Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Sort of success

    Last night as it thundered, lightninged, and rained buckets full, I brought in the plastic pail I gather weeds in for the chickens and spread a huge garbage bag on the dining table to process the garlic for braiding. I watched two different videos on how to braid garlic and both were different, so I just did my own thing. The garlic was spread out, the dried roots trimmed and the dirty loose outer skin removed. They were sorted enough to see the sizes and braiding began. What a mess I made, but dry and easy to clean up after I was done. Every year I have planted garlic, I have planted hard neck varieties and they can’t be braided, but I ordered late last year and could only get soft neck varieties which can be braided.

    It isn’t the prettiest braid, but what fun. While braiding, one of the stems had what looked like little round cloves breaking though it so I did some research. They are call bulbils and can be planted to produce small cloves that are then planted the following year, a two year process to produce bulbs of garlic.

    There were only half a dozen, but I will plant them, well marked in the fall and again next fall to see how they turn out.

    This morning, I dumped the compost waste from last night and tackled the onions, again filling the compost tub with tops and roots.

    As you can see, the potato onion are small. Good for kebobs, or pot roast, or when I only need a bit of onion. After the bin was dumped in the compost pile again, the onions were loaded into it and relocated to the huge shelf and grid unit that Son 1 built several summers ago in the basement area that is not climate controlled, my “root cellar” in a sense.

    The bottom two shelves are boards and store jars as they are emptied then filled jars as canning commences in the summer. The pressure canner belongs to Son 1 and DIL and needs some replacement parts. The top three shelves are hardware cloth with great ventilation for storage of onions, garlic, potatoes, and pumpkins. The onions were spread out at one end of the lowest wire shelf to continue curing and for use in cooking. Though I will replant a few of the smaller ones this fall, just because they are fun to watch develop, I will reserve most of my onion space for early spring onion starts.

    As I evolve with my garden space and learn from my successes and failure, I learn to enjoy it more each year. This is the first year that I have tried the single leader on indeterminate tomatoes and love how they are up and not all over the ground. I realized after a couple of years that the asparagus bed was not well placed as it shades the beds on either side of it in the morning and in the afternoon as the sun moves across the sky. There isn’t much I can do about that without digging the bed out and starting over which would mean a couple of years without asparagus, so I need to use those beds for crops that mature early. This year it was peas in the spring, but bush beans are in that bed now that the ferns are tall. Tomatoes are on the west side, so they are getting afternoon sun, but I bought all indeterminate varieties and three of them ended up bush varieties and one of them is now sandwiched between a tall tomato and the asparagus so not getting much sun. Each year I grow something new and sometimes repeat, sometimes not. This year I tried soft neck garlic and will return to hard neck, already ordered; potato onions and will return to traditional onions; Chinese Cabbage, but will start them indoors; and ground cherries. Since they were just planted, we will have to wait and see.

    If the heat wave ever breaks, I need to build the garden box and rebuild the one that had onions and garlic in it. The beds that will be fall garden need to be enriched and the ones that will be idle through the winter need a ground cover or at least a good thick layer of spoiled hay or straw. But again today, it is too hot! Last evenings thunderstorms cooled things off over night, but the heat and humidity are back.

    Stay safe everyone. Please wear your mask. Today I went in our little local store to get a newspaper. Newly posted on the door is the sign that says “You must wear a mask to enter.” I asked the unmasked clerk if they were going to enforce it and she smirked and as well as we can. The owner and most of the customers in there were unmasked. So frustrating.

  • Canning has commenced

    and putting by continues. The garlic is ready to braid. I can braid hair, surely I can figure out how to braid garlic. The onions are nearly ready to relocate to the cooler, drier basement out of the hot humid garage. The potato tops are nearly all brown. I dug one plant to have new potatoes with fresh green beans, cucumbers and vinaigrette, and sauteed Chinese cabbage and onion with last night pork loin roast. I will give the potatoes about a week more to toughen the skins, then dig them and put on the wire shelves in the basement as well. The cucumbers are producing prolifically. We have been enjoying the first of them in salads and with onions in vinaigrette, but there were finally enough to make the first batch of pickles today. Son 1’s family, especially DIL and grandson 1 really like a recipe that I modified several years ago. Food in Jars by Melissa McClellan has a Bread and Butter pickle recipe in it. I substituted about 1/2 c of sliced Jalapenos for some of the sweet red pepper that it called for and it make a sweet and spicy pickle. I had red, yellow, and orange peppers sliced in the freezer and a pint bag of sliced jalapenos, a huge yellow sweet onion and all the spices I needed. The veggies were cut, tossed with the pickling salt, covered and put in the refrigerator this morning early.

