Heat Wave

I don't know if Boston hit at last 90 for three days in a row, but I certainly have. The last two days were 97F. Hot hot hot. This morning I went out the door to go for a hike (very early to beat the heat) and I was struck by the most wonderful smell.

My roses were blooming. The yellow on is a Knockout rose, but the pink climbing rose is an old fashioned rose, Zephirne Drouhin. I'm hoping in a couple of years it will make it over the arch. But I'm really impressed by its blooms. Right now it is escaping more to the side than over the arch. To the side are my electric and gas meters and it is draping over them looking beautiful. My mint pots are in front of it and it makes a good background. I really wanted to make some rose jelly to see what it was like, but I couldn't bear to pick the petals. It is just too pretty and the scent is heavenly.

I've been thinking about how to save some of my Chinese cabbage for the winter. I thought some vegetable potstickers would be perfect. I changed up the recipe a bit. I doubled the cabbage and used Chinese cabbage. I used bunching onions instead of red onion. Is red onion something the Chinese even use? Bunching onions seemed more apropos not to mention that I'm picking them now and the red onions are tiny. I used less white pepper. My carrots were from last fall's frozen carrots so I sliced them into sticks instead of shredding them. It is actually a pretty good spring dish to make as I could get so much from the garden.

I put them in the freezer and will vacuum seal them once they are solid. Sadly this only took up two cups of cabbage. I have so much more. I ought to make a lot of batches, but I'd need more dumpling wrappers. They take a long time to form, but I was getting faster at them. I did it in front of the TV so it wouldn't be so boring. Oh they smelled so good. I love the smell of garlic chives but a whole cup is a lot and the house still smells of it. If I can get a few packages of wrappers I'll make more and make some pork ones too.

Except for my hike I hid in my air conditioning. But still such a hot day deserves a frozen drink and since the strawberries are coming in I made a frozen strawberry margarita. Yum.

Tomorrow is destined to be another hot one. I have a garden chore list made out and I'll try to get as much done as possible before I hide inside again. I need to plant my beans under that trellis I made earlier. Harvest and dry some herbs - either mint or thyme. Spread the salt marsh hay under the fruit trees and asparagus. Clean my husband's car that was used to bring home the hay - it made such a mess. Water the planters and seeds that were planted this week. Circle the tree trunks with tanglefoot so the ants quit farming aphids in them. On Monday the heat is supposed to break and It will be nice to be outside again. Hopefully it will rain again for us too.