Cabin Crafted

Category: gardens

  • Always more tasks this time of year

    Two days of tomatoes were cooked down to pizza sauce and canned yesterday during the rainy afternoon. It made 6 half pints, but I didn’t waterbath one, instead used half of it on last night’s pizza and froze the rest for next time. The red and a handful of green Seranos and Jalapenos were chopped up in the blender and started as a hot sauce ferment while the sauce was processing.

    Though I don’t grow as many tomatoes as I used to and don’t can nearly as much as it is just the two of us, it does my heart good to see the shelves beginning to fill.

    It is nearly time to add applesauce, apple/pear sauce, and a few jars of pear marmalade to the shelves, and more hot peppers as they mature.

    Yesterday morning, the pots in the back garden were scattered around the bed I weeded, the sprinkler set up on a pedestal, but we ended up with a couple inches of rain between yesterday afternoon, over night, and into this morning, so no watering was needed. More of the smaller rocks were moved from the work area to the back edge or top of the wall to clear them. And every pot of boiling water left from cooking pasta or canning goodies is taken our and poured on the vetch. Slowly, it is dying off and the edge of the work area and remaining rocks will be visible.

    This afternoon was to be used to make soap and instead, I got involved in closing down the shop business. Much of my equipment that I only used for vending has been sold. Today, a small loom that was beautiful, but didn’t get much use was also sold. By the end of the year, hopefully, there will not be much stock left and what is left can be donated to the museum or given as gifts and my fiber arts and soap making will be for family and close friends. Though I enjoyed the years of being Cabin Crafted, the tax ramification were just too stressful for a cottage business that broke even each year at best.

    Somehow, we manage to get our walks in each day, around the rain showers, or sometimes in them. Since my wellness check, and the report of slightly elevated cholesterol, we have both picked up the pace and extended the distance by about 3/4 of a mile. My already healthy, low meat diet has been tweaked more to totally eliminate dairy products except for cheese in Mexican food and on pizza. My morning smoothie is made with plant milk, whey protein, flax, peanut butter powder, and frozen berries. Most mornings, it is like eating a cup of ice cream it is so thick. Ice cream has been reduced to a single scoop once a week. Starches limited to whole grains and fresh vegetables that contain starch like corn and potatoes, and then prepared steamed or boiled. It isn’t terribly different than I was eating, except I was using homemade whole milk yogurt and real peanut butter in the smoothies, a slice of sourdough bread with it, often buttered with avocado, more cheese, and butter on many vegetables. I was put on a low dose statin, though I didn’t react well to one about 14 years ago and hope that maybe the diet changes and exercise will allow me to not take it after a while.

    All of the garden work aggravated the arthritis and trigger finger in my hands, so crafting has been minimal for the past few days, but I did finish two more Sashiko panels and used one to decorate a small canvas zip bag to hold the Sashiko supplies and unfinished small panels in.

    There are 8 more of these panels, 1 finished, 7 to stitch. Maybe they will become a tote bag, or a table runner. Time will tell. Spinning happens mostly in the car, a bit at night as I continue to work my way through the 5 ounce braid. It has lovely colors in the sunlight, greens, purples, golds, on a gray background, but in the house, those colors seem to hide so it feels like spinning gray. After a whole year of spinning only natural colors for the breed blanket, more color has been needed in my craft this year. I think it will weave on my rigid heddle loom into a lovely, drapey shawl once it is done. It is a smooth spin so it shouldn’t grab while weaving as long as it is strong enough to not break the warp threads. Maybe a commercially spun silk will be the warp as the braid is 25% silk.

    The mornings, feel that summer is edging away, the daytime temperatures in the 70’s. This morning, herb and salad greens were sown in the hydroponics as the frost will take out the herbs and I never plant lettuce outdoors. We will enjoy salads all winter with the hydroponic garden and the salad greens will be refreshed as needed. For now, there are some greens and radishes being harvested from the garden, lettuce from the Farmer’s Market as needed, the cucumbers just starting to produce and new green beans about ready to harvest. Pumpkins this year will have to be purchased, they never did come up or at least didn’t produce vines and fruit. The peas are gaining size, strings need to be added to the posts for them and they should produce before we have our first frost. The greenhouse cover needs a minor repair before it is needed outdoors. Summer is moving on to a close, and it is raining hard again outside.

