Slowly, piece by piece, the cottage business is departing. Still there are 5 spindles that get used regularly, the spinning wheel from my friend’s estate sale, the rigid heddle loom and stand, my knitting needles, and of course the great wheel that was never part of the business. I’ve kept the re-enactment folding table and period folding chair as I will still participate at events for fiber arts in history, and though they were sometimes used as part of displays, they aren’t part of the business. The remaining baskets and crates can be repurposed here at home. The two small tobacco style baskets can be made into door or wall decorations and may be made up in that style for the last event just before Christmas.
Next week, I will attend a fiber retreat and vend wares that were already in stock. One grandson asked for a pair of soft, dark fingerless mitts, so a skein will be set aside for that. There are 3 more events before the end of the year and no more stock will be made for them.
As the spinning is a stress relief for me, it will continue to be a hobby, but what I spin will be done with purpose as something that can be woven or knit as a gift. And as I reverted to spindles during the beginnings of the pandemic, most spinning will continue to be on spindles as it gives me pleasure and slows the production to a useable pace.
Batches of soap were made this week to be used at home, to be given as gifts, and to share with family members and friends that desire them.
It took me a long time to come to the decision to end this venture, but there is actually a sense of relief that it is coming to an end. I will move on to other adventures in my retirement. As long as family wants mitts, scarves, hats, and the occasional sweater, and friends want soap, it will keep me happy.
The online shop has already been shut down, so it is just moving out stock at events, trying to get to a manageable amount that can be used here or as gifts.
The blog will continue as it deals more with life on the farm. Keep watching for more posts as the seasons change.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t like going to the doctor, but who does. When I go, I have to psych myself up and feel like there is a real reason to do so. After all the bee and hornet stings, I was concerned that though my reaction to date has only been a headache, swelling, and subsequent itching, that a worse reaction could occur as allergies sometimes develop later in life. I have always reacted to insect bites and stings more than hubby. And I realized I was out of date of a routine screening that required his signature for scheduling and have recently developed a discomfort in one of my hips, so I scheduled an appointment.
Upon arriving, I was given a packet of 15 pages to fill out asking a medical history that they already had, with absolutely no questions regarding whether I smoked, drank alcohol, used drugs, or regularly exercised. Most of that packet I was told to hand to the doctor which I did. He had not read any of the nurses notes where I explained that I had not scheduled for a Medicare Wellness check, but to address my concerns. He did not even glance at the packet I had been asked to fill out. When I raised my concerns, he basically dismissed them telling me that if I have a reaction to stings to call 911. It is a volunteer organization and would not arrive fast enough if I had a bad reaction, and we live 20-25 minutes at least from either of the local hospitals. I asked about taking liquid Benedryl and what dose, which he did answer. The hip discomfort was dismissed as probably arthritis. The routine screening, I had managed to schedule on my own for them to send him the form to sign. Basically, the visit was a waste of my time, an unnecessary cost to Medicare and my supplemental insurance, and I really have no answers.
I am fortunate to have Medicare and a supplemental insurance, but it is no good if you don’t get answers. Perhaps it is time to look elsewhere.
On our walk today, I spotted this fungi covered log beside the trail. It fascinated the old Biology teacher in me and so I returned after the walk with my spindle to take a photo of it for the monthy challenge. The white patches are dappled sunlight that look like patches of snow on this 90 degree day.
What a busy week. At least the later half. On Thursday, hubby and I drove to mid South Carolina to pick up the two local grands from their other grandparents who drove them up from Florida that far. Daughter was unable to go get them and they needed a place to stay for a few days so they came home with us. They are now 10 and 15. On Friday, we took the 15 year old to take his learner’s permit test, which he passed and came out with a brand new learner’s permit. He mowed for us that afternoon after he and I determined that the mower had not broken the belt, just jumped it from the pulleys. I don’t know if it is stretched or if the repair shop made an adjustment while replacing the drive cable, but as long as you turn off the motor prior to disengaging the drive belt, it stays in place.
Saturday, he was given a lesson on driving the real tractor and did great, but after several starts and stops as we were using the height of the tractor to trim back some branches overhanging the driveway, it suddenly would not engage in any gear. It is parked in front of the barn until I can troubleshoot the issue, hoping it is something his size 13 feet kicked getting on or off. We did get the branches trimmed by using the seat of the riding mower, me pulling down on the branch to lower it enough for him to cut it. This was done after we all walked at the pond. It is great having a teenage boy around that is willing to work with grandmom to get things done I can’t do by myself and to have someone who enjoys riding the riding mower get the grass done.
