Oh the humidity

Our mid day walks are brutal with temperatures in the mid to upper 80’s, no breeze, and humidity that you can swallow. Working in the garden is equally unpleasant. Tomorrow is supposed to be pleasantly cool, but may rain.

When I went over this morning to let the pullets out, I noticed mature beans on the bush beans so grabbed the garden tub and went over to harvest so more will develop.

It is a start. We enjoyed some with dinner and about 5 meals for two were blanched and frozen. It was already too hot to want to be out there, but some weeding was done, the bolted lettuce pulled and tossed to the pullets. While I was out there, I heard the “egg song” and watched a young New Hampshire Red strut out of the coop. Until day before yesterday, only the two Easter Egger pullets were laying, one a green egg, the other blue. I found a tiny round, yolkless, thin shelled brown egg that had been laid beneath the coop day before yesterday, but today there were 4 pullet eggs. The two Easter Eggers, the NH Red, and a Marans.

The Marans egg is larger than the other three but she hasn’t gotten the dye machine mastered yet. It is light brown and chocolate brown both.

This afternoon as it clouded up, tempering the sun’s beating down, I tied up the tomatillos that are full of blooms and small fruit, and stirred up the surface of the bed that had peas in it, pulling the grass that was already forming. Just as I began to plant more bean seed in that bed, it began to rain, just enough to cool me off and soak my jeans that I had donned to use the line trimmer around the garden and in some of the paths. That job was done and the beans planted and the rain stopped. The sprinkler is on the garden now so the onions will fill out and the new beans will get watered in.

Last night, I finished spinning the first half of the Havre on the 9 g Finch. The little spindle has more than double it’s weight in spun yarn on it in the photo.

It looks much darker than it is as it was a nighttime photo under the table lamp. That ball was removed from the spindle and the second half spinning begun. When I finish it, I will wash it all at once and knit a square or two for the blanket.

It is definitely summer in the Virginia mountains. Hot as hades one day, cool the next. Rain that lasts minutes and dry spells that mean the grass doesn’t have to be mowed as often. I struggled to start the gas mower so I could mow the new grass and chop of the straw that mulched the seed til it grew, but I couldn’t get it going. After dinner, I succeeded and gave it a trim. I may need to gently rake the straw away or the maurading hens will dig it all up. They have been penned up for about 10 days now to let the grass grow and because I was frustrated with trying to find where they were laying their eggs. With them penned, I have been getting 3 of 4 nearly every day.

Movin’ In and Movin’ On

Yesterday it rained and no more hay was picked up as they don’t want to drive the length of our farm on soggy grass. The rain and front cooled down the temperatures and dried out the humidity. The hay crew will return as soon as they feel it is safe to get to it without getting stuck or damaging the grass. There is still some equipment to move as well.

The fields are already greening back up after the rain. The fig that I dug and put in the half barrel is doing great. We are in one of the states where birds are dying, and though it isn’t in our area yet and the authorities still don’t know if it is an illness or a toxin, we have been asked to remove feeders and birdbaths. I know it is for the best, but it saddens me to not see the flocks of little birds gathered at the feeders while we eat.

We took Grandson 1 out on another walk today and on the flip side, returning to the car, this gorgeous box turtle was hightailing it across the asphalt path toward the tall grass and creek on the side. It’s yellow colors were so vivid and it was in a hurry. I don’t remember how you age them, but it was about the size of a grapefruit.

Once home, Grandson 1 and I tackled some repairs on my chicken coop. I fear that in another year, the egg lid door and the east side siding are going to have to be replaced. They are spongy and rotting. I may replace them with hardy backer board and paint the coop instead of staining it. The frame is sound, just the siding material. On the way back to the house, I noticed that the Mason bee house that was just placed about a dozen days ago has residents. At least 6 of the tubes are plugged. You can see 4 of them on the left side. They don’t seem to be using the center section, just the bamboo tubes, but that is cool. I need to read up on what to do for winter and next spring. I placed it under the eaves on the east side of the garage in the midst of a flower bed that has various blooms until frost.

