October 6, 2024- color as the garden year fades

Welcome

This is called a splash of color. That is what zinnias are supposed to do. My little patch of zinnias has recovered from the deer trimming. More are blooming every day.

It is still warm and dry.

We sort of had some rain the other day. None had been scheduled. The 10 day forecast on the phone has shown 0 rain for weeks. It must have been about 3 in the morning on Wednesday night. There was just one loud boom of thunder that woke us up. Then there was light rain for a while. It measured .3  to .38 by the local professional reports. It was better than nothing, but it was only a little better. Now we are back to all 0's in the forcast.

Several days this week the  temperature dipped officially into the upper 30's. That was in the low lying areas. Yesterday it was in the upper 80's. It will be down to 40 several times this coming week. I guess that is October.

The ground sort of crunches when you walk on it.

I have been running the sprinkler quite a bit.

I then water wand the potted plants in the back. That would include the hoyas and the orchids and orchid cactus and the sansevieria.

This is hoya kereii. It has heart shaped leaves. It sometimes is sold just with a single leaf in a pot. It is starting to grow nicely in its second year.

I am still repotting orchids. It feels like a total makeover for the plant. Of course it is. Only usually when they are too big for one pot, that means I wind up with more than one plant. The collection grows. 

I will bring in some this week, as the temperature goes to 40 several times.

I had an "oh wow" moment yesterday afternnoon. I was walking around the east side of the house when look what I found-

These fall crocuses are actually  crocuses.

Another one had popped up, once I started to look for them.

Other pictures

Julia's recipe

Pear Tart

This recipe for pear tart intrgued me. Pears as the centerpiece in a dessert? I like to eat Bartlett pears raw, but I haven't made any pear desserts. I wasn't sure they's have enough oomph to carry a dessert. But I learned otherwise. The tart tasted like pears with a hint of lemon. It was good. With ice cream or whipped cream. The recipe is from Michael Knock, the Press-Citizen's food guy. 

The ingredients for the crust:

1-1/2 cups white flour;

2 tablespoons white sugar;

1 teaspoon lemon zest;

1/4 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter, make it 1/2 teaspoon);

1 stick (8 tablespoons) chilled butter;

and 4 or 5 or  tablespoons whipping cream.

Ingredients for the filling:

2 Bosc pears;

3 Bartlett pears;

1/3 cup sugar;

2 tablespoons flour;

1 teaspoon lemon zest;

2 teaspoons lemon juice;

2 tablespoons sliced or slivered almonds; 

1/4 teaspoon of grated nutmeg;

and some more (maybe 2 tablespoons) of the whipping cream to brush on the crust

First I made the tart crust. I put the flour, sugar, salt and 1 teaspoon of the lemon zest in the food processor.

A lemon zest hint: I zested 1/2 of the lemon straight into the food processor. And later I zested the other 1/2 of the lemon straight into the bowl with the pear slices. No loss of zest in transition. 

I cut the butter into little cubes and added it to the food processor. 

I zizzed it around until it was like coarse meal. 

Then I added the 1/4 cup of whipping cream, and zizzed some more. The dough was still dry, so I took the tube thingy out of the top of the food processor and poured in another tablespoon of cream while the machine was running. As I recall, that took care of it, but I was prepared to use a total of 6 tablespoons of cream and you should be too. 

When the dough was a more or less cohesive lump, I dumped it out onto a piece of parchment. I kneaded the dough a little to make sure it was all mixed (no dry bits). Then I patted the dough into a round; folded the paper around the dough and chilled it in the refrigerator for 1 hour. 

While the dough was chilling, I turned my attention to the pears. My Bartlett pears were ripe-ish. The Bosc pears were, well, Bosc pears. 

I peeled the pears. In the picture, I was peeling the last Bartlett pear. After peeling, I cut each pear into quarters, took out the cores and sliced the quarters into thin slices. 

This is a picture of the slicing of the pears.

After the pears were prepared, I added the sugar, the rest of the lemon zest, the lemon juice, and the nutmeg and stirred the mixture.

And I preheated the oven to 400 degrees.

Then (when the hour of chilling was up), I took the parchment-wrapped dough out of the refrigerator. 

I rolled the dough into a roughly (and I do mean roughly) round shape. (See below.)

I poured the pear mixture onto the crust.

I sprinkled the almonds over the pears. Then I started to kind of pleat the dough all around the filling. 

There were a couple of places that needed repair. I used the larger-than-needed parts of the dough to make the patches. 

I left the tart on the parchment and transferred the parchment to a rimmed baking sheet. 

I brushed some of the remaining whipping cream around the edges of the tart and dabbed some onto the filling as well.

The tart baked for about 45 minutes. I started checking it after 30 minutes. It's done when the crust is golden brown and the pears are soft (that is, when one can pierce the pears with a sharp knife or skewer and meet no real resistance).

It was easy to transfer the tart from the rimmed baking sheet to a serving platter. At that point, I ran a metal spatula under the tart to make sure it wasn't sticking to the parchment anywhere. Then I pulled the parchment out from under the tart. 

It was a fancy tart so we used fancy plates. We whipped the leftover whipping cream for a dollop on the side. 

The tart held up well and we ate it up over several days. 

Odds and Ends

I wish a Happy 100th birthday to Jimmy Carter. That was October 1, 1924.

It is the time of year when many hosta do not look so good.

This is hosta Beckoning.

This is hosta Winter Snow.

Sometimes there is an "oh wow" moment in the garden. Sometimes there is an "oh my" moment.

I was looking for seeds in the Bartzella peony when I saw this.

Special thoughts should be sent to folks who were in the path of Hurrucane Helene. It does not seem fair that another hurricane may be coming. 

This is the temperature chart from last year, October 2023.  Cold weather comes in October.

I think about the election almost every day. If there is a spare $25 in the budget it goes to someone running for office. The other day it was Don Osborn, running for Senate as an Independent in Nebraska. Apparently he has a decent chance of being elected.) That was probably my first ever contribution to anyone in Nebraska.

Pray for peace.

Pray that voters show some sense, rather than respond to lies. (Gosh there are some awful adds.)

Pray that people have enough to eat.

Thanks for your notes. 

Philip