Three Plus Two

Country Diary: About dinner

Weather: Cloudy and damp after a hard rain overnight.  42 degrees at 8:30 and I don't think the temperature is going to budge too much over the course of the day.

At the feeder: We're late in getting our feeders set up this year, but Katydid managed to clean and fill most of them a few days ago.  We finally hung a collapsible feeder that holds 5 lbs of sunflower seeds.  The birds love it.  Right now I can count at least 6 goldfinches clinging just to the sides I can see.  A downy woodpecker flew away a few seconds ago, and yesterday we had a female cardinal.  The chickadees have also been out in force, 5 or 6 at a time, and our tufted titmice are back as well.  We need to get our suet feeders set up for the woodpeckers now.

In the garden:  In spite of it being November, we are still eating from the garden a little.  Well, brussels sprouts actually.

Here's what the plants look like "in the field".

And on the stalk.  When we went to the farm store last week, I was pleased to see that our brussel sprouts compared very favorably to theirs.  In fact, ours looked better.  (Ok, shameless bragging, but it was such a hard gardening year that I ought to be allowed to wallow in what few successes there were.)

(A brief feeder update... I need Katydid's binoculars... are those goldfinches or pine siskins out there???)

However, most of the garden is now planted to cover crop.  I think Andy used crimson clover, which stands up to our winters pretty well.  In the summer, the crop of choice is buckwheat, which he mows when it flowers so that it doesn't go to seed and become a weed.  We rotate our beds and try to leave some fallow every year.  After four years of cover cropping, adding compost, and 2 seasons of chickens, the soil has become a lot softer and easier to work.  (Not now, of course.  The ground freezes a little overnight, then thaws every morning so it's always a little muddy.)  The cover crop comes most in handy in the spring time when the snowmelt comes rushing down the hill.  Having a cover crop down instead of exposing bare dirt helps to retain our soil.

 
 An exciting photo of a mat of young crimson clover.  In the spring time, it blooms a vivid crimson.  It can be a little hard to get rid of, but it's not as invasive as, say, rye.

Or mint.  This is my own fault.  In desperation, because bugs and everything else were ruining my squash plants, I set out a chocolate mint plant beside them.  Now the plant itself is nowhere to be found, but I discovered this healthy specimen about 10 feet away in a different bed.

In the pantry:

• 2 pie pumpkins, which I will try to bake this weekend for pumpkin pie
• half an already baked pumpkin, which I will turn into pumpkin custard tonight (technically this is in the refrigerator)
• 6 Delicata squash
• All the Walla Walla onions have started to sprout.  They're not keepers.  The Cippolini onions are fine, though.
• A 5 gallon bucket of potatoes 3/4 full, mostly Yukon Gold, which we're eating through. 
• a half-bushel box of sweet potatoes from the farm store

 
  This is how I bake pumpkin and winter squash: with butter and maple syrup.  The butter and maple syrup form the stickiest candy ever on the bottom of the pan.  So it's important to spoon that up while it's still so hot that you burn your tongue on the spoon as you lean over the stove. Not that I would ever do such a thing, of course.

In the coop:

There are a lot fewer chickens in the coop these days.

But the ones in my freezer make really, really good chicken soup.

Using heritage breed chickens for meat was kind of a toss-up.  On the one hand, they were all small, the biggest not quite 5 lbs, and they took a long time just to get to that weight.  On the other hand, the taste is so much better even than the Cornish x Rock broilers raised on pasture.  The meat is firmer (probably because our chickens were free-range, not raised in chicken tractors, and breeds that were not bred to sit by the feeder and eat), the dark meat darker, and just in general, more flavorful.  But because it took so long to get them to butchering weight (such as it was), I'm not sure it was economical, and it was a lot of work.  

If you're keeping track at home, we used White Rocks and Delawares.  The Delawares were, in general, nicer than the White Rocks, which even Katydid looked forward to eating.

The turkeys turned out a little better in the weight department -- or at least the Naragansetts did.  They were butchered at the beginning of the week and are currently all jammed into the freezer ( all 6 of them.)  Everyone is a little sad that the turkeys are gone, I think, which was not the case with the meat chickens.  The Naragansett tom dressed out at 17 lbs, so he will be our Thanksgiving turkey.  Will we raise turkeys again?  I don't know.  The learning curve is pretty steep with turkeys.  They break your heart the way they die as poults, then they get interesting and curious personalities and the thought of eating them does not make you happy, and if you really want to pasture them, you have to clip their wings or they will fly 20 feet up in the trees at night or disappear with the wild turkeys.  But heritage turkeys are so much more beautiful and impressive than the typical Broad-Breasted White.  So -- I don't know.  I think we are going to take an animal breather next summer and just worry about the 23 laying hens we've got right now.

