Cabin Crafted

Category: gardens

  • It survived

    After dinner last night, we got a walk in just before it got dark. It was getting quite chilly by the time we returned to the car. Instead of the nearly road wide path to the pond that we usually take, we went the opposite direction down a winding path used for bicycles and horses. Much narrower, more contour, and I feel, a nicer walk through the woods. We only encountered two mountain bikers headed back up to the parking lot until we got to the pond where there were too many unmasked people as we did a single loop and back up the wider path to the car, so a huge loop instead of in and out the same path. The pond had dozens of geese and a few ducks. The geese must be the ones that overwinter in the pond because they don’t even move off the path when you walk by them, so they are used to people. I guess we will see them regularly through the winter walks.

    We ended our walk with a stop at the local village store for ice cream. There is one employee who refuses to wear a mask, an older man. His paper mask, probably the same one every day is under his chin, never, ever on. Last night he got a call requesting if they had an item and he came out from behind their plastic shower curtain shield, still unmasked, got right in my face, made a joking comment, laughed and walked on to check for the item. This morning, on our way to the Farmer’s Market pickup, we stopped there for a newspaper and the proprietor, his young employee, and the sole customer were all unmasked. This is after a week where our tiny county has had a surge of about 15 cases and 2 more hospitalizations. I know we live in a Trump dominated county, but if he would be honest about the virus and support mask wearing, I would feel safer.

    When we got up this morning, the hunters were here, so the pups had to be let out on leashes, the grass was crystalline and crunchy, the indoor/outdoor thermometer showed it was cold.

    As happens, the temperature dropped one more degree before it started warming up. The trip to the Farmer’s Market required window scraping.

    When we returned home with our week’s supply of veggies, butter, cheese, and a bit of meat and it had warmed to comfortable in a light jacket, I checked on the garden. Everything I covered survived nicely, except the branch I apparently broke off of the big Serrano pepper. Even the uncovered bush beans don’t seem to have been badly burned and it didn’t bother the marigolds. They will remain covered until it warms tomorrow, then I will put the covers away and let nature take it’s course. It is supposed to warm back up for about 10 days, then the peppers will be done. I may continue to cover the ground cherries and peas at night when the night temps stay in the upper 30’s and see if they produce enough to harvest. After checking on it, the walled garden was in need of light weeding, there are deer tracks through out the garden and several plants have been nibbled to the ground. This garden is right up against the house and deck. I need to get a solar motion sensor light to keep them out if I plan to use it for herbs, dye garden, and flowers.

    Being a gorgeous day, and living in a heavenly part of the state, we ventured a few thousand feet elevation farther up the mountain and took a walk in the woods. It was peaceful, serene, and unpopulated.

    More photos from the day on my Instagram account.

  • Garlic

    Garlic is a flavorful and healthy crop to grow in the garden. First, you know where and how it was grown, and no fossil fuels are required to pull it, cure it, and carry it from garden to house. Garlic is delicious sauteed, roasted, grated or minced into almost any savory food dish. Today, we use it mostly for the culinary benefits, but historically, it was mostly used medicinally. According to studies, it is high in Manganese, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, Selenium, and a source of fiber. It is touted to help combat the common cold, lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol levels, may help prevent Alzheimers, and many other uses.

    Garlic is always in my garden. It gets moved around to different locations, part of the crop rotation for soil health and to try to prevent the tiny nematodes that can sometimes get in garlic or onions and cause them to spoil. Garlic is planted in the fall to give it time to produce rootlets, then as the soil begins to warm in spring, the clove that was planted will produce the bulb that is harvested in late June. Sometimes, tiny bulblets will form atop the green leaves. They are like seeds and can be planted in fall, pulled the following summer, and the small cloves then replanted that fall and will produce bulbs the second year. Two of my softneck garlics produced bulblets and I saved them to plant with my seed garlic this year.

