Tag: gardening

Sunday on the farm

My birdwatching friend identified the nest as a Carolina Wren. I’m not sure if she returned to the nest last night. When I went over to let the hens out this morning, feed them, and clean their coop, I didn’t see her, but her nest is at the other end of the garden from the coop area.

When I returned from that job, I grabbed my clippers and thick leather gloves to prune back an overgrown barberry bush before it leafs out. As I approached, I was scolded loudly by a bird I couldn’t see, and found this.

Ok, so not a stellar photo as I stuck one hand into the Barberry thorns to see if there were any eggs. It appears to be another Carolina Wren. Glad she chose a bush and not the ground or a shelf in the garage.

One of my first tasks each morning is feeding the sourdough starter. Today is day 5 of getting this one going and I could use it today, but there is still some bread in the freezer to use up first. Maybe I will start loaves tomorrow as it takes about 24 hours to go through the entire process. I quit making sourdough a while back because I was disturbed by the waste of discarding starter before feeding it and because I could buy sourdough bread locally at the Farmers’ Market and Natural food stores. Recently, I found an article that said the starter can be fed to chickens, which is a plus. When you make and feed the starter, you use equal amounts of flour and water. Every recipe I had ever found said to use 4 ounces or 125 grams of flour depending on whether they were measuring with cups or a scale. To do that you are tossing out about 1/2 cup of starter every time you feed it and it makes about 4 cups of starter which seemed too wasteful. You only use about 1 tablespoon of starter to get the leaven going. I found an article the other day that said to use only 25 grams of flour and water and feeding the chickens about 2 tablespoons of starter seems much less wasteful and it fits in a pint widemouth jar with lots of room to spare. Since two loaves of sourdough bread is plenty for a week for two of us, and since flour is hard to come by right now, this seemed ideal. I got the starter going with this plan.

This was before I fed it this morning and you can see there will be very little waste and the starter is strong and healthy. Tomorrow I will bake for the week. I still want to play with other uses for the sourdough such as pizza dough and focaccia bread. I need to get back in the routine of making the bread since going out to the Farmers’ Market to buy from the two bakers there is not in the cards right now.

Found this little butterfly stretching it’s wings in the sun on the deck. I couldn’t decide if it was damaged or still unfurling, but after a while, it flew away, so must have been unfurling.

The butterfly was followed by a Tufted titmouse sitting on my breakfast chair trying to crack open a sunflower seed.

So bear in the field yesterday, deer this morning, 2 Carolina Wren nests with eggs, and lots of colorful little songbirds enjoying the feeders. Love watching the wildlife on the farm.

These frothy white trees are blooming everywhere on our walk today. I thought they were wild cherries, but the bark doesn’t look right.

Her relative was mowing our grass again this morning. She stayed on her own farm. After the walk, some digging in the dirt was in order to weed the bed of iris, day lilies, and where the calendula was last year. Though I started calendula seed indoors, there are lots of volunteers in that spot already. And purple echinacea was started indoors too, there is room for them in the same bed.

April 5, 2020
A few days ago, I posted about the feeding station for the birds. This morning when I entered the kitchen and looked out, it wasn’t there. Upon closer examination, the pole was pulled over, the feeders emptied and some minor damage. It doesn’t look like the doings of a bear, but probably a raccoon climbed the pole and was too heavy toppling it. All the sunflower seed and the new suet cake were gone, the suet cage bent and the lid ripped off. The pole was stood back up and anchored with rocks as the fork like prongs that stabilize it in the soil are bent, the feeders cleaned up, repaired, and refilled. I guess one of my new evening duties is going to be to go out and gather the feeders and bring them in to the garage for the night from now on.

Yesterday afternoon, I did go out to work on the fencing and realized that it is too much for me to do by myself, so instead, I finished rebuilding the garden boxes. Several years ago, I purchased cedar raised bed boxes from Home Depot. The box assembly as a grooved post and the boards fit in the grooves. That assembly did not hold up well. I have been taking them apart, and using outdoor deck screws, fastening the boards to the outside of the post, making the boxes slightly smaller but sturdier. One box needs leveling before I can finish filling them with compost to planting. If I ever succeed in getting rid of the mint that I foolishly planted in one several years ago, there will be a blank spot in the garden as I removed that box to make mint removal easier. The box failed to contain the mints and mint is in the aisles and beginning to appear in adjacent boxes. Lesson learned.

