieces dried out quite nicely, but some of the larger ones looked like they had mold spores growing on them, so I chucked those and put the dessicated ones in the freezer to further preserve them until I need them.

All the pieces are a bit less sweet and a little darker than commercially-found ones, but they still taste great so I personally don't have a problem with it.

My take-home lesson from this is that next time, I will not follow the instructions, which say to cut each apricot in half before placing it on the drying rack.  The most nicely dried ones were cut into quarters or less, which made them dry faster since they were smaller. So smaller pieces equals better drying.

I am looking forward to making some Moroccan Chicken though, and being able to reach into the freezer for some naturally-dried apricots to add to the recipe.  Regular, sulphured dried apricots give me an asthma attack, so this is a great and much healthier alternative.

Pretty cool

Today we were blessed with cool, breezy weather.  In the last four days, we've gone from a high temperature of 102 to the high today of just 66 degrees, and I am not complaining.  Mainly because my chores run by the weather.  And I needed a cooler day to accomplish some tasks I could not do without Mother Nature's cooperation.

First on the agenda was transplanting next fall's butternut squash into the ground, along with some late season tomatoes and some marigolds (the last purely for color and decoration).  A cool day is a perfect one for transplanting.  If temperatures go much above the low '80's, plants here will struggle as they try to recover from both heat and transplant shock, and I've had many plants either die this way, or just barely hang on, producing nothing, because I planted them while it was too warm and they never quite got over it.

The other task I needed to do was put up some of the apricots Big Ag brought home over the weekend.  I did two quarts of canned fruit, and four pints of preserves this morning, which used up about half of the apricots I had.  The other half I am going to dry, because there is nothing better than the sweet but tart taste of dried apricots, either on their own or in recipes which call for them, like a Moroccan Chicken recipe I like and make a lot.  Since commercially dried fruit usually has sulfites, it will also be nice to have some apricots on hand that won't induce an asthma attack in anyone.  

But I'm waiting on drying the fruit until later this week, when it is supposed to warm up once again.  I can't say I'm looking forward to having the heat back, but I'm glad I will get at least a couple more days of cool ocean breezes before it comes back.

First fruits

First squash of summer!

Summer's first fruits are finally showing up here at the homestead, while the last of the fall crops are harvested.  The last of the carrots came out of the ground yesterday, along with some of the onions and radishes I planted in October, if you can believe that. The cool nights here really help keep things in the ground for a long time, which is great when you want an extended harvest -- picking a few here, and a few there, as needed. The carrots will be blanched and frozen today, along with some more mustard greens.  The rest will be eaten now, or in the case of the onions, hung up to dry and cure for use later on.

Big Ag is bringing home 20 pounds of apricots for me tonight, for canning and making preserves with this weekend.  And my first cucumbers and squash plants are on the vine outside as we speak.  I even found three or four raspberries and a couple of ollalieberries off my first-year vines yesterday, which I ate promptly, before the birds could find them.

Last summer at this time we were busy with two high school graduations plus packing and moving, so we weren't doing much homesteading, and it's funny how easily I forgot just how busy the regular routine of picking and canning keeps me, most days.  It's hard work, but it's rewarding work.  I've said many times that there's no sound better than that of a canning lid snapping into place after it comes out of the canner.  It sounds like satisfaction from a job well done and the promise of good things to come, all at the same time.

I'm working this Saturday at the winery -- hopefully indoors, because it's expected to be 103 degrees outside -- but after this I will be cutting back to working outside the home just one or two days a month (whenever the winery needs help most, if they do) and using the rest of my time to begin putting up our winter stores.

Good work, done in pleasant surroundings -- anywhere that happens, you really can't ask for anything more.