    Yesterday morning, the box that contained most of the tomatoes this year was thoroughly cleared of weeds and large roots. This morning, a good load of compost was dug in, digging out a couple of brick sized rocks that had escaped prior preparation of that area. This was the first year that corner of the garden had been planted, it had previously been the compost pile and after seeing how the asparagus shaded that spot, it probably should still be the compost area, but the garlic will mature before the asparagus gets tall, then I will likely move the box to another area and return that spot to compost as the asparagus bed can’t be moved.

    The box was planted with 16 Romanian Red cloves, a bulb that produces only 5 or 6 huge cloves, 22 German Hardy cloves each bulb had 6 to 8 cloves, 30 unknown hardneck cloves from garlic purchased at the Farmer’s Market, 20 soft neck cloves from garlic I planted and harvested, plus the 6 bulblets to see if that process actually works. With any luck, I will harvest 88 bulbs of garlic next summer and 6 mini bulbs to replant.

    The fall peas weren’t trellised, they were planted around the perimeter of the box with carrots in the middle. They are full of blooms. Today is predicted to be 75 f and only about 48 f tonight. Tomorrow’s high is 52 f and the low 34 f. Tomorrow afternoon I will cover them and hope for the best.

    This box had several peppers planted in it, a row of marigolds, and the cucumbers. Once the cucumbers were done, the marigolds took over. They sheltered out the two bell pepper plants. The taller pepper plants are Jalapenos and still blooming, so they too will be covered.

    The Thai peppers aren’t blooming and each day more ripen red to be picked and strung to dry. Those two plants may be pulled and hung upside down in the garage where most of the remaining peppers will continue to ripen. The Serrano planted next to them is so heavy with peppers that the branches are near breaking point. It is near the box with the ground cherries, so that area may be covered. Saturday night is also in the 30’s but the day time temp will rise near 60. Those two nights are followed by about 2 weeks of 60s to mid 70s days and upper 40s to mid 50s nights, so if I can save the plants through those two nights, there will be more harvest. Then it drops back into the 30s at night again and it may be the end for the season. The area behind and to the right of the marigolds is the old mint bed that still lacks definition and the potato bed that has been weeded and weeded, but never replanted. I guess the winter and early spring will be spent clearing those areas again, supplementing it with compost and beds created to plant in for the spring garden. Next year, I want more space between my tomatoes and also between my peppers. I probably won’t try to grow corn again unless it is popcorn which I have had success with in the past. Potatoes were a fluke only because I had a few pounds sprouting, but they did so well, I might repeat them. The potato onions were a fun experiment, but the onions are so small they are only good for skewering for grilled veggies, so I will return to planting organic sets that produce decent sized onions. For years I have tried to use the Square Foot Garden method with limited success as some plants overgrow others in the same box thus reducing instead of improving the yield. I’m leaning towards 4 foot wide beds the width of the garden and planting in rows or big blocks. To do that, I will have to unstack and pull out serviceable wood salvaged from the old deck and restack what is too short or too heavy for me to work with.

    Each year the garden morphs slightly into a different format, but it still provides me hours of healthy work and many pounds of produce. It is slowing being put to bed for the winter, trying to eek out as much produce as possible before the night freezes do it in entirely.

    Today, we visited the local farm equipment sales and service to inquire about a new 5 foot brush hog and tractor servicing. The price on the brush hog was much higher than we expected and I’m not sure the amount of use it would get with the local farmer haying and brush hogging many areas, that the expense is justified. We may continue to wait on that purchase and see if we can find a better price elsewhere.

