This year’s garden has not been the success of past years. The peas gave us fresh peas to eat, but few made it to the freezer. The first crop of bush beans provided quite a number of meals fresh and some are in the freezer and the second crop is about to bloom. I hope the bean beetles are done with their work and will let this crop grow. This morning, I pulled the dry skins from the onions to prep them for storage. About 1/3 of the crop are already mushy and will go straight to the compost pile. A handful are salvagable if I use them quickly. But there are onions to go on the hardware cloth shelf in the non climate controlled part of the basement.
The trashUse them fastSpread out to store
Last evening after dinner, I went out to weed and harvest what I could. The ground cherries are forming and beginning to drop and as they do, they are being husked and frozen until there are enough for a batch of jam. The tomatillos are the same, forming and freezing until enough are gathered for simmer sauce and Tomatillo/Jalapeno/Lime jam. I planted determinate tomatoes this year as I started them to be controllable in granddaughter’s garden. The six I gave them failed and they ended up with indeterminate ones purchased from the nursery to have to deal with, but that means all of my tomatoes will ripen at about the same time. As they begin to ripen, they too are being frozen to make the skins easier to remove and to save up enough to can in batches of pizza sauce, pasta sauce, or diced tomatoes. The bucket was about half full of those goodies and several cucumbers. This is the first year we have gotten useable peaches from our tree. I brought in a basket full of them to eat and to make a batch of peach jam. After lunch, the canner pot was lifted down from it’s high shelf, the peaches peeled and chopped and 4 half pints of jam made. While it was canning, 3 pints of garlic dill pickle slices were packaged and they followed in the canner.
The popcorn is tasselling nicely and the squash underneath look healthy. They are a short vined mini hubbard style squash, but they are all developing long necks which makes me question whether they were properly packaged, but they are a winter squash and should keep well.
The one thing that is thriving is kale and hubby doesn’t really care for it.
It is a good thing thunderstorms are forecast today and tomorrow as we are both too sore to stain today. My sore hip didn’t take kindly to the acrobatic contortions I had to do to stain the step stringers and the joist to which they are attached. The pecs and biceps are sore, and I don’t want to lift my arms above my head, but they will be okay in another day. We will finish the deck job on the next dry day.
I went out to the garden late this afternoon to see if I could find another cucumber for a salad I saw online and came in with 13+ pounds of potatoes. I had 4 or 5 potatoes that had sprouted last late winter, most were Kennebecks, one was a red. I had a new deep bed I had made that was perfect to plant them. Each was cut with at least 2 eyes, cured for a day and planted. Once they sprouted, I put straw layers over them. A week or so ago, I dug under one plant to pull out a few small new potatoes for dinner one night. The dry weather had most of the plants drying and brown so with a garden fork, I turned the plants over. The potatoes range from marble size to huge. A few are burned with solanine but not so bad that it can’t be pared off. I don’t know if we can eat that many potatoes before they begin to sprout.
That isn’t a bad return on about 2 pounds of potatoes.
The new girls are really providing us with eggs now. A typical day I bring in about 9 eggs from them (only 1 from the old 6 girls). There are two more old gals in with the new kids, but they are producing 6 to 8 eggs per week. I should move them back, but I just can’t sort them out at night when the are perched and easy to approach. I love the colors, blue, green, tan, light and dark brown, and pink.
After getting the upper and most of the lower part of the raw wood parts of the deck stained yesterday, I spruced up the flowers in the pots today. The geraniums are still looking good, the pansys that self seeded are hanging in and the Autumn Joy that has been in a pot on the deck for years thrives on neglect. The strawberry pot with “hen and chicks” and a red sedum is doing very well. The petunias and nasturiums were dead or looking sorry, so the healthier nasturiums were transplanted to a smaller pot, a red coneflower put in the larger pot they had been in and two other red annuals, Pentas, added to smaller ceramic pots that had been in the garage. It put some nice color in the back on the deck. The walled garden has Shasta daisies, Blue button flower, Sneezeweed, Rudbeckia, a sedum, and Dianthus all blooming. My little rose has a few more flowers and buds on it. The Baptisia (false indigo) has wonderful seed pods that as soon as they begin to dry will be cut, some used for dyeing, some for decorating. The comfrey really shouldn’t have been planted in that garden, it is spreading much too quickly. I think I will dig it out and move it to outside the fence in the corner of the garden where more is growing inside the fence. I will look for some fall blooming perennials or maybe more coneflower, the nursery had beautiful red ones today.