The area to the right of the lowest box and barrels will be a corn patch. I rarely plant corn unless it is popcorn in a three sisters garden, but decided to try some sweet corn this year.

The peas are coming up nicely, I am happy to see. Still no sign of spinach and the flat started in the house several days ago is also not germinating, it might be a poor batch of seed.

With the warmth comes the Carpenter bees. I had left the traps up overwinter and dumped the contents early this week. They are already filling up. We don’t usually see them until mid May. This is indeed a weird year for the climate.

As the day cooled and the sun was low, I took my walk down our rural road. Nothing new to see, the calves were not where I could see them from the road, but I did find a branch with many shelf fungi on it.

Once dark has fallen, I retire to my easy chair and knit or spin. My current project is a lacy skinny scarf out of hand spun wool and silk for my daughter. It was in my lap along with my needle case and I realized that they nicely coordinated.

I am determined to get at least one run of fence between the chicken pen and the garden stable today so that I can let the hens clean up that side of the garden area. The forecast is for it to get into the 80’s today in March.

March 28, 2020
A Day of Retirement – 9/7/2019
I wonder how I managed when I worked outside of the home. I have been retired for almost a decade now and time to sit and not do anything but rest just doesn’t seem to be in my day. That may be because I generally can’t sit calmly and do nothing, I have to be reading, knitting, spinning, or up gardening, cooking, or cleaning the house or the laundry.

Hubby is a night owl that prefers to sleep later, I live by the sun, ready for bed by 9:30 p.m. and awake with first light. That morning time is used to do animal chores, garden, or sit and spin.

Once we are both about the house, the other household chores are tackled. With two large dogs, there is always vacuuming or mopping to be done. Most of the rugs in the house have been discarded over the years, except for the Oriental in the living room. The wood floors are easier to keep clean than rugs. The living room rug needs professional cleaning, but gets vacuumed several times a week until there are no dogs in the house.

Each day, we try to get in a brisk walk of more than 2 miles. Most of those walks are taken on an old paved rail grade that begins at the Blackburg library and ends in Christiansburg with a side leg that goes off of it at about the 3 mile mark in the opposite direction to an old farm that is now a park. Other days, we go to the local pond that has a graded soil and gravel path around it and is almost a mile, so we do it twice, with the path down to it and back, it gives us our two miles. On these walks, I often take seasonal photos. When I am solo, I wander the hills around our house or if visiting eldest son, try to walk their road or hike with the grandson.

Today the photos were mostly wild flowers, it seems that most of them are shades of purple, though I didn’t take the time to try to identify them.
And a barely flowing creek, another victim of our current drought.

Being retired does provide more freedom to attend events during the week, to grocery shop when needed, not just on weekends, and to help out with grandchildren.
September 7, 2019
Garden Day, Finally

Tomorrow is our last average frost date and it seems that we have gone from winter straight to summer, so we aren’t afraid of more cold nights. After our weekly jaunt in to the Farmers’ Market for salad, asparagus, a bit of meat and some more pepper seedlings, we started on the garden to do list. First up was removing the remaining 4 pods of the old compost bins. They were constructed 9 or 10 years ago when the property had been purchased, but the house was only under construction. My current compost bin is up from the chicken coop and serves me well. The very large multi-pod bin was necessary when the gardens were just started, filled with composting leaves and horse manure from down the road. They have served as temporary shelter for cull birds and last year for sweet potatoes, winter squash and pumpkins. Today we deconstructed it. SIL knocked it apart with a sledge, Daughter and I knocked nails through the boards and pulled them, dropping them in a bucket for later disposal. Many of the boards are Chestnut and still sound, so they were stacked with the idea of using them to construct a more permanent meat bird coop.

While we hammered and pulled, our helpers started on the weeding, to keep them away from the nails. Unfortunately, SIL missed and swears my middle name must be Vlad as he impaled one of the smaller finishing nails through the sole of this boot and into the instep of his foot.

Once the wood was stacked, we tackled the former grape bed that had not been weeded very well last year and had many large clumps of Bermuda grass growing in it. While Daughter and I weeded, SIL hauled rocks and put them in the tractor bucket. Daughter was given her first tractor driving lesson today and by the end of our workday, was driving the tractor alone to dump the buckets of rocks onto one of the dozens of rock piles on the farm.