    My giant pottery bread bowl was called into service. After dinner tonight, the water bath canner was hauled down off the high shelf, filled with pint jars and water and set on the stove to heat up. The veggies were rinsed, the brine made, the veggies cooked in the brine until hot and packed in the jars. I had put an extra 12 ounce jar in the canner because the recipe says it makes 5 pints. I have had it make more and less, so I want to be prepared. It made 5 3/4 pints this time.

    I need to put a note in the recipe that it take almost twice the amount of brine that she calls for and every year I end up in the middle of loading the jars, making more brine. The jars are cooling on the counter. At lunch today, I opened one of the last jars from last year’s batch. They are put out at family meals, I use them in tuna salad, but otherwise I am stingy with the ones I keep for me. Most of them will go to Son 1’s family. The next big batch of cucumbers will be made into dill spears, or whole dills if I can catch enough small ones at the same time.

    While the pickles were processing, I shredded a cabbage and salted it. The salt is massaged in until the liquid begins to weep out. It will sit for an hour and then be packed tightly into a sterile quart jar and set up to ferment for sauerkraut. The dilly beans from a few days ago are perfect and I have already enjoyed a few of them.

    The versatile big bowl in service for the second time today. The refrigerator style pickles and ferments were made in greater quantity when there was a second old refrigerator in the basement, but it gave up two years ago, so the ferments are more limited now. If the second or third planting of bush beans are as prolific as the first planting was, I will made some canned dilly beans that will keep on the shelves.

    Between rain storms this afternoon, I planted a third planting of bush green beans. I had used all of my seed, but Southern Exposure Seed company where I get most of my seed still have the one I plant in stock, so I ordered a packet when I ordered my fall vegetable seed and they came yesterday. The first planting of beans are spent, the plants will be pulled soon and the cucumbers can run in that direction too. Their leaf cover will help hold down weed growth in that end of the bed. I thought the cucumbers were semi bush variety, but they have vines 6 or 8 feet long already. Last year the only thing planted in the same bed were sunflowers so I guess they just climbed them. The fence I placed for them is way too short.

    Soon there will be tomatoes and pepper to process and in about a month, the fall veggies planted. I thought the Chinese Cabbage second planting was a failure, but they must just be very slow to germinate as it appears that there may be a dozen or so plants coming up. They will be thinned out to give them space. The one I cooked is more like Napa cabbage than head cabbage, the leaves are bright green.

    That is the one I picked yesterday on the left of the picture. I don’t know how well they will keep. I don’t think they will freeze well, but maybe there will be some Kimchee in the future, or Napa style sauerkraut.

    It is nice to be adding to the larder instead of just using from it. It was exciting to do an entire meal except for the protein from the garden last night. When I planted the beans today, I also planted a short season ground cherry. I have never planted them before and want to try to make some jam from them if they are successful. I hope we get a decent thunderstorm, the earlier one rained only about 15 minutes and it didn’t even wet the soil in the garden. I may have to set up the sprinkler.

    In my post day before yesterday, I showed the results of the Tour de Fleece spinning. Today I took the ply balls and plied them on the wheel. The lighter teal ended up 334.5 yards, less than 2.5 ounces, 16 WPI (light fingering weight) yarn. The darker shiny blue is still on the bobbin as it didn’t fill the bobbin and I have more to spin which I will add before measuring it off.

    There is still about an ounce and a half of that fiber, but no more would fit on the bobbin. I don’t know if I will put it in the shop or knit something for the shop. The fiber is from Three Waters Farm and is Merino, Superwash Merino, and Silk, so very soft and drapey.

    Time to return to making sauerkraut.

    Stay safe. Wear your mask, it isn’t a political statement, it is a health and safety issue.