Up a tree?Tractor lessons
They were taken home early this afternoon and daughter presented me with a gallon bag of jalapenos. Her’s are larger and more prolific than mine at this point. Once home after hubby and I walked in the rain for the 4th time this week, a basket of softball sized peaches was picked from our tree and canning commenced.
First up were the peppers. I process them two ways. First is to pierce them, pack them in a jar with a little oregano, a tablespoon of salt, and pour hot vinegar over them. They then sit out until cooled and are put in the refrigerator to pickle over the next couple of weeks. The other way is to make them shelf stable, by doing basically the same thing, but while still hot, water bath canning them so they seal.
There were about 2 1/2 pounds of Amish paste tomatoes that had been picked yesterday and they were next. Blanched and peeled, seasoned, cooked down, packed in jars for pizza sauce and they were water bath canned.
Nine of the huge peaches were blanched, peeled, chopped in the food processor, and made into Peach jam with Sriracha, which makes a great cream cheese topping with crackers or meat glaze. The peaches cooked while dinner was prepared and eaten and then the jam was packed in jars and canned.
Total for the day: 1 quart refrigerator pickled jalapenos, 5 pints canned pickled jalapenos, 4.5 half pints pizza sauce, 8.5 half pints Peach jam with Sriracha.
Several days ago, one of the Easter egger hens decided to be broody. She was put in “Purgatory” aka isolation on Thursday and released late this afternoon. She went straight back to a nesting box and parked. She is back in purgatory for another 2 or 3 days to cool her off. All of the hens are beginning to molt already and their pen is beginning to look like a pillow fight occurred in there and out in the yard where they wander during the day.
The monthly spinning challenge ended today with me finding all 31 scavenger hunt items and posting the daily picture with my spindle and the item. Though I didn’t spin as much this month as usual, I needed 62 grams spun and did about double that. The blue on the scale was used partially for the visible mending on my wool hoodie, and the white is more than half used on the tribute hat for my friend, so more spun than the scale shows.
Next month’s challenge has been posted and will begin tomorrow with the spinning for it.
During the week, while looking for a library book online, I saw the monthly selection for July was “The Girl in His Shadow” which was a great book sending me to the sequel “The Surgeon’s Daughter.” Both excellent historical fiction books set in the early 1800’s in England. If you are looking for a good book, I recommend both, but the second, the sequel should be saved til the first is read.
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.
A few weeks ago, I wrote that the riding mower cable to drive the blades broke and the gas “you push it” mower wouldn’t start. They were both hauled to the repair shop two towns over and “rested” there for 2 weeks before both were returned in good working order. Grandson mowed once for me just before leaving to visit his other grandparents for the month. I mowed again a couple weeks later, but it takes me at least two days to do what he can do in a few hours because the mower beats my back to spasms. Yesterday, the riding mower was backed out of the barn and about half the yard was mowed, at least the important parts near the house and between the house and the garden, and then it just quit. Thinking it needed fuel, the tank was filled and still it would turn over, but not start. The remaining part over to the coop was mowed with the push mower.
Fortunately, it was uphill from the house when it quit. This morning, I hooked up the utility trailer and backed it up to the embankment and hubby and I rolled the mower down the embankment and onto the trailer and hauled it back to the repair guy. As soon as he turned it on, he knew the problem, clamped off the gas line and replaced the gas solenoid (didn’t know it had one or what it was). All this was done without even taking it off the trailer. Paid him $20 and left with the mower. After our walk and return home, the mower unloaded and most of the rest of the area was mowed. As I was going around the barn, I spotted blackberry canes full of berries and since I was wearing a straw hat, I picked them using the hat as a basket.
There is another patch at the top of the hill which still needed to be mowed, but the dratted mower either broke the blade belt or threw it just as I started up the hill. In frustration, the mower was parked back in the garage until I can check to see if the belt is broken or just off the pulleys. If it jumped the pulleys, it is probably stretched enough that it will break soon. It has been an issue getting the correct size belt for it. If the model number is entered, the belt suggested by Lowes is too small. The repair shop that used to deal with the mower knew which belt it took, but they are out of business/retired, and the guy that has repaired it twice this summer doesn’t have the belt size recorded.
Much of what gets mowed with the riding mower can be done with a brush hog, but ours gave up several years ago and hasn’t been replaced. Equipment is so stressful. Maybe I need sheep and goats.
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.
Cabin Crafted 