I had finally convinced myself to get a table umbrella for this deck and had been looking at them for a while at Kroger. They are all gone. Unless I can find one at a reasonable price and color elsewhere, I may have to wait another year.
It sounds like a lot was done today, but it has really been a day of sit and recuperate, even potting flowers and digging potatoes were done while sitting on the steps for the flowers and the side of the garden box to dig the potatoes.
We will tackle the rest of the deck support staining in a few days, then enjoy having Son 1 and Grandson 1 here next weekend, doing what we can to get the rest of the front porch done.
On the fiber front, I managed to purchased the newest style of Jenkins spindle a couple of nights ago. It is a larger spindle than I have preferred, but the weight isn’t too heavy, so I am hoping I will love it when it arrives. It is Manzanita wood. I have 5 of their sizes now, different for various fibers and spins. A variety of woods, all beautiful hand made wooden tools that provide me hours of pleasure and produces yarn that can be sold or used to weave or knit.
An archaic term that means to set aside; to save. The term was used in many old households to mean storing and preserving of provisions for the cold non productive months. Before the introduction of home freezers, much of this putting by was drying, salting, smoking, fermenting, and canning with procedures that give the USDA shuddering nightmares.
And now we have the huge grocery stores that ship in “fresh” produce out of season from thousands of miles away. Produce that has been genetically altered to make it shelf stable for far longer than it takes to move it across the country or from other countries to your table. And commercial canning allows aisles of produce of every description packed in metal cans lined with suspect plastics for your ease in food preparation. So many people, don’t even know how food is grown or where.
I have always in my adult life had a garden of some sort, if only a few feet of tomatoes and peppers off the patio of a townhouse, and I made Pomegrante jelly once a year with my Dad, an afternoon that I looked forward to every year as we improved on the technique each year. But when we bought our farm property and I moved across the state to work for the last few years before retirement and to help with babysitting so Son 1 and DIL could work on our house, or spending an evening or weekend day helping put up interior siding, making floor wax, or other assistance I could provide, my outlook on food changed. During this time, I discovered a program that Virginia Tech was doing where the entire Freshman class was assigned a book to read for discussion. The year I moved, the book was the recently published, Animal Vegetable Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver about her family’s attempt to eat only local, seasonally available food that they grew or could purchase at their local Farmer’s Market. I purchased the book, devoured it and it changed my whole outlook on the food system. Son 1 and DIL had put in a huge garden on the farm, and once living here, I have added fruit trees, vines, and canes as well as chickens for eggs. I made a point to get to know the vendors at our Farmer’s Market, what they provide, how they manage their farms, and what will be available when. I maintain a much smaller garden than the kids put in, located many wild berry patches, learned to make soap and healing salves, and set a goal to “put by” as much as I can to reduce our footprint and reduce the amount of food and other goods that come into our home from thousands of miles away, packaged in containers that may or may not be recyclable.
Not everything that goes on our shelves or in our freezer is grown here, but it is grown locally if possible. Meats, cheeses, vegetables I don’t grow, fruits when mine fail. Beans and peas are frozen in the spring and summer. Berries and fruit are turned into jams and sauces. Tomatoes are canned as pasta sauce, pizza sauce, or tomatoes to be used in chili or other recipes. Hot peppers are canned, pickled or dried to be used throughout the year until the next crop. Sweet peppers are diced or sliced and frozen. Butter and cheese are stockpiled during the productive season for the winter, most of the meats are available year round. We tend to eat more seasonally now, not to the extent that was accomplished in the book, but certainly more so than before I read it.
