Smash it! Mash it! Turn it into Juice!

There was an old vibrantly stunning woman,

Who lived in a shoe the suburbs,

She had so many children melons,

She didn’t know what to do wanted to hurl them off the roof for a satisfying splat.

Watermelon has never been my favorite fruit. It’s ok.  It’s fine in a fruit salad if someone else has cubed it and dealt with all the wrangling of the thing and the resultant sticky elbows. But frankly a 20 pound piece of food represents more of a commitment than I’m willing to make.

Thanks to the CSA, I was at my watermelon-y wits end.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was sighing and mopping my brow and wringing my apron strings when all over a sudden help arrived–

Yes, ladies it’s true. I was at a loss until Jack Lalanne came along.  Not in this form, exactly. Climbing that mountain barefoot and naked and waiting 50 + years for my melon distress would have proven too much even for that manly man.  Nope, this is the form that Jack Lalanne took when he came to my rescue. My neighbor’s Jack Lalanne Power Juicer

While I was absorbed with the complex assembly of Mr. Lalanne, the girls and Dave determined that, based primarily on the fact that our actual apple tree didn’t fruit, the “not crab” apple tree could play the part of a real apple tree this year. The fruit was beautiful,

but despite the new marketing campaign it still tasted like bitter dirt which in my book is a dead giveaway.  That, and the greenish tint to its hard flesh. The children were not deterred.

Acadia quickly put on her cowboy boots, a halter top, and a wrap-around skirt and clamored up the ladder. What? It may not be a real apple tree, but we would never consider wearing anything less to a harvest.

As it turns out the tart “not crab” apples provided a nice balance to our juice plans. Here, some of the fruit awaits it’s fate–

The girls, along with Mr. Lalanne, made short work of 50 pounds of watermelon and 100s of “not crab” apples.  At the end of the day our melon problem had been solved. No more melons.  However, we now had a bit of a juice problem.  Gallons and gallons of juice.

There was green juice

And pink juice

And green juice with a pink stripe

And pink and green juice with penny loafers and little alligators with their collars up.   Wait, wrong decade. For a minute there I was transported back to seventh grade.  That’s just how powerful Jack Lalanne can be.

We drank some juice.  We sent some juice to the neighbors. We spilled enough on the floor that Kira may remain routed to that spot for a couple of years.  We filled pitchers and loaded up the fridge.  Then we pretty much hit the juice wall and so we froze whatever we could fit into ice cube trays.

And muffin tins.

And plastic cups.

And toilet paper rolls.

And old dolly heads.

Summer lovin’

Sure there was that boy, cute as can be, splashing around and all that jazz. Really, what’s not to love about summer? Oh wait, I know. There’s that inescapable, miserable, sweltering heat. Which frankly I can do without.

Suffice it to say that if my calendar tells me it’s time for fall, I become a bit impatient with the stubborn resurgence of 80 plus degree days. I’ve got certain expectations of my September, and heat isn’t one of them. I’ll tell you who is grooving on this protraction of summer love–my garden. The raspberries are flat out refusing to pack it in this year.

And they are not the only ones. Out on the porch the petunias (or pansies or pandas for all I know. I’m still a bit rusty on the flowering things out there, what with my preoccupation with veggie knowledge and all.) Flower-lovers, share with me. What are these hearty beasts?

Whatever they are, they are tough as nails. After taking a couple of months off during that dry spell (when I forgot to water them, I mean) these lovely ladies re-reared their purple and pink faces. Following the hostile take down recently suffered by the sunflower patch, my plan is to immediately cease all other floral attempts and replace them with Pinky Tuscadero and her friends.

As I begin this bout of whining, Acadia’s birthday is behind me and back to school nights are a thing of the past. It’s time for pumpkin picking (you know, if, like my brother, you’ve got some frisky squash at hand.) It is the time for leaves to yellow and leap and for apples to give themselves up for pie.

And if a perfect pie isn’t your thing, the girls have been munching away at these babies, dipped in honey, shmeared in peanut butter, or warmed with cinnamon sugar. All I’m missing is a steaming mug of spiced cider. Welcome Autumn my old friend.