January 2010: Hunkering down

We had enough sun and rain in January that there were finally a few florets to harvest from the broccoli. (I don't know why my Fall plantings never produce until this late). I almost didn't catch them quickly enough, but I'm glad I did --
Another bowl of lettuce from after we got back from the Christmas trip:
Found this in the lettuce . . .
I don't know what it is, but I've really been a crock-pot fiend lately. I started off with a great bison roast from Thunderheart Bison, a Richardson Farms pork shoulder, and then this duck breast from Countryside Farms. (South) Texas oranges have been in season for 2-3 months now and I was needing to use some that Jenny brought from HEB a while back. (Incidentally, I already had a ton of tangerines that I was eating from Orange Blossoms Farm in Carrizo Springs [also South TX . . . the "Wintergarden region"]. I added green onions, olive oil, stock and a healthy dose of seasoning.
I threw in carrots and cabbage towards the end. Both the duck and vegetables were great; it's hard to beat roast pork, though.Before I take anything else from the garden (mainly leafy stuff is all that remains), I'm letting it recover from my latest harvest and some particularly harsh weather (down in the teens) that we got a few weeks ago. So I've had some free time to finally start tackling the weeds, and Josephine took an interest in collaborating on the project. The weather was beautiful -- you really don't get continously cold weather around here until January or February. (The cold snaps are sporadic before that, starting around October and continuing well through the holidays, with short-wearing weather not at all unusual at Christmas time). And even in January and February, you there are usually some very mild, sunny afternoons.
Here she is on the hunt . . . I'm hoping she develops truffle-sniffing abilities:

Unfortunately, we had some real challenges in distinguishing between weeds and vegetables. Here, she wanted to pull up the lettuce:

I had to play a more direct, supervisory role than I would've liked -- her mother was too busy taking pictures to provide oversight:

Finally, here's a video where she's "helping" -- she watched me pull the weeds and then does something similar herself. (Of course, she's mistaking the green onions for weeds.) I'd like to be sentimental and think she was taking after me in this pursuit, but I know even if I wasn't out there weeding to demonstrate, she'd probably be doing something like this if left to her own devices anyway -- picking and pulling at plants and leaving general destruction in her wake.