Seckel Pears. That's it.

The past 4 days have been rather brutal and not much "postable" cooking has come from my kitchen. Trader Joe's Indian entrees-in-a-pouches have become my dinner of choice lately. I was trying to think of what I did on days like these before I discovered TJ's and realized that I cooked dinner as usual, but we would eat about 2 hours later.


I woke up today feeling like a truck hit me; I am sore everywhere. I took the day off and basically laid on the sofa with heating pads on various parts of my body, but even as I made dinner I realized I am not yet ready to report back to "work" in the morning-- I was squeezing a lime and the juice trickled onto my hand and into a few of the several scrapes in my knuckles. Eeeyow!


The end is in sight for this particular project, though. About a half hour more with the heat gun and the thick layers of paint around the front door will have been removed. After that I will scrape the last bits off, sand, and clean the surfaces. I report to jury duty early (really, really early) on Wednesday morning and Jack will begin to paint this area. Next up, the railings. But that'll be a lot easier (no more standing on ladders, twisting, turning, etc.)


So what do I post about when I don't cook (anything I want to post about)???


Pears. Specifically, Seckel pears from my very own dwarf Seckel pear tree. This year, for the first time in several years, our resident family of groundhogs didn't get to them before I could. Using this wonderful concoction I found at Home Depot called Liquid Fence, I sprayed the fruit every two weeks since the beginning of August. The day before we left for vacation, September 4, I picked all of the pears and they are now being stored in the crisper bin of my 2nd refrigerator.


It only takes a couple of days at room temperature to ripen them, I take a dozen out every 2 days so that they don't all ripen at the same time. How wonderfully sweet these little beauties are, so good that I haven't made anything with them but we eat them out of hand, instead. Of course, it takes 4-6 to equal a small "regular" pear but the extra effort is so worth it!




Aren't they gorgeous?!


Actually two of the larger pears (on the top) are from a very old Bosc pear tree in the back yard. When we first moved here the fruit on this and the 3 otherBosc trees had me making pear butter, pear jam, and anything else with pears which I could think of. Lightning hit one tree and killed it about 15 years ago, and in the past 5 years or so there hasn't been much production as they all are dying. I wish I had thought to plant a few trees 10 years ago but, at that time, I was too busy dealing with the bounty and had no idea that it would ever end. Silly me.


For now, I shall enjoy my Seckel pears. And hope for strength to get through this episode of This Old House. :)