Tag: produce

Garden’s Swan Song

We are past our “Frost Date” and have had mild nights except a couple of weeks ago. The garden survived those two nights with row cover fabric draped over the peppers and tomatillos. We are expecting two nights in the 30’s tonight and tomorrow night and nothing is going to be done to protect what is left. If the plants survive, great, we might get a few more tomatillos and peppers, the greens will be fine for a while. If they freeze, it has been a good year.

To prepare, a harvest of 5 types of peppers, a basket of tomatillos, a handful of bush beans and two golfball sized turnips were brought in. The Jalapeños were pickled into two more pints for winter. The bell peppers sliced and frozen except for a few to stuff tomorrow. The Anchos have been put in the window sill hoping they will turn red and can then be dried for Enchilada sauce. The tomatillos and habeneros will be cooked down with onion and garlic for more of Son #1’s favorite XXX sauce.

With the garden waning, the chickens get to visit, eating bugs, weed seed and scratching around leaving chicken fertilizer. When they aren’t in the garden, they wander around the orchard, the yards and out into the fields, but not too far from the house.

They are healthy, producing plenty of eggs each day and live a good life.

On Saturdays, we generally go to town, have breakfast at the local diner then shop the Farmers’ Market. We came home with some beef and pork for the freezer, a peck of eating apples and some carrots and onions.

Between our garden goodness and the Farmers’ Market take, we will eat well.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

October 18, 2014
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
Olio – July 13, 2014

Olio: A miscellaneous collection of things

Grandson’s play with the big guy backfired. He is under there somewhere.

First pint of pickled jalapenos from the garden. It will take dozens more to get Jim through the year, especially if Todd wants some too.

First summer squash and bell pepper. The little pepper is a cayenne that broke off before ripening. There are small cucumbers, still lots of greens, the first of the bush beans and the last of the peas. The garden is full on providing most of what we want in veggies now. The winter squash and pumpkins are taking over the compost bins, the sweet potato vines are thriving.

Yesterday, grandson was afraid of his bike, by the end of a session he would coast down a short hill.

Today it was a longer hill and then as I was running beside him holding his seat, I let go and he rode the length of the school parking lot, over and over. He still needs an assist to get going, but once he is moving, he is off. I took a video, but can’t figure out how to upload it here.

July 13, 2014