  • Tour de Fleece

    Many fiber groups participate in Tour de Fleece. It is a fun activity that coincides with the Tour de France, in normal years. Generally you do something to challenge yourself on challenge day, “rest” on rest days, etc. I have never participated in this before, but I belong to a group on a social media site that is for Jenkins Turkish Spindles which have been my sanity during the stay at home order and following self isolation as things are opening back up and virus cases increasing. Spindle spinning is relaxing to me and I have plenty of fiber to play with, but spindle spinning slows down the process and makes the fiber last longer.

    The group for the past 23 days has had a “Scavenger Hunt” and the found item is photographed with your spindle(s) with 1 or more gram of newly spun fiber on it. The items have to be from your “home” and that includes your property. Some of the items have been quite easy such as a fresh fruit or vegetable, more difficult such as your favorite piece or pottery or basket, your favorite piece of wall art, etc. Those items aren’t as difficult to fiber artists as you might think because of mugs, yarn bowls, baskets to store knitting or spinning. A few days required two items, such as something to climb and a helmet.

    Surrounded by hills and mountains, I chose my grandfather’s old wooden ladder and helmets from activities neither of us can do any longer, but still have the helmets.

    Yesterday was the final day and if you have ever followed Tour de France, you know that the daily leader and final winner wear a yellow shirt. I had no trouble with the first 22 days other than deciding on some days which basket or piece of pottery, which live plant, book, item that began with a certain letter to use. The final one was tough. We both look ill or like we are about to be if we wear yellow. The object has to be in your home, so borrowing or buying one is not an option. There were no yellow shirts to be found, anywhere in the house, including the clothing stash that Son 1 and DIL keep in the basement bedroom dresser. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world to not have it, but prize entries were based on the number of items found and when. You had to find one each day but two with two grace days to get three entries and if you got all 23, you got an extra entry. I was not to be out done by this. I have an extensive spice collection as I love to cook, so there was a bottle of ground turmeric. A pot of boiling turmeric and water and one of hubby’s undershirts simmered for 15 minutes then treated with a good dose of salted vinegar and I had a yellow shirt.

    Photographed with the 126 g of fiber spun in the 23 days. That shirt will have to be washed separately or everything we own will be yellow and it will become a painting shirt, but I ended up with my yellow shirt.

    What a fun way to take your mind off of being at home. It was fun reading through as many of the more than 8000 posts as I could and seeing objects from other folks homes in the US and other countries, reading about events in others lives, meeting new friends. The group moderator must have been super woman to keep up with what started as 106 participants and ended up with 99 chatty folks, tracking our finds and ending and starting each day. The last find has to be posted by 11 a.m. EDT today, then she has to finish the tally and do the prize drawings. I donated 3 of the prizes so items will be mailed off to the winners when announced.

    To “extend” our fun, she as introduced a spin 15 minutes a day for a week. Many of the same folks have signed up for this too, so we can continue being in each other’s lives for a while longer.

  • The New Garden

    A hot, sweaty week of work has greatly improved the view from the back deck. After laying cardboard until it ran out, then weed blocking mat and forking rotting, molding hay over the top, we made three separate trips to the Garden Center and came back with 44 one cubic foot bags of Black Kow composted manure. It was spread over the hay, deep enough to plant in some places, a thin cover layer in others. The upper edge, nearest where the patio is being constructed from thick flat stones from our land was under the old deck and had tons of rock on it, so it is very compacted with still buried stone. Until the patio is completed, that part of the garden will be too thin to plant.

    The Hummingbird feed was shifted and three of the half barrels that have annual and perennial plants in bloom were arranged around the pole. The Hummingbirds fly back there, but I haven’t seen any of them feeding from it yet. The Finches finally accepted the new hopper feeder, so I am seeing birds around the garden now.

    Some plants have been transplanted to the deeper areas of the new garden, the potted perennial herbs moved to what I hope will be their permanent location, some Calendula plants and the volunteer Comfrey plants in their new location, a few Dutch and Bearded Iris nearer the shallow part as they have shallow roots. The sprinkler is running every day to help the new plants establish root systems and not just wilt and die.