Once of the produce vendors at the Farmer’s Market has a CSA program with different tiers. The one I chose, I get to select what I want in the quantity I want as long as I spend a certain amount. Right now eggplant is in season. I can’t grow eggplant to save me. Everytime I plant it, the flea beetles feast, so I buy mine from them. I’m not a fan of frozen eggplant, but making a casserole and freezing it, or fermenting a few jars of it when it is available is an option. The same for asparagus, I don’t like them frozen or canned, so they are enjoyed in season and a couple jars pickled for later.
Last week’s CSA had two eggplants in my selection. One was made into Eggplant Parmesan made with locally made parmesan and mozarella. Half was eaten and enjoyed, the second half frozen for some other meal in the future. The second eggplant is being fermented to enjoy on a pickle plate or on a salad.
The eggplant ferment needs a smaller jar. Off to the basement to see what is available. Not everyone can grow their own, but we can all make an effort to support what is local, to support the farmer’s you can get to know.
My Facebook memory posts for the past week have shown baskets of goodies from the garden, canning of berry jams, pickles, and other staples. We got peas from the early garden, but not nearly as many as last year for the freezer. I pick beans every couple of days, but only a couple hands full at a time so not as many of them going in the freezer. Some of my peppers aren’t any larger than the day they were planted and two died. There are two in pots in the herb garden that are doing great though. One bell pepper in the garden has a green pepper on it, it is a red variety, so I hope it will continue to mature and ripen. A couple of the hot peppers have started to get some size and I see flowers and the beginnings of tiny peppers. They will thrive when the weather cools some.
This was a gardener’s mistake. Using the Square Foot technique and Florida trellis system, I thought I could put 3 ground cherries, 3 bush cucumbers, 3 tomatillos, and 3 Cilantro plants in a 4 by 6 foot bed. I’ve only harvested two cucumbers.
The ground cherries don’t like to be trellised and have sprawled everywhere, the cucumbers are vining outward into the comfrey and the bed where I pulled the onions, and I can’t stay on top of trellising the tomatillos which are full of fruit and blooms. The cilantro was forgotten in the jungle and is about to set seed, so I guess I should pull it as I use very little coriander and I don’t want it to self seed there.
The popcorn and bush Hubbard squash are thriving while the cabbage worms are doing in the kale and cabbage at the end of that bed.
More of the pullets are laying each day and a few of them are getting some decent size on them. The two hens in with them layed 14 eggs in 9 days, today a total of 7 pullet eggs and 1 hen egg in the coop. The six mature hens in the Palace have produced only 11 eggs in the same 9 days total. It is frustrating to feed them pounds of feed each day and get nothing in return.
The bean beetles are devouring the bean leaves, the second planting has all germinated and not quite as densely planted. Maybe a third planting will go in where the onions were, if I can get the cucumbers to redirect up the path.
Though my beds that I made are nice and sturdy, there aren’t enough wood chips in the paths to keep the grass and weeds out. The new asparagus bed did not produce a single sprout, I think the crowns from Home Depot may have been old and dried out. The old bed is still thick with the ferns. I will make another attempt in late fall or early spring to move some of them to the new bed and try to finish digging the old bed out. It will likely mean no or few asparagus next year.
I need to seek out a load or two of wood chips and hire a teenage grandson to help me spread them several inches thick on the paths.
The walled garden is filling in nicely with the perennials that I planted there, but I am going to have to remove or at least thin the comfrey or it is going to take over and choke out some of the other plants. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to remove once planted.
The cultivated berries are drying on the canes as fast as they develop. Though we are getting pop up showers frequently, it isn’t putting enough water in the ground. I will go to a local pick your own berries farm to put some in the freezer, probably not making much jam as I eat very little of it. The tomatoes and tomatillos as they begin to ripen will be put in bags in the freezer until there are enough to make a batch of sauce or salsa. There are many green tomatoes and the plum tomatoes are beginning to ripen. Since I planted determinate varieties this year, they will all ripen about the same time and when they do, the kitchen will become a sauce factory. With Son 1 and DIL having their own nice gardens now and a freezer for storage, I won’t need to can quite as much for the two of us.
