Tag: books

Small but generous

This year, the garden is small, only 5 metal raised beds that vary from 3×3′ to 3.5×5′ plus a small patch of corn and sunflowers and the bed of blueberry bushes. Oh and the asparagus bed that is now tall ferns putting nutrients in the roots for next year’s crop.

Yesterday in the heat, the first green beans were harvested, enough to freeze some and share some with daughter’s family. The cucumbers are producing faster than I can pickle them, but only one has gotten large enough to discard to the remaining 6 chickens. It is one of their favorite summer time treats.

The weeds had gotten tall in the paths and unused part of the garden again, so before it got hot this morning, the line trimmer was put to use and cleared the paths and near the pumpkins with some hand weeding around the bases of them. They are not being very successful competing with the weeds. Also this morning, the tomatoes were trimmed and tied to the trellis, more green beans, onions, cucumbers, and the volunteer potatoes were brought in.

The assistance of the local grandson has been requested and the chicken tunnel fence is going to be moved to allow them in the parts of the garden that don’t have the raised beds that are productive. They will enjoy the fresh greens, scratch the roots up and clean that area up. It will likely mean the loss of the pumpkins, but as I only use a couple a year to make pies, I can purchase them at the Farmer’s Market this fall.

The volunteer potatoes had pushed some to the surface and they had developed the green solanine, so those were replanted in the bed that had the peas and onions earlier, as we are still within the potato planting window here. The bed that had earlier grown the garlic was replanted with a second planting of green beans and as we are approaching bean beetle season, they will likely be covered in row cover as soon as they emerge. Often, the second planting is destroyed by the beetles before they can really produce.

I just finished reading “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” by Robin Kimmerer. An expansion of an essay she wrote on gift and service economy. We should all spend more time giving of our excess and our time and less of the consumer economy in which we live. I try with giving eggs and produce to family and friends, and time as a volunteer at the museum, but more could be given.

July 1, 2025
The Norm

This seems to be a daily event right now. Thick gray clouds for a good part of the day, temperatures in the 80’s (27-29 c) and humidity in the 80%s so hot and muggy.

It does mean that the deck flowers and vegetable garden don’t need watering, but the paths of the garden did need attention with the line trimmer. That was done in the fog yesterday morning after I had to chase a soaking wet hen though the foot tall weeds when she figured out how to get in the garden but not back out the night before.

When regrading the driveway and preparing to try to clear some of the gravel from the ditch below the culvert, the tractor ran out of fuel. The fuel gauge is a float device, stuck to the bottom of the fuel tank, so it doesn’t register even when full. Of course I was at the top of the driveway and had to walk down the hill to the house to get the diesel can and carry 5 gallons back up the hill. After filling, the tractor started right up then stalled, repeatedly. I sent a text message to our hay guy to see if he thought it was something I could fix or if I needed to call the repair folks to come get it. His phone died just as he started to read my text and thought I had a critical issue and came right over with this pickup with the fuel tank in the bed. Realizing the issues, he opened the engine compartment, removed various hoses, cleaned out the fuel filter and put it back together. Still stalled, so more hoses removed and there was a clog where the fuel feeds from the tank to the fuel pump. It was unclogged and worked fine for him afterward.

As we were going away for the weekend, the tractor was parked back in the barn and the next morning, VDOT graded the road and cleared the ditches.

Our Father’s Day weekend was to attend a play with Son 1, DIL, 2 grandsons, and her parents. This was part of our Christmas gift from Son 1 and DIL. The play was very interesting and thought provoking. The title was Andy Warhol in Iran. It took place in a hotel room with only two character’s, Andy Warhol and a revolutionary who was trying to kidnap him. The character development was fascinating, the two actors performed for 90 minutes straight with interaction and monologue sidebars.

This followed by dinner out at an Ethiopian restaurant. Father’s Day was breakfast out with Son 1, DIL, and their son and a drive home in the rain. Then ice cream out with Daughter, SIL, and 3 grands.

We have been fortunate to get our daily walks in between rain storms, but the heat and humidity wear on me now.

The garden is now providing. Yesterday, the garlic was harvested, but is having to dry in the garage. The first of the peas harvested and half of them enjoyed last night, the other half frozen. The green beans are tall and flowering, a second planting needs to go in where the garlic was removed. Cucumbers are climbing the trellis and flowering. A few new potatoes were pulled from under the volunteer plants to serve with the peas last night.

We will return to the Farmer’s Market this weekend to stock up on vegetables for salad and ones I either don’t grow or haven’t begun producing here yet.

June 17, 2025
Printed Goodness

Several years ago I joined the eBook populous and either rent ebooks (did you know you don’t actually buy them! And they can be withdrawn from your library on the whim of the publisher!); or check real books out of the library and rarely buy a print book, but yesterday an exception was made.
A few weeks ago, a fellow blogger sent me a link to another blog for a recipe. The recipe author has penned two cookbooks.

Before I bought either, I wanted to preview them and couldn’t find them in the library so I looked for them in our local Barnes and Noble retailer but they didn’t have either in stock. They special ordered them for me to preview and they arrived just prior to my leaving for the retreat so I couldn’t go look at them. Tonight, after dinner we traveled the two towns over so I could preview them before they were returned or put in their stock.

I couldn’t decide between them, both containing many interesting recipes for putting by garden and Farmers’ Market goodies and I left with both books. I don’t know whether to thank my blogging friend or not, but I have added to my library and have many, many new ideas for preserving garden goodness, so thank you Yanic for the linky.

October 1, 2014
Book Challenge

One of my avid passions is reading. My favorites are forensic science fiction, historical fiction and fiction by local authors or authors that set their books in areas or regions that are familiar to me, though I often read books recommended by friends, family, or public reviews..

Last year I joined a 100 book challenge a bit into the year and succeeded in reading 90+ books. This year, again I joined the challenge and have read almost 50 books so far. The challenge is a group including many of my friends, however, it is on Facebook and I have decided to deactivate my account. I will miss the book suggestions and reviews from this group.

I have always loved books and have several that I read repeatedly such as Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the classic To Kill A Mockingbird.

All of our family are readers and I have been in awe of our 9 year old grandson, who while staying with us this summer has read in excess of 4000 pages of novels. Though he still picks up some books that would be considered 3rd to 4th grade level, he has read the entire Seven Wonders series, the entire Eragon series (3 of the 4 are over 750 pages each), and reread the first book of the Hunger Games series. He not only can read them, but will sit and discuss them with you. In that sense he reminds me of his Dad at that age. Such a great passion, love of books.

August 9, 2014
On a Spinning Roll

I’m on a roll. In the past couple of days, I’ve spun 185 yards of natural white Shetland wool. The yarn weight is DK to Sport weight depending on which chart I use, it is 12 WPI (wraps per inch). As I want both skeins to be 100 yards, I am spinning the last 2 ounces of the Shetland. Anything that is left after skeining them, will go to my Funky Fiber skein that will eventually be a throw for cold nights.

This is the first 100 yard, 75 g skein, waiting for a wash.

Part of the last two ounces on the wheel.

The growing Funky Fun skein of various fibers and colors.

The hours spinning have cut into knitting and reading time. I have been on the same book for over a week and progress on my shawl seems to only happen when we are in the car. Even retired, there just aren’t enough hours to do all the fun things that I want to do.

April 7, 2014