    There was a large stone up under a cedar tree on the edge of the driveway that looked like a good potential patio stone. It was flat on both side and thick. The tractor was able to pull it out from under the tree, but it was too heavy for me to flip into the bucket, so I shoved it down the driveway hill with the tractor until I could wedge it against the hill at the bottom near the house and used gravity to ease it into the bucket. The tractor bucket gently set it in the patio area where it is going to take “Charles Atlas” to move it again. It may become a fixed point that is built up around it.

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    It is almost large enough for the grill to sit on, but I really want it up against the wall that is 14″ away from it’s current location. I may enlist the help of the two younger hay men to shift it over for me.

    There are many more nice large, flat stones that Son 1 unearthed when he dug the trench for the yard hydrant line that have been hauled to the edges of some of the rock piles, but until the stickweed dies back this fall, I am unwilling to try to get them. It might be wiser to wait until the temperatures cool some before doing any more heavy work like that. I am still shifting some stone to even out the top of the garden wall. The lower spots are more visible now that there is soil in there.

    Here is the result of the week of hot, heavy work.

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    I am pleased.

    Stay safe. Wear a mask, it isn’t a political statement, it is a health and safely issue.

  • Each year, each project

    My memory on Facebook this morning from one year ago was a harvest of red ripe tomatoes and tomatillos. This year the tomatoes are all still green, there are tomatillos forming, but not ready to harvest, but the cucumbers are coming in quickly now and there are dozens of blossoms on the spreading vines. I fight them every morning to keep them from taking over the other half of the bed where some of the peppers are planted and sending the vines away from the beans and out into the corn and the path in the other direction.

    Yesterday after hubby’s appointment, we did our feed run for the critters and I purchased a new feeder to replace the one that was broken and added a second Hummingbird feeder. I couldn’t get the three tines of the double shepherd’s crook through the weedmat, soil, and underlying gravel, it was barely stuck in the ground before and mostly propped up with rocks. It can’t be put between stones in the retaining wall for obvious safety and structural reasons and I was at a loss. I finally grabbed a half barrel that was in the front by the garage door with one puny plant in it, transplanted the plant and repurposed the half barrel with soil and many rocks to stabilize it and the pole and set it on the retaining wall edge. The birds fly to the crook, look at the feeder, and fly off. So far they haven’t braved trying to eat from the hopper style feeder. The Hummingbird feeder is too far from the flowers, so the single crook will be moved to a flower bed and the feeder hung there until there are flowers in the new large walled garden.

    Once evening was dimming and the temperature was falling, the bags of compost that were just tossed over the wall onto the hay a few days ago, were opened and spread. So far, we have purchased 28 bags and it hasn’t even covered the entire area with a layer. It will probably take at least that many more, then topped with shredded leaves this fall and a layer of some sort of mulch.

    The 9 hens aren’t pulling their weight. Feed is too expensive if they aren’t going to provide food in return. Ms. Broody finally gave up sitting after 9 weeks of broodiness, but she hasn’t resumed laying. None of the Olive eggers are laying. I don’t know if it is the heat or that they are aging out. Day before yesterday, there were 3 eggs and one of them the shell was so fragile that it had been cracked in the nest by the weight of the next hen to lay. It went straight into the compost pile. Last night there were 3 and a marble with no yolk.

    I should get new chicks before it gets cold and introduce them to the layer coop and move the old ladies to the Chicken palace and give them free range during the day. There are nesting boxes in there, but past hens have been reluctant to use them.

    Yesterday, I posted that it was the beginning of fermenting season with green beans and cucumbers. Today was the beginning of a non edible, non potable ferment. The long stalks of Comfrey that fall over mid summer were cut and chopped, loaded into a couple of lidded buckets and filled with water set in the sun. It will make a stinky slimy mess that is the best garden fertilizer ever. The Comfrey that didn’t fit in the buckets is put in the compost pile or spread as mulch in the garden.