  • Garden recovery

    After my last post about the wayward hens, and finding two more eggs in the back garden hidey hole, with a cooler evening, I tackled the back garden mess. One of my garden tools is a handle 15″ or so long with a T shaped end. One side is a 3″ wide hoe blade and a 3 tine digging fork on the other end of the T. It took me several hours of sitting in on the soil or the rock wall to eradicate a ton of bermuda grass and comfrey at the lower edge of the garden and vetch, oxalis, clover, and other invasions at the upper edge. Where the rocks are still piled awaiting removal by placement in the patio or along the wall, vetch was left as it doesn’t pull through the rocks very well. The half barrels on the wall and the potted perennials are going to be scattered through out the weeded bed for now.

    Yesterday, in the heat of the day, under full sun, I sprayed the vetch with salted vinegar, donned leather gloves to remove a truly thorny invader, but walked away from it to let the spray do it’s magic. It doesn’t do magic on vetch that is still thriving today. I love the vetch when it isn’t in my gardens, the bees all love it too, but it can’t reside where it currently is.

    The mostly finished patio and the transition area between the finished part and the garden part where the vetch is thriving.

    As the sun lowered in the sky, the heat rose for some unexplained reason as the night was to be very seasonably cool, but my trusty tool and gloves were taken over to finish weeding the north edge of the vegetable garden behind and in the tall asparagus tops, the fall potato bed that never came up, and some in the tomato and pepper bed. As I work the beds, I am increasingly unhappy that I made two very long 4 foot wide boxes too close together. With tomatoes on one edge and corn behind it in the second bed, it is difficult to get to the weeds and harvest tomatoes without stepping in the beds. That design may be revisited this fall at the end of the season, breaking the longer of the boxes up and replacing it slightly uphill with 3 boxes that are 4 feet square. To do that, the blackberry half barrels will have to be moved down below the blueberries where the raspberry half barrels are, and if I put thick weed mat down first and line them up along that edge of the garden and mulch heavily around them, maybe the blueberries will stay less weedy.

    The efforts in the vegetable garden produced a large compost pile that now needs some dry material on it, perhaps the soiled wood chips from the coop.

    While weeding back there, I disturbed a bumblebee. They have never bothered me before, just flitting around where I worked, but this one became quite agitated at my efforts to remove the deadnettle and clover and she stung me three times, once on my midsections and twice under one arm. Bumblebees don’t have a barb on their stinger and can sting multiple times. The more she stung me, the more aggressive she became. I swatted her down with my glove and removed from the area. Today the stings are angry red and itchy. That makes 8 stings from bees and hornets this summer, more than I have gotten in my prior 74 years. So far, the red swelling, a headache, and three days of itching have been the only reaction. I truly hope it doesn’t develop into a more serious reaction, though a talk with a volunteer rescue squad member told me they do carry epinephrine on their trucks.

    Today we have rain, so I’m off the move the pots and barrels around and pick tomatoes. This afternoon while it rains, I will can another batch of pizza sauce and use some of it on tonight’s dinner.

  • Oh those Wily Chickens

    I started raising chickens a decade or so ago to provide us with eggs. With new chicken syndrome, too many ended up here and too many young randy roos, so Son 1 and I learned to dispatch them and put them in freezer camp. I find them too tough to eat but for a few years, he would take frozen ones home occasionally. His situation doesn’t provide the facilities for that to happen at this point and there are several still in the freezer. Over the years, fewer chicks were purchased at replacement time, but last time, they were purchased in February and half died, they were replaced and several died, they were replaced again, thinking I would end up with only the few I started out to get, but ended up with 15, two were roos and dispatched that summer.

