Five Ways To Use Up All Those Cucumbers

Wow, our cucumber plants are OUT OF CONTROL!

The cukes are coming out of the garden much faster than we can use them up, no doubt.

Preserving The Harvest

By now, most of you know that I am a huge gardener. Like, HUGE.

Perhaps a little crazy. But in a good way.

Embracing Winter On The MountainTop

All over blogland and on Instagram I'm seeing lovely photos of spring flowers and posts about spring dreams. 

Up here on the Mountain Top, I know we've got a good two months or more left of winter, so there's really no point in getting too excited about spring just yet!

The best thing to do is to settle in and embrace what's left of winter. 

I mean, really - what else can you do?

DIY, My Way

I love visiting all my blog friends and seeing what they are doing with their different DIY projects. I find it so inspirational....and also sometimes a little overwhelming. I don't have the time or the energy to work on a million DIY projects. I work full time and we have a very busy social life on top of that. Remember back in my very first post ever I sort of gave you a rundown on what I would be blogging about. That's not to say the list is set in stone by any means but chances are you won't find a ton of DIY projects on my blog at this point in my life. And odd one here and there perhaps....fingers crossed. 

Let's talk about DIY my way. 

Welcome to DIY according to Debbie!

This morning I pulled out all the mason jars that have been "cooking" in my downstairs fridge since the summer months. 

Friends, meet my infusions. 

Alcohol, meet my friends. You may have made their acquaintance before. 

Aren't you all gorgeous?

I know you're not supposed to love one child more than another but I am most definitely partial to these gorgeous raspberry babies. 

Infusing alcohol is quite simple. Amazingly easy, really. Are you ready?

Ok here we go. 

Grab a clean jar that has a lid. 

Fill it with fruit or veggies or vanilla beans or herbs. Experiment. Think about what you like. 

Fill it with your choice of alcohol. 

Close the lid, not too tightly though. Let it breathe. I usually close it tight, give it a couple of gentle shakes, and then loosen it again a bit. 

Put it in the fridge. 

Forget about it for about a month. Sometimes I forget about it for longer. 

That's it, all done! 

Wasn't that tough?  Sorry to put you through that....

When you have time, you can follow the rest of these steps for getting it ready to have drinky-poos! Yes, you heard me right. Drinky poos. 

Make sure your containers are clean and ready to go. 

Side note: These bottles remind me of the beautiful bottles in Brenda's lovely home at Cozy Little House. I have always loved colored glass!

These are the tools I use - my large Pyrex measuring cup (4 cup), the largest mesh strainer I have, twine, wooden tags, and a permanent marker. And a funnel, but I forgot to put it in the photo! Must have been the fumes....

Put the measuring cup in the sink. Position the mesh strainer over it. 

Carefully pour the contents of the jar into the strainer so the liquid ends up in the measuring cup. At least most of it - trust me, you don't want to waste any of this liquid gold!!

Look at how awesomely beautiful this is! This is the Raspberry Gin, my all time favorite. Best summer drink on the planet - Raspberry Gin on the rocks with a good squeeze of lime. Just ask my contractor. He was in heaven when we toasted with that cocktail at the end of a long week this past summer. 

Pour the strained berries into a labeled freezer bag. I don't save all of them but I do save any batches that are nice and fresh looking. Remember they have been soaking in gin for a couple of months so they are POTENT!!  I like to pop a few into a glass of prosecco....mmmmm.  I bet they would be awesome in a glass of frosty lemonade also!! I might try making raspberry chutney from some of the berries this year if the mood strikes and time allows. 

Feel free to pop a raspberry into your mouth and let your head gently explode. 

Pour the liquid into a clean bottle. I have some wine bottles I save for this purpose, labels soaked off. And these lovely colored glass bottles also. 

Important: do not put the lid on at this point! I made that mistake once and the bottle exploded all over the kitchen as it came to room temperature!!! Kind of like Benita's eggs, in a way. Except with slivers of broken glass and raspberry gin all over the kitchen. Just picture it. It was NOT. GOOD. 

Seriously though - isn't this Gorgeous? My whole kitchen smelled like a distillery this morning!

Done! Label it, leave it on the counter to come to room temperature and then you can seal it up and add it to your bar. As long as it doesn't have fruit pieces in it this will last as long as any other booze on the bar. My raspberry gin last summer lasted me through the winter and into the summer again (when I finished it with my contractor!) and it still tasted every bit as fresh as the day I strained it. 

The end result is three bottles of Raspberry Gin....I told you - I seriously love this stuff!!

One Cucumber Mint Gin...this should be excellent with tonic and a squeeze of lime. An experiment. I volunteer to be the guinea pig. 

Strawberry Tequila AND Strawberry Vodka. The vodka smelled like heaven. 

