Jaws With a Twist, a Tale of two Libraries, and GRAPES

 I'm going to try a new (to me...I'm shamelessly  stealing from other bloggers here) format this week and talk about  food as an intro. Let's see how it goes....

Monday: homemade gnocchi with red sauce, salad made out of the last of the cucumbers and tomatoes. 

My memory of this day is fuzzy, but I think it involved video games. Chris's normal crew were all off for Juneteenth, so they actually got to play during sane hours instead of at night and took advantage. 

It's funny listening to Chris's end sometimes. It sounds like the guy version of a girl's night: they talk about the game, but also about their lives and what's going on. 

I'm pretty sure we also cleaned out and organized the freezer.

Tuesday: pork and beef meatloaf, Mac and cheese, watermelon

During the summer, I periodically buy a watermelon and we eat it over the course of a week. This week was a watermelon week. 

We went to my grandmother's and picked muscadine grapes that day. Chris and the kids picked while I went inside and did my normal help with the housework. They picked FIVE GALLONS which we then spent most of the rest of the day processing into juice. 

Getting out all the stems and the odd bug or two. Gloves because these things acid burn like crazy. 

Cooking on the stove to get the juice. We had to do multiple batches. 

Straining. 

So. Much. Juice. 

We also took some cuttings to try and get the vines to grow on our property. We stuck them in dirt, watered them, covered the dirt in mulch and they're...not dead three days later, so I'm cautiously optimistic. 

Wednesday: carne guisada (Tex Mex beef stew) with homemade (from a mix) tortillas. 

More juicing, and some jelly making that day. The grapes had already started fermenting: there was bubbly white stuff on top and they were starting to smell vinegary. I got what I could from the bucket, rinsed it well, juiced it, made jelly from it, then tossed the rest of the grapes to the compost. 

There was also wine. Chris decanted some homemade fig wine (the previously mentioned bathroom hooch) into bottles and put them into the fridge. The pure fig stuff turned out very syrupy. I might use it in a grown ups only poke cake or something. The strawberry fig stuff tastes more dry. 

We may make some from the muscadine. We certainly have the juice (and a ham glaze packet to flavor it with, because we're just redneck like that).

That afternoon, Chris came back and I ducked out to the county library for a bit (not the one we usually go to, but is closer) just to hear myself think. 

Thursday: dirty rice with okra. 

I took the kids to the city library, to the adoration chapel (where they were loud, and we were quick), and then to my mom's for an hour or two while I came home to try and get some work done. 

A busy day, but fairly productive. I'm deeply thankful for good libraries. We live near two, and I think I'm going to be relying on both this upcoming year. 

Friday: Shark meat my husband got from his fishing friend, rice pilaf, watermelon. 

Today involved another library trip (to the county library this time). That library has lots of computers with educational games, so that's what my kids prefer doing while they're there. 

Whatever, we're out of the house and there's worse they could be doing. 

Their summer reading program is nicer than the city library's though. There's big prizes (free books to keep) and an online system for tracking books read rather than paper scorecards I have to keep track of and little tokens for every five books read that result in cheap plastic crap I step on half a dozen times then throw away when they're not looking. 

We then went to the grocery store and went home. 

Cooking the shark was a journey. Chris wanted to do it, since apparently the proper way to cook shark is grilling -- very much his domain. It involved soaking the meat in milk overnight before grilling it, vacuum sealing it with the food saver (apparently it tenderizes it), marinating it for another few hours with seasoning, then finally grilling it. 

It was...heavy. You wouldn't expect it to be since it's fish, but it was. I think it tasted good, but you don't need a ton of it to be satisfied. 

Assorted notes: 

-Homeschool planning has been... interesting. 

The prevailing wisdom seems to be, "don't worry too much about it! Go with the flow, keep it casual, especially that first year." 

I was homeschooled like that. I really, REALLY liked the structure of the school day once I started going to a brick and mortar school. Having a regular schedule was absolutely lovely for me. 

So now I'm trying to balance working in the flexibility that homeschooling is going to require with the structure that I (and I'm pretty sure some of my kids) crave. And trying to find the quiet and space to just think for an hour or so and devote energy to figuring it out. 

I know from experience that flying by the seat of my pants leads to weary apathy on my part and bat poop insanity on the kids' part. I have to have at least a basic layout. But finding the time (and mental energy) to MAKE that layout is the hard part. 

-I'm starting to pull stuff up in the garden. 

There's still okra and cantaloupe coming in, and a watermelon vine alive (though not fruiting), so the garden isn't totally done. But the stinkbugs and some weird red bug with grey larvae has descended on my tomatoes and pretty much brought a total halt, and the rest of my plants have died. 

Yesterday, I started pulling up dead corn and zucchini plants (and grass...so much grass) and the water drip line we have out there so that Chris can bring the tiller through. Usually this stage is later in the summer but I've been neglecting watering (🤦) and the heat got intense a little earlier than usual. Still a very good yield for a few months though, so I'd say it was a good year. 

And that's what's fit to print.