    With more hens than are necessary, I found a friend that would gladly take a couple dozen a week off my hands. Daughter also welcomes some, but I have found that my priority for the eggs has shifted from producing them for our use to hoarding them all week so friend and daughter get what they want. The current 13 hens are going on 2.5 years old, molt is starting for the first time as last winter they hadn’t yet had a winter as adults and didn’t molt. Their age has also slowed laying. One has taken to becoming an egg eater, though I haven’t caught her in the act to isolate her, just finding evidence later. And I hear egg song, go look in the coop to remove the egg to stop her and there isn’t one there, so they are hiding them.

    This morning, I heard egg song from this thicket.

    There were three hens in there and rooting around from two sides, I couldn’t find where they might have laid their eggs. Only 4 have been in the coop today. A few minutes ago, I heard egg song again, right behind the house. The walled garden built last summer is pretty overgrown due to patio construction and rocks being tossed aside out of the way until it is finished, so weeding has been sporadic and the vetch and comfrey have taken over. The herb part I have tried to keep clearer, but the deer were eating down a tall flowering plant against the tall wall, so I leaned a piece of old fence there to protect them and the weeds had grown up under the leaning fence. I found this:

    Six eggs hidden. There must be another cache somewhere else also. So it seems that they are laying them in the flowers and thickets instead of the coop. I guess they will have to lose their free range time except for a few hours each late afternoon. As they think nothing of going over a 4 foot fence, using electric mesh that can be moved through the orchard to give them fresh grass ever day or so won’t work.

    Since my priority has gotten skewed, when these hens are replaced, there will only be 5 or 6. I will stop providing eggs for my friend (she can buy free range eggs from the Farmer’s Market) and will give daughter extras, but our household will come first.

    On the plus side, while rooting around in the thicket, I spotted peaches. We didn’t plant a peach tree on that side of the yard, but there must be a volunteer, I have seen it bloom in the spring, but never followed up later in the summer. Maybe the thicket needs to be cleared back so the peaches on that tree can be accessed, giving us two peach trees and more fruit than we can possibly use.

    This is the plant the deer eat back, the butterflies love it.

  • An Interesting Experiment

    The garden has never grown beans that were intended to be dried and stored until this year. A 4 X 4 foot square bed was planted with Pinto bean seed. The package said they were not a climbing bean, so no structure was provided. Over the past couple of weeks, the plants were browning out, but this past week, we have had thunderstorms just about every day and more rain a few nights. This afternoon, I went over to see if the green beans had produced enough for out dinner, there weren’t, but it was obvious that the Pintos needed to be pulled. Unfortunately, many had been on the ground as the plants died back and were sprouted or molded. The bed produced about 5 cups of useable beans that are now drying further for storage.

    Also a basket of tomatoes, a handful of hot peppers, a couple ears of corn and the Komatsuma thinnings. It took me all afternoon to shell the beans even after spreading them the back deck to dry the pods more. It was an interesting experiment but I think a pole bean that dries off the ground would produce more useable beans. Some research will be done to find one appropriate for this area that will be suitable for the types of recipes we use beans for.

    Somehow the deer managed to lift the netting on the grapes and they have grazed off all of the leaves on the woodpile side and have eaten the last remaining bunch of grapes.

    Earlier this week two days of canning were done and it looks like another batch of Rotel style tomatoes are in order tomorrow.

    Peppers, Tomatillo Jalapeno jam, Rotel tomatoes, and Peach Sriracha sauce were added to the shelves.

    This week I added a craft to the basket. Sashiko, a Japanese form of embroidery used as visible mending or as decorative stitchery. I can thank the spindle social group to introduce this one. As hubby playfully calls all of my fiber crafts, sewing, it seems only appropriate to actually have one that is sewing.

    These three mini panels are being stitched to the fabric they are on to become the pocket on a canvas tote bag.

    For a while, I have been trying to decide whether to cease vending and selling as a cottage business. The tax ramifications cause stress every year, so at the end of this calendar year, Cabin Crafted will cease to exist.

  • Olio 7/22/2022

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

    There hasn’t been an olio post in a while, but events and photos have been gathering so let’s throw them together here.