    In cutting back the stalks, I see several Comfrey volunteers that will be dug and moved over to the walled garden in the herbal medicine area. As the edible herb and medicinal herbs will be on the south and west of the retaining wall, that area is already filled deeply with the composted soil and after adding another couple bags this evening, it will begin to be planted so the plants can establish good root systems before cold weather. The Rosemary and Thyme are in pots on the deck steps and they will be moved. Calendula plants in pots will be moved as it self seeds nicely, but seed will be gathered from the bed where Calendula is growing now to use if the transplants don’t provide seedling in spring. There are a few Echinacea plants that I started from seed this spring that can be added where the new bed has soil deep enough to plant in and some Rudbecia that has established by the garage will be divided and some of it added to the new bed. The upper flat area of the walled garden was under the old deck, it has had tons of rock piled on it for 15 years and is hard and compacted. Once the patio is finished and there is a solid edge to work against, I will work to deepen and enrich the soil there enough for planting. Until then, the half barrels of flowers that are currently not in the best locations will be settled in and kept planted with annuals for color. It is going to be an area to enjoy, an area to attract birds, eventually a place to prepare and enjoy outdoor meals.

    I will end today’s missive with a picture of the most gorgeous sky last evening as the preview always uses the last photo in my blog. It was beautiful to look at as I worked in the new garden and tended the evening chores, but enough cloud coverage to obscure any view of the comet later.

    Stay safe everyone. Wear a mask, it isn’t a political statement, it is a health and safely statement.

  • Almost done

    After lunch yesterday, we had another 16 bags of Black Kow compost loaded into the back of the car and we parked it by the wall. In spite of the heat, I got out with the weed mat, scissors, and garden tools and finished spreading out the weed mat, forked hay on it, and unloaded the 16 bags of compost. Five were opened and spread, the other 11 are scattered around on the hay, but the heat and time got the best of me and I quit just before first thunderstorm started.

    As I moved stones, the good sized gray on with a fossiled surface was lugged and rolled up and shimmed in place as one more piece to the patio and other larger flat potential stones were moved aside.
    The top of the retaining wall was edged with stones holding down the weed mat to prevent the soil from eroding through on to the wall.

    While I was working, one of the hay farmers raked and baled the remaining hay that was mowed a few days ago. They got 41 large 5′ round bales from the upper fields. The lower south field is still standing and will be for another week or so, but they expect to get at least that much more from that field.

    Two of the four collection points to await the trailers and trucks to pick them up this weekend.

    Yesterday morning while it was still cool, I picked a good sized basket of green beans and the first cucumbers. We enjoyed some for dinner, the rest will be blanched and frozen or fermented into dilly beans. I was excited to see peppers formed and growing when I was pulling weeds for the hens. This morning’s decision was fermenting. Two quart jars, one of dilly beans, one of dilly beans and thick cucumber slices. The rest will be blanched tonight, some frozen, some eaten with dinner.

    Since my focus has been on the walled garden area, I still haven’t made or repaired the garden boxes. I did get the garlic tied in bunches and brought in to the garage and hung on an old ladder to dry and the onions brought in and spread on a screen on top of the wheelbarrow to cure before they are moved to the basement storage area. Canning hasn’t begun, but the freezer is filling for the winter months when fresh foods aren’t available. I do love my gardens and the putting by season.

    Be safe everyone and remember, masks aren’t a political issue, they are a health and safely issue. Wear one.

  • Successes and failures

    Basically, I consider this year’s garden a success. In pictures with captions.

    Many future tomatoes, all still green, two varieties, paste and slicers.
    Healthy peppers with blooms, basil, Chinese cabbage, and more tomatoes.
    Vigorous cucumbers, taking over.
    Lots of young cucumbers, this is the largest, just another day or two.
    Soft neck garlic and potato onions pulled to cure.
    With potato onions, you plant a single bulb and it produces clusters like this. The larger ones will be used as onions, the smallest will be replanted in fall for next year’s crop. I think I will plant some traditional onions next year too, most of these are under 2″ diameter.
    They will stay in the sun to cure for a couple of days then be brought in to the garage or wire shelves in the basement to finish curing, then their box that was not rebuilt in spring because it was already planted last fall will be rebuilt, given a load of compost and replanted with either beans or a fall vegetable in a month.
    While pulling weeds in the potato bed, I uprooted this little new potato. I didn’t dig for more, but it is hopeful that they are making potatoes under the leaves.