  • It’s not over ’til the fat lady sings

    After two days of steady rain and steady temperature of 61 f, today dawned gray and thick but not raining. On the way to giving the hens their daily freedom, a harvest basket was grabbed. The garden is fading away, one crop at a time, but still providing some goodness for the larder. The peas are bright and full of flowers, the Jalapenos are still blooming, the Thai and Serrano peppers are ripening with hundreds of Thai peppers and dozens of Serrano peppers still green on the plants. The ends of the branches so full that the rains pulled them down, sagging over the paths. There aren’t any broken branches. All of the ripe red ones were plucked off, breaking off a clump of still green ones in the process. The last three slicing tomatoes were picked and the plants pulled and tossed on the burn pile. The last of the basil clipped and added to the basket. The Tomatillo plants are bare of leaves so the last fruits of any size were pulled. Those plants should be pulled as well and the stakes removed to store. Friday and Saturday nights will be cold enough for frost. The arrangement of the peas, Thai peppers, one Serrano pepper, and Ground Cherries in three 4 X 4 foot boxes in a row will allow me to cover them with a sheet of plastic. The Jalapenos and the non productive Serrano pepper are across a wide path but in a single 4 x 4 box, so they can be covered as well. The top of the fig shelter will be closed over. After those two nights, there will be another mild period. There are dozens of ground cherries forming, so there is still hope for a small batch of jam to see if that is a plant I want to plant in the future.

    Everything was washed, the basil leaves stripped and put in a drying basket, the red Thai peppers strung, filling the 4th string drying inside the south French door. The Jalapenos were brined in hot brine to pickle. The Tomatillos blanched and put in the freezer, making 2 gallon sized bags for Son 1’s family. The green Thai peppers and the Serranos were started as another hot pepper ferment.

    If the peas, ground cherries, and remaining peppers can be nursed through the two nights in the 30’s, there may be more peppers to dry and pickle, a batch of jam to make, and fresh peas to enjoy. One of the garden boxes needs to be thoroughly cleaned up, supplemented with more compost, and planted with next year’s garlic crop, then covered with straw and a mesh panel to hold the straw down. If it ever dries out, the burn pile needs to be reduced to ash, the raspberry volunteers that have escaped the barrels pulled. Once those canes are bare of leaves, they will be pruned back. Since the wooden barrels have all deteriorated to just sides with no bottoms, I am again trying to figure out how to have raspberries without them taking over the garden. The barrel idea was good until the bottoms rotted out. There is a large old galvanized tub hanging in the garage that has a hole where the bottom and side seams meet, so it doesn’t hold water, perhaps it can be buried a few inches and half filled with soil, planted with canes and used to control their spread. I love the fruit, but not trying to control them.

  • No politics today

    This is being posted remotely to Facebook. As I am not currently using Facebook, any reactions or comments should be posted at the bottom of the blog. Thank you.

    It is a Saturday, gloomy, gray, light rain, but the morning to run into town and pick up the preorders from the Farmer’s Market. The pups were let out, the hunter’s didn’t come, so no need for leashes, fortunately. They were fed, the chickens loosed into the yard to hunt for bugs, seeds, and scratch in the bare spots.

    A few of them are so motley looking and they trail feathers wherever they go, a few have grown their new winter feathers and look so fresh and full, I even got 1 egg yesterday. When I let them out, they make a bee line for the front yard and usually disappear under the two cedar trees at least for a while.

    With raincoat on, the run through the market was damp, but not too crowded and the goodies look wonderful. On Saturday mornings, we get drive thru breakfast and sitting in the parking lot with the car off, the rain distorting the view of the street lights on, the tree with it’s red leaves, and the faux granite stone on the Art Center, made an interesting photo.

    The street sign was a distractor, but still an interesting shot.

    The market goods were brought home, put away and back out we went to pick up some socks from the local outfitter’s sale that ends tomorrow on Darn Tough socks, my favorites, then on to pick up chicken scratch and bird seed from Tractor Supply.

    There will be no walk today, probably not tomorrow either, but plenty of time to spin, read, knit, maybe take a nap.

    Tonight we will feast on a pan of fresh roasted veggies, hubby with a chop, me with some local cheese, perhaps a slice or two of the bread made a few days ago, sliced and frozen to keep it fresh.

    It will be a lazy weekend. When the rain stops, I will prepare the bed that will grow next year’s garlic. Peppers and anything else ripe will be brought in to string, can, freeze, or eat fresh. The peas are beginning to form. Only 5 more days until a frost is expected, two nights in a row. I am torn whether to try to extend the season by covering plants or call it a year.

