Yes, it's taken me a week to post this.

I started this post on the "fall back" day.

I have finally put my gardens to bed.  Just in time for the "fall back" tonight.  It was a very productive gardening year which means our root cellar and pantry are full of canned goods:

dill pickles - 8 quarts

dilly beans - 9 pints

salsa - 32 pints

peaches - 24 pints

apricots - 20 pints

apple pie filling - 7 quarts

grape juice - 10 quarts

hot pepper jam - 26 half pints

jalapeno and apricot jam - 9 half pints

plum cardamon jam - 8 half pints

huckleberry jam - 14 half pints

applesauce - 8 pints

6 pints of beet pickles

And in the freezer, assorted peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, squash, tomatoes, and sweet corn.

I have lots of grape, apple and plum fruit leather for our grandkids, plus some dried apples and Italian plums.

I love gardening and preserving the harvest, but I'm very happy to be finished.

Retired Mountain Man has been busy cleaning up his woods.  He has 36 slash piles to burn and was happy to see all the rain so it's wet enough to start burning.   The rain has stopped my leaf raking, so much so that the rest of the leaves may be there until spring.  Oh well.

We hiked down to the bench to look for oyster mushrooms.  We did find enough for a dryer full, but not as many as usual.

I finished raking my leaves yesterday and I would say that it's just in time.  Here comes the snow.

Maggie says, "Hey, don't you realize it's snowing out here?  I need to come inside."

I'm ready.  My holiday lights are on.

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and all the good things that come with it.  Happy November!

Photos of the largest, gargantuan, biggest, gigantic, enormous amount of firewood in the USA!

Brought to you by Retired Mountain Man....

Gargantuan

Big

Large

Monumental

Kind of smallish....

Gigantic

Colossal

Herculean

Humongous

All I can say is, "wow"!

Ginormous

Tired of looking yet?

Astronomical

Mega

And "yes".  There are 36 piles of brush and they are all covered with plastic, drying out and waiting until we get enough rain that he can burn the piles.

We are going to be warm this winter no matter what the temp is.  I don't know how many cords of wood Retired Mountain Man made, but it's a lot and it was a lot of work.  He is so awesome!

Wanna bet on it?

The big question is, who gave Retired Mountain Man's mother the recipe for Hungarian Chicken Paprika and Spaetzle?  It has become the Burkhart family signature dish.

Retired Mountain Man says it was her neighbor who lived next door to them in the apartments in Coeur d'Alene back in the early 60's.  His sister Linda says the recipe was given to her by the chef at the Diamond Bar Inn in Jackson, Montana.  His parents loved to spend time there hunting, fishing and enjoying the hot springs and of course, all of the conversations and good times at the bar.

The Diamond Bar Inn still has that same local flavor.  I have heard a multitude of stories about their adventures and we finally visited there in 2013.  I searched for my photos of that trip - but no luck finding them.

That brings us back to our family dish, Chicken Paprika and Spaetzle.  It's basically fried chicken with a sour cream and cream sauce made with the drippings.  The spaetzles are unique though.  I needed three pans to fry all of the chicken.

I brown it on one side, add chopped onion.  Season with Hungarian sweet paprika, salt and pepper.  Turn it and brown a few minutes more and then add 1/2 cup. water, cover and simmer until tender.

Drain off excess oil, saving the drippings from the fried chicken.  Add a pint or two of sour cream and a pint of cream or half and half.  Season with additional paprika, salt and pepper.  Heat and stir until it begins to bubble.

The spaetzles:
3 eggs beaten with 1/2 c. water and 2 teas. salt.  Add 2 &1/2 cups flour.  Stir until moistened.

Bring a very large pot of salted water to a boil.  Using a teaspoon, drop small amounts of batter into the boiling water.   (Dip the spoon in the water and it will come off the spoon)  It's difficult to keep the spaetzles small so here's an easy way to do that.  I use my kitchen scissors to cut them into smaller pieces as they cook.

It only takes about ten minutes for the spaetzles to be done, but cook them to taste.  Drain.  In a large bowl,combine the spaetzles with the sauce.  Reserve some of the sauce to drizzle over the chicken.  Layer the chicken on top.

This dish tastes even better the 2nd day which is one reason that I usually make it ahead of time.  I will serving it on Retired Mountain Man's birthday.

Another note:  spaetzles are a great replacement for noodles in many dishes.  Instead of chicken or beef and noodles, I make beef and spaetzles.  These are dishes without the sour cream of course, but the spaetzles taste great without it.

So, where did we get the recipe?  Someone will have to give in.  Who will that be?  The brother?  The sister?  Anyone who knows them want to make a wager on it?

I'll bet $5 on the sister.

Mossy Rose Gall - Oh no! It's a wasp!

Remember this photo from my post yesterday?   It turns out that this is a home for a small cynipid wasp.  The perfect luxurious place for the wasp to live, surrounded by food and sheltered until it's time to leave in the spring.

The galls can't be treated after they have formed, but it turns out they aren't really too damaging to the plant.  There are only three of them on my rose plant and I can prune the branch and it should take care of it.

When you have a garden, there is always something new to learn.

Smoke report:  Another very socked in morning.  Yesterday the breeze picked up and the smoke blew to the northeast, which made for a decent day to work out in my gardens.  Maybe again today?

We will be celebrating Retired Mountain Man's birthday this upcoming weekend with visits from the "kids" and grandkids.  That means it's time to pull out the recipe for the family dish, Chicken Paprika with Spaetzles. 

Genius Kitchen photo

August. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good:
It's August so my Friday evenings are spent playing music with the boys in the band, Running With Scissors.

The gorgeous view is behind us.

Trinity at City Beach.  One of the most lovely settings for an evening out in the Sandpoint area.  Not to mention that the food is excellent.

The Bad: (As in the wildfires.  The Fire Camp is a good thing)
August also means a lot of other things are happening as well.  There's a Fire Camp set up at the Hope Elementary School and in the adjacent fields.

We have stopped by there several times to get updates on the Cougar Peak Fire.  The IC and others have been very informative and helpful in answering our questions.  We look at Cougar Peak from our dining room table, so the fire doesn't seem that far from us.

 The planes haven't been able to fly water drops for the past two days because the smoke is too heavy and visibility is low.

The Ugly:  Too much smoke.

Smokey Haze

Let's focus on the good:
Although the hot July and August temperatures are not good for the wildfires they are a good thing for the gardens.  The daylilies were spectacular this year.

As you can see, I couldn't stop taking photos....

Retired Mountain Man's dahlias are popping out and Maggie loves it whenever he tosses the toy for her.

Her favorite spot for a cool drink is at the fountain.  Then she takes a break and is always on watch for those pesky deer.

Oops!  I almost forgot the dahlia photos.

Check out this beauty on my rose bush.

I love my prayer flags from NAMI North Idaho.  Thanks to my friend Linda for making them.  They add so much color to the gardens.

I've put up 14 jars of dill pickles and canned 21 pints of peaches.  I also have 8 quarts of peaches in the freezer for pies and cobblers this winter.  There were lots of blueberries and my new plum tree set some fruit this year.

The harvest has begun.