    Failures. The multiple plantings of corn have produced less than half of the stalks that should have grown. There may be some corn, but certainly not for what we had hoped. The experiment planting pepper and tomato seed directly produced nothing, nor did the direct sow of basil and dill. The two rows of Chinese cabbage that were planted after the peas were pulled did not germinate a single plant. Thus, now that the onions and garlic are pulled, there are two and a half 4 X 4 foot beds idle as well as the area where the mint was dug out and that box has still not been built and installed which will give me another 4 x 6 or 4 x 8 foot box. That is a lot of space that can be used to do a third planting of bush beans, some winter greens like spinach, fall peas, carrots perhaps. Anything planted now will need watering, we have reached the hot, dry period with occasional afternoon thunderstorms that are very hit or miss.

    When I rebuild the box and build the longer box, I think I am going to use corner posts at least 14-16″ so that heavy plastic can be laid over the bed to extend the growing season even after a light frost or two. We often have a frost then another period of mild to warm weather that would allow the harvest to be extended.

    More bean seed and some fall veggie seed were just ordered. As soon as it is appropriate, seed will be planted.

    While the pizza was baking and then after dinner, I moved and stacked the mini wall to help prevent erosion on the steep.

    Most of the stones are ordinary, but there are a few lovely dark purple gray and this one.

    Today we will buy another car load of Black Cow and at least toss the bags down on the hay before the afternoon storms begin. The hay men didn’t finish all that was already mowed, but have lined up 31 huge bales for picking up on the trailers and trucks. They will probably try to get the rest of what is mowed before the rain begins.

    The morning began with “Yogurt in a cooler.” It has been a while since I have made my own yogurt, having been buying a quart a week from the Natural foods store in town and having it curbside delivered with other food needs we can’t grow. But it is easy and cheaper to make my own. A half gallon of quality local milk that will make two quarts if I ate that much in a week, costs between $2 and $5 a quart less depending on which brand they put in my order. I have the jars, the cooler, and a supply of beach towels with which to wrap the cooler, so I am back to making my own.

    I also decided I was tired of trying to climb up in the coop several times a day to move eggs to nesting boxes to discourage the laying in the corner under the perch and encourage returning to the nesting boxes. I did a partial coop cleanout because the water inside the coop leaked and created a mess just inside the door and to open up two more nesting boxes. Three had been blocked off with the feeder and the water in front of them. By removing the water and just giving them water outside, two of the boxes could be reopened, that is 5 to choose from though when they use the boxes, it is never either of them. As I was working, the culprit that lays the first egg in the corner kept coming in and surveying her spot from which I had removed all of the straw. Fresh straw was put in the nesting boxes and 3 terra cotta flower pots were placed upside down in a row where she wanted to be. As I climbed back down out of the coop, she came right back in to the corner and this is what she found.

    Now she can use a nesting box or if she chooses to not, at least I can reach them from the pop door, or with a scoop from the main door. I’m curious what she will do.

  • Continuation

    Yesterday we had a dozen bags of Black Cow manure compost loaded into the back of the car. And a roll of weed mat. When we got home, I unloaded the compost in the yard just outside of the walled garden. It isn’t nearly enough, but it is a start to hold down the cardboard and the hay that was placed over it. The garden is filled to the top of the wall in the deep part below the retaining wall.

    After it gets rained on and the hay begins to compost, more soil or leaf mulch will have to be added. The first dozen bags went farther than I anticipated they would and the steep part at the edge of the retaining wall will be a challenge. I may run a secondary retaining wall of stones like in the outer wall from the top end of the retaining wall to the outer stone wall to hold the soil on the uphill side. More stone was moved, and one plant was relocated, but it really isn’t a good location for it as it is tall and is right on the edge of the bed at the wall. There is a large clump of the same plant at the corner of the garage, so I may sacrifice what is here and move some once the bed is finished. It would be perfect against the large stone you see above in the retaining wall. A clump of Dutch Iris was moved to the bed behind the garage wall, a garden I am really liking this summer with all of the bright colored flowers.

    Note the posts holding plastic mesh fence to deter the deer.

    It is a mix of iris, day lilies, Calendula, Zinneas, with annual yellow coneflower, marigolds, coreopsis, and a few other annuals tossed in for more color. All of the bright colors make me happy. It got too hot to continue to work back there in the sun so I quit working on it for the day. It is a work in progress, not something that must be done immediately.