And 2 bottles of Cucumber Tequila - I made this last summer with some excess cucumbers from the garden and it makes the most amazing margaritas. You have to believe me. No, really! I told you all about it in this post. Way back when. 

Today's harvest. Tee hee, not quite the same as this one is it?

Hey, it's all about the balance, isn't it? 

After all we only go around once. 

Sharing at Cozy Little House  and Tipsy Tuesday 

Some of My Favorite Summer Cocktails

The days are long and oh-so hot, the nights are sultry....summer is the perfect time for a frosty cold cocktail. 

And So It Begins.....

Monday Morning Musings...

It's a glorious day here in the mountains of Upstate NY, a day filled with all the beauty nature has to offer - blue skies with puffy white clouds, green all around, the odd leaf changing color already. The kind of day you'd like to share with your friends and family...if they were all here right next to you, sharing a pot of coffee. Since they're not, I have, after much consideration,  decided to start blogging about the things that make me feel blessed....the things that touch my soul, or just make me feel. Feel anything....sad, happy, mad, elated, fortunate....scared. I'm not sure that anyone will actually ever read my blog with the exception of my two beautiful daughters, but perhaps they will....so here goes. 

This is a sampling of what I am so very fortunate to see from the deck of my home. The home I moved into this spring, the first home I have owned completely on my own, with only my name on the deed. It was a scary move to buy a home on my own at this stage in my life, but now that the boxes are unpacked and the dust has settled I just feel incredibly blessed. 

When I stepped onto my deck this morning I had to run back in and grab the camera - the sun was just peeking over the edge of the mountain - what a glorious way to start the day. 

The Morning Glory seeds I planted in the spring have finally started to bloom. They climb up the lattice on the deck, entangling the Gloriosa Lilies with the Nasturtiums and it all becomes a jumble of bright, beautiful blooms. 

The Gloriosa Lilies were successful this year - last year at my rental house the tubers I purchased were a complete flop. Now they make me smile as I see their bright colors right outside the window over my kitchen sink. 

The Coneflowers mingle with the Bee Balm and Queen Anne's Lace - the hummingbirds have been visiting them regularly, attracted by the bright colors. I have yet to see the birds enjoying the new birdbath, but the Japanese Beetles seem to love swimming in it. The beetles are not welcome in my garden and there has been a Beetle Battle for the past few weeks as I try in vain to eradicate them from my vegetable garden. The beetles are especially fond of the Morning Glory leaves and the climbing bean leaves. The leaves are unfortunately looking more like lace than leaves these days. 

The Clematis happily scrambles up the arbor I installed over the veggie garden gate. For a new vine just planted in the spring it's putting on quite a show! I look forward to seeing how it covers the arbor in years to come, to mingle with the climbing roses that were also planted in the spring. 

I planted an assortment of tomatoes in the veggie garden but with the exception of a select few teaser tomatoes they have yet to ripen - the many cool, rainy days we had on the mountaintop earlier this summer mean our tomato harvest is still a ways off. 

The banana peppers are happy and coming along nicely. You can see my one lonely tiny baby eggplant in the distance on the right.....I'm not sure if there will be any more so I had better enjoy that one!

The butternut squash vine has scrambled all over the veggie garden, over the garden fence, and into the lilac tree....I'll be overrun with butternut squash in the fall - which means lots of soup to fill the freezer!

The cucumbers have more than made up for the eggplant's shortcomings by happily rambling all over the garden and producing a mountain of cucumbers! It's incredibly fortunate that I discovered last summer that cucumber infused tequila makes an EXCELLENT margarita!! Batch # 1 of cucumber infused tequila is in the fridge 'cooking' right now! 

Despite the Japanese Beetles putting forth a valiant effort to destroy the bean plants, the bean crop has been terrific so far this year. Once dry, ends trimmed, they go into a freezer bag in small portions to enjoy in the long winter months ahead.

Other winter preparations ensued this weekend with 2 cords of wood neatly stacked and ready for the wood burning stove, which I use as my primary heat source. There's nothing quite like a crackling wood fire on a cold night....perhaps along with a lovely glass of vintage port!

But for now, the lilies are blooming and winter is far in the distance. There is a large female deer who visited the property frequently at the start of the summer and had a feast on the lily buds further away from the house. Fortunately she left the ones closest to the house alone so there were plenty of beautiful blooms to enjoy.  The lilies put on quite a show!

The ornamental grasses are gorgeous, this is the first time I've used them in my landscape but it surely won't be the last!

The Achillea (Yarrow) is coming into bloom everywhere I look, which is a wonderful spot of sunshine in the August garden.  

And summer nights in the mountains are cool enough to end my day like this. 

I am so blessed. 

It's MountainMama's Birthday!