I love watching the native bees at work. The house was a gift from Son 1’s family to me.

Hay is done, so is the garlic

This is starting off to be a good year. The hay crew cut and baled 89 five foot round bales off of our farm. Last year is was about 82, but more than half of them were only 4 foot round bales, so there was a lot more hay this year.

Those are way down in the south field and they finished baling it mid afternon and are gathering it to move. A couple of trailer loads have already been hauled from the near field. They managed to mow and bale a few areas that we have just brush hogged in the past and got a couple bales there as well. Because they were all large bales, one of the men brought me a 4 foot bale from the cutting on his property as I use the hay in the chicken runs as the hens make great compost from it to use in the garden.

The garlic was pulled and left in the sun for a few days and when rain showers threatened, it was moved to the garage floor for a few more days. This afternoon the garlic was trimmed of stalks and roots and left out to further cure in the garage on a raised screen. After a couple of weeks, it will be moved to the wire shelves in the non climate controlled part of the basement. There are 83 heads of garlic, plus 4 tiny ones from the bulblets from last year that were planted, harvested, and will be replanted this fall to make heads for next year. I ended up giving garlic to daughter and Son 1 for their gardens from last year’s crop, so I think I will reduce the amount planted this fall to about 50, enough to get us through a year.

With the garlic pulled, the last box can be finished in the garden. The end was cut last spring, but the garlic bed had to be cleared before it could be fastened in place. Since the peas are all pulled and the stalks chopped for the compost, that bed will be planted with a second crop of bush beans. The first crop is blooming and soon there will be beans to enjoy and freeze.

We have Grandson 1 for only a few more days this trip, he will return later in the summer for another week or so. Rain is expected for the next couple of days, but I am hopeful that it will be dry and cooler on the weekend so that we can get the chicken coop repaired and stained. The repairs can be made between rain showers, but it has to be dry to stain it. Today Grandson 1’s hard work was rewarded with a play day, getting him in a pick up basketball game with two other guys, followed by an hour and a half in the local outdoor pool to cool off.

The new asparagus bed has not produced any growth, but the old one is shooting up the tall thin stalks that feed the crowns for the rest of the summer. I am hopeful that the new crowns in the contained bed will produce, if not, I will try to dig more of the crowns from the old bed and transplant them, or move the new galvanized sides around it and fill it with more soil.

This month’s spinning challenge coincides with the Tour de France, so it began on June 26 and will end on July 18. We were to challenge ourselves but complete spinning at least 25 g of fiber and making something from it. My challenge was to learn how to ply on the fly with the Turkish spindle and use it and some other wools I have spun on the spindles to make a hat for my shop. I got the first 28 g of my wool done by yesterday and the hat started today while I work on the second half of the wool. I must say, that though it was a learning curve, and my yarn is much heavier than I normally do on spindles, it is 3 ply and a good weight for knitting the hat. I feel like a new spinner as I get the hang of it and I’m sure in time, my yarn weight will thin down. The wool I am spinning I usually spin a bit thicker anyway.

When I finish spinning for this challenge, I will begin working on my Breed Blanket wool of the month, Navajo Churro, not a soft wool, but this is nicely prepared and should spin thin enough for my blanket square.

The spindle I purchased from a destash from Sweden spent 28 days being held hostage by customs in Chicago. The tracking a few days ago showed it on the move and it should arrive here tomorrow or Friday. I also purchased from destash a plying size spindle with a hummingbird painted on one of it’s wings. Though it is new to me, it is my oldest spindle, having been made in 2015. I am quite enamoured with it.

When my Dad was alive, he filled the beds in the back and side of his back yard with orange Daylilies and Zinneas. When we bought our farm in the mountains, he dug several clumps of the lilies for me and I planted them along the stream bank at the top of the property as there was no house then. After he passed away, I went up and dug a couple of clumps from the stream bed where they had spread and stabilized the bank and brought them down to the house. They are not the first nor last to bloom from my collection, but they bloom the longest. In the past couple of days, they have begun to open.

And in his memory, I plant zinneas each year. I miss him always and the flowers he loved are bittersweet to me.