End of Summer Photos

I’ve got a backlog of random photos that, somehow, never made it into full blown blog posts. Here’s some of those pics starting with our modest passion fruit harvest. Beautiful flowers and tasty fruit.

Kelly accidentally planted some potatoes amongst her sweet potato patch. We got a few potatoes and some pretty potato flowers.

My friends Gloria and Steve, who own a small herd of goats, did a goat milk tasting at the Institute of Domestic Technology comparing their backyard milk against a couple of store bought goat milks and some cow milk. Guess what? Fresh goat milk from the backyard is delicious and does not taste “goaty”. Store bought goat milk just doesn’t compare, though the Summer Hill brand at Trader Joes is passable.

Lastly, two of my favorite things: cats and corded telephones. 

Best wishes for a happy fall for all Root Simple readers.

Leave a comment

15 Comments

  1. I love the cat and phone pic – not only corded, but dial too. When the power went out here in San Diego a few weeks ago, we got out our old corded, dial phone. Our 7 year old son was not quite sure what to make of this antique. How do you use it?

    Did you ever see the movie ‘My Cousin Vinny’?

  2. We grow passion fruit in southern California and it’s simply the best. What do you do with your harvest? We eat it raw, juice and freeze it, and we also process it into jam and syrup. Just like the Frank’s Red Hot commercial, “I put that s*** on everything”!

  3. I got a kitten from people in a pickup at Walmart on Sunday. If I had thought to get a corded kitten, I could at least get it from behind things on the porch where it cries day and night!

    When I was 17, I told my host in Mississippi that I was thirstly, thinking I would get water. She gave me goat milk. It was horrid. I decided the only way to get rid of it was to just chug it (in a ladylike fashion). She promptly filled it again, remarking that she was so pleased I liked it. Curses! That glass remained mostly full.

    At dinner, she gave everyone else tea. I decided to get rid of the milk and drank it down, practically holding my nose. That woman would not hear of me having tea. She refilled my glass for the third time. Getting smarter by the glassful, I just let it languish after a few sips. My mother raised a polite child, so I finished it off before dessert and swore I could not drink another spoonful.

    Maybe CA goats give less goaty milk than MS goats.

  4. where did you source the passion fruit vine? I’m pretty far north so wonder if it would even be a possibility!

  5. My dad-in-law, who grew up on a homestead in rural Washington, claims that goat milk only tastes like a petting zoo when the male goats are allowed to roam with the females. If the herd is just females, then the milk is mild and sweet.

    Also I used to see yellow lilikoi (passion fruit) growing wild on chain link fences all around Silver Lake and that neck of the woods when I was a kid. I was never sure if it was actually edible so I never tried it. Any thoughts?

  6. Is there a place or farmer you would recommend for raw goat milk? I had really wanted to check out Rawsome, but am not sure if that’s possible since they last got shut down.. :

  7. The passionfruit harvests get better as the vine ages. They can live many years here in coastal-ish Socal. I have been told that the key to a good harvest is to avoid cutting them back as much as possible. My current vine (seed grown) took four years to fruit decently. I had another store bought vine a few years back, and it took about 3 years to fruit heavily. as for uses, I prefer to juice them, usually with frozen guavas from the year before, and some oranges if available, but not in a juicer. I do it in the blender, with sugar, and strain the seeds/ pulp. If you haven’t heard of POG from Hawaii, this is basically it, Passion fruit, Orange, Guava. This is also where one of my favorite pastime elementary school games originated: POGS (probably not worth looking up if you don’t already know about it), which were originally from the tops of the POG juice containers…fun for hours on end!

  8. Do you have a cracker recipe you like? We love Kashi but both my husband and daughter have a whey allergy and it’s in everything.

  9. @Anon: We got the passion fruit vine at a local nursery. I don’t know if it will grow up north. If I were you I’d focus on growing something more local. Local is always easier and tastes better. (Maybe I say this because I’m biased–Erik really likes passion fruit, while I don’t so much–I dream about living up north so I could have a cherry tree.)

    @Mjlai: Sorry, we are sad to say we know of know source for raw goat’s milk. Which is why I wish I had goats.

    @Will: Thanks for the tips

    @Joss: A good cracker recipe is like the holy grail for us. We haven’t found one we like yet.

  10. Several years ago I got a cordless phone, thinking it would be nice to answer without sprinting up a flight of stairs, or to have a private conversation from time to time. The handset disappeared about a month later and never reappeared. Foolishly, I got another cordless with 2 handsets–one disappeared, the other got forgotten outside and drowned. not wanting to challenge the boundaries of good sense, or spend another hard earned penny, I unearthed the 30+-year-old corded phone. It hangs on the kitchen wall in my house just like it did at mom’s. If the wall disappears, it’s over. I’ll just stand on the porch and holler!

Comments are closed.