None of which are really laying at this point, however.  The old hens are moulting and should probably be turned into stewing hens, but they have all been named.  (Don't name your chickens.)  The new hens are not laying yet, or are laying in some incredibly out of the way spot I haven't discovered yet.  I've been buying "free-range" eggs to make up the difference, but their idea of "free-range" and my idea of "free-range" are obviously different:

 
  The orange yolks taste better, too, if you've never eaten an orange-yolked egg and you're wondering.

 

 

Country Diary Daybook: First Frost, First Day of Fall

I began this post on Monday, so I guess this is now a Days Book, isn't it?

FOR TODAY... Monday, September 20

 

Outside My Window... Crisp, sunny blue autumn sky, 42 degrees at 9 AM.  The maples are starting to really come into their color, with big patches of crimson, scarlet, and orange among the green.  We had our first frost yesterday morning.  I was awake at 4 AM and watched the temps dip: 37 to 36 to 35.  When the sun rose, the field across the street glittered yellow-under-white with a light frost.  (Wednesday morning: waking up to a light rain.)

 

 

In bloom: Goldenrod, New England aster, frost aster.  I like the pale lavender of the frost aster more than the bright purple of the New England asters, which remind me of a Crayola color.  The field is yellow and purple and while beautiful, sometimes reminds me of a high school football team.

 

(I had the camera on landscape setting, and I really don't think it does justice to the purple. Also, sorry about the smudge.)

 

(by Katydid)

 

 

In the garden: We picked ahead of the frost on Saturday: a few pounds of beans; whatever remaining tomatoes that hadn't gotten hit by blight or picked over by the bantams; some okra; a pound or so of peppers.  Now we switch to fall crops: leeks, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts.

 

(Cilantro I need to freeze)

 

In the barnyard: We're trying to find a processor to "do" our meat chickens.  But the processor we've heard about doesn't answer the phone.

 

I am thinking... that I wish this cold would go away so we could enjoy the weather!

 

I am thankful for... antibiotics.  Chipmunk is feeling much better now.  He's slept through the night for the past 2 nights.

 

From the learning rooms... Fossils, most likely.  The little boys have already been outside this morning, pounding on rocks with hammers.  They went out in the pajamas and bare feet, because they're still expecting it to be summer.  It didn't take long for them to realize it had gotten cold.

 

 

From the kitchen...  Last night I made these toffee bars that Jen recommended. YUM.  They're awesome.  And easy. I also made pesto with a bunch of basil we picked ahead of the frost.  I'd never had pesto before.  It was yummy, too.  But very green.  The boys tried it -- and liked it -- reluctantly.  After they made all sorts of unflattering comparisons as to what they thought it looked liked.  Boys.

 

Monday: Ratatouille to use up eggplant, peppers, zuchini, tomatoes.

Tuesday: Roast chicken? (Nope, salmon patties)

Just discovered yesterday that Weds, Fri, and Sat. are Ember Days.  Not sure what we'll be eating, really...

 

I am wearing... Pajamas again. (I know, it's 9 AM, but we're still getting over this cold.)

 

I am creating... Well, I wrote down some notes for a story, but I'm not sure about getting from A (writing down notes) to B (actually writing the story).  In typical Angela fashion, a page of notes will probably turn into a novel anyway. I also managed to draw in my sketchbook a little over the weekend -- trying to figure out shading and shadows.  Not doing so well either, but taking a deep breath and reminding myself that it will probably take me longer to figure out if I'm only working 5 minutes a day.  (Still, 5 minutes a day would be a great victory!)

 

 

I am going... to really work on laundry this week.  With all the sickness of last week, we are behind.   I think I am also going to sit down with myself and get a better handle on my time. 

 

I am reading... Crow Planet, by Linda Lynn Haupt.  I'm not enjoying this as much as I had hoped.  I like it when she writes about crows, but... there's something about the rest that is not grabbing me, and I'm not sure why. (Just finished it and am still not sure what didn't grab me about the book.  Can't put my finger on it.  Now I'm on to Fruitless Fall by Rowan Jacobsen.)