    There was no more work on our hay last night. They may have been baling the last field on the farm down the mountain. Two of the their tractors are still parked under the trees in our field. I expect they will return after their day jobs today as they have today and tomorrow before we have more rain in the forecast. They need to at least get what is down baled, even if they can’t get the last field done yet.

    Late last night, hubby let the pups out for their last nightly outing and one of them returned smelling skunky. Not a full on spraying, but more like they walked through somewhere that had been recently sprayed. If it wasn’t going to be 90 today, I would open all the windows and turn on all the fans. When I went out to do morning outdoor chores and returned into the house, the odor hit me again. What an effective and unpleasant defense mechanism. I have feared having one of them directly sprayed ever since we got dogs. The big guy seems to be in a lot of pain lately in spite of being given a human adult sized dose of Meloxicam every morning. He is coming up the stairs to be with us again and then reluctantly goes back down, not limping as badly as he was, but he is a very old man for a huge Mastiff.

    I try to avoid politics in my blog and not to dwell on COVID, but it is terrifying that cases are rising nationwide and there is no national unity in addressing it, that so many people are dismissing it as a hoax and refusing to adopt basic safely practices to help slow the spread. During the early months when it was rampant down the east and central part of the state, the rural areas where we are were not experiencing many cases, but it is on the rise now. We are starting to see businesses in our area shutter their doors permanently and many more will likely follow. We obey other safely laws and rules for the good of ourselves and others, why have masks and social distancing become such a devisive issue. Travel is not advised now, and we would love a vacation, but won’t, yet I see friends and acquaintances posting pictures in areas where the virus is a hot spot, then they return to our area. I want to return to a more normal lifestyle, but can’t afford the risk of catching or spreading the virus to someone more vulnerable.

    I will continue to play in my gardens, spin on my spindles, read my books mostly e-books from the library, and avoid the public except for essentials. We will continue to wear masks, I have made dozens for us and family, continue to wash our hands until the skin feels like it will dry and crack off, continue to eat in to the detriment of some of our favorite restaurants, and hope that someday, life will return to something that resembles the old normal, or at least a variation of it.

    If you use my link at the top of my blog to go to my shop, you will see that it now goes to my Etsy Shop. As of today, Square Up was going to migrate my shop to a new format and to have my domain linked to it was going to cost me more than I have ever earned from that shop, so it is being deactivated. All of my wares are in the Etsy Shop and shipping can be free with them.

  • A productive day

    After my post yesterday, I remembered 3 large boxes that I had stashed out of the way and was able to almost finish putting down the cardboard and hay. Today I will get a few more boxes from a source I reached out to yesterday and will spread the remaining bit of hay. Quite a few more rocks were moved in putting down those three boxes and two smaller ones I located. I uncovered several ant nests moving rocks and had to wait for them to move on before I could continue moving the stones.

    Only that narrow strip left to cover. From this angle you can see the plants from Iris left that need to be moved and the stone to the right of the piers that also need to be moved. What doesn’t go down on the edge of the cardboard will have to be relocated so I can get cardboard up to the edge of the piers. The patio rocks are all about 6 or more inches thick, so no wall needs to go across. I will use the small stuff to fill cracks and shim jiggly pavers, the larger ones used to fill in thin or low spots on the wall. The rest piled somewhere until we see if there is a need for them, maybe where the barrels are now on cardboard or weed mat to keep down the weed growth where the work hasn’t been done yet. I am excited that it is coming together a bit at a time.

    Much to our delight, the mowers arrived right after dinner and with two huge mowers and a smaller tractor with a tedder, they got everything mowed and teddered except for the big south hay field before dark. They will rake and bale tomorrow and probably get the south field mowed. I can now get my riding mower down near the berry patches and may yet get some berries for the freezer or for jam.

    It is a family affair. Both big tractors had husband, wife, and a kid on it, and the Dad to one man on the tedder.
    Tractors parked for the night.

    There is a very rocky area in the east field that I generally mow before the hay gets tall and didn’t get it done this year, so I will have to go over with the weed wacker and cut it down as they wisely mow around it. It could be cut with a sickle bar, but I don’t have one. If I had and knew how to use an old fashioned hay scythe, it could be saved as additional hay.