The chickens loved having clumps of grass, chickweed, burdock, thistles and other greenery with roots tossed into their run. They are still penned up, because we still haven’t moved all of the fence to keep them out of the gardens.

Romeo standing guard.

Today was a great start on the garden. When it cools some tonight, I will set the peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos in the beds prepared for them. The former raspberry bed still needs further clean up, many volunteers pulled and weeds removed and we will get the beans and other seeds planted. The barren end of the chicken run will be planted with winter squash, the area where the compost bins stood, we will plant the Seminole Pumpkins. Until they get large, I will continue weeding the area between where the bins stood and the chicken run. Sunflowers will be planted along the edge of the garden for their beauty and for the seed for the chickens.

Love this time of year, just wish it wasn’t quite so hot already.

May 9, 2015
Soaking Wet

We had a couple of stellar spring days and took full advantage of it. One full bed of the garden was cleaned up, peas, Daikon radishes and a few pepper plants (which we may yet have to cover) and Swiss Chard plants we purchased were planted. We have garlic, onions, kale and turnips up. There are a few more beds to be cleaned up to plant the tomatoes, beans, cukes and summer squash and once the remaining peppers are large enough, they will also be planted. The strawberry plants don’t like the rain that we have had. Sunflowers and winter squash will be planted near the chicken runs. As the chickens are spending more time free ranging, I am considering reducing their run size and using their well fertilized, run, bare of weeds for more planting.

The spring’s first mowing was done and some of the house plants relocated to the front deck.

One of the Buffys is having reproductive issues and she is laying very strange eggs.

The egg on the right is a normal egg. The two on the left are two of her treasures for the past few days. All of the girls are at least 14 months old and less than 25 months old, so it shouldn’t be age. None of her odd eggs are double yolked, but the albumen is very watery and the shells all have cracks that have been calcified over. Her shells are very thin as well. If I could figure out which Buffy it is laying them, I would double band her as a potential cull.

The littles are getting braver and are coming out of the tractor more each day, however, today it has rained until I will need a rowboat to get to the coop. The littles somehow got locked out of their tractor this afternoon and were soaking wet when I went to lock them up. The Buffys who could get in their coop were also soaked, but they gave us 10 eggs today.

Instead of being outside, today was a day to make chicken feed and granola. I also did a bit of garage cleanup, still trying to merge extra bicycles and yard toys into the garage and still have room for Mountaingdad to turn the BBH around in there.

We are enjoying the change to spring, the trees and spring flowers blooming, the leafing out of the shrubs and trees; the warming days and nights and the lower electricity bills they will bring; the return of the spring Farmers’ Market and the fresh salads that it brings.

Loving life on our mountain farm.

April 19, 2015
Garden Season

Though we are still 6 to 8 weeks from our last frost, some garden tasks and a few vegetables can be planted now. For the past two days, we have had dry warm spring like days. As there are more mouths to feed in our household now, we decided to expand the garden, nearly double in size. To facilitate doing this, we first decided to move the grapevines from the north edge of the garden to the north edge of the orchard. The Raspberry canes that I had planted several years ago in the row near the south edge of the garden had become overwhelming, so we moved 6 plants along the chicken run and dug out the remainder of the canes to discard.

Raspberries along chicken run

Grapevines pruned and moved, needing new trellis.

Two of our helpers throwing weeds to the chooks from the now empty Raspberry bed.

Our day was waning, dinner prep needed doing, so we planted 40-50 young onion starts and a half dozen kale plants, erected a row cover bubble over the kale to keep out the cabbage moths/worms,

Tomorrow if we can get it done before the rain starts, we will plant Daikon radishes, turnips, and Lacinato Kale seed. On our next dry stretch, we will deconstruct the 4 remaining compost bins, collect some rock, perhaps rent a tiller and finish the expansion. A good day of labor. After our dinner prep and clean up, we planted tomato and pepper seeds in the indoor flats, put them on the warming tray and set the grow light over them.

Once the last frost date passes, hopefully we will have beds ready for twice as many tomatoes and peppers as last year, the peas and beans, sunflowers, and herbs will be planted. The winter squash are going to be planted in the orchard this year and allowed to spread at will. I may have to extend the electric fence around the orchard again to keep the deer out.

March 16, 2015
Olio, October 6, 2014

Olio: A miscellaneous collection of things.

