Wet wheezy winter
drizzling in on us
After the shortest fall ever, we jumped into frost territory around two weeks ahead of schedule. The last good harvest window (not too wet, not too dry, dry enough to leave the harvest turned up and drying before the next rain) then fell about two days before the first threatened frost. So, short and long of it, I left the peanuts and sweet potatoes in the ground on a hunch we wouldn’t get heavily frosted (suspicions enhanced by the fact all of their leaves were still green), which turned out fine — except in cutting the window short against freezing, they’ve cured in much cooler air than optimal, and, worst of all (though only tangentially related), I still haven’t gotten much garlic in the ground. Most fall-into-winters would have a longish grace period, but first I got sick, and now we’re in for a longer colder stretch earlier than usual. Ah well, live and learn.
Garlic delays are also due to distractions, lack of discipline, & time constraints (a factor of not getting the first two crops up and out, clearly). We did lose an unplanned weekend to the pleasures of a hospital visit, navigating an appendectomy (not mine). In case you’ve ever wondered, an appendix can develop a weakened wall, which then balloons, and can trap bodily debris, and become inflamed, infected, perforated, and so forth.1 As discomfort worsened, having absorbed a shelf full of preppery & third-worldy “what can go wrong on your own” books, our theory was appendicitis before gearing up to enter the medical-industrial complex. When all’s said and done, there’s no difference in diagnosis, prognosis, treatment for the 98% of ‘normal’ cases and our type. The progression is about the same and the medical reaction is the same (take it out). The only difference (per the doc) is that, if they knew, they might not take it out on the first attack, which is either profit maximizing or overabundance of caution: the little bubble is not going to go away once the wall’s weakened. At any rate, after being told it would be six weeks without lifting anything heavier than 15 pounds (frankly not a feasible limit on a farm), at the post-op two weeks after the event we were greenlit to return to full duty. The benefits of general fitness and an active lifestyle, we conclude.
Final instrux: don’t change anything, GBTW.2
The peanut haul looks different this year. I didn’t plant many/any of the black ones, by happenstance as much as intention, and they have in past years had longer pods with three or even four seeds inside. The semi-intentionality of de-emphasizing them this year comes from, one, they seem a little drier-tasting to me (less oil, I mean) and, two, the nut butter from the old Southern peanut, Carolina runner or some such, is kind of great. Honestly, I’m not particularly fond of peanut butter or nut butter generally, and I expected to prefer pecan butter by a long shot. In this year’s experiments, however, a 1:3 pecans to peanuts combo was absolutely the best.3 In full transparency, the ratio was less of an experiment and more of a way to use all of the nuts on hand; turned out delicious. We did the nut butter experiments early spring after finding a Vitamix at the salvage shed, and as I was planting I leaned heavily on the Carolina runners, and it seems like nearly all of my volunteers were the same. So, best adapted to our location?Since I’m not curious to try black peanut butter, I guess we’re good.
I’ve processed about a third of the lifted nuts so far, and we’re having freezing nights now which means I really need to hurry up. The wheelbarrow full is in the garage but there are more on the breezeway. Sweet potatoes are all in the garage, minus the ones in the house that need to be eaten up, but that’ll wait for another post. (Good results, though.) Maybe by then I’ll get the garlic in!
Other updates to come, such as T-giving experiments with a new (hand-me-down) smoker, advances in leaf mold mulch, and sloo-o-o-o-oow work in the lower garden. Soon it will be pruning and tree-planting time; this year our roses, pears, apples need lots of pruning and (apple) spreading attention; many pawpaws to get in the ground; and many other things to attempt winter sowing in the big water-bottle discards. Oh, it’s a long and ever-lengthening list!
2% of appendectomies turn out to be ‘appendiceal diverticulosis’ per this UK article, or in a South Korean observational study, 3.7% of appendectomies conducted January 2009-May 2011 in one center. The UK study (2022) cites incidence from the Korean study (2013) which cites a UAE study (2009) that actually gives two rates, neither of which are population-based incidence rates, so I’ll assume population incidence is vanishingly rare. The 2013 preamble gives an “incidence range between 0.004% and 2.1% from appendicectomy [sic] studies, and an incidence range between 0.20% and 0.66% from autopsy studies” but (in the same paper) the most likely reliable figure seems to be (collective, aka live or dead) incidence among patients presenting for surgery (or died before getting on the table, probably) of 1.4% per a mixed study of 50k cases (1955 study not online, even trusty sci-hub fails me, citation only).
Thank God it was the less common appendix version and not a weakened wall the colon.
Both roasted: definitely do not skip that step.
Have never heard of the pecan/peanut butter blend before, and since I like both nuts individually, I might need to give the combo a test drive sometime