Category: farm

are better than one, sometimes one is enough. Hubby and I have a standing joke as senior moments set in and between us we remember a word, event, or help with a thought lost in the telling. When we were newly in our relationship, he claimed I had no sense of humor as I would just roll my eyes at his jokes. I couldn’t then and still can’t remember punch lines of jokes to retell them. Over the years, I have gotten better at infusing an occasional one liner into a conversation. He is the intellect, I am the practical sense one.

As I have been processing tomatoes into various sauces, if there aren’t enough at one time, they often are frozen. When taken out of the freezer and plopped into a sink of water, the skins come right off and they can be chopped on a block and dumped into the pot. If they are fresh off the vine or the window sill, they are cored, scored with an X on the blossom end and boiling water is poured over them. When they are cool enough to handle, the skins come right off, but to chop them loses a lot of juice that I don’t want to lose. I have tried dicing them in the palm of my hand over the pot, but that isn’t ideal either. This morning, I had an Ah-Ha moment. I poured the water off the pot of tomatoes and as I peeled them, I dropped them back in the pot whole or in half if they were large. Tucked between the stove and the countertop is a metal bench scraper I use to scoop diced veggies into a pan, scrap dough that sticks to the board, even cut blocks of cheese. It is a versatile, regularly used tool. Since the stock pot is flat on the bottom as they have to be for my smooth top stove, the bench scraper made a perfect in the pot tomato dicer.

Diced as fine as I want, no juice lost, perfect solution. I wonder why I didn’t think of it sooner.

The tomatoes from the window sill and the ones harvested this morning put 5 more pints of pasta sauce on the pantry shelf. The jalapenos picked this morning were diced and frozen in a silicone bag for chili and casseroles, the last of the cucumbers are fermenting, and enough green beans from planting number two which is reaching it’s end to serve with dinner tonight. Planting 3 is full of blooms, so beans will continue for a few more weeks.

Not as much on the shelves as last year, but more to can and they are beginning to look like something has been done. If I had canned all the pickles instead of quick brine and ferment, both of those shelves would be full of just pickles. Instead, an entire shelf of the refrigerator is full of pickles too. Most of those will go to Son 1’s family and we will eat the refrigerated ones for months.

I began some more clean up of the garden this morning, but after two cool mostly wet days, it got too hot, too humid, too fast this morning. The asparagus tops are fading, so I am going to cut them back and hope it helps the remaining tomatoes to ripen. The cucumber vines are going to be pulled and chopped and probably the second planting bean plants as well. All of that vegetable matter will be added to the compost pile for next spring’s compost and I need to get a quick sprouting green cover in several of the beds to overwinter them. The peas are several inches tall and I still haven’t strung trellis line on the poles I set when I planted them. We are looking forward to having more fresh peas and more to freeze.

The new battery operated line trimmer was a very good purchase. I got all the way around the house, gardens, coop, and vineyard on half a charge. I still need to do the well head, the culverts, and the lower yard hydrant, maybe when it cools off later this afternoon.

There is still plenty to do in the gardens and yard. After trimming, I realized how weedy the day lily bed had gotten, so a few minutes were spent pulling the smart weed, grass, lambs quarters, and a pig weed from the bed, all tossed to the chickens with the tomato skins and cucumber and bean ends. The yard needs to be mowed again, but I need a cooler day to tackle that job.

I’m off to pick my few apples in hopes of a batch of applesauce to add to the remaining couple of jars from last year.

Stay safe everyone.

My Facebook memory from this morning was the 6 foot black rat snake that I extracted from my chicken coop exactly a year ago to the amazement of my then 14 year old grandson. Then about 5 weeks ago, another about 5 foot one from the coop, and last night just as a thunderstorm was beginning, I went over to lock up the hens who had wisely gone into the coop to find another 6 footer lounging on the outside of the coop, right at waist height. I walked past it in the deepening gloom without seeing it and spotted it when I came back out. Another 5 gallon bucket with lid grabbed, a call into the house for hubby to put on shoes and grab keys.

When I grabbed the one last night, it wrapped it’s tail around the gate handle that I use to secure the chicken run gate closed and was so strong that it almost pulled it’s head from my grasp. It was stretched out on the trim board above the handle it’s head half way down the length of the coop and it’s tail on the trim piece behind that fiberglass post.

I don’t kill them, but I don’t want them in my coop, eating eggs, feed, or babies when there are any, so they are put in a lidded 5 gallon bucket and taken away from the farm. The first two were dropped off in the wood about a half mile from home. This one was taken two miles away and dumped. I have to admit, that I never handled a snake before these three except for twice. Once when I took a small, 2 foot Hognose snake into my classroom from the adjoining classroom to show one of my Biology classes, the second time to feel, but not hold a python. Snake skin is dry, cool, and smooth, they are not slimy like some people think. They are well muscled and you can feel the muscle movement when they coil or try to.

Hubby is not a fan. He would prefer that they stay in the woods well away from us. When we bought a house in Virginia Beach when our children were young, the air handler was in the ceiling above the family room. The first time I went up to change the filter as it was a crawl on your hands and knees to get to it fit, I found several snake skins. Later that summer, a black rat snake crawled out of the hole in the brick where the condenser tube ran and he commented that if the snake was found in the house, he was moving out. Last night, he was taking the picture above and afterward, I lowered the snake in the bucket at my feet with the lid in my right hand. That snake did not want to be in that bucket and before I could get the lid firmly on, it tried to escape, in the direction of hubby who was standing back about 6 feet with the camera. I caught the snake and secured it, but his reaction before I did was priceless. I thought he had learned to fly, he jumped back so fast and so high (he says this is an exageration).

They have their place, eating rodents, but their place is not in my coop.

It did rain for a little while last evening and this morning, the farm was shrouded in fog. By the time the chores were done, the fog had lifted except at the tops of the trees and the mountain tops.

It was very pretty sitting on the porch with my breakfast and coffee watching it shift and having the territorial little Hummingbirds fly around through the covered porch chasing each other off.

The fog mist had settled on the asparagus ferns in the garden and they glittered like they were covered with thousands of tiny diamonds this morning.

The row of sunflowers are producing more blooms each day, bronze, lemon yellow, and Hopi dye seed varieties. Non of the wild Kansas sunflower seed that my sister sent produced plants this year.

It is going to be another hot and humid day, Roanoke, the nearest city has broken their weather history for the most consecutive days above 90 degrees f. It has gotten that hot here a few times in the past months, but mostly hovering in the upper 80’s. We await the mobile vet to check out the big guy and to administer vaccines possibly and do heartworm tests if the pups cooperate. The visit will be socially distanced on the front porch.

Stay safe, wear your mask. Let’s beat this virus.

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.