  • Waste Not, Want Not

    Last evening before it got dark, I ventured into the garden with a single basket. It proved to be too small. There were a few red tomatoes, a few turning red, and 7 pounds of green tomatoes on dead vines. There are still two determinate type slicers growing with a few fruits on them. The Thai and Serano peppers had a couple hands full of red ripe peppers and the Jalapenos had a hand full of pickling size, and fortunately I had on a jacket with big pockets to hold them. The basil got cut again, maybe for the last time. And about a dozen Tomatillos ready to harvest.

    The basil was stripped to dry but the rest was just left on the table until this morning while I tried to figure out what to do with 7 pounds of green tomatoes. All of the recipes I saw online were for salsa you broiled the tomatoes, onions, and garlic then food process mixed them for a refrigerator salsa. There were too many tomatoes for that. One of my favorite canning cookbooks to the rescue.

    First, I pickled the jalapenos, blanched and froze the Tomatillos and ripe tomatoes. Put the ripening ones in the window to finish ripening. Strung the red Thai peppers to start the third string of them drying.

    Though her recipes are generally for a few half pints, I have successfully doubled or tripled them for pints. The recipe for a canned Green Tomato Salsa called for 2 pounds to make 3 half pint jars, I tripled it and realized very quickly that it was going to make way more than 4+ pints, so 6 pint jars went into the canner to heat up and as I was filling them with a very thick and chunky salsa, added a 7th. The recipe called for a half poblano pepper. I don’t grow them, they don’t have any “kick.” I had harvested Serano and Thai peppers that had no immediate use, there weren’t enough Seranos and no red Jalapenos to make Sriracha style fermented sauce, so I just chopped them up with the Thai’s and added them to the 6 pounds of chopped green tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spices. The suggestion was to remove it from the heat when it was thick enough and taste it to adjust the salt and hot peppers if needed. Well, I think I will name it “It might make you cry” Salsa, it made me cry. Son 1 likes it hot, hubby likes it hot. Between them, I’m sure all 7 pints will disappear in short order, but I won’t be eating any of it.

    The last pound of green tomatoes were layered in a box with a ripe apple in hopes that they will ripen and can be added to the bag in the freezer to use later in the winter and a recipe calls for whole or diced tomatoes.

    For years, we have had an indoor/outdoor thermometer system. They last 4 or 5 years before they give out and quit working. Our last one quit about two weeks ago. It is funny how you learn to rely on something. I can check the weather forecast, but the station that reports for us in located somewhere in the county in an area that seems to be more extreme temperature changes than we have. I have checked to see that it was reporting as much as 10 degrees colder than our unit said when it worked. The outdoor part of ours in on the inside of a post of our north facing covered front porch. Tractor Supply carries a variety of thermometers from ones you hang on the porch and either try to read through the window or brave the elements to go out and look at it, to the indoor/outdoor ones with all sorts of reporting. I got us a medium range one that shows temperature, time, indoor temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, high/low temperature history, and supposedly, a prediction (we will see on that feature).

    It is hanging near the front door, so we can see how many layers we need to put on before going out. The high/low feature won’t kick in accurately until it has been up 24 hours. It is a pleasant 72 today, the high for the week. We had a quick rain shower but have a couple days of soaking rain due tomorrow and Wednesday. While picking up the thermometer, we also picked up a roll of heavy mil plastic sheeting that will cover the fig and if necessary some garden plants if a frost is predicted this week.

    I need to go find space on the pantry shelves for the salsa.

    Stay safe all.

  • Another Glorious Day

    It is clear and crisp, cool enough for a light wool in the mornings and evenings, and a light long sleeved shirt when working outdoors during the day. This is my favorite time of the year, after it cools off, but before it gets cold.

    The Asian Pear Marmalade was made yesterday afternoon. It took forever to cook to jam consistency, but it is thick and a beautiful golden color. The 3 pounds of pears and an orange, filled 4 half pints plus a quarter pint jar with just enough left over to enjoy warm on a biscuit remaining from Friday night’s dinner.