The garden survived a 31ºf night and a 37ºf night through the aid of some row cover over the peppers and tomatillos. The beans that haven’t been eaten by the deer that have breeched the electric fence also survived. The pumpkins/winter squash patch is finally beginning to die back and there are dozens of the Burgess Buttercup squash beginning to show through. So far I don’t see a single Seminole Pumpkin which is disappointing. Today I waded through the thigh high patch, pulled back the squash vines and tried to dig the sweet potatoes.

I’m sure there are more there, but the vines will have to die back more before I try again. Now that they are harvested, they require a few days of curing at 80ºf. I don’t know how that will happen with the daytime temperatures at least 15 degrees lower than that and we haven’t turned the heat on in the house so it is 20 degrees cooler. I put them out on a rack in the sun this morning, but then the rains started, so they are in the utility room until we see sunshine again.

In July when visited our daughter’s family in Florida, our granddaughter came out in the cutest sun dress.

She and her mom love it because she can dress herself in it and it has no fasteners. Over confident Mountaingmom announced, “That would be so easy to make.” The bodice was traced on printer paper, the tiers measured approximately and brought home to the farm. Later two packets of fat quarters were purchased and I stalled. Before the Spinning retreat, I decided to begin them. First off, I failed to cut the front on a fold, I do know better. Second error was attempting to use three strands of narrow elastic to gather the back, I ended up buying wide underwear elastic later. Third error was in the measurements I had made of the ruffles which I realized before cutting. Daughter remeasured everything for me and a few days ago, I got serious about finishing the first dress.

Yesterday after finishing it, I decided that dress #2 was going to be made with a pattern and I purchased a simple A-line toddler dress pattern from McCall. As I still wanted to use the fat quarter that I bought for the second dress, The solution was to cut wide strips, sew them end to end, then side to side to create a large striped panel that was used to cut the pattern. I had some unbleached muslin that I used as facing as the pattern called for binding the edges with bias tape and I didn’t want to do that. Dress #2 was much easier to assemble.

As granddaughter lives in Florida, she will be able to wear them all year with a long sleeve T-shirt under them, so 3 T’s were bought to add to the package. Also in the package is a giraffe. Yes, a giraffe. Two Christmases ago, we bought her a little barn that has various activity parts to it and a collection of farm animals to put inside. Their dog got a couple of the animals and chewed them up, some of which were replaced, she selected a moose for her farm. Near their home is a farm that has a giraffe. We don’t know why or how they obtained it, but it is a source of amusement as we drive by, so her barn will now also have a giraffe.

The Hot Mess yarn that I spun at the retreat, was soaked and hung with a weight on it. The treatment helped relax the over twist some, so now I have a 106 yard skein of smooth, but tight yarn.

I have no idea what to do with it. It is too little for anything other than trim on something. There isn’t even enough to make a market bag.

The yarn on the bobbin is the random color Merino that I purchased at the retreat. The color isn’t showing up very well with no sun out and only house lighting to photograph it in, but it is basically lilac color with gold and maroon highlight. I haven’t finished plying it yet to measure, but it looks like it will be a couple hundred yards of fingering weight yarn.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

October 6, 2014
The Last. . .

…harvest of tomatoes that is. The vines are dry and brown, the handful of remaining tomatoes are being decimated by the stinkbugs and each day I pull and toss a vine to the chickens to pick over. There are a few remaining green slicer tomatoes and I will enjoy them as fried green tomatoes, a treat that I rarely indulge, partly because my diet contains very little fried food and partly because I let them ripen on the vine during warm weather to enjoy sliced or canned.

These will be canned probably into salsa to add to the root cellar shelves to enjoy and remember a successful tomato season when the snow is falling or the cold wet wind is blowing much sooner than ready.

…the last pullet figured out the egg laying business, sort of. There was a tiny egg this morning, apparently laid yesterday in the run and not seen until this morning when I went to let them out. It was dark when I locked them up last night when I came in from knit night. Surprisingly, nothing found it during the night. Now, if she will just lay them in the nesting boxes with the other hens. Romeo is a very frustrated young roo. None of his ladies in waiting will stand still for him to mount them, they run and peck. When he was first added to the run, several squatted in submission, but not now. It is going to be hard for us to raise a heritage flock if that behavior continues.