I think I am going to be overwhelmed with apples, pears, and the first peaches and as we don’t eat cobblers or fruit pies and there is only so much applesauce and pear sauce we can consume, there may be lots of fruit fall for the deer.
I haven’t done any living history since March, but next weekend, an opportunity is there. Saturday is at Wilderness Road Regional Museum, and Sunday will be small group tours of Ingles Tavern at Ingles Ferry (the Ingles of Mary Draper Ingles fame) by reservation. I can’t do both and will do the Sunday at Ingles Tavern, not taking a wheel, just a basket of fluff, my tools, and a couple of spindles. I can sit in the shade of one of the huge trees or walk around and spin while groups come and go.
Conversation about this opportunity also initiated discussion about doing a class of some sort at the museum. As I have already done salve making, and spinning, we will offer an old fashioned lard soap class to be taught by me at the museum on August 12 from 5:30-7. Information will be forthcoming on their Facebook page and website. There will be a small cost to cover materials, but you will go home with a bar of soap and the museum will have soap to sell once it cures.
After such a dry spell of not doing any of these activities, I love that this has presented itself to go along with the Heritage Day sponsored by Montgomery Museum on August 21, where I will demonstrate spinning on spindles and a wheel as well as vend, and the following weekend getting to go to a fiber retreat, visit with friends, spin, socialize, and set up a table of items to vend.
In the meantime, I’m finishing up a square for my blanket, not a wool I want close to my skin, so definitely not on an edge. I love when I finally have enough stitches to knit it on to a 16″ needle instead of doing magic loop on a 32″ needle.
And I gave up on the mitts, frogged them and am using that yarn to knit a small shawl.
I will get back to mitts using finer yarn and a single ball, it was getting so tangled I made an error that wasn’t worth the effort to try to fix since I only had about 2″ of the mitts done.
The Tour de Fleece challenge ends today with final posts due by Tuesday morning, mine is already in and tomorrow we start a mini challenge to go through the end of July. I have 8 beautiful ounces of Falklands wool, I will begin a spin on it with one of my Jenkins spindles to finish out the month, maybe be able to use it during August, and it will go with me to the retreat. I don’t want to use it for the demonstrations as it is a dyed braid and I generally use natural colored wools for demonstrations and washed locks if I am going to card or comb as part of the event.
On an unrelated side note. When I went to gather eggs this afternoon, I checked the potato patch and dug up 4 medium egg sized Kennebeck potatoes that were roasted with rainbow carrots, kohlrabi, and chicken breasts for dinner. It looks like it is about time to dig that bed and store some spuds for good eating. I also bought a couple of pounds of red beets at the Farmer’s Market yesterday and boiled them to have the first of the season beets. I don’t know why I don’t grow them myself.
I began making soap many years ago after a friend who makes great soaps offered to teach me. Have I thanked you lately, Cat? A great afternoon spent and a batch of soap to keep along with some of the necessary tools and a new skill came home with me that day. I subsequently have taught a few other folks to make soap and make sure they go home with some supplies, a batch of soap, and a new skill. I can’t count how many batches I have made at this point, but it is in the dozens. For the past three days, I have made two batches a day. I limited it to two because I wanted to use the loaf molds, not wanting to spoon soap batter into shaped molds, so I was having to wait 24 hours to unmold, wash the molds, dry them, then make two more batches. I have only had a few epic failures, one when I forgot and measured by volume instead of weight, one when I used ground cinnamon as a colorant and the soap seized, and one of yesterday’s batches for unknown reasons.
Five successful batches curing in the guest room.One epic fail, no that isn’t french toast in syrup.
I could tell that this batch wasn’t quite right as it took forever to come to trace and even then, the consistency was off. It was a batch of Goatmilk, Oatmeal, and Honey soap. I know the goatmilk powder was old, but used it as I didn’t have any fresh milk (I have used the powder before), maybe the match between the temperature of the oil and caustic liquid were off. Whatever the reason, this batch separated and is still caustic. The container will be well wrapped in newspaper, double bagged, and disposed of, it is unsalvagable. If I want a batch of that type of soap, I will have to purchase more goatmilk. I wish I had checked it before we went to the Farmer’s Market.