    I don’t use family names in my blog, but those of you who actually know me will identify this one. Son 1 has been working very hard to complete his PhD, and yesterday he successfully defended his dissertation. His defense was able to be watched via Zoom and hubby did watch it and shouted out when the congratulatory announcement was made. We are so very proud of his achievement that he has worked so hard to earn while also teaching and being the Director of Communications of the Honors’ College at the University where he works.

    The very hot weather and intermittent evening thunderstorms have produced some delightful sunsets lately. Because the hens need to be secured each night, many of these sunsets have been appreciated and a few photographed by me. Here are two of the better ones.

    The peach tree and berry canes have been providing delicious fresh fruit this week. Most of the berries go into the freezer for breakfast smoothies, but always some enjoyed as they are being picked. The peaches are just coming into their period of ripeness and several have been enjoyed fresh. A batch of some sort of peach jam will soon be made, though most jam making is going to be skipped this year. Last year’s jams were not a consistency that I liked and most of them ended up in the compost this spring so the jars could be washed for reuse as they sat unopened all winter. Very little jam gets eaten here and with not doing many craft shows, it isn’t getting sold either. I do make a couple of jams that are used as meat sauces, so they will be made in smaller quantities. Perhaps, canned peach halves or slices will join the shelves this year. They aren’t freestone peaches, so getting clean halves or slices is more difficult, but doable. Next up will be the apples and Asian pears. The deer have eaten all the lower apples and leaves and there seem to be fewer Asian pears this year, but enough for some fresh eating and some Pear Marmalade. And the deer have denuded the grape vine leaves that aren’t netted, the chickens having eaten all the grapes except one cluster they can’t reach. Before next year, a means to keep them out from under the vines needs to be formed. If it was downhill from the garden, the fencing could be expanded to protect it, but it is uphill and the chicken coop is in the way. Perhaps training the vines up a taller trellis so the hens can’t reach the hanging fruit. The deer are so bold they come right up to the house, into the walled garden and graze the flowering plants in pots and half barrels down. Just as I thought there would be flowers on some seed sown late spring, the plants are nipped off. Netted tomato cages can prevent that but it is so unsightly.

    The bees need tending. They have been neglected for the past couple of weeks while I healed from the Bald Faced Hornet attack that hubby and I suffered on the back deck. That giant nest is now dead and removed and the deck is again useable, the swelling in my hand and arm and the itching have subsided from the 5 stings I received, so the bees need tending. It is just too hot to go out midday when they are foraging, wearing the bee protective clothing and they are all in the hives late in the day and early in the morning, but with two weeks of extreme temperatures ahead, it will have to be done anyway, one hive at a time so outside exposure is limited.

    Some of the fall planted seed is up in the garden, though I still don’t see pumpkin seedling. More careful tending of the weeds is in order so it doesn’t require so much effort later.

    The mower still sits without diagnosing whether the belt broke or jumped the pulley’s. With it so hot, the grass won’t sprout up as fast, so there may be a couple weeks before it becomes an issue, but it should be addressed and remedied before it is needed.

    The spindle group scavenger hunt this month has been a fun diversion and has kept my spindles busy and the knitted tribute hat is coming along nicely too, a few rows at a time, which is all the arthritis in my hands allows. Spinning doesn’t bother them, but knitting does. Maybe I should return to crochet and see if that is painful. My fiber arts began with crochet, about 60 years ago. Crochet was lost to smocking, to counted cross stitch and crewel, to knitting, then spinning and a little weaving. Weaving doesn’t bother the arthritis, but warping the loom is stressful, so not as much weaving is done as it should be.

    The randomness of the Olio posts is fun at times. I hope you enjoy them as well.

  • Hot summer

    The world seems hot, wild fires, drought. Our garden hasn’t been watered except rainfall and two other well water sessions, but the weeds don’t seem to care. It was looking terrible yesterday, so the line trimmer was taken over to attack the paths. The deadnettle has been regularly weeded from the tomatoes and peppers and when I see it in the beans, the copy cat weed. As the trimming was being done, there were many blueberries to be picked, a total distraction, but also realization that if weedwacking was done there, it would damage many low branches of those shrubs. That put me on hands and knees to pull all of the grass and the insidious creeping weed that is trying to overtake the garden, but the blueberries are clear for now and the corn bed was done too. Doing that showed that the only pumpkin that came up was gone. Seminole pumpkins take 60-90 days and we have that much time before first frost, so this morning, more were planted.

