How to beet it?

Squash are the rabbits/mice/cats of the garden in that they produce like mad!  Most recipients of please-just-take-it squash are grateful for the gift and usually have uses in mind for it - chocolate zucchini loaves, muffins, cookies, spaghetti squash pizza crust or simply covered in fresh pasta sauces, acorn or butternut soups.

If not for my mother giving me my weight in green and yellow zucchini on a recent visit, I would have been relegated to buying it from local farmer's markets (good) or the oddly stocked local stores (bad).  

Zucchini is a vegetable that most people know what to do with it when your coworker/neighbor/family member downloads their overharvest.  

My squash plants this year grew great big leaves, curly cue climbers and had delightful flowers but no vegetables came from them.  I accidentally weeded leeks and garlic.  Carrots did well, spinach bolted and the brassica bug annihilated my late season kale.  Beets also flourished.  

Still in the ground, I don't know what to do with them.  There's only so much glory bowl in which I can grate fresh beets.  Borscht, maybe I'll give that a go.  Someone said roast them.  Another to make beet burgers.  If this autumnal rain stops, I'll slog out to the soil one last time for the last of this year's fresh northern veg.  

Wow weekend!

This past weekend has been one of those rare ones where I see the majority of my friends in Chetwynd, rest up and recharge for the week ahead and have a clean(er) house.

Another girlfriend has left town for a promising work opportunity and she called together her town friends and coworkers from the last two years for one last bash on Friday.  Pub-filling laughter bounced off the wooded walls before we spilled into the Indian summer night and wished each other well with intentions of staying in touch.

Happy and (mildy) hungover the next morning, Dan and I set out on bicycles to meet friends for breakfast at the pub we had left mere hours before.  In small-town style, we saw nearly all our friends that morning.  At the post office, thrift store, library, in their yard, ahh.

Mild house and yard work filled the time until we popped out to friends house outside town for dinner.  A stellar meal was in the making - roast moose and garden spuds, carrots, onion.

We resigned ourselves to a sleepover, made arrangements for a friend to come to the house and feed our foster kitties when another friend dropped in after (unsuccessfully) hunting the same animal we had just eaten.  Conversation flowed, laughter filled the vaulted ceilings and we bummed a ride back into town for the night.

A delightfully leisurely day followed with light walks, board games, BBQs and kitty cuddle time.