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Post by throttleup on Aug 11, 2011 1:21:00 GMT
With fresh tomatoes, like other fresh fruit or vegetables, you don't really have to *make* anything ... slh, you are absolutely right! Even as a kid growing up in the Midwest I could eat a ripe tomato as a snack. But byz has this amazing ability to make the most delicious (so I'm told ) concoctions from normal matter. I wonder what he'll make this year...
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Post by slh1234 on Aug 11, 2011 1:42:20 GMT
I look forward to hearing it, then.
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Post by sigurdur on Aug 11, 2011 2:07:41 GMT
Hard to believe it is that time of year again. Aug 10th, and the weather pattern in the far north central US has turned quit cool. The sky is not right for Aug.......something is amiss.
Low last night was in the 40's. High yesterday was 71F.
This is not normal, but it can happen. HOwever, the trees have started to turn, and we are not dry. That is a baddddd sign as normally the trees don't turn for at least 4 weeks.
Will we have an early frost? I don't know, but the signs are pointing towards one.
One thing I do know is our June Berry bushes had one heck of a crop of June berries. We are almost done devouring them. I often wonder, how do people who live in cities survive? They miss so much if they don't have a garden/bushes/etc. I would go nuts if I couldn't partake of this. In fact, I love fresh veggies etc so much that I am going to have a grow room in my house this winter just forrrrrrr eating fresh...local.......save the freight......peppers/tomatoes/etc.
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Post by slh1234 on Aug 11, 2011 2:53:33 GMT
One thing I do know is our June Berry bushes had one heck of a crop of June berries. We are almost done devouring them. I often wonder, how do people who live in cities survive? They miss so much if they don't have a garden/bushes/etc. I would go nuts if I couldn't partake of this. In fact, I love fresh veggies etc so much that I am going to have a grow room in my house this winter just forrrrrrr eating fresh...local.......save the freight......peppers/tomatoes/etc. When I was growing up (In Cherokee country - far outside the city), we had blackberries that came in season every June. We had a lot of other wild stuff, too, but blackberries were so versatile, and so good. I remember picking them, and mom and Grandma making Blackberry jelly and cobblers with the ones we actually made it back to the house with. Now, after this move, I'm back to having blackberries again, but much later in the year, and in much greater abundance. They are just beginning to ripen, although relatives such as Thimbleberries and salmon berries have been ripe a little earlier. I've been on vacation for the last two weeks, and with the blackberries now really hitting season here, we've been getting 2 - 3 gallons/day this week. My wife is making some killer cobblers, putting some in the freezer, making jelly, etc. I'm investigating how to make wine out of it right now. The funny thing is up here, nobody seems interested in the blackberries. The berries just ripen and fall off the vine ... there will be a few gallons fewer this year falling on the ground . The biggest difference between these and the ones I grew up with is size. The berries are bigger here, and more abundant on the vines, too, but the briars are bigger as well, and extract a little heavier price in blood when I pick. In fact, the briars are big enough, with big enough thorns that even with heavy jeans, I cant wade back through them into the middle of the patches here - they actually go several feet over my head anyway. But no matter. Since seemingly nobody else is picking berries, we can get enough just along the edge of the patches to fill our buckets, and can fill them very quickly . Those people don't know what they're missing, and I'm not going to tell them .
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Post by magellan on Aug 11, 2011 3:01:37 GMT
This has been the warmest summer in many years in my neck of the woods. Absolutely the best for water sports. This week the warmth is leaving and now August looks to be a big departure from June and July, but think it will return back to hot and muggy in the latter part of the month. Glad I put in central air last year, whew.
We are anticipating a wicked winter in these parts; more snow and cold....and earlier. Winters appear to be slowly returning to those of when I was a child growing up in the 60's.
I bought a new tractor this year, but without a heated cab. Oh well, but at least will be ready for anything coming this way.
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Post by sigurdur on Aug 11, 2011 3:11:19 GMT
slh1234: You have wild blackberries and no one picks them? ??........Are they nuts? magellan: Yep, I think we are in for a doozy of a winter again. I have to admit it, I remember them as a kid....and I would just as soon not have to be reminded. P.S. I hate pushing/shoveling snow. I don't mind the cold at all as that is easy to overcome. But the snow has to be moved, and that is a pain in the ass when one has to do it almost on a daily basis.