…of the 5 gallon bucket of stain will be mixed this morning once the fog clears, to stain the soffit and fascia board overhang from the front porch. At knit night last night, I ran into the manager of the Sherman Williams in the coffee shop and he suggested I wait until this weekend to buy more as the stain that we use will be on sale for 40% off and that is a significant savings in dollars for our budget. That also gives me two days for my sore and painful shoulder to calm down before I tackle the log wall of the front of the house. Saturday is to be mild and breezy with humidity in the right range for the project, so that will be the day to complete the task.

…the last few rows of the beautiful handspun sweater. The photo doesn’t do the color justice but it is lovely. It should be ready for the spinning retreat I will be attending soon.

September 18, 2014
Olio – September 10, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

At times I consider whether I should just rename my blog Olio as most posts fly all over the place. It is only mid morning on a day that the weather prognosticators said would be mostly sunny and dry, but instead it is thickly overcast and too humid again to paint or stain. The grass too wet with dew to mow. This isn’t to say that the morning has been idle, no instead a load of laundry has been folded, Grand #1’s bed remade from his weekend visit; another load of laundry washed and currently drying; the chicken coop refreshed with a turn of the old hay and an addition of new hay; the meaties chicken tractor given a good layer of hay in the bottom as it is currently more or less permanently set at the end of the 6 foot wide run to contain the 5 week old chickies and it was beginning to not smell so pleasant. Another huge bucket of tomatoes have been harvested, though I haven’t begun to process them yet, as I can’t decide what this batch will become, probably just plain diced tomatoes. Just in the last couple of days, the tomato vines have begun to fade.

There are still plenty of tomatoes to harvest, but this is a signal of the end of the summer growing season. This morning, the spent cucumber vines were pulled and tossed to the chickens to peck at the last few cukes and the bugs on the vines. Each year I begin the season faithfully pinching suckers from the tomato plants and trying to contain the branches within the cages and by this time each year, the branches have fallen over and through the cages and the plants look pitiful. Perhaps next year I will use strong stakes instead of cages and tie the plants up as they grow taller, being more faithful about leaving only one main stem. Next year, they will have the rich soil of the compost bins as we remove the wood from them this winter to expand the garden and create a more reasonably sized compost bin in a new location. So much of the stuff that used to go into the compost, now goes to the chickens and their bedding becomes the compost, so having the bin near the coop door on the edge of the garden would make more sense. That area is where I planted the Buttercup squash, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes this year and between them and my weeding efforts, the bin have remained fairly weed free this summer.

The squash have spread over the woodpile, over to the vegetable garden, into the chicken run and up the hill past the hay bales and out of the electric fence. Many of the huge leaves have burn marks across them and cause the electric fence to pop as they touch it. Yesterday as I mowed, with the fence off, I snapped off the leaves touching the fence. I know that one day soon, I will begin to see those vines fading like the tomato vines. The peppers are loving the cooler weather and are blooming and producing new peppers daily. The summer squash are mostly done. It is now a time for greens and a few radishes and turnips.

As I sit here waiting for the inspiration to can or the grass to dry for mowing, I am enjoying one of the only two magazines to which I subscribe. The magazine is Taproot, no advertising, full of wonderful art, recipes, articles about back to a simpler time of producing your own food, making your own clothes, growing your own animals and knowing from where your goods come. If you haven’t ever seen an issue, you should seek one out.

Each issue has a theme and each is wonderful to savor each word and save for future reference.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

September 10, 2014
The Hot Shelf

Every few days, the tomatillos, jalapeños, and habaneros overwhelm me and processing takes over the morning. Four more pints of hot green salsa, 1 more pint of pickled jalapeños, and 4 more 1 cup jars of XXX hot sauce (http://wp.me/p3JVVn-GH) were made for winter storage. The spicy globe basil was finally dry and it was crumbled and stored in jars 2 1/2 pints worth.
The tomatoes are beginning to ripen quickly so I will stop freezing them and start canning chili tomatoes, pasta sauce and more Casa Del Platero (http://wp.me/p3JVVn-GK) salsa for winter.
Peeks under the row covers show green bush beans developing, brocolli, chard, kale and cabbages getting some size on them. The winter squash and pumpkins are so verdant that it is difficult to see the fruits hidden in the jungle of leaves.

This has been a good garden season so far. Hopefully there will be lots to eat this winter.
Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

August 27, 2014