Part of it was extenuating circumstances. I've been getting home from work just as the sun was starting to set, which makes colors look weird sometimes. And add to that the fact that something died in our woodpile, smells like a raccoon. The whole back yard reeks to high heaven. I've pretty much been dashing out there after work, picking what looks ready, and running back in to escape the smell.
So, the fact that my cucumber plant was turning white kind of got brushed to the side. Until today.
Today there was no escaping it, I have powdery mildew. The entire plant is covered in it, although it seems to be growing fine in spite of that. I found a recipe for treating it that involves milk and baking soda, and after picking as many cucumbers as I could find, I doused both that vine and all the nearby plants with the mixture. We'll see what happens.
There were 8 cucumbers ripe enough for seed, so I chopped them up and have the pulp soaking in Oxyclean. The flesh wasn't sweet anymore, but it wasn't bitter either, so I diced that up and stuck it in the fridge. When I have time tomorrow I'll get some bell peppers and a bag of onions and make pickle relish. Mom loves my pickle relish.
Good news and bad news.
Yesterday I spent most of the day working on my land. Pinned down plastic sheeting until I ran out of staples. Picked all my corn (most of it was drying down, and the critters were eating it right off the stalk), then I wasn’t tired yet, so I went traipsing around looking for goodies. I came home with 2 sacks full of corn and one of wild grapes.
Then I came home, put up several pints of pickle relish. Cleaned, boiled, squeezed, and canned up the grapes as juice. There must have been other stuff I did in there too, I don’t really remember much. Just as I got the grape juice in the canner, a migraine hit and kinda screwed with my head. I did have the sense to set a timer for the grape juice, hopefully it was even for the right lenth of time!
I haven’t been strong enough to work myself to the migraine stage since I was in high school! As miserable as that was, it’s a good sign!
Now I need to remember to stop before I get to that point.