    Last week, I began a ferment of some of the small Eggplants that I had gotten at the Farmer’s Market. It has been sitting on the back of the counter all week with the ferment weight and ferment lid, all covered with a small towel. I hadn’t even peeked at it all week and decided to check it this morning. What a gorgeous color it turned and the ferment is so good. I have to thank a local friend for introducing me to fermented eggplant many years ago, and a distant online friend for reminding me of it now that I ferment so many good foods. I bought zesty salad mix and radishes at the Farmer’s market yesterday and a block of goat milk Feta cheese last week. I think a salad with those items and some of the eggplant and a tomato if I can find a ripe one will be a nice addition to dinner tonight.

    As soon as the morning sun and wind dry the garden leaves, I will pick beans and any other produce ready to come in for the freezer. Soon, the remaining beans will be left to mature and dry to save for planting next year. I have planted this variety for a couple of years and they perform very well here. Last year I didn’t save the seed and had to purchase seed, but bean seed is so easy to save. When the peas start producing, I will harvest to enjoy and also let them mature and dry for saving. Some packages of seed I use have so many seed in them that the package will last two or three years, and some seed is so tiny and difficult to save, I just purchase when I need more. I suspect I will have volunteer tomatillo all over the place next year and have in the past, dug them and relocated them where I wanted them to grow.

    Since my newest spindle arrived during the week, I have been spinning mostly on it to get used to it’s size and weight and because when it spins, the wood grain of the figured Bigleaf Maple makes the most interesting concentric circles, very mesmerizing. This is the second turtle of fiber on it. It would hold a lot, but I am trying to keep the colors of the braid consistent enough that the plied yarn will be similar to the first half of the braid that I finished last month.

  • Another week gone

    Where do they go, it seems like yesterday that we went to the Farmer’s Market, yet today was market day again. This week we arrived about 10 minutes before opening time and I stood in line with about a dozen other people to pick up my preorders and see if there was anything from other vendors that I don’t have pre-order info for and who aren’t on the market’s pre-order site. Several of the vendors were still setting up, but I came home with goodies for the week. I hadn’t pre-ordered figs this week, but still purchased a half dozen to just eat and enjoy and while talking to the vendor, she said there would be more later because of the late frost last spring, so I came home and checked my fig and it has about a dozen figs growing on it! I’m very excited, and to protect it from the midnight marauders, I decided the flimsy wire fence ring standing loosely around it was insufficient and set about to build the mini greenhouse to protect it this winter, but alas, the corrugated plastic sheets on the chicken tractor are too brittle to reuse. Not to be thwarted, I had some green erosion fencing and step in posts and with 8 posts and the erosion fencing cut long enough to hang over the tops toward the center, it is now well protected from the deer. Grass was cleared back away from it again and a new layer of hay mulch put around the base.

    This structure is more stable than the wire ring, so I may just wrap it in heavy mil translucent plastic for winter. Maybe the 7 foot tall posts I used for the tall tomatoes can be arranged in a way to make a teepee shape that can be wrapped.

    When you still don’t have mowers, but you have to be able to get to the coop and gardens without getting wet to the knees by the tall grass, you just do what you have to do. The line trimmer to the rescue, again.

    I can get to the coop, the gardens, and the bird feeders. Maybe the mowers will come home this week. I actually went all the way around the house and walled garden and most of the way around the vegetable garden as well, all on less than one battery charge. That trimmer was a good purchase.

    At the market, I found Asian Pears and bought enough to make some Asian Pear Marmalade. I will have to go scrounge jars to can it, but that is on my agenda for today or tomorrow while the daytime temperatures are in the low 60’s (mid teens celsius).

    Also taking advantage of the nice day, the little rose was given an in ground permanent home. If necessary, I will cover it with a feed bucket if a hard freeze is threatened until it is fully established by next summer.