All the equipment has been cleaned up to store away, it may come back out if I can get some goat milk. The equipment sits out overnight so the next day I am cleaning up soap, not caustic soap batter. It is easier on the hands and the septic system to do it that way. There are two pots, the immersion blender, a couple of plastic scrapers that get wiped down with newpaper or paper towels and allowed to saponify overnight.
Day before yesterday, I noticed the onion tops were folding down so the onions were pulled and left on the soil surface overnight. Yesterday, pop up storms were forecast, so the onions were gathered and brought into the garage to finish curing. It was a nice mix of red and yellow onions, some as large as softballs, some barely larger than the bulbs that were planted, two that were showing some stem rot were peeled, cut, and used in two subsequent dinners. Yesterday also produced the first two cucumbers. I guess pickle making will occur soon. Last year I made so many fermented and refrigerator pickles that the weight of the jars, broke the 13 year old support glides that hold the produce bin in the refrigerator. That part was ordered and I replaced it, but I guess this year, most of the pickles will be canned so they are shelf stable to keep the weight off the refrigerator shelves.
As soon as all of the stems have dried and the skins have papered, these will be moved to the basement shelves to join the garlic that was spread on the hardware cloth shelf down there yesterday.
When I began raising a few chickens for our eggs, I started with too many and ended up with a lot of randy young males, thus learning that “freezer camp” was the solution. I kept one young rooster so we could maintain a sustainable flock without having to purchase chicks and I banded their legs so we could keep track of ages with the idea of never keeping more than a dozen birds at a time. A few years ago, after having several batches of chicks hatch and all of them falling victim to predators of some sort, some as tiny chicks, some as “teenagers”, I decided to just keep females and replace them every two or three years as their egg production dropped. This was the year to replace them and “all” pullet chicks were purchased in February. By May, it was clear that two of the pullets, the two Oliver eggers were roos, not pullets. I enjoy the female birds, most are friendly and the pullets are beginning to lay small colorful eggs now, but the two young roosters are driving me crazy. A crowing rooster first thing in the morning doesn’t bother me, these two compete all day long every day. I’m ready for them to be gone. They are beautiful birds, but oh so annoying. When the pullets were reaching the point where I thought they would begin to lay eggs, I put two of the mature hens in with them to help teach them where to lay each day. When freezer camp time occurs soon, I have to get them back out of the coop and into the Palace with the roosters and other mature hens. I thought this would be easy, but they are also Olive eggers and in the coop at night, I can’t tell them apart from a couple of the Marans. They have green legs, but the Marans have black legs and they can’t be distinguished by flashlight, both have black feathers, and some of the Marans have the gold necklace. This may be a challenge, but the coop really isn’t large enough for 15 birds. It really isn’t large enough for the 13 pullets.
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.
We aren’t nearly as hot as the west coast, but it got up to 91f today. That is hot for the Virginia Mountains. In spite of the heat, Grandson 1 and I tackled a couple of jobs, such as reducing the old garden boxes to ash, what 16 year old boy doesn’t like playing with fire.
I didn’t think his choice of going shirtless was too wise, but he didn’t get burned and the boxes are all gone. While he was doing that, I took all the hardware off of the rotting chicken tractor, but gave up before it was totally disassembled. We will save that for another hot day, we have several more in our near future. Most of the wood from the chicken tractor will be burned as well.
As we finished up, the hay crew arrived, three tractors, 2 with mowers and 1 with the tetter. The first mower started at about 3 p.m. and by 8 p.m., all of the hay was down.
They left the tetter here attached to one of the tractors and will return tomorrow with the rake and baler and it will all be baled to haul away. It looks thick this year and if the other nearby fields are an indicator, they will get a lot of hay this year. Now that I can get to the edges, I may start pulling Autumn Olive bushes up by the roots with our tractor once they are done.
The last of the peas were picked today, some enjoyed with dinner, the rest blanched and flozen for later. And the first tiny paste tomato was harvested and shared with Grandson 1.