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Post by slh1234 on Aug 11, 2011 3:15:02 GMT
They are nuts as far as I'm concerned. People think of them like a weed up here. Almost nobody cares enough about them to actually pick and eat them, unless it's just grabbing one when they walk down one of the trails.
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Post by sigurdur on Aug 11, 2011 3:21:57 GMT
slh1234: All I can say is wow. The wild juneberries around here are picked clean. I planted several bushes a few years ago so that I didn't have to go to the hills to pick them. There are June berry picking parties on Saturdays. People drive for 40 miles to the sand hills to pick them. Blackberries won't take our winters here, gosh......they are so tasty. NO wonder the country is going downhill if people won't even make an effort to pick something that apparantly is abundant and tastes sooooooooooo good.
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Post by justwonderin on Aug 11, 2011 3:55:14 GMT
This has been the warmest summer in many years in my neck of the woods. Absolutely the best for water sports. This week the warmth is leaving and now August looks to be a big departure from June and July, but think it will return back to hot and muggy in the latter part of the month. Glad I put in central air last year, whew. We are anticipating a wicked winter in these parts; more snow and cold....and earlier. Winters appear to be slowly returning to those of when I was a child growing up in the 60's. I bought a new tractor this year, but without a heated cab. Oh well, but at least will be ready for anything coming this way. yes, that's quite smart of you to go for the new climate. Global warming will eliminate the need for heating in that tractor. I'm not sure how your comment about returning to the old climate of 50 years ago, which is long gone. How it fits in with the new reality, which you have put your money in, fits. Could you explain this a bit?
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mason
New Member
Posts: 13
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Post by mason on Aug 11, 2011 8:13:24 GMT
The funny thing is up here, nobody seems interested in the blackberries. The berries just ripen and fall off the vine ... there will be a few gallons fewer this year falling on the ground . Here in England people give you weird looks if you're picking wild fruit as if you're the strangest person ever!! I mean what's wrong with picking 10lb of wild damsons and turning it into delicious, additve free jam or warming Damson Gin for those cold winter nights? People here would rather go to Sainsbury's (UK supermarket) and buy it instead.....
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Post by julianb on Aug 11, 2011 10:08:50 GMT
Along time ago I made some wines by a recipe that did not use yeast, and the ingredients were boiled, filtered and bottled, and the bottles sealed with brown paper and string, and a tiny needle prick in the brown paper. Everyone said it wouldn't work (including me), but ten years later when four of us had a house moving party we had a marvelous evening! Blackberry was voted the best, like a good cab/sav, not much fruit flavor of blackberry, but the Cabbage turned out almost indistinguishable from a good dry Sherry, and thank goodness no flavor of cabbage. Last summer (S-H) the berry crop was the best in years, and as folk lore says, heralded in a cold winter. In this neck of the woods, blackberries are classified a noxious weed and a neighbor went to jail in the 80's for refusing to use 2.4.5T weedkiller on his 200acres. I have 5 acres, and a pretty dense bush cover and they haven't found mine yet!
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Post by magellan on Aug 11, 2011 16:13:49 GMT
This has been the warmest summer in many years in my neck of the woods. Absolutely the best for water sports. This week the warmth is leaving and now August looks to be a big departure from June and July, but think it will return back to hot and muggy in the latter part of the month. Glad I put in central air last year, whew. We are anticipating a wicked winter in these parts; more snow and cold....and earlier. Winters appear to be slowly returning to those of when I was a child growing up in the 60's. I bought a new tractor this year, but without a heated cab. Oh well, but at least will be ready for anything coming this way. yes, that's quite smart of you to go for the new climate. Global warming will eliminate the need for heating in that tractor. I'm not sure how your comment about returning to the old climate of 50 years ago, which is long gone. How it fits in with the new reality, which you have put your money in, fits. Could you explain this a bit? I didn't buy a new tractor, nor anything else because of global warming or global cooling. Depending on your age, even if history began in 1988 and detectable AGW were a matter of fact, you'd be hard pressed to at the same time buy into the clap trap and still claim to be an honest person Below are the data for U.S. winter temp trends. First from 1988, the year James Hansen made his Holy Pronouncements and thereafter the "well established science" predicted substantial warming in the U.S., with winters to fade into history. The second is since 1998, the year of "confirmation" for AGW in the U.S. In spite of UHI and systematic warming bias in the temperature record, based on the available data should I tend to believe climate scientists or my lying eyes to plan for winter? Also justwonderin, do you really think I'd feel the difference between 0 degF and 2 degF in January assuming "global" warming predictions were correct? We have periods of warmer winters, then colder, then warmer......the same with snow. In the 60's and better part of the 70's which I have good recollection of, it was mostly colder and snowier. I am seeing a trend toward those conditions in recent years. I also recall my mother washing windows on Christmas day in 1980; it was 70 degrees outside. Should I have assumed then that every Christmas day thereafter would be 70 degrees or warmer? Why AGW true believers come up with their silly notions I'll never understand. For the U.S. For Michigan, albeit there is a large difference in winter conditions between the southern and northern part of the state.