    My second string of Thai peppers was started for drying. The first one reached the end of the doubled floss and is hanging on the end of the kitchen cabinet until the peppers are dry and needed. There are hundreds of them out there and each day another dozen or so have ripened red and come in to be strung.

    I received an email that the fall garlic was being shipped, I will keep an eye out for it and keep it cool until it is time to plant it here. I think I should thin the salad mix I started in the house and put some of the seedlings in the a garden.

    I’ve had a break, an apple and goat cheese, now back to work. I love the cooler days, but dread the cold of winter.

  • Autumn is upon us

    The sunflowers are gone, the tomatoes have stopped producing with a few green ones left, the corn stalks are browning. The asparagus ferns have been cut back and the bed weeded, to be burned after it has all dried and nothing is growing near that bed. Peppers, beans, peas, and ground cherries are loving the cooler nights. Most of the locals have already plowed under their summer gardens, I’m milking mine for every veggie and fruit it will provide. The Autumnal Equinox is in 3 days, meteorological autumn arrived 18 days ago. This time of the year is bittersweet as by now, I’m tired of weeding, but not ready for the end of fresh vegetables from my own gardens. We are facing 5 or 6 days of cooler days and chilly nights.

    Ground cherries forming
    The sole pumpkin found when the corn patch was cleared.
    The pile of cornstalks, sunflower stems, and asparagus tops to be shredded or burned.

    The hunters are beginning to ask permission to hunt on our farm. This I also have mixed feelings about. I enjoy seeing the wildlife and the safety of not having hunters walking about our property, but good community relationships are important too and we often get small tasks that I can’t do offered in return. One of those tasks is to repair/re-level a sagging gutter in the back of the house. I won’t go up a tall ladder any longer, I can’t risk a broken hip or worse if I have an incident.

    We still haven’t gotten our mowers back and I am afraid the grass is so tall that they won’t be able to handle it. I may have to wait for the first real frost to hit it before it gets mowed down again, unless we get the replacement brush hog. I will just continue to line trim paths and around the foundation and gardens.

    The chickadees, tufted titmouse(s)/mice, and cardinals are returning to the feeders with the finches that have continued to feed. The hummingbirds are still visiting their feeders and checking all of the remaining flowers. They usually leave by the end of the first week of October, then their feeders will be brought in washed, sanitized, and stored until spring.

    When it isn’t raining, we take an evening walk, usually at the pond as it isn’t as crowded as town. The wild Asters are blooming, the one below was much more lavender than the photo, fungi of various shapes abound, and I love the reflection on the water.

    For now, we will enjoy the cooler weather, safely but sadly alone.

  • Arrrgh, mowing equipment

    After I posted yesterday, I went down and put the new belt on the mower deck being very careful not to get it twisted and to follow the installation diagram. The engine started right up, I pulled out of the garage, engaged the mower, got about halfway around the front yard once and it ate the new belt. Something must be misaligned, a pulley, unlevel deck, something. So I pulled out the gas push mower to finish the front and mow a path to the chicken coop, yard hydrant, and garden. It hasn’t been started since April and it wouldn’t start. I thought I was going to dislocate my shoulder trying to get it running. Finally, I pulled the new line trimmer down, weed whacked the paths to the coop, hydrant, and garden and came in totally frustrated. A call to the local reliable repair shop to see if they worked on that brand of riding mower and they do, so the trailer was hooked up, the mower loaded and since we were headed there anyway, put the push mower on the trailer too and delivered them to be checked out, adjusted, and hopefully repaired without costing us a month’s retirement installment. Until they are returned, I will just keep paths whacked to the cars, the coop, and the garden.

    We are due more rain today and tomorrow, but since the weather is cooling off, hopefully the grass won’t grow so much it can’t easily be mowed.