    In the cooler part of the morning, today, the last of the spring peas were picked, providing about 8 ounces of shelled peas. A basket full of green snap beans also picked, a handful of blackberries. The blueberries and blackberries were added to my bag of frozen smoothie fruits, a favorite summer breakfast.

    After lunch and our hot walk, more time was going to be spent in the garden, planting the fall peas, fall potatoes, and preparing the bed that will be beneath the little greenhouse for carrots, radishes, spinach, and komatsuma, but just as I reached the back door, we were given a severe thunderstorm warning that produced lots of noise and light close by, but almost no rain. It seems to have passed, so a bit more work will be tackled out there to get the fall garden started. The green beans from the first planting provided 3 more pounds today but are no longer flowering, there are a few more to harvest, and the second planting is coming along nicely and just beginning to flower. The later ones are never as good, but if picked young enough, can be frozen or made into dilly beans for later in the year.

    The garden really needs a real compost bin system or compost tumbler. I’m in a bad habit of weeding and leaving the weeds to compost in the paths instead of turning them into usable soil. This morning’s weeding was at least added to the pile, but yesterday’s weeds need to be cleared and put in the pile, and the pile needs to be turned.

    This is the time of year when the garden had gotten ahead of me and a few days of work put it back into a friendlier place that doesn’t frustrate me when I see it.

    The storm was short lived so another couple of hours were invested, the fall potatoes and fall peas were planted. The spring potato bed was smoothed and the greenhouse frame set in place to show position of the rows for the other fall seed that will be sown this week. As soon as it was done, rain started to provide a heavy shower to settle the seed in. Another shower is expected before dark.

    I opened this house while smoothing the bed, to remove old nests and found these feathered little ones staring back at me. That task can wait for another day. I didn’t see Mom so I’m not sure what they are as I didn’t want to disturb them too much. There has been an Eastern Bluebird gathering food lately, so maybe hers.

    Though I’m not much of a selfie person, I had to take this photo in front of the tallest sunflower, I can’t even reach the top.

    The cleaned up garden. Some weeding along the fence is needed, but that too will have to wait for another day.

    The first tomatoes are coming in, the pepper plants all have some peppers on them, the cucumbers are growing, but not producing yet. We will take what we get. The Pinto beans are beginning to dry. It doesn’t look like there will be a great number, but fun to have grown my own bed of them for the first time. Maybe next year there will be a large bed of them and forego the corn that really hasn’t done much.

    During all of this, spinning and knitting is still in the works. The monthly challenge is a scavenger hunt with spindle photographed with the item. And some of the spinning from last month and early this month is being knit into a chemo cap as a tribute to my friend that passed from cancer earlier this summer.

  • The Farm Provides

    I am not an off the grid homesteader by any stretch, but in the 16 years in the house, 6 apple trees, 2 Asian Pear trees, 3 peach trees (though only 1 survived), a plum, 8 blueberry bushes, thornless raspberries and thornless blackberries have been added. With this is the vegetable garden, growing potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar snap peas, shelling peas, bush green beans, Pinto beans, cucumbers, 4 types of hot peppers, 4 types of tomatoes, Seminole pumpkins, and hopefully some corn. There is a grape vine, but for the second year in a row, something has gotten all of the grapes before they ripened for harvest. Last year I blamed the deer, but netted it this year and have found the chickens under the net, so I think they may be the culprits. The fields are surrounded with wineberries and wild blackberries. There is a coop with 13 mature hens. Though the berries don’t produce a lot, there are some to freeze for yogurt smoothies and enough wild berries to make a few jars of jam. The peach tree is full of ripening fruit, the apples and Asian pears also, though the deer keep them pruned fairly high.