    Now to get some soil or leaf mulch down on the new bed, I can then move the plants and salvage some of the yellow iris to plant there as well. This fall I will plant the false indigo, move some comfrey, seed some calendula, and seek out some other dye plants to put in that bed. It will have an edible herb section, a medicinal herb section, and a dye section along with some ornamental perennial flowers. The half barrels will be moved, patio work done. I think the bird feeders will be moved out of that bed so I don’t get spilled seed volunteers in there, or maybe put down a tree ring covered with the smaller rocks that will discourage weed growth there. I won’t plant there anyway as there is a load of gravel right below the soil level where it stands. The lower single hook crook holds a suet feeder that doesn’t “shed” or maybe it will hold another Hummingbird feeder during the summer months, when I don’t put out seed for the birds.

  • A beginning

    Saturday, I sprayed the interior area of the walled garden with a 3% solution of the citric acid spray. It did a fair job on some weeds, didn’t do much to the grass or other weeds. Yesterday, I upped the game to 9% and sprayed again. The area is mostly browned off now with only some grass still showing some green. This morning, I shoved what was left of last year’s chicken run bale of hay over with the tractor bucket, I couldn’t get it in the bucket by myself to just drive it over. That bale is rotted on the side that was on the ground and so moldy that a cloud of mold spores erupts when part is pulled off. It seemed like the perfect solution to hold the cardboard down and be a layer to compost under leaf mulch or soil. Early in the spring, when it appeared that between DIL who started the wall began a full time job a while ago and COVID, that they wouldn’t be able to come this year to work on the house and the wall, so I began rock stacking to make her wall higher in low places and thicker in thin places and while doing so, I tossed smaller rocks up into a pile where the patio will eventually go.

    I talked to my son about whether I should load them in the tractor bucket and relocate them to a rock pile and his suggestion was to use them along the edge of the cardboard or weed mat that would go down before soil was added and to build up the wall on the lower back edge at a slope. This morning, all of the cardboard that was left after doing the garden was hauled out to that space, boxes opened flat and i began below the retaining wall where the garden will be deepest and will house the herbs that might survive the winter if kept warmed by the stones. There, I can drape heavy plastic from retaining wall to garden wall to create a mini greenhouse in the coldest part of winter and perhaps the rosemary and thyme will survive there. When I ran out of cardboard, I had enough weed mat left over to do two strips of it as well. As I went, I gathered the smaller rocks again and stacked them against the back of the wall on the cardboard.

    The area that has been covered was given a layer of spoiled hay to help hold it down and to begin breaking down.

    The area shaded by the retaining wall is the deepest part. It receives full sun in the afternoon year round.

    You can see the edge of the weed mat to the right of my shadow. It goes up to the top of the retaining wall and I’m in a shallower, flatter area now. It is hard to tell where the killed off grass ends and the spoiled hay begins.

    Looking down from the deck, you can see the gorgeous heavy stone retaining wall that Son 1 and DIL built (without heavy equipment mind you) and how the garden wall wraps around to it. That area beyond the retaining wall was steep and difficult to mow. The double crook hanging pole is in the flat lawn level area. The round concrete pier in the lower left corner was where the old deck extended and all of the stones remaining and in the garden wall were under the part of the deck that did not get replaced. The pier is going to hold one end of an arbor and the patio will be between it and the house.

    The outer pier can be seen here, where the path/patio has been started and you can see there is still a significant pile of smaller rock to be used or moved. Behind the end of the grill and in an area that will become part of the patio, there are bearded Iris, Dutch Iris, and a tall plant that has yellow flowers that used to be along the edge of the old deck. They will have to be moved soon. What is remaining of the hay bale can be seen in the yard, there is enough to finish the job if I can get cardboard or weed mat and some of that rock pile will go along the back of the wall.

    Progress has been made. Now to finish it and get leaf mulch or composted soil to top the spoiled hay so that I can plant the garden. The patio will have to wait until the hay is down and I can get to the many rock piles with the tractor to bring large flat rocks up. The cracks will be filled with pea gravel or sand and the area will be easier to maintain, a practical space, and a joy to look at. It may need a second Hummingbird feeder for the back and an umbrella for the table so I can sit out there and enjoy it.