 

Also, thanks to Amy, I have subscribed to a bunch of people's shared items via google reader and thereby discovered many new blogs. :-) 

 

I am hoping... this stupid cold will end soon.  

 

I am hearing... Well, it's afternoon now and what I'm hearing is John Deere Action on TV, the sound of the dryer, Katydid coughing, Chipmunk playing with cars, and the occasional snore from Farmerboy who fell asleep on the floor.  Everyone's still recovering.  (And on Wednesday morning, everyone is sleeping late and it's quiet except for the tapping of my keys. I guess all the dirt everyone covered themselves in yesterday helped them sleep?)

 

 

Around the house...  What doesn't need to be done? I have to get a handle on the laundry first. (Working on this, bit by bit.)

 

One of my favorite things...  reading picture books that unexpectedly contain one of my boys' unconventional nicknames and watching their eyes light up.  (The book is Rattletrap Car and the name is "Jakie", without giving anything away ;-)

 

 

 

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week... Well, seeing as how it's now the "rest of the week"... I'm still trying to get a better handle on my own time, but improving... we have a doctor's appointment to get to, the library, and Katydid and Gareth are both going to volunteer along with Andy at his company's annual 5K for charity this weekend.  This will also be the fourth of the past 5 weeks that Andy will be out of town.  Next week will make it 5 of 6. Still just trying to keep my head above water. 

 

 

Country Diary: Pick a Peck of Peppers

Weather: upper 70's today, cloudy, off and on showers which prevented me from picking beans today...I picked cucumbers (most notably) in the rain.  Chipmunk, who was out in the garden with Andy and me at the time, was not amused.  This surprised me, because he will cheerfully dunk his head in a mud puddle.  All last week it felt like summer with highs in the 80's.  We even had to use fans.  But this week it looks like temps will slump into the 60's, with overnight lows dipping into the 40's.  Fall, I guess.

In bloom: Well, my rosebush is still going, which is hard for me to believe.  It likes the chickens.  Otherwise, the field is full of goldenrod, black-eyed susans (Pip calls them "black-eyes"), and the first asters.

Photo by Katydid

In the Barnyard: It's been a while since I posted a Country Diary.  About a week and a half ago, we lost two of our turkeys to what we think must have been raccoons.  (Only raccoons tear off the head and leave most of the meat untouched.)  So Andy spent one very long Sunday converting the the frame of a larger chicken coop he'd been working on into a turkey coop.  It looks a lot like an aviary.

But Andy says not to give Katydid ideas.

The poor turkeys... they are really not meant to be cooped up like this.  What we've discovered is that heritage turkeys are excellent flyers and, unlike chickens, they don't particularly care if they make it home to roost or not.  When we let them out of the coop to forage on grass, they will fly up about twenty feet into the tree behind the woodpile on the right.  I guess raccoons can't get them there, but still.  Another worry we have is that there has been a wild turkey hen hanging around with her poults since we put the turkeys out.  The other day I looked out the window to see the wild hen having a bit of an alteraction with our Bourbon Red hen, who might have been trying to tag along. 

The wild hen is becoming increasingly less afraid of us, though.  The boys and I came upon her and the poults in the garden a couple of days ago and were able to come quite close before they all flew away.

The turkeys do have interesting personalities, though, and if you ignore the bald heads, the rest is beautiful and graceful.

Our Naragansett tom...

Blue Slate hen in the left background and Bourbon Red hen in foreground...

Close-up of one of the Blue Slates...

In the Garden:

It's not a banner year.  There's very little to freeze or can, and the blackberry bush seems bent on ripening only a pint of berries at a time.  I put away 2 qt. of beans and 2 1/2 qts of squash last week, and that was the first all season.  I had to use farm stand tomatoes to make freezer salsa with my peppers.

Of which there have been quite a few.  The peppers have actually surprised me this year.  Usually our pepper production is not good.

The tomatoes are such a disappointment that I'm not even going to show you a picture.  They started out beautiful and lush.  And then -- late blight struck.  It's epidemic in the Northeast this year.  I couldn't even go into the garden for days.  Some of our tomatoes seem to be pulling through okay, but most aren't.  I can't can the green tomatoes (as pickles or whatever) because canning potentially diseased produce doesn't sound smart to me.  If you pick the tomatoes green and leave them in the windowsill to ripen, most rot anyway.

I have to tell you, it's heartbreaking.

