I haven't posted in a long time, but
I figured this snow storm was worth it. They forecasted 24"-30"
of snow.
It started Monday night around
9:00pm and snowed all night. When we woke up the was 24" of snow on
the ground already in blizzard conditions. It wouldn't stop snowing until
around midnight Tuesday.
When I opened up the door on Tuesday
morning, this is what I found.
Snow
in the laundry room doorway
When I went out to start the clean
up, I could hardly walk through it.
I have to walk through the snow to get to the tractor
25" of snow
I started the tractor and
tried to remove 24" of snow over the length of my driveway. It was
tough going, but the tractor did its job. I had bought a used John
Deere snow blower in October because I was having trouble with mine and didn't
want to have to depend on it this winter. The snow blower did its job as
well. Good thing it was cold as the snow was nice & fluffy.
Today the folks from the ALB program were all over our property today. The northern end of Worcester was devastated by the Asian Long Horned Beetle. Almost all of the trees in the Greendale section of Worcester have been cut down, making that section of town look like it did in the 1950's with no trees.
Asian Longhorned Beetle
They have been in the West Boylston woods looking for signs of the beetle and we were told that they haven't made it up this for north yet, but they are looking for signs anyway.
Even though I haven't been posting here, we have been busy. Last October, Elly and I decided to volunteer at our local recycling center called Wachusett Earthday Inc,. Many years ago when the kids were very young, we used to volunteer at the Earthday Recycling Days that were held twice a year on the ground of a local school. Well, 10-15 years passed and a new multi-town recycling center was constructed to support the recycling for 7 of the Wachusett towns. It is on land owned by the DCR (Massachusetts Reservoir Dept) and the DCR built a huge building and supports the effort.
Elly and I used to go there picking for eBay items and figured that since we were there all the time, we might as well volunteer. The lady that is in charge is the same one from years ago at the Recycling Days and still remembered us. So now we volunteer on all the days that the center is open unless we have an auction conflict. The Resource Swap Building is huge and everything is free.
Below are some pictures from inside the resource center.
Our driveway in the winter. No Foliage colors here
Wow! I haven't posted here since last October. That was before the long winter, the 2nd worst winter in history for the Worcester,MA area. The "Fall Foliage Calendar" effect didn't last long and we settled into a long cold winter. Our outdoor wood furnace burned through over 12 cord of wood to keep us nice & toasty.
Looking up our road
Driveway with the big mound of snow (Loring Glacier)
I was able to use the tractor to plow the driveway, but I had to keep it plugged in if I wanted to start it. It's hard to start a diesel engine in the cold. Even though it was pretty at times.
Finally all the snow melted. The last bit of snow in our yard melted on April 10.
The last bit of the "Loring Glacier"
Today, i was able to get outside and rotor-till the two gardens and getting them ready for planting in May.
In October, the landscape changes drastically around here. It's exciting because of the fall colors but we know that only 30 days from now the leave will all be gone and the skies will be grey as winter starts to take its grip on us. But until then, every day and every errand we make is just like driving through the pages of a Fall Foliage Calendar! On every town road, and around every corner, we are blasted with color! This is one of the reasons we like living in New England..
Looking down our driveway from the garage.
Looking up the driveway from the road
Looking South down the road
Looking North on the road towards town
As the colors get more vivid and the days get shorter, I will post more pictures.
When the plum tomatoes are ripe, its time to make tomato sauce. We have tried numerous different ways to actually get from the whole tomato to the final product of the actual thick tomato sauce. Since I like technology, we opted for the fastest way using the least manual labor. We have been using this method for about 25 years now.
First we pick all the ripe tomatoes. This year we used an heirloom variety call Amish Plum Tomato. They are nice and plump and also good in salads. We also like the size of the plum tomato becuse the fit into the juicer nicely.
Tub of Tomatoes
First we take all the tomatoes, pull off the green stem and float them in a sink full of cold water to clean them. Removing the green stems is optional, sometime we sometimes we do other times we don't. It doesn't seem to make a difference. If we have a huge amount to do, its easier to keep them on as it cuts down the steps and the amount of time required.
We then set up our 40 year old Champion Juicer with the screen attachment. When we juice the tomatoes, the juice falls through the screen and the seeds and skin get pushed out as waste. We save this waste for later.
Our 40 Year Old Champion Juicer
We push the tomaotes, one by one through the juicer. You can see this on this youtube video I posted.
After all the tomatoes are done, we end up sauce and a pile of seed & skin.
Sauce from the juicer
Seeds and Skin as waste from the Juicer
Now we take the seeds and skin and quicky run them through a hand food mill to "squeeze" out the last bit of tomato goodness from them. After once through the hand food mill, we a left with just a small amount of seeds and skin.
Compare this to the previous picture to see the result of the food milling process
Now we cook the pots of reduce the amount of water in the juice to create a nice thick sauce. These two pots cook down to one pot of thick sauce.
Two pots of sauce will reduce to one pot after cooking
When all done, we let the sauce cool and pour into zip lock bags for freezing. We used to season it and make spaghetti sauce, but now we save the seasoning for when we actually need it. We also use as is with no spices for homemade pizza. I will update this entry when I make a pizza with this sauce.
This entire process, from tomato to two pots of sauce took about 1/2 hour. The reducing the watery sauce to a nice consistency takes a little longer, but it just sits on the stove cook while we do other things around the house.
