Fire Cider

I put anther eight gallon zip bags of ripe tomatoes into the freezer yesterday. They will become the next batch of salsa. My friend Marcie came over mid-morning and got a couple of five-gallon buckets’ worth of tomatoes to round out her salsa-making. We stood out in the cool rain and worked and talked for a bit. After the excessive heat and drought this summer, working in the rain in 60-degree temps felt heavenly. I was in no hurry to come inside.

[This has been a banner year for tomatoes. Some of it was the heat, for sure. I planted fewer plants this year than last, and we’re still going to exceed last year’s harvest by quite a bit. I also saved seed from my best-producing plants from last season, and I think that makes a difference.]

The garden is as ready as it is going to be. The garden tour starts this morning—you can stop by the Mountain Brook Library on Foothill Road and get tickets if you don’t have them yet—and runs until 4 pm. We got a few more showers overnight, but today is supposed to be pleasant and about 70 degrees. I’ve got lemonade and zucchini bread ready for the guests. I’ll try to get some photos, but I may just be too busy.

After I finished up in the garden, I came in and made a batch of fire cider. While I appreciate the availability of modern medical treatments, I also believe in the power of good ole’ homemade remedies, and I’ve been stocking the medicine cabinet with vitamins and other supplies. Fire cider is a new one to me, although I’ve seen some of the ingredients in other cold and flu remedies. You can Google “fire cider” and get tons of recipes. The one I used calls for onion, garlic, ginger root, horseradish root (dug from my garden), orange zest and fresh orange juice, cayenne pepper, and any other spices you want to add (I put in some allspice and whole cloves). Mix everything in a quart mason jar and cover with apple cider vinegar:

Now it goes into a cool, dark cabinet to steep for a month. To use, strain and mix with honey/hot water to taste. I’ve got enough ingredients to do a few more batches.

Even if it’s only palliative, for alleviating symptoms, I plan to use it. The mixture was fairly pungent as I was getting it ready and I have no doubt it’s going to be a powerful decongestant.

************************************************************

The husband did another timber frame barn foundation and slab a few weeks ago. He told me that this barn came from the same company that did my friend Tera’s barn. The company sends a crew out from back east to put the frame together, and they made a video of the barn raising. It’s on Vimeo and I cannot figure out how to embed it here, but if you click on the link, it should go right to the video.

I am making my list of things I want to get in Spokane when I go this week. I asked our renter and his wife if they needed anything from Trader Joe’s and their five year-old (Marcie’s granddaughter) piped right up and said she needed some Scandinavian Swimmers. That was a new one to me. Apparently, they are the Trader Joe’s brand of Swedish Fish. They are now on the list, along with a couple of one-pound bars of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate (for me) and the usual haul of chocolate-covered espresso beans for the husband. Does anyone else need anything?

Washington state has reinstituted its mask mandate for all inside spaces. Nordstrom had told all the corporate employees that they would be back in their offices at least a few days a week starting in September, but when I talked to DD#2 yesterday, she said they had pushed that back to January 2022. She’ll continue working from home until then.