July 12, 2013
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Beet it
Mother nature put a big kink in my well-planned week. Storms/rain on Tuesday night & Wednesday morning turned our garden into a muddy mess. So no pulling beets until today. Even then it wasn’t ideal, but I got them all pulled and washed off. Then I had to go to the library to do my volunteer work. It’s fun and I enjoy my time there. I like shelving books, straightening the magazines, chatting with the patrons and checking books in and out. While I’m there, the “real” workers can do the behind the scene work than few people know about or appreciate.
When I got home, I boiled the largest of the beets and then headed back to the library board meeting. Afterwards I sliced and pickled the biggest beets. 7 pints.
Afterwards, I sorted beets again and have the big stock pot almost full of medium beets to pickle tomorrow. 
And I still have a big bowl of small beets, which I’ll probably cook and eat. 
With orange sauce, of course.Tomorrow I plan to start my day at the farmer’s market. I hope to get cucumbers for eating and see what the tomatoes look like and how much they are. I’d like to make some salsa while we have plenty of cilantro. I found a cherry tomato plant hanging out with the potatoes–lots of nice green tomatoes on it. Meanwhile the regular tomatoes are approaching golf ball size…
A House Divided by Pearl S. Buck continues to be interesting. It starts of in China, but almost half way through, is set in the USA because Yuan Wang and a cousin had to leave China because they were members of the revolution. Chinese commentary/thoughts about Americans is quite interesting. Yuan is befriended by a family who is exposing him to Christianity. At least the parents are; the daughter, not so much. I’m glad I’m reading all 3 books of this trilogy, but The Good Earth is by far the best.
