The Blue Willow Journal

Provincial Wisdom

I spent last July in Waterside, New Brunswick, Canada, at my parents' summer place bought back in 1966. Waterside is right on the Bay of Fundy and has a population of 100.

If you are living or staying in Waterside one of your nearby go-to villages is Hillsborough, population 1,962. The bank is there. You can go to great auctions at the Hillsborough Kiwanis Club, you've got several restaurants to choose from and there's even a museum. It's a happening place.

Last year the New Brunswick Women's Institute was celebrating its 100th Anniversary and in honor of this milestone the Hillsborough branch published a cookbook. Of course I bought one. Besides some winning recipes, I noticed that sprinkled throughout the cookbook were tidbits of New Brunswick wisdom on life, weather, gardening and cleaning.

Here are some of the best:

~ Enjoy the pleasures of gardening or don't bother doing one ~

~ Use ketchup to clean silverware ~

~ Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning ~

~ Always have something to do, something to get up for each morning ~

~ Grass stains: use molasses, let stand, then wash ~

~ Keep digging at your garden and keep it

loose between plantings ~

~ Mackerel sky: not long wet and not long dry ~

~ To remove pen stains on clothing or crayon marks

on the wall, take the outside of a cucumber

and slowly use it to erase the stains ~

~ Follow the Canadian food hints and keep active

in your personal life ~

~ Put vinegar on rags to keep deer out of the garden ~

~ Blueberry stains: soak in milk ~

~ If you are retired, adopt hobbies with up and going activities. Avoid sitting down and too much napping as it is not good ~

~ To deodorize shoes, place sheets of Bounce in them overnight ~

 

 

 

Preserving Hydrangeas

Today is final preparations for Hurricane Irene, which is due tomorrow here in Rhode Island. When I was going down the list of what needs to be done I suddenly realized I had not "taken in" my hydrangeas for the coming year and if I did not take them in today they would be unusable once the hurricane arrived.

When I say "taking in my hydrangeas" I'm talking about preserving the semi-dried blooms for use in the house from now until next summer.

Here's what I do:

I wait until late August when the blooms are fading and drying on the bush. My hydrangeas are bright blue during their blooming season. At the end of the summer they are many different colors - lovely faded colors like purple, light blue, lilac, even some tinges of green - and the trick is that you want to have them retain these beautiful colors while completely drying.

When I cut a stem off the bush I remove all the leaves and also shake the bloom head to rid it of any insects camped inside.

I've been doing two large bouquets for the house, for one I use a frog for the other I don't.

Fill the containers you want to use about 3/4 full of water. Arrange your hydrangeas and then display them and DO NOTHING ELSE. Let the water evaporate over time - DO NOT refill with water.

I find hydrangeas preserved this way retain their gorgeous colors from the day you picked them, they dry completely and they stay this way until the next August!   Pretty amazing.

This arrangement is done with a frog in the bottom of a large silverplate bowl:

This one I just stick the stems in and arrange without a frog:

A Cold Porch

We have a south-facing house with an enclosed unheated porch near the garage. Over the years we've lived here I've found this space to be so useful. It gets full sun most of the day and no matter how cold it gets the temperature in the room doesn't fall below freezing. I can put the cooked remnants of the Thanksgiving turkey out there if my refrigerator is full, or start soup stock, cool it off on the porch overnight and complete it the next day. For a large upcoming dinner if I find myself with too many fresh vegetables to squeeze into the refrigerator bins, they stay out in the cold porch.

This space functions very much like one my grandmother had in her house - an unheated staircase next to her kitchen. She used this constantly for such things as cooling off pies, storing apples and I'm sure, keeping the turkey after its debut at the holiday table.

The cold porch also allows me to over-winter container plants from the summer deck and store dried hydrangeas. I've got a large rosemary plant and two Swedish ivy plants out there, all of which have been flowering since August! 

 

 

Easy Pickled Hot Peppers Part 2

Last July I did a posting on an easy way to make pickled hot peppers. It's pickling season again so I thought I'd post photos of what these peppers look like.

The first photo is of a jar just made - the peppers are bright green and red. These need to spend two weeks or more in the refrigerator to become pickled. The second photo is of a jar made months ago - the colors of the peppers (more drab) indicate the pickling process is complete. Once the peppers are pickled they last almost indefinitely in the refrigerator. I have some from last summer in my refrigerator right now and they are still great.

 

As Promised

My second seasonal favorite - here are the hydrangeas mentioned recently..........

Farmstand Vegetable Gardening

Some time ago we had quite a large vegetable garden. We would use the vegetables we grew not only in cooking and baking but we preserved them by doing things like canning relish, freezing tomato sauce or drying onions.
We don't have a vegetable garden anymore but our fondness for fresh vegetables hasn't changed. Solution - farmstands! We have a great one a few miles away and it makes a fine runner-up to the real thing. Here's what I "picked" for dinner tonight:

Peonies

When we moved to our present house eighteen years ago I made sure we planted some hydrangeas and peonies, my two favorite late spring and summer flowers. Here are the peonies and I will post a photo of the hydrangeas once they come out.
I also just heard about a peony farm in Tiverton,  Rhode Island, a short drive from where we live, so I will have to check that out soon since we are in the midst of blossoming time for peonies. I'm sure I will be amazed at all the peony varieties I've never seen before!

Deck Time

Cape Cod Rhodies

Made quite a discovery over the weekend - the beautiful Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich, Massachusetts. It was peak rhododendron season and the blooms were everywhere - pale pink, fuchsia, deep magenta and even a specially-bred pale yellow. Spectacular. Beyond the gorgeous flowers there are many other great activities to enjoy for every member of the family. Next time you are traveling to Cape Cod I would highly recommend a stop here.

Spring at Blithewold

Those of us living in the East Bay area of Rhode Island get to enjoy Blithewold Mansion and Gardens whenever we like -lucky us!
Here are some photos taken today, a sunny spring day which climbed to 93 degrees, a Rhode Island record: