A Beany Weekend On Tap

Boy oh boy do I have beans! My dad's horse manure turned the bean rows into bean jungles. Yesterday my mom came up to pick some beans and saw something moving in the jungle and got scared and left without picking anything. Tonight, I saw a burrow of some sort -- can't be sure what it was, but there was something in there. Couldn't be a rabbit -- there's nothing chewed. Snake??? Maybe a toad. I've had toads as big as softballs. So here's the latest harvest -- lots of beans. I'll be drying many of them; and hubby requested ham, potatoes, and green beans. Do you think I can find local, naturally raised ham? Hope so.

And I have 3 currant bushes I planted years ago, and never really did anything with them. The dark currants (the typically grown currants) are bitter so I never eat them. The white are ok, but the red are fabulous. Currants remind me a little of rhubarb -- nasty by itself, but add sugar and spices and they are luscious. They aren't quite as sour as rhubarb, but getting there. I've been eating the red currants straight off the bush -- they are slightly sweeter than the others.