    The reuseable lids arrived yesterday. I have placed an order at the Natural foods store and put pears on the list. If they have any, I will make my marmalade. If not, I will check the Farmer’s Market again on Saturday when I go to pick up my pre-ordered goods. I am still hopeful that since pears are a fall fruit that I will find some variety to use. I have moved some dry goods to old salsa jars and empty tins to free up a few more of the half pint size jars and with the ones still in the basement and a handful of quarter pint sized ones, I have enough for a couple batches of jam or marmalade, and enough pints for another batch of diced tomatoes or pasta sauce. I have combined some quarts of brined jalapenos to half gallons, so I can use quarts for tomatoes too. There are still a dozen wide mouth pints on the shelves as well, so there are enough jars and lids to finish the season’s canning. The beans from the other night added 3 more gallon bags loosely filled so they don’t become an unusable block of blanched beans in the freezer. I wish there was a more environmentally friendly way to store the frozen peas, beans, and corn. A sandwich size container is just about the right size for the two of us for a meal, maybe I should buy a stock of that size container that can be put in the dishwasher and reused year after year. I tried glass jars a couple of years ago, but you have to pack the beans or peas in water and risk jar breakage in the freezer.

    Signs of summer fading away.

    Wish we could share this out west.
    Autumn Joy in bloom.
    One Stella amidst the the faded Calendula which has generously self seeded there.
    Enough Zinnias for a tiny bathroom vase.
    Zinnias with ragged leaves and fading blossoms.

    The garden is winding down, the flowers are fading, the leaves on the trees are dull and on our walk last night we could see the beginnings of color change and thistles blown.

    Blown thistles and cockleburrs against the reflection on the pond.

    Soon walks will require layers and starts before, not after dinner as the days shorten, the nights lengthen. And the seasons move on as we continue to distance from family and friends. Stay safe everyone.

  • Who was I kidding?

    Yesterday, after 14 quarter pints of jams and jellies, I said there was nothing to do for today, then I went into the garden last evening before the rain began, to pick tomatoes and do a bit of weeding. Well, I came back in with this:

    While weeding, I turned up two small potatoes, too. That was the half pound of tomatillos I needed to make another batch of green salsa/simmer sauce, and with the fully ripe tomatoes here plus the ones in the kitchen window, enough tomatoes to make a couple jars of salsa. After morning chores, picking a handful of jalapenos, I cored and scored the tomatoes and poured boiling water over them. Chopped the onion, peppers, garlic, located necessary citric acid and salt and made two pints of salsa to add to the shelf. Then the frozen and fresh tomatillos, peppers, onion, garlic, and spices were blended into a semi smooth sauce and cooked down to 3 half pints of the green salsa/simmer sauce. Instead of using crushed red pepper this time, I minced 3 Thai hot pepper to go with the 2 jalapenos. Bet this batch is spicy.

    When cool, they will be labelled and added to the shelf. I have had to clear another shelf to accommodate the past two days. The tomatoes still in the window sill to finish ripening will become canned tomatoes that can be used in chili, soup, or seasoned to make more pasta sauce if needed later. A couple of the tomato plants are beginning to brown, I think we are reaching the end of the season for them. There are probably 200 Thai peppers on the two plants, as they ripen red they are brought in and put in a drying basket. I should start stringing them to dry before I have too many for a single layer in the basket.

    It is that time of year when the coop and hen run look like the comic exploding chicken when you see feathers going everywhere. It is molt time, starting with the Oliver eggers, including the crazy broody one. The Welsummers are showing it on their heads, so they will be losing more feathers quickly, then the Reds. That means few eggs, soon, no eggs until they grow their new winter feathers. At least they aren’t waiting until is it frigid outdoors like they did last year.

    I would like to start a new flock for next year, but with Covid, Son 1 can’t come to thin the flock, plus the freezer still has at least 4 or 5 from last time. No matter what I do with them, I can’t make them palatable. He does somehow, but he lacks a big freezer and I can’t get them to him. He joked about coming, staying in the basement, eating on the back porch and avoiding the main part of the house so he could pick up his canned and frozen goodies. I joked about driving the 3 hours to his house, leaving it on his porch, and driving back home. I WANT TO BE WITH MY KIDS!!!! ALL OF THEM!!!