Here's what our late August harvest looks like, sans tomatoes:

That's what I picked in the rain today, along with a bunch of okra Andy picked last night.  Apparently we had forgotten about the okra patch for a few days.  Those long purple things are eggplants.

A funny curlicue one using my garden journal as background...

A comparison of cucumbers... Marketmore slicer on top, Homemade Pickles on the bottom.  Homemade Pickles is a producer.  Even in a wet, mostly cool summer, it will give me more cucumbers than any other variety.  I sliced up the pile of cucumbers I picked this morning for refrigerator sweet pickles.

And some homemade salsa, using all home-grown ingredients except for the lime juice. 

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all the rest of those peppers and that giant striped zucchini!

Country Diary: July Garden

I was going to name this post "Tomato Madness," but then I thought, well, there are other things going on in the garden, too.  So instead I went with the boring "July Garden".

Weather: 75 ish and the sun has come out again after a few brief rain showers.  I believe it has rained almost every single day this month -- at least a few sprinkles.  We have spent more than a few soccer games huddling in sweatshirts.  I made Italian sausage and onions Friday night.  It was raining again, as usual -- a steady cold rain -- and as Andy sat down he said, "Boy, this is a good dinner to warm you up..."  And I finished for him, "... on a cold July night."

In Bloom:

Black-eyed Susans at the edge of the comfrey bed...

Katydid's miniature wildflower meadow...

A closer-up view of Katydid's flowers...

The roses, which are a bit past their prime.  The old growth is already spent, and now only the new growth is blooming.  I'm not deadheading the flowers because I want to try to collect rosehips in the fall. 

The milkweed smells wonderful and has been buzzing with bees all week.  I haven't seen any monarch caterpillars, but...

Katydid found this Mourning Cloak caterpillar on the driveway and brought it inside to see if she could watch it form a chrysalis and turn into a butterfly.  We see a lot of Tiger Swallowtails around here, but we've never seen a Mourning Cloak, so it should be interesting.  The caterpillars feed on birch and wild roses, so it's strange we've never seen one before (as we have both in abundance).  Katydid has been taking pictures every day to chronicle the caterpillar's progress.  She reports that it has formed a complete chrysalis already.

Another insect related to blooms...

The milkweed beetle.

In the Barnyard:

Turkeys.

Actually, they're in the orchard with the elderberries.  The elderberries were teeming with Japanese beetles, and the turkeys love to eat Japanese beetles, so it seemed like a good match.  We have them enclosed with electric poultry netting, which does absolutely nothing to stop them from getting out.  Heritage turkeys are exceptional flyers.  And they don't seem to care about getting shocked by the netting either, which I find strange.  Their favorite place to go after they get out of the netting is the chicken coop, where they eat the chickens' food, then fly up to the roof to roost.  They have good personalities, though.  They're very inquisitive and people-friendly.  The Bourbon Reds and Blue Slates are not very smart.  The Naragansetts (the ones that look like wild turkeys) seem to be far hardier and more intelligent as well. Oddly, of the 8 turkeys that survived out of our original 15, only one is a tom.  He's the big Naragansett with the red neck.  I like the turkeys far better than the meat chickens, who will not only peck but bite you when you try to change their food and water.  (We ordered a straight run of White Rock and Delewares for meat birds, so I'm talking about the young cockerels here... Katydid has actually already decided which one she wants to eat first, which is something.)

In the Garden:

This is why I wanted to call this post "Tomato Madness":

We thought these tomato plants were going to die.  The night after we planted them, we had a light frost here and there.  Some of their leaves curled up and turned yellow and black.  Andy went out and bought more tomatoes to replace most of these, which looked pretty bad. Now they have formed their own tomato jungle.  These are not the only tomato plants I have.  In fact, this is just half of one bed.  I have another bed this size full of more jungley tomato plants.

I am really scratching my head about this.  Usually in a cold, rainy year, the tomatoes do not do well.  The plants don't blossom, the blossoms don't set, and the tomatoes take forever to ripen.  Or, they are ruined by slugs.

Can you see all the tomatoes in there?  They're pulling the branches so close to the ground the branches are developing roots.  (All those little hairs on a tomato plant have the potential to turn into roots, which is why when you plant tomatoes, you're supposed to stick them in the ground right up to the bottom of the first set of true leaves.)  It's been raining so much (or we've been at soccer so much) that we haven't had time to attend to the garden.  So now we have super-sprawly tomatoes and weeds run wild among the eggplants and cabbages.  Anyway, these are Early Girls (I think), a hybrid variety, but even my heirlooms (Brandywine, Striped German... and oh, I can't remember the others) are doing well for the most part.  I had to toss a big half-ripe Striped German to the chickens this morning because of slug-damage and rot (which made me gnash my teeth a bit) but most of the tomatoes don't look that bad, even though they're growing so close to the ground.

