And now for something completely different...

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I'm not from here.  In the land I'm from, we don't eat okra, and tomatoes are meant to be eaten red.  And while you know how I feel about okra, I have to tell you that I've embraced the green tomato.  I love it in salsa; fried is delightful; pickled?  Well, pickled, with lots of lovely roasted peppers and jalapenos and Vidalia onions, some pickling spice and sweet peppers:  Perfectly delicious!
  What puzzles me, though, is that when I was first told about green tomatoes, I was given to believe that they were only available after the very first frost, that frost that kills the tomato plants.  I was told that on that first frosty morning, one was to run out to the tomato patch and pick all the green guys one could find and quickly fry all one could eat that moment and pickle the rest.  I liked that story.  The sense of urgency, the seizing the moment, that one last tiny bit of summer that you could really grab and take control of.
  Not so, dear friends!  Apparently, much like botox trying to cheat wrinkles, tomato farmers pick green tomatoes all season long and put them in coolers to arrest their development, until a consumer asks for them.  You can even buy them in the dead of winter, though they probably come from Bolivia or Guatemala or someplace else warm in December.
  I heard it was supposed to be in the 40's tonight, so I bought mine a couple of days ago, close enough to being the actual season in which they are supposed to be available.  Yesterday, Melanie and I got through three bushels, which was actually more than I thought it would be, and got 140 jars of them, pickled with peppers we'd spent the previous week chopping, plus some roasted peppers Abby froze earlier this summer.
 

I should have gotten a photo of the jars before they went in the water bath last night, but I didn't.  I wanted to get home so I could go to the First Friday Art Walk in Knoxville with LouAnn.  Her son Nick and his girlfriend Dana had an exhibit at Lox Salon in the Old City.  I bought a lovely little painting.
   I'm not sure where it will go yet, but it will find a home.  With three cats in the house, I'm sure it will be the only rodent brave enough to live here.

Today, the AVL goes away.  Friends are coming by to help take it apart and Pat will put it in her van to deliver to its new owner.  My back loominaria will become a sewing room/office.  This computer and desk will move back there, and the sewing stuff will stretch out and become comfortable.  Bella's kennel will move out of my bedroom, making my room the oasis of calm beauty it used to be.  Weftie will have to find a new place to be "up," but I have confidence that he will.  Leo never ventured higher on the loom than this photo, but he's not as brave as he used to be.


  Be brave, venture out into this beautiful fall day and have a lovely weekend!