Farmer's Market Finds

What they say about Farmer's Markets is all true. Great fresh options with a good chance of being organic. And more variety than in your average grocery store. I saw at least 4 kinds of cherry tomatos yesterday. And purslane! I haven't found purslane in the yard this year, so I was excited to see a big bunch for a dollar.

The local farmers are bringing a lot of Asian veggies I don't yet know. I love buying something new, and with a few tips from the farmer, experimenting in the kitchen. Last year I discovered rutabaga - love them! And sometimes you get a surprise... The honeydew I bought appears to be an orange fleshed honeydew. I love honeydew, but not a big fan of cantalope, but I think I like this hybrid.

Then there's the olive guy... during part of the year he has olives cured with just salt. Right now his selections have vinegar, but we try not to hold it against him. The little one loves olives, so we buy a lot. The lemon peel stuffed olives were interesting. This time I bought Greek dried Kalamata olives. Very salty, but yum! I'm not too sure what to do with them yet, but they were nice chopped up and steeped in olive oil for an easy salad dressing.

Garden salad

I'm not getting as much produce out of my garden as I hoped. But the cucumbers are still growing and I'm getting enough cherry tomatos for a small salad each evening.

I had a run-in with red ants yesterday. They appear to be living under the stepping stones next to my raised garden bed... I'm still trying to figure out how to get rid of them, I'd like an organic solution. Limestone, which is supposed to work like diatomaceous earth doesn't seem to have an effect.

Cucumber!

This is my first cucumber plant. Next year I'll plant at least two. I love how the little tendrils grab onto things so it can climb. And it seems to grow about an inch a day, which is just amazing to watch...

Isn't it cute?

And I haven't really had any trouble with pests. I picked a few caterpillars off one day, but that's it.

Genealogy

This is a little off topic... but my editor is letting this slide.

Findmypast (the British version of Scotlandspeople, the Scottish version of ancestry.com) is allowing free access to their documents on days England plays in the World Cup. For a poor genealogy buff like myself this is fabulous. Especially since the 1911 English census was relatively recently released and findmypast appears to be the only one of two place to get images.

Back to the photo. I've done a little research on my grandmother's cousin's father who was from England. His family remained in Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England when he moved to the US after 1901. The photo is said to contain Florence Eliza Higgins (his sister), Lady Bingham and Fred Topsfield, on May 28, 1924. (I thought "Lady Bingham" and "Fred Topsfield" would be uncommon enough names to help me find more information... but apparently this Yankee doens't know the English.) The 1911 census image I acquired last night confirms that Florence married a Mr Clamp - which brings up another interesting British research issue - the marriage indexes are, um, annoying. The Higgins household includes the Higgins family members I'd seen in other censuses (censusii?) plus a young daughter Bessie Ingram Higgins (which confirms the mother's maiden name - Yahoo!). Mr Clamp is not there, but Florence Eliza Clamp is listed as married (not widowed), which is interesting. Altogether a productive 90 minutes of research.