Don't Put Off Until Tomorrow

[Henry]

A beautiful summer-like day is on tap today with high pressure firmly in control of our weather.  But things go downhill starting Thursday.  The first in a series of low pressure systems will catch up to us with rain showers and cool temperatures.  The showery, cool weather will last right through the weekend and even into the start of next week.

I mowed part of my lawn yesterday in an attempt to work off those ribs I had at Senior Citizens and will try to finish today.  I haven't seen a graph of our temperatures, but it seems to only nudge up to 80 only once in a great while, then back down into the 60s again.

This weekend is the Farmers Market - I am going to have to check it out and see if any peas are ready yet - Since peas do better in cool weather, maybe, just maybe it will be a good year for them.  Maryann loves fresh peas, but it sure is a job to shuck them.  I could never see how anybody could can peas with all the work of shucking when they are so reasonable to buy them in a store all canned.  Maryann has told me the story many times over about when Steve Alderman had the store down here in the village and they had the community lockers.  Her mother had shucked and packaged lots of peas and brought them down for Steve to put them in the freezer, however, he forgot to do that and they all soured on her.  That was always a hard pill for her to swallow and forgiveness comes hard at times.

For those of you that have never heard of "The Community Lockers", it was a big freezer with lots of big drawers in it that each participant had a key to their own drawer(s).  They had two size drawers and for about $12 a year you could rent one of the big drawers, put your items to be frozen in it and go in and pick up whatever you wanted when you needed it.  The local "Community Locker" was located here in Steve Alderman's Store where Vermont Food Ventures is now.  For many farm wives, this was a true blessing - sure did save on the canning and this freezing meant you could freeze your beef, chicken, pork, turkeys and vegetables or berries.  It was not until later years that many homes purchased their own freezers.

Ahhhhhhhhh Yes!!!!!!!  Another rambling message that was meant to say, "Best mow your lawn today, or forget about it until next week."

[trussell]

Henry, I'm sure I speak for most of the people reading this that we LOVE your so-called "ramblings"!  Personally, I look forward to hearing your stories!

-Trevor

[Judi]

DITTO! Keep rambling

[Loctavious]

Community lockers sounds like a great idea even for today..... i can see hunters needing considerable extra freezer space and having a place to store/freeze that meat rather than purchase a whole other freezer sounds like it would be a hit.... i wonder.

Henry,

      what may seem like ramblings to you, are valueable information that some of us would never know about if not for you.  Though this is a 'website'  i see some of it as more 'verbal history' than anything else.  I thank you for all your 'ramblings' and efforts to fill us in on the history of our area.

[David Shea]

Henry,

Peas.... My kids love them.  At this point my snap peas are about a foot high and have yet to flower.  The regular kind that need to be shucked, drowned just after I planted them in a May rainstorm.  I have replanted and now they are just coming thru the ground.

One of the members of the Woodard family always plants thier peas early and I will bet that they may be close to flowering.  I always make me envious of their soil when I see that they have planted so early.

As for pea shucking.  In one of my books on food preservation there is a picture of a small hand crank device that can be used for shucking peas.  You can be sure I have my eyes on the lookout for one of these as I don't like shucking much either.  That is why we have 2 rows of snap peas as well.  They are great in a stur fry.

Dave

[Henry]

Dave, I think I would be hard pressed to get Maryann to believe that snap peas are real peas - She is not a big stir fry fan.