I did pick this one before it could get any worse, though:

First tomato.  Not pretty, but my expectations have been low in the garden this year.  Deer ate every.single.pea plant. Rabbits ate all (all) my lettuce and spinach.  Something is decimating the brussel sprouts. The squash and cucumber seeds rotted in the ground it was so cold and wet in June.  And crows stole all our corn twice.

See the corn plants here and there? (If you squint?)  We planted that whole space to corn.  The only corn that actually managed to escape the crows are two rows on the right, which happened to be under netting.

I'm not feeling very charitable toward the crows lately.  They run the hawks off, but I don't think that makes up for stealing the corn.

A few more garden pictures (because I like to look back from year to year to compare):

This is the first year we've grown cabbages, and they're doing well in this wet, cool weather.

My few remaining squash plants are starting to bear.

The peppers are not doing too badly.

The onions are getting rather large.  They like the steady supply of water.

The blackberry bush is still my favorite.  It's loaded with fruit and will need to be wrapped with bird netting before too long.

Harvest this week:

2 yellow squash, one sweet pepper, a handful of purple and yellow beans (not pictured),  1 zucchini, 1 cippolini onion that Chipmunk stepped on and knocked out of the ground, 5 giant Walla Walla onions (not pictured), 10 Yukon Gold potatoes, 5 stalks of rhubarb, roughly a half-pint of raspberries, eaten off the bushes, 1 cherry tomato, and 1 nearly ripe Early Girl tomato.

I made a strawberry-rhubarb crumble that everyone pronounced one of the top 10 best desserts ever... and a 3 bean salad (with squash and zucchini added) that I am going to have to eat all of myself. (Ahem.)

And now I had better go tie up some more out-of-control tomato plants. Before it starts raining again.

Country Diary: Poultry Farmers

Weather: A front is approaching and it's supposed to rain for the next three or four days.  Temperatures will remain in the low to mid 60's because of the rain, but will hopefully rise into the 70's this weekend.   In spite of the fact that we've had a lot of rain recently, the ground seems bone dry.  The little boys come in every night covered in a layer of dust that builds up in the bottom of the bathtub. 

In bloom: Those darn peonies are STILL not blooming.  Pip and Pop have been picking the buds to give to me.  If they take any longer to become flowers, there just aren't going to be flowers, period. Our cinquefoil bush erupted into flower today, though, and the rose bush's buds are swelling.  The irises are in full bloom, and I am thinking that I might need to divide them this year.

Oh, and the wild strawberries that dot the lawn are just about ripe!

Birds: I left a cardboard box from a plant delivery on the outside table, and a wren has been filling it with sticks.  I had seen (and heard) the wren perched on the chair next to the table, but Katydid (of course) was the one who had seen it bringing sticks.  I peeked in the box today and sure enough, the corner of the box is full of twigs.  I was confused because it wasn't a nest, per se, and Katydid told me that wrens often fill a spot they want to use next nesting season with sticks to prevent other birds from nesting in it. Considering the fact that the wrens also destroy the young of other species so they can take over their nests, I find that rather uppity.  But I still like to hear the wrens sing.

 

A phoebe is nesting in the eaves of the outer garage and every time we open the door to check on the chicks and turkeys, it buzzes us.  Scares me half to death, even when I'm expecting it.

Wildlife: None to report but mice in the house. I caught one of them last week, but another has already taken its place.  Ah, the joys of life in the country.  Usually we don't see any this time of year, though, so I wonder what's going on. 

In the garden:  None of the corn we planted came up.  Zero.  We think the crows got it.  This weekend we scrambled out to buy new corn seed to replant.  Replanting is a big deal in this climate; we went ahead and planted Kandy Korn again (our favorite), but with 89 days to harvest... we're pushing first frost here.

On the positive side: the little boys pulled the rest of the radishes for me, and I was able to positively ID which radishes Pip had actually planted.  French Breakfast.  So we can plant them again.  The spinach and lettuce are now big enough that we can make salad from the thinnings, and my tiny little tomato plants are just getting blossoms.