    Yesterday, the spring planted potatoes were dug and even after several meals worth having been dug around the edges, there were 46+ pounds of Kennebeck and Russet potatoes in varying size from slightly smaller than a golf ball to decent sized ones. The ones that are very small and the ones that were close enough to the surface to be greened with Solanine, will be replanted toward the end of the month for fall potatoes. The rest will be cured then packed in wood chips for storage. Most of the peas are already harvested and some frozen, but yesterday the harvest also provided more than 4 pounds of green beans to be processed into dilly beans or blanched and frozen for winter use. The second planting that was put in late last week are emerging, and there are still many beans developing on the first planting.

    The chickens that went through two heat domes and three broodies, are back to providing a decent amount of eggs. Last night there were 11 from the 13 hens, so they will stay and produce until next year’s batch are raised and laying next spring. The molt in the late fall will halt production while they grow new feathers, and by then it will be cold enough that few eggs will be laid.

    A fall seed order is being planned and ordered. With the little greenhouse purchased in early spring and the 12 foot fiberglass hoops that are currently holding up net over the blueberries, there will be two areas of protection for fall veggies to supplement the hydroponics that provide winter lettuce. Hopefully, the garden will continue to give until a hard freeze takes it out.

    Now with the bees, in a year, we will have all the sweetener that will be needed for us. We don’t hunt, don’t care for wild game, don’t raise cattle, pigs, or meat chickens, so we will never be totally self sufficient, but the fruits, vegetables, eggs, and honey cut the grocery bill, especially with prices rising. With the Farmer’s Market, I can get whatever meat is needed as well as cornmeal, oatmeal, and whole wheat flour, cheese, and any breads I don’t want to bake. This keeps most of our groceries local, keeping me busy, and helping support the local farms. In the fall, when the You Pick blueberry farm near us opens, more berries will be added to the freezer for muffins and smoothies. Even the milk for the yogurt comes from a local dairy, packed in returnable glass bottles.

    Today, the potatoes will be spread to cure, the beans processed for later use, and clean up of the dusty footprints from someone with very high arches that chose to dig in sandals last night.

  • Hay is done, Harvest has begun

    The hay is baled and awaiting pick up. Just slightly more than half of last year’s cutting, but we had several freezing nights in May and a fairly dry early spring. It is what it is and they have more to add to their winter hay supply for their cattle.

    The first fruit from the plum produced about 2 dozen delicious plums. Not enough for jam but I am enjoying them a few at a time. Peaches are almost ready to begin harvest. Blueberries are beginning to ripen and I also pick a handful each time we walk on one of our trails. The first planting of shelling peas was pulled today and a couple quarts of peas frozen for later use as well as enough for dinner tonight with a few new potatoes.

    The first tomatoes were brought in today as well, a small cluster heirloom that are delicious.

    While harvesting them, I spotted this large hornworm. The chickens thought it and a grub or two were delicious.

    There are now two beds that are open, so I will plant a second planting of green beans. The sprouted cucumbers and sunflowers were planted in today. I think a few more will be planted out from seed.

    Soon the potatoes will have to be dug, not just sneaking out a couple for dinner. Maybe some bolt resistant greens will go in the other bed.

    The chickens have figured out how to escape the run, but since the hay is down, they can again free range.

  • Gardening for a loser

    As I age, the heat bothers me more and more. We actually run the A/C in summer now, not just relying on the fans. And as I have had my third skin cancer removed this week after having 6 keratosis frozen off last month, I have to wear long sleeves, sunscreen, and a big hat to be outside, so not comfortable when it is in the upper 80’s, so the garden is winning, I’m losing. All of my efforts last year prior to the garden season of putting down cardboard, building boxes, and mulching paths hasn’t helped much. The paths are full of grass and prickly weeds, there are two weeds that seem to love the beds and require lots of weeding. It can only be done first thing in the morning or late in the evening and the weeds are winning. The heat has caused the spinach to bolt, the peas to wilt, and the potato foliage is already dying back. All but two spinach plants were harvested last evening and stripped of useable leaves, the last of the stressed sugar snap peas were picked and shelled as shelly peas as the pods were too tough.

