Subj : Towing the Line
To   : Dave Drum
From : Ruth Haffly
Date : Sat Jul 27 2024 13:37:01

Hi Dave,


 DD> My grandparents had apple, cherry, apricot, paw-pae and crabapple
 DD> trees in the back yard of their town home. And a regular orchard at
 DD> the farm with more apples, peaches, cherries, pears and blackberry
 DD> brambles as well as raspberries on the other side of the orhard.
 DD> Gooseberies and May apples were available in the woods.

 RH> So putting up was a big production in the summer. Steve had a bowl full
 RH> (about 2 1/2 quarts) in the fridge so yesterday he pulled out the
 RH> dehydrator. Dried them down to maybe about 2 cups. We'll probably do
 RH> another batch or 2 in the dehydrator before the tree ends production,
 RH> in probably early September.

 DD> The degydrator is nice. I use mine mostly for chilies - and the aroma
 DD> that permeates the house is a great appetite stimulant.

I would imagine it would smell nice and spicy. We dehydrated another
couple of trays of figs yesterday, bringing that jar to about 4
cups--and more figs still to come.

After our freezer melt down, I decided to consolidate all of my odds and
ends of herbs and spices I'd kept in both freezers into one. Thanks to
my MIL cleaning out her supply a while back and our stock of bulk
Penzy's bags, there are some I won't need to buy for the rest of my
life. There's room for more stuff in the fridge freezer but a bit less
room in the big freezer.(G)

 DD> I'm 82 years old and I have never had a fresh fig. I'll have to
 DD> correct that lack ..... I've only ever eaten Fig Newtons from a store
 DD> bought pkg.

 RH> They are good; a Newton will give you a bit of the taste but nothing
 RH> like eating one fresh off the tree. Rinsed but still warm from the sun.

 DD> I'll ask the folks down Jeffries Orchard farm stand about the
 DD> availability.

 RH> Do so, it's an ancient fruit; I think more popular in the southern US
 RH> than the northern. Fig preserves and a brie type cheese on a cracker
 RH> make a nice nibble. Last year when we took some preserves out to our
 RH> daughters, I told the grand kids that these were special, for their
 RH> mothers,(mom was to share), not to be used like regular jelly/jam for
 RH> pb&j or whatever.

 DD> Probably because the fig trees do not do well in the Northern climate
 DD> zones. I did some readig on what it takes to have a successful fig
 DD> crop in my area. YIKES!!! I'll buy figs that have been shipped in,
 DD> Thenkew veddy much.  Bv)=

That's OK. If we ever get out that way, I can drop off either some dried
figs or preserves in the off season, fresh figs in July/August.


 DD> I had a cherry tree in my front yard until the derecho winds hit last
 DD> July.

 RH> My parents had one for years, until a storm did it in. It happened just
 RH> before we came up for a visit so Steve saved some of the wood for his
 RH> smoker.

 DD> My tree service guy salvaged all the wood except the small branches
 DD> for his son's smoker. AFAIK I've never had cherry smoked anything. I
 DD> have,
 DD> however, used grapevine cutting to smoke a chuck roast very
 DD> successfully.

Other than things smoked tasting good, I don't recall anything specific
about it. IIRC,the wood was probably used to smoke turkeys and Boston
butts.

---
Catch you later,
Ruth
rchaffly{at}earthlink{dot}net  FIDO 1:396/45.28


....  A mind stretched by new ideas can never go back to its original size.

--- PPoint 3.01
 * Origin: Sew! That's My Point (1:396/45.28)

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