In the barnyard: Otherwise known as "the outer garage". Last Wednesday, the kids and I were called to the post office to pick up 50+ chicks.  One of the Ameracaunas died en route -- it was in the corner and looked as if it had probably been suffocated -- and two of the Delawares (which we will be raising for meat and eggs) died in the first few days.  But overall, chickens are definitely hardier than turkeys. (We lost yet another turkey last week, bringing our count down to 9, and one of those has a leg problem.)  All 10 of Katydid's bantams made it through all right, though.  She took pictures on the first day:

We ordered 30 meat chickens (Delaware, White Rock -- the little yellow fuzzballs) and 12 layers (Speckled Sussex, Ameracauna -- the "Easter Egg" chicken, and Black Jersey Giant).

Black and Barred Old English bantams.

A closer look at the bantams, which were really teeny-tiny a week ago.

Speckled Sussex...

Black Jersey Giant...

Ameracauna...

One of the few remaining Blue Slate turkeys...

This is a Naragansett turkey, which seem to be far hardier than the Blue Slates and Bourbon Reds. We've only lost one of them, but we've lost three of each of the other kinds.

Here are the turkeys all together.  They've still got a few weeks left in the brooder.

Of course, I'm not telling the whole story.  Andy was out of town when the chicks arrived,  and we couldn't get the heat lamps set up right (they were the clamp-on kind, but kept falling off... not exactly fire-safe... so we had to hang them), and it got cold that night, and that was the reason another turkey died.  Fortunately, there is Katydid.  She has really been doing most of the chicken care.  Andy and I check to make sure everything is okay, and we fiddle with the heat lamps, but Katydid does most of the work.  (And those first couple days, it was a lot of work!)

Around the house:

So much cleaning needs to be done, especially since our Little Flowers/Blue Knights group is gathering here this coming weekend to help work in a garden we're growing for the Little Sisters of the Poor. I did manage to put my file crate back together, though, so at least we can eat on the dining room table now.

What I'm Reading: Lots of rural-related magazines: Hobby Farm Home, Hobby Farm, Backyard Poultry, Acres USA.  We went to Tractor Supply this weekend.  That's my only explanation.

Country Diary: First Harvest

Pip's radishes! I sauteed them in butter and seasoned them with sea salt, and they were delicious.

Weather:  Right now -- becoming overcast, 42 degrees at 8:30 AM. We had a frost advisory last night; lows were supposed to dip down to around 33 degrees.  I don't think it got that cold -- thankfully -- but I covered as many of the tender plants as I could with sheets... all the while thinking of how Almanzo Wilder and his family had to unfreeze their corn on the Fourth of July.

In bloom: Irises!

Birds: Hummingbirds! We saw two males in the rain on Sunday morning. This is the first year there has been any indication that we have more than one pair of hummingbirds. They seem to like the purple catmint flowers (which we bought because catmint features prominently in the Warriors series of books about cats, not because we thought they would attract hummingbirds.)

Katydid took this picture out the window yesterday.  It's a little grainy, but I think the comparison of the hummingbird with the clothes pin is neat.

In the garden: Well, radishes, and after a week of rain, the spinach, lettuce, and kale looks good.  The tomatoes - not so much. The cold weather also claimed most of my winter squash transplants and one of the cucumber transplants.  Three hills of melons are gone.  Beans are coming up, but nothing else planted from seed last week.

In the barnyard: No turkey losses over the weekend.  They are rather brazenly attempting to fly out of their brooder now, though.

Around the house: Time to put away the school year.

Country Diary: Memorial Day Week

(I am really bad at using forms so I'm afraid that my diary entries will never end up the same way twice.  I just occasionally feel the need to document what's going on in my garden. Maybe I should buy a garden journal.)

Weather: The weekend was about half and half for good weather: Saturday it rained most of the afternoon, which was good for the garden but bad for us, since we still had an enormous amount of stuff to plant.  Sunday was cool and cloudy until late afternoon.  Monday was gorgeous: sunny and 70. A stiff wind kicked up in the afternoon, heralding cooler temperatures.   Andy covered all the tender annuals he could -- tomatoes, peppers, melons, winter squash, okra. Good thing, too, because we had a little frost Monday morning. The rest of the week has been fairly rotten -- more rain than we need, cold, blah.