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Post by boxman on Aug 11, 2011 22:36:09 GMT
Last night was coldest august night in a decade or more for several stations in Norway including here in trondheim. We had about 8c last night and it seems like it will drop even further today since it has already dropped down to 8c even though it is only midnight.
correction: It is now 7c...
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Post by stanb999 on Aug 11, 2011 23:05:16 GMT
Hard to believe it is that time of year again. Aug 10th, and the weather pattern in the far north central US has turned quit cool. The sky is not right for Aug.......something is amiss. Low last night was in the 40's. High yesterday was 71F. This is not normal, but it can happen. HOwever, the trees have started to turn, and we are not dry. That is a baddddd sign as normally the trees don't turn for at least 4 weeks. Will we have an early frost? I don't know, but the signs are pointing towards one. One thing I do know is our June Berry bushes had one heck of a crop of June berries. We are almost done devouring them. I often wonder, how do people who live in cities survive? They miss so much if they don't have a garden/bushes/etc. I would go nuts if I couldn't partake of this. In fact, I love fresh veggies etc so much that I am going to have a grow room in my house this winter just forrrrrrr eating fresh...local.......save the freight......peppers/tomatoes/etc. Our weather has changed as well. We had our august dry spell in July. Today seems like a nice mid September day! Cool clear sky with no humidity. Tonight the low will be 50F. Little chilly for us. But as you say it happens.
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Post by stanb999 on Aug 11, 2011 23:10:10 GMT
One thing I do know is our June Berry bushes had one heck of a crop of June berries. We are almost done devouring them. I often wonder, how do people who live in cities survive? They miss so much if they don't have a garden/bushes/etc. I would go nuts if I couldn't partake of this. In fact, I love fresh veggies etc so much that I am going to have a grow room in my house this winter just forrrrrrr eating fresh...local.......save the freight......peppers/tomatoes/etc. When I was growing up (In Cherokee country - far outside the city), we had blackberries that came in season every June. We had a lot of other wild stuff, too, but blackberries were so versatile, and so good. I remember picking them, and mom and Grandma making Blackberry jelly and cobblers with the ones we actually made it back to the house with. Now, after this move, I'm back to having blackberries again, but much later in the year, and in much greater abundance. They are just beginning to ripen, although relatives such as Thimbleberries and salmon berries have been ripe a little earlier. I've been on vacation for the last two weeks, and with the blackberries now really hitting season here, we've been getting 2 - 3 gallons/day this week. My wife is making some killer cobblers, putting some in the freezer, making jelly, etc. I'm investigating how to make wine out of it right now. The funny thing is up here, nobody seems interested in the blackberries. The berries just ripen and fall off the vine ... there will be a few gallons fewer this year falling on the ground . The biggest difference between these and the ones I grew up with is size. The berries are bigger here, and more abundant on the vines, too, but the briars are bigger as well, and extract a little heavier price in blood when I pick. In fact, the briars are big enough, with big enough thorns that even with heavy jeans, I cant wade back through them into the middle of the patches here - they actually go several feet over my head anyway. But no matter. Since seemingly nobody else is picking berries, we can get enough just along the edge of the patches to fill our buckets, and can fill them very quickly . Those people don't know what they're missing, and I'm not going to tell them . Google black raspberry... This is likely what you picked as a child. Now your actually picking blackberries. Black raspberries are smaller and come early in the summer season. Blackberries come in late summer and can be the size of your thumb. Make sure you pick the black berries fully ripe. They will look almost dull and come off real easy. If not they are a bit bitter. They are best really ripe. Enjoy!
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