June 26, 2022- high summer creeps closer

 Saturday morning: 5 a.m.

It is raining. We are actually having a thunderstorm. This is a good thing. This was an expected rain, one that had been in the forecast all week. Sometimes those have been known to fizzle.

About an hour ago there were these very loud thunders. They were about 3-4 minutes apart. They came in several beats, kind of like some great big thing being dropped and then bouncing. Ka boom boom boom.

The windows are open and a little while ago I heard the frogs. It seems like they only make noise at this point when it rains.

We needed the rain. So far this year we have had 11 inches total in Iowa City. Normal would be about 16. The TV weather place says we have actually already had 2 inches overnight. (Now they have raised that number to over 3 inches. Our rain gauge said 3.5.) 

High summer in the garden has begun. The Asiatic lilies have started.

This one clump is rather spectacular. It is not a coincidence that it gets more sun.

There are other colors.

One project for the week was planting  morning glory seeds. We have a trellis at the end of our front porch. I have tried morning glories on it over the years. There is a roof that goes out a few feet at the end of the porch. That means that rain does not get right up against the foundation. This is intentional as you want to avoid that getting too wet. That does mean it is difficult to grow anything right next to the house. 

So I grow the morning glories in pots, big pots. 

You start morning glory seeds by soaking them for 24-48 hours. The seeds actually begin to sprout in that time. They then are planted and come up almost immediately.

Now the hard part begins. These pots absolutely need watering every 2-3 days. Without that regular watering the little plants will not survive. The pots are out of the my regular path. I do not walk past them several times a day.

It will be a real discipline thing to do this watering.

Stay tuned. 

Once they climb on the trellis the task will be to make them bloom. Sometimes you can get lots of growth with no flowers. I will need to read up. Is it too much fertilizer or not enough?

Some Hosta are amazing.

This is Confused Angel, one of my favorites.

This is Earth Angel, a cousin of Confused.

This is Beckoning. It grows in the parkway in front of the house. I just looked it up. It is another descendent of Blue Angel, the hosta responsible for all of these 3 hosta I just happened to pick out to show you.

Other pictures

Julia's recipe

Pork Loin with Apples 

Pork is versatile, which is to say it plays well with others, picking up whatever flavor profile comes along. We make pulled pork with barbecue sauce; stir fried pork with Asian seasoning; braised pork chops in mild chili sauce; Italian sausage meat sauce with spaghetti and roast pork with several seasoning options. This recipe for pork loin is of more or less unknown origin. I think I copied it from a magazine while visiting friends in Seattle many years ago. Whatever the origin, it's good and pretty fast and easy - under an hour. 

The ingredients:

1 pork loin roast (boneless - 1-1/2 lb. or so (or a tenderloin);

2 Granny Smith apples;

1 teaspoon ground cumin;

1/4 cup (or so) chopped onion;

2 tablespoons wine vinegar;

2 tablespoons honey;

1 tablespoon tomato paste;

1/2 cup chicken broth;

a bit of dried lemon peel if you have it;

salt and pepper.

 

I peeled and cored the apples and cut each apples into 8 wedges. I peeled and chopped some onion.

I turned the oven on to 325 degrees.

Next, I took out a roasting pan and plunked the pork down in the middle. No need for oil or no-stick spray. I spread the apples wedges around the pork and sprinkled the chopped onion around too. 

Then I mixed the ground cumin with about 1 teaspoon of kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper and /2 teaspoon of dried ground lemon peel and sprinkled that mixture over top of the pork, patting it a bit to help it adhere. 

I bought some ground dried lemon peel from Penzey's, a midwestern spice merchant, and I decided to add it here. It's nice but not necessary. 

Next I used a bit of better than bouillon chicken bouillon with water to make 1/2 cup of liquid and mixed in the vinegar, honey and tomato paste. When the ingredients were combined, I poured it all around the pan - but not over the meat. No call to disturb the spice mixture on the roast. 

I put it in the oven and baked it until a meat thermometer read 135 degrees. In my oven, this was about 30 minutes.

The right internal temperature for roast pork is 135 - thoroughly cooked, but not dried out. 

I let the pork rest for a few minutes. During that time, I cooked some asparagus and Philip made a salad.

On the table. The apples held their shape (the best feature of Granny Smith apples); the sauce was a bit sweet and sour but not obtrusively so. The spice rub gave the meat a nice slightly unusual flavor. I had not roasted pork with cumin before. 

I think we had rice or tiny pasta as a bed to put the pork and apples on top of, with asparagus on the side. 

It was a lovely dinner. There were leftovers, which I have plans for. 

 

Odds and ends

Rain and frogs. A good way to start a day.

The downside was that we actually had over 3 inches of rain in about 10 hours. When I went to the basement there was water. I am not sure where it came from. I did have to put together the new shop vac on little notice. It really does work better than what we did in the past. That would include using dustpans, brooms and waste baskets.

Here is the little wren, living in the birdhouse on the back garage.

I made a quick trip to one of the box stores yesterday. I had learned about...  Well, let me just say I bought a few and will show you pictures next weekend.

Here are the almost weekly  poppy pictures. They really are almost finished. I should add that I planted some poppy seed a month ago. I just threw it in the ground, where I was putting some zinnia seeds. Now I have hundreds of tiny seedlings coming up. I really would like to see if I can get them to bloom in September, into October. If it works for zinnias why not poppies.

Weeds- they are growing everywhere. I weed a little patch and try tp get some satisfaction out of that. They really are growing in the paths now. I should have put down wood chips in the spring. Maybe I can get a small load this week. There is a three day weekend coming.

It is Sunday. It is appropriate that there should be a lot of prayers.

Pray for peace.

Pray for reconciliation.

Pray for this country.

Pray for everyone's own garden. 

Philip