Exactly one year ago today I hit 'publish' on my very first blog post. 

265 posts later, I can't believe how many of you have stuck around to read the drivel that pours from my head to my hands, and ends up traveling the globe via the WWW. 

The Walkabout

Every morning and every evening I go for my "Walkabout", which is basically a walk around my property, taking stock of what's what. I am accompanied by my two faithful companions of the furry variety, who bounce around with happy tails and floppy ears. They have adjusted extremely well to the new house and while I'm on my walkabout, they go on their own little "Sniffabout", chasing anything that squeaks or moves. 

Some mornings I grab the shears to deadhead spent blooms. 

Other mornings I'm on a "beetle battle" against the God-awful Japanese Beetles. Did you know a handheld propane torch is a great weapon against Japanese Beetles? 

This morning my weapon of choice was the camera, as it often is. Come with me on my walkabout and let's see what's happening in the garden today!

We head out the kitchen door, which is on the second floor, which is the main living area in my chalet-style mountain home.  The deck is a wraparound, with many pots of flowers and plants and various seating areas. 

First stop, we check on the baby fig tree a friend grew from a cutting of her own fig tree. She dropped it off just the other day with a basket of veggies (what a good friend!) and although I have yet to plant it in a decorative pot. It seems quite happy here and I look forward to watching it grow and flourish in our new home. Figs and Gorgonzola......mmmmmmm!!!

We head around the corner to check on the Jasmine, which has yet to flower. It's so close now, with many, many buds, but the cool nights appear to be hindering it's progress. Summer is returning tomorrow so we should see flowers in the next few days. The Jasmine was planted near my favorite evening sitting area, not only for the glow of the white flowers but for the intoxicating evening scent. In the winter the pot will come in and live in the sunny front window until next spring. 

The GIGANTIC pot of Petunias is doing well, and their fragrance in the evenings when we sit out on the deck is pure heaven.

Just look at that color, how could that not put a smile on your face at the end of a long day?

The Geraniums are happy - can you tell I like bright colors around my home?

And the Verbena mingles happily with the white Petunias and the Geraniums to create a cool counterpart to all the hot colors - I always include some white in my plantings to give the eye a rest and to make the other colors "pop" - not to mention, the white flowers glow so beautifully in the early evening light. Gorgeous.

Down in the garden, the Cosmos are wet with the morning dew. We've had a heavy dew the last few mornings, brought on by the cool mountain evenings.

The Casablanca Lilies will be opening soon - I check on them daily to make sure they are still there and haven't been devoured! I lost a few of them early on this season when the deer was around on a regular basis. Fingers crossed that the remaining will survive and I get to enjoy their bloom!

The Zinnias have been flowering like mad all season - I don't normally put them in but I'm sure glad I did this year.

Another one to watch.....a volunteer sunflower, coming up in a pot of flowers, planted by some thoughtful critter. The bloom isn't far off now and I can't wait - I love sunflowers but don't normally have much luck with them!

Cleome is a regular in my garden every year. They haven't done as well in this new home as in the past, perhaps I shall give them a little more space next year - they have been swallowed up by some of the perennials.

The Black Eyed Susans were a surprise to me....a great surprise as I love their sunny faces in the late summer garden.  I will surely put in more of these at the edge of the woods to grow among the wildflowers. I made the mistake once of putting them in my main perennial garden and they absolutely took over!

We pass the Coneflower patch on our way to the veggie garden. Another great display of late summer flowers with Coneflower, Queen Anne's Lace, and Bee Balm all growing happily together. Love them all!

The gate to the veggie garden, with the arbor I added in the spring. On each side of the arbor I planted a climbing rose and a clematis. All are doing well and next season should put on quite a nice show!

In the veggie garden the Dill is flowering around the Nasturtium, creating a beautiful contrast.

The tomatoes are heavy on the vine and the harvest will be a big one this year! I might have to learn how to can tomatoes!! This transplanted city girl never quite got the hang of canning yet.....

The Nasturtiums and Butternut Squash have taken over the garden path.

And the beans have climbed up and over the fence, into the Lilac tree, and bent it right over!

Around the back of the veggie garden the ornamental grasses grow beautifully among more Petunias and Dahlias. The Dahlias were another impulse buy this year and I love the way they have performed in this corner!

And this GINORMOUS cucumber had escaped the garden and was growing on the outside of the fence. I've been watching him and he was ready to pick.....but he wasn't destined for a salad....

I had other plans for this guy!!

Cucumber infused Tequila makes an EXCELLENT margarita for a little taste of summer in the long winter months!!

He now rests with the others in the lower level fridge....

Perhaps the surplus tomatoes will meet a similar fate? I'm thinking tomato basil infused vodka would make a mean bloody mary!

Thanks for sharing my walkabout today!