This Echinacea was planted from seed last year. It is blooming this year and the butterflies love it.
We still need to finish getting the chicken tractor disassembled and the coop repaired and stained.
Only two of the pullets are laying, but it is fun getting the tiny blue and greenish eggs.
The various summer projects are slowly being completed. Son 1 with some help from Grandson 1 and from me got most of the staining done. This is the last time he will do it, we will hire it out in the future, it just isn’t fair to him to deal with it.
When he returned home on Tuesday morning, he left me a 16 year old worker, who so far will do just about anything I ask of him.
Son 1 dug out the septic tank top and found the cleanout so we could get it pumped out and to eliminate the hassle in the future of finding it and digging it out of the hard rocky soil, once it was pumped, Grandson 1 and I erected a baffle and filled the parts that wouldn’t have been needed to be dug if we had known. We sorted out rocks and filled in with the soil and gravel sized rock. Yesterday we purchased topsoil in bags, some edging, and a couple large flower pots and some perinnials to plant in them. We also purchased a small bag of grass seed and I seeded around the new bed. It was well watered in yesterday afternoon and straw sprinkled over it. The hens will all remain cooped or penned up until the grass emerges. The topsoil we purchased was all my car could handle and wasn’t enough, so today another load was picked up and we finished placing the edging, filling with soil, mulching over with wood chips, and placing the potted plants on the bed.
There is now a well defined and much smaller area that will have to be dug out of easy to dig soil in a few years when we have to do it again.
Last evening, the tall worker also helped me get hay down in both chicken runs and in the Chicken Palace. Still up on our agenda, next week, is to deconstruct the collapsing Chicken Tractor, salvaging what we can, burning the rest. And to make repairs on the coop and get it stained.
It is nice having a strong back to lift 40-45 pound sacks and work with me to get the jobs done.
The pullets have begun to lay eggs. I have been getting a small blue egg each day from the Easter Eggers. The New Hampshire reds look like they are about to add to it.
The hay guys are finishing up the fields down from us. We should be up next and the fields will again be clear enough to walk.
I have spent the last hour or so setting up two new phones for hubby and me. Our phones were at least 5 years old and failing.
We rented a cherry picker and Son 1 came to work on staining the parts of our home that didn’t get done two years ago. The plan had been to finish last summer, then COVID happened. Hubby and I managed the garage doors just before he and the cherry picker arrived within an hour of each other, but neither of us can go up on the scaffolding or the cherry picker and paint higher than our shoulders. It was brutally hot up on the roof areas where he was working and I know he is exhausted. The house looks so much better. There is still some to do, but it can be done with ladders or scaffolding.
My main jobs are keeping him fed and hydrated and being a gofer, opening windows, gathering items he needs. I know he knows how much we appreciate his work, but I want it said out publicly.
He loves this area and helped build this house, doing all the stone work with stone from our farm, doing all the interior carpentry, laying floors, building cabinets, and all of the interior doors, grading and yard work, and started the area that now has my garden, and it is a much loved home.
Last night and tonight, we drove down to get ice cream after dinner and both nights we saw black bears. This is on top of having the bear damage to my bird feeders a couple of weeks ago. There must be a lot of them this year in the area.
Coming in from gathering eggs this afternoon, I spotted my first Day lily of the season.
My little anniversary rose bush from year before last has dozens of flowers and buds.
It is a miniature bush that was thimble sized when he gave it to me. The scent is light and I am saving petals in a bowl.
Well, it turns out that this Olive Egger isn’t a pullet. HE discovered his voice over the weekend. It is like an teenage boy with his changing voice, but I won’t keep a rooster here. That will leave me with 14 egg layers soon to be. Ms. Houdini continued to escape, but two more escape holes have been blocked and she stayed in today after spending last night out in the wild AWOL.
With Son here, I cut lettuce for salad and greens for dinner from the garden. There are lots of pea pods that will fill in and provide us with goodness. The greens were sauteed with a green garlic bulb from the garden as well.
Cabin Crafted 