The season that has thus far remained unseasonably warm has resulted in the remaining plants soldiering on, happily producing the fruits of my labors even as they have (mostly) been ignored. Case in point:

I had, in all honesty, completely forgotten I’d transplanted these tabascos to the back when the rest were in the front. As things slowly went into crazy mode from May through almost July, the weeds took over virtually everything. When I got myself back in order and hit the frames to get them cleared, I had a rather nice surprise: these were still alive and trying their damndest to flower and put out fruit. Once uncovered, they got themselves going rather well.

The forecast calls for a freeze Thursday night into Friday morning. A one shot deal, really, as the forecast both before and after is rather mild. But that one night is likely to knock out this bunch plus the remaining peppers in the front forty, so I’ll likely just go ahead and harvest them green, either to add to the gigantic batch of tabasco-based hot sauce I’ll be making, or to pickle on their own, for that ubiquitous bottle that’s on the table at almost every BBQ joint in the world.

For now, they continue on.

We had monkey boy and the soul-eating baby at the ranch today while my sister got some shopping done. It was a gorgeous day for it, and we were in and out, playing, watching frogs, eating, and generally just hanging out enjoying the day. Yours truly has been fitting in work all day through that, but the balance of the two is incredibly important. I also wandered out to the beeyard to see if any of the hives needed more feed, but they have also been enjoying this incredibly extended warm fall, so I got to just hunker down for a few minutes in the quiet and watch the girls leave to seek and fly back to their homes for their usual awkward landings. They are really amazing little creatures, albeit apparently not terribly graceful when landing at the hive entrance.

In other news, as some of you know, I make my own vanilla extract here at the ranch. The imitation stuff at the store is just mixed and bottled; the real extract from outfits like McCormick are aged for a couple of months. On a side note about that last: I recall reading something somewhere claiming that McCormick listed corn syrup as one of the ingredients in their extract, but I’ve never seen that. For ours, we use vodka – it’s a good neutral carrier – and fresh vanilla beans. Slice open the beans, stuff them into a bottle or jug, label the bottles, and mark them with the date. Like this.

I store ours in the cold room and pop in every few days to just give it a little shake.  It isn’t complicated to make: vodka, beans, time. The longer it ages, the more fuller expression of taste it has, I think. It’s about time to start a new batch so it, too, can start aging.

I also make homemade kahlua for the peeps who can drink.

I usually do the same with these as the vanilla: at least once a week, give them a gentle shake, and other than that, they sit, waiting for their turn to make someone happy.

Speaking of aging, I’ve also thought about how cool it would be to make my own balsamic vinegar. That is an even longer process than these two things, at least if you want any that are five years or older when they’re bottled. Setting that up would require some casks, from large to small as the vinegar is shifted into ever smaller barrels as it ages and the volume reduces.  Quite a lot of cooking, farming, tech work, and writing takes waiting and patience.

In the next day or two, I’ll be pulling up the remaining tabasco and jalapeno plants, taking the ripe fruits and sending the rest to the compost pile as we continue to wind down for winter and start planning days to begin flats under the lights in the barn as we start all over again for next  season. After all the remaining tabascos are picked, it will also be time to schedule a day to make the tabasco sauce – something best done on a coolish day as all the windows have to be open because of the process. A mask is also a necessity, because cook day can be just a tad overwhelming.

And so it goes, our little routines at the ranch as we settle in for whatever winter Mother Nature would like to grant us.