Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Hotter 'n Hell

Well...maybe...it's plenty hot though, been about 100f for the last 4 days. There goes the PGE bill! I checked the Smartmeter site this morning to see the sticker-shock and while it's higher than our average it's only going to last til tomorrow it looks like. The ol' Suisun west wind is turned ON and that signals the beginning of cooler times to come. When it is quiet, we roast. Simple as that. The name Suisun means West Wind in some American Indian dialect. Our big house was situated so that the afternoon wind flowed thru it and thus kept the whole house cool and comfortable most of the time without using air-conditioning. Here in the new abode...that is simply not the case. We used Nansulate paint on the outer wall interiors and that has helped the ground floor to remain in the 70's when it's 100 degrees outdoors, without A/C! Yes, it's doing it's job alright. Well worth it though when the temp is in three digits. Upstairs in the office space it too has the Nansulate but the outer perimeter of the room, built iside the attic area is an oven, enclosed and heated by the sun to 120+ degrees most days in the summer, wind or not, good ol' solar power at work doing whatr it does best, heat things up. So I used one of the A/C units from the Swamphouse inside that space facing into the office room itself to turn on when it got as hot as it now is. I keep the thermostat at 75 degrees which is even cool feeling when it's so hot outdoors. Today Kelly asked me to raise it as she was actually chilled! So it's at 78 degrees now and it feels just fine to me. Without the A/C it would be above 90 degrees in here right now. As it is it's about 85 actually.

Picked most of the tomatoes two days ago and the rest wait for ripening and that will be soon in this heat. They are beautiful, bright red and sweet as could be.
Make great Sugo and Ragu. I just poach them for a few minutes in boiling water to soften the skins, then pass them thru a hand mill to separate the skins from the pulp. I then freeze it for use later in the winter when these lovely things are hard to find unless, of course, you don't have ill-feelings for tomatoes from far off places somewhat south of our border. Not me! I use either canned or my own frozen puree instead. Same with the basil. Worth it!