It was time to make tomato preserves Wednesday afternoon on Pentoga Road

September 20, 2012 – Thursday morning

Pentoga Road

I’m being lazy this morning. Since there are a hundred gazillion ladies pouring into the retreat center for the beginning of a three-day workshop, I’ll be busy well into late afternoon. I’m supposed to work half days, which isn’t going to happen today, so I’m simply taking my time getting to work.

Wednesday was a cold and blowy affair. I sat in my office watching the rain come down sideways. Occasionally, an early-fall snowflake would be mixed in, but soon disappeared before hitting the ground. As Dad used to say, “It was just plain miserable.”

I left work at noon and after mailing out Wednesday’s camp correspondence, came home to boil down twenty lbs of tomatoes and make twelve jelly jars, one pint, and one quart of tomato preserves.

It took all afternoon to mix the brown sugar, apple vinegar, lemon juice, twenty cinnamon sticks, and other ingredients too numerous to mention and boil it into something that might accompany peanut butter on one’s toast or be dribbled over a bowl of vanilla ice cream. In the end, the kitchen was one huge sticky mess, but the preserves taste pretty darn good. It passed the Sargie taste-test!

OUCH!

Neighbor Mike knocked on the door letting me know he was going to walk through the property in search of grouse. I told him to have at it and secretly, was jealous I wasn’t going along. When it comes to making tomato preserves, a man’s work is never done.

Two hours later, I was pouring the boiling tomato goo into hot jars when Mike returned and left a freshly killed grouse. He’d shot three and also managed to get himself turned around in the thick woods behind my house. I didn’t feel nearly so bad about doing the same earlier this week. I wonder what his excuse is? There’s nothing wrong with his eyes!

While we were talking, I cleaned the bird on the front porch in the Allagash, Maine, manner. No knife needed. Standing on the wings, I gently tugged the legs exposing the bare, clean, breast. Mike claimed it was the Yooper method. I’ve come to the conclusion it must be how all bird hunters quickly clean their kill.

Sargie fixed a huge salad last night for supper. That, along with cubed partridge fried in butter and garlic, made for a wonderful meal.

I missed the substitute meeting yesterday! Thinking it was Wednesday, when I called to check for directions, I found I’d already missed it. I’m rescheduled for another in Marquette next Thursday. Sargie’s already arranged to take the time off and we’ll make a day out of it, seeing the boys, doing some shopping, and enjoying the amenities of the UP’s largest city.

It’s going to be a long one today, so I guess I ought to be heading out.

So goes the tales from the house on Pentoga Road…