Blooming Now: Lilacs (finally); peonies getting ready to bloom (finally); irises just purple at the tips.  Saturday when we went to the farm to buy plants, there was a dogwood in full bloom.  Andy and I laughed; it's been nearly 2 months since we saw dogwoods blooming in Tennessee. I have seen some roses blooming at lower elevations, but alas, my rose seems to have contracted some disease which is turning the leaves yellow.  It usually blooms in June anyway, so maybe it will recover enough to have a few blossoms. We splurged on an enormous fuschia for the front porch on Saturday; I am hoping it will attract our hummingbird pair.

In the Garden: Rabbits ate half the pea plants. Something ate my asparagus. Half the new strawberries died. Ditto the pawpaw.  I fought an extended battle against bindweed yesterday afternoon, trying to clear out a grow bed to plant melons.  (Michael Pollan agonizes over bindweed in Second Nature.  I knew it was a pain but I had no idea it was so insidious.  New plants can grow from every part of its broken root.  Every little piece!  I combed through that bed for nearly an hour pulling bindweed and sorting through the dirt to get more pieces of root.  It's a losing battle, but hopefully I made a little progress.) I think our water (even after it's been boiled) is killing the shiitake mushroom kit.

On the plus side of the equation (the negative is on my mind this morning, sorry): potatoes are up; we found the carrots in the bed that was a weedy disaster; and somehow in all the other activities of the weekend we made time to plant corn, beans, summer squash, my beloved Italian zucchini from last year (also, Zucchini Rampicante, another Italian zucchini), cucumbers; and as transplants -- more cucumbers (I have rotten luck with cucumbers); 4 kinds of pepper, a bunch of tomatoes, brussel sprouts, a few cabbages; two flats of okra (in black plastic this year for warmth); and roughly half of the melon plants I started from seed.  Still to go: watermelons, Charentais melons, pumpkins, and Gareth's experiments of the year: Chinese noodle beans and a couple different open-pollinated varieties of corn (he wants to see if they'll cross.)

I'm also putting in a modest herb garden this year by the deck: cilantro, parsely, thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil, chocolate mint (in a pot!!), dill.  I already have invasive amounts of lemon balm and mint from the previous owners.

Barnyard: This is not going as well as I had hoped.  We got 15 turkey poults last Thursday - 5 Blue Slate, 5 Naragansett, 5 Bourbon Red. We've lost five so far. So now we're down to 4 Naragansett, 4 Blue Slate, and 2 Bourbon Red.  Unfortunately, heavy losses of turkey poults seem to be the rule rather than the exception.  This doesn't make me feel any better. Those little poults are terribly cute. 

From the kitchen: I think I'm going to be able to pull radishes this week.  What to do with radishes when the salad greens aren't ready? I also have mint.  Radishes and mint?  I don't think so!

What else is going on?: Maybe a better question would be, what's not going on? Sports. Sports are not going on. Otherwise... Katydid is getting ready for a violin recital, we're preparing for the arrival of 52 new chicks next week, various children have had eye exams and well-child checkups, I had to go to Urgent Care for oral steroids since my regular doctor's office was booked solid (but I feel almost human again, so it was worth it), Andy's in NYC again this week (only once, though), we're finishing up school books, I'm trying to write a guide for Gareth's study of evolutionary biology, Gareth marched in a Memorial Day parade, and Katydid and Andy got up really early to attend the annual Early Morning Birdwalk at our local arboretum. And the snapping turtles are trundling through our field and yard en route to their breeding sites.

A few pictures:

 

Pip is a deep sea diver, isn't that obvious?

 

Katydid in her element. (Photo by Andy.)

 

The snapping turtle we found in the field last weekend.  The females apparently come out this time of year to lay their eggs.  This particular turtle was fairly large -- probably about a foot long -- but apparently they can grow much larger.  Later in the weekend we saw another, much smaller snapping turtle on our front steps.  All children now know how to identify snapping turtles and have been warned to STAY AWAY from them.

 

The snapping turtle's head. (Photo by Katydid.)

I have only ONE picture of Gareth in the Memorial Day parade, and it's hard to pick him out.  Then my batteries gave out.  Andy and Farmerboy got to march along with Gareth's Scout troop so Katydid and I "had our hands full" with the twins and Chipmunk.  It is therefore doubtful whether I could have gotten any more pictures anyway, but just so you know... they all looked wonderful.