    The line trimmer needs to be taken to the paths, the comfrey cut back, the potato bed heavily mulched with straw until they can be dug, the tomatoes and peppers hand weeded.

    More cucumbers and sunflowers were started late last week and there were nice shoots in starter pots on the deck table. We had a wicked storm last night that required bringing the umbrella in, flipping the glass top table over, so the shoots were placed on the deck floor, in a sheltered place. When trimming this week, I twice spotted a field mouse under the deck and this morning, half of the new shoots are gnawed off.

    The back flower garden that was so much effort last year is a weed fest. The flowers are mostly potted as we aren’t finished back there yet, but the soil surface is full of unwanted growth and since the soil layer is thin over weed mat and cardboard, hoeing it doesn’t work. The deeper section below the retaining wall has enough soil to be fairly easy to hand weed.

    The deer are feasting on plants they have never bothered before and the hay is still standing. At least the mowers are back home and local grandson got the yard mowed this week with me getting the parts I don’t want him doing by mowing in the evenings.

    At this point, instead of enjoying it, I am frustrated with it. Maybe it is time for old lady beds that are at least knee high and set over a substrate material that will actually block out the weeds. I love the stuff growing in half barrels that are easy to reach and maintain, but not a lot can be grown that way. Once we are really getting food from the garden, my feelings will become more positive, but right now, I’m glad we have a great Farmer’s Market and a grandson who enjoys riding the riding mower for a few bucks every now and then.

  • Purgatory

    The hens are 2 1/2 years old and laying has significantly fallen off the cliff. Only about half as many per week as a year ago, plus this summer, they are taking turns being broody that also slows production. The first hen to go broody was a Buff Orpington and trying to wait her out was unsuccessful. She sat for 5 weeks. Without a broody cage, the only solution that came to mind was to put her in the Chicken Palace, a large A-frame coop made from scrap wood and extra roofing material that was going to be for meat chickens. It has never really been used that way, but is used to isolate old hens when new pullets are ready to go to the coop. It has proved a good purgatory for a broody hen to be isolated for 3 days and 3 nights with food, water, and an old homemade ladder to perch on, but no nesting boxes. It worked with her and when late last week another Buff went broody, she was immediately removed to Purgatory for three days and three nights. She was freed Tuesday night, just in time for an Easter Egger to go broody beginning last night. Tonight, she was put in there to begin her cooling off period.

    She is most unhappy with her current situation, but if left alone, she would just encourage more copycat behavior.

    Early in the week, we had two of our grandchildren for two nights. They are 10 and 15, so old enough to do adventures with. We took them to the Amish store in Whitegate for the best sandwiches that are huge and relatively inexpensive, then a few more miles to Dismal Falls or Falls of Dismal depending on which sign you see. Last time we were there, almost no water was going over the falls, but there was still a swimming hole. This time, a lot of water was spilling down, very, very cold water. Still not as much as photos show, but still very pretty. Though none of us were brave enough to actually swim, we all waded, and granddaughter managed to dunk fully under once.

    An AT thru hiker and I debated whether this was a water snake or a copperhead. I didn’t want to get close enough to see if it had pits, but it did have the hourglass markings. The hiker thought it was a water snake. At any rate, he knocked it off the log with a trekking pole and it went downstream.

    Tonight a thunderstorm passed to the south down the river, producing a lot of cloud to ground lightening that I tried to capture with a photo unsuccessfully, but the storm light made the still standing hay look red.

    Even though it didn’t pass over us, hopefully it will cool the 92 degree day down. Tomorrow is still very hot and Saturday is supposed to be 16 degrees cooler, a welcome relief after this week. Our hay is still standing, the deer are eating the lower branch tips on all the fruit trees, the potted plants on the porches and back garden are requiring daily watering.

    The garden still has no cucumbers and few sunflowers, corn is beginning to show. More cucumbers and sunflowers were started today on the back deck. The heat is going to wipe out the peas, but the beans are beginning to flower. The potato plants are beginning to die back, so a storage plan needs to be decided on soon.