Month: April 2020

The Big Chill and Foiled again

I know that the last frost date for our area is around Mother’s Day. I know this fact, but in the 15 years I have been here, it has never been that late. Last week’s warmth almost fooled me, but instead I just put out a couple of over wintered plants. The past two nights have played around freezing, those plants were tucked tight up against the house and covered with a beach towel at night.

Instead of being tempted by the warmth to plant seeds, I nurtured the seedlings indoors or out in filtered sun for part of the day and worked on the fencing. I thought I had it so the chickens could keep the weeds around the garden scratched down and help reduce the bug load. A few nights ago when I went out to lock them up for the evening, most of them were in the garden, scratching around my pea shoots and spinach. I chased them out through the gate, in the chicken pen gate and worked the next morning at figuring out how they got in. There was a spot where the fencing was bent about 3 inches off the ground and they must have gone under. An electric fence step in post was used to force the bend down and a large rock added to block the hole. All was good, I thought. They continued to scratch down the weeds, clearing the path around the garden. Last night in the cold and very gusty wind, I went out and one was on the egg door, one in the middle of the peas again. The one on the egg door was an Olive Egger and they will let me pick them up, so it was put in the coop. The other was a Welsummer and they won’t let me close to them, so again, she was chased out the gate and right in to the run gate and into the coop. I went out this morning and I can not see where she got through the fence or the other one out. This morning, they are blocked from the new run. If the day warms up enough, I will go investigate more.

Today and tomorrow are warmer with milder nights, but we have severe weather warnings for tomorrow night into Monday morning, then another chill down. For now, I will shift and cover plants, nurture the seedlings, and continue to prepare the last bit of the garden for seeding and transplanting when true spring comes.

LATER:

I did go back out and found another place the hens had dug under the fence so I filled it and blocked it with a board and big rock. After dinner when I took the garbage out, they had all gotten around the barricade and into the run and two of them were in the garden again. I guess my idea is just not a good one. They may be confined to their pen again until dinner time after the dogs have been out, then they get yard time til dark.

I harvested my first asparagus spears this afternoon and enjoyed all 4 of them. There are many coming up and I know that soon I will have more than I can eat and will begin giving them away. I do enjoy fresh from the garden asparagus. Like peas, potatoes, and corn, even a few hours from harvest changes their taste from natural sweet to starchy.

Our Easter tradition has been for daughter to prepare ham, potatoes, asparagus (if they are up by then) or peas, and deviled eggs and I prepare pineapple upside down cake and we eat together. Not this year, sadly. I will prepare a half of pork tenderloin, au gratin potatoes, peas, deviled eggs, and rolls for just the two of us. I won’t bother with dessert. Maybe next year, family traditions will have returned. Or will we be living a new normal?

Wild and Woolly Afternoon

Yesterday morning it rained lightly alternating with periods of sunshine. By early afternoon, you could see the storm coming. The photo below was taken right after our phones alarmed simultaneously of severe thunderstorm warning with ping pong ball sized hail.

Our house has a large 2 plus car garage, but like most garages, it has too much other stuff in it and normally only houses the motorcycle. There are two large built in work benches, a built in floor to ceiling shelving unit, many sets of scaffolding with it’s braces and walk boards, scrap wood, various 5 gallon buckets (well more than a dozen), my garden cart with tools, the gas mower and weed wacker. One wall has pegs with hanging tools another wall has two high shelves of camping and outdoor gear. Of course, all the wild bird food, chicken food, and a half bale of pine shavings for their coop. There are 3 ladders, and the two bicycles were also in there. When the alert came, we scrambled to try to get the two cars in there too. Items were shoved and shifted willy nilly, the bicycles moved to a large unused coop and my car was put in on the tighter size as it is the smaller of the two. Hubby with much back and forth moved the motorcycle to the middle and stayed on it while I drove his larger car in.

To get out of my car, I had to climb over to the passenger side to get out and very carefully slid out the driver’s side of his car. There was no room to move around in there at all. We had just accomplished this, closed the doors and come back in when the phones alarmed a tornado warning in our area. We have a basement, but our dogs know it is off limits, so they had to be lead around the house and in the back door one at a time. There is a TV down there so we turned it on to monitor the storm and waited out the all clear.

Because I had spent a good portion of the day making two batches of sandwich rolls, I had decided to make spicy sloppy joe for dinner and started it and some hash browns. The sloppy joe was barely done and I was right at the end of the frying for the potatoes when the power went out. It was early for dinner, but eat we did and as the wind howled, the rain started, then the hail. Fortunately it was pea sized, not ping pong ball sized and doesn’t seem to have done any damage.

This is not typical weather for us, tornado warnings are very rare and I don’t remember large hail ever since we have lived here.

The power stayed out for about 3 hours and the clouds thinned, the wind continued. In the early morning hours this morning, it again rained, thundered, and flashed and the wind was scary sounding. I kept waiting for the phone to alarm again, but it didn’t, I just couldn’t sleep well with the storms. Today is mostly clear, still very windy and cooler, but comfortable with a near freezing night tonight and tomorrow night.

After lunch, I moved the cars carefully back out into the driveway and committed to clean up and reorganize the garage in case we are faced again with having to quickly put the cars in. The scaffolding braces were tightened up, my craft show shelter finally put back in its bag, scrap wood organized and tightened up, cans better organized and out of the way but so that chicken feed can still be accessed even with cars in there. A large rolling plastic crate that was purchased several years ago to move new chicks to the warm basement during a late fall cold snap was moved back to the utility area of the basement where it can be stored until it is needed for that use again. The mower and garden cart arranged tightly against the scaffolding. The only vehicle in the garage now is the motorcycle and it is still in the middle as there are no plans for it to go out. Usually, the riding mower is parked on the side where my car was yesterday, but the repair folks had picked it up. It will go back in the garage when it is returned, but if another warning comes, I will drive it up to the bay of the barn that has the tractor parked in it, it will be okay there for short periods, but I don’t want mice in the engine compartment. I would like to organize shelves and workbenches better, but I needed a break. If we had to quickly put the cars in now, it would be much easier and still be able to get through the garage.

Now I need to go get the house plants protected, it is going down to 35 tonight.

Our daily bread

The self isolation has prompted a return to bread baking and consumption of homemade bread. When we knew that we would be staying at home and began our supply stocking, some sandwich type rolls and a loaf of sourdough bread were purchased and frozen. A month into the isolation, those supplies are long gone which prompted a resurrection of the sourdough. While the sourdough was being fed and restored, a couple of loaves of no knead artisan bread were made, then the starter was ready and several loaves have been baked, giving one to the neighbor that helped with the mower. This morning, I realized that there were no sandwich rolls left, so the starter discard was put to use to mix up a batch of dough for them. There are two recipes that I use for rolls, one with sourdough and one without. The sourdough ones take longer to make but use up the daily discard. The ones below are the yeast raised ones.

The yeast raised ones are done, the sourdough have 4 more hours plus baking time. Think I will stick to yeast raised for sandwich buns.

The bread making helps pass the time and since we aren’t going anywhere, there is plenty of that. Because flour is a rare commodity, I can’t go out to get it, I’m using so much of it, I ordered fresh stone milled organic flour. It comes from a mill where a blogger friend works and it arrived today. I just sprayed the outer box with 1% bleach spray and will open it with gloves on once it is dry and bring my 4 three pound bags in. Can’t wait to try it, but with one each of the roll recipes rising on the counter that will make 12 buns, and about a half a loaf of sourdough remaining from yesterday’s baking, it will have to wait a day or two and will probably be a loaf of sandwich bread.

This morning, the mower repair people came and picked up the riding mower to take in to fix and when I stepped out to yell up to the guy to see if we paid for the pick up now or when it was returned, I saw our neighborly mower had again jumped her fence and come to visit.

If she is going to come mow, I wish she would at least come down to an area that I have to mow, not an area that is saved for hay. Of course it had just started raining when I called her owner to let her know where “Bad” Penny was. She is due to calf in May so maybe she will stay home and not leave her little one then.

The time at home has my garden in a better place than it has ever been this early in the spring, but we have two days of rain followed by a chilly day and near freezing night ahead, so it will sit idle. The asparagus look like they will provide enough for a meal soon, then they will overwhelm and I only like them fresh, so freezing or otherwise preserving is not going to happen. I know daughter and granddaughter love them and I’m sure she will be glad to come out to pick up a bag full and a dozen eggs. I need to get out between rain showers and string some trellis for the peas.