Country Diary: May Flowers

Weather: Temperatures have been in the 50's and low 60's this week, with lows down into the 40's. We've also had rain almost every day -- not much in sum, but a regular drizzle.  Andy was able to plant two long rows of onions, but that's been about it.  We're supposed to get a steady rain today, and rain for the next 2-3 days. The kids have been saying, "May showers bring June flowers," which is actually how it works here.

  

Katydid took some pictures of flowers blooming in the yard after she and Andy came home from her birthday trip.

 

  

 

At a lower elevation, the crabapples and lilacs have already started to bloom. Ours are still in the bud stage... but swelling more every day.  Coming home from church on Sunday, I looked at our land from a different perspective, wondering why our blooms lag behind everyone else's.  Elevation is certainly part of it - we're at 1100 feet or so -- but I think the slope of the land behind and around us means that we may be caught in a mild frost pocket.  We always have more snow, too.

In the Garden:

Not much to report.  I've started about 6 flats of seedlings in the dining room window: 2 of okra (just done last night); 1 watermelon (all up and beginning to get their seed leaves); 1 winter squash (not doing so well, but a few are up); and 2 cantaloupe (not up yet).  I don't have room to start cucumbers.  I need a greenhouse.  (I say this every year.)  In the actual garden, Pip's radishes and chard desperately need thinning, since he dumped an entire packet (or two) out in the same place.  The spinach is coming up -- and probably likes this rain -- and the peas are beginning to grow quickly.  Two of five of the rhubarb plants we planted last year have made it.  No asparagus yet.

Gareth has started both of the mushroom kits I ordered: shiitake and portabello.

In the Coop:

We're down to 10 hens, and Andy has ordered electric poultry netting.  Our turkeys are scheduled to ship May 18. I have heard so many bad things about turkeys -- how fussy they are, how they'll crowd into corners and suffocate, how they're more prone to disease -- that I am not sure I'm looking forward to brooding them.  Andy wants to get a stock tank to use as a brooder because it has rounded corners.  At least they won't be in my laundry room this year.

From the kitchen:

Fiddleheads! 

They don't look very appetizing, do they.  I didn't forage these -- I have no idea if our ferns are the kind you eat or not, though it seems like they might be, since these fiddleheads here came from 30 minutes away -- I bought them at the farmstand we frequent when we can.  I had never eaten fiddleheads before, and I could only find two recipes in my books.  One was for a fiddlehead and morel risotto.  I didn't have morels or arborio rice, but I did have a nice big portabello.  So I decided to saute the fiddleheads and mushrooms in butter with garlic the way the first part of the recipe said to, and then I salted them with sea salt and gave them a few good shakes of pepper.  Then, tentatively, I ate one.

Wow! So much better than they look.  All the kids liked them.  Let me repeat that, in bold.  All my super-picky kids liked fiddleheads and mushrooms.  They taste a little like asparagus, except better.

Country Diary: Getting Ready to Garden

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Weather: Blustery and cold right now (36 degrees at 8 AM), with rain and snow showers predicted. (A check of the radar reveals pockets of ice all around us, but none here yet.)  The 10 day forecast, however -- wow! Temperatures in the 70's and 80's predicted for the next five days, and sun - sun! - for ten days.  Amazing! I feel like doing a happy dance, but I'm sure the twins would think I was a lunatic.

Out my window: The chickens are staying close to the coop this morning. They still haven't eaten that big butternut squash I put out for them, though. The blue plastic tarps that cover the coop billow and snap in the wind, but the chickens ignore them -- calmly pecking in the straw around the crabapple tree.

What I'm hearing: The twins building a "road" out of wooden blocks, pressing light sabers, swords, and electronic magic wands into service as construction equipment... the muffled ring of windchimes whenever the boys step back to review their work.

From the kitchen: Tea with cream and honey. I'm battling a cold, and a long night with Chipmunk, who has just come down with it, too.  (Fortunately, I have the forecast to keep me happy this morning!) I just ate Raisin Bran for breakfast, but we've been eating a lot of eggs since we got home... we're getting 10-12 a day. I made a quiche the other night for dinner which was really good -- our own eggs, local cream, local raw milk cheese, portobello mushrooms.  It tasted fantastic and puffed up in a way that my quiches don't, usually, when I just make them with milk and regular old Wal-Mart cheddar cheese.  We still have some leftover, which I'll probably eat for lunch with a green salad.

From the learning room(s): Not much planned -- we've been unpacking and cleaning this week, and now -- have I mentioned the forecast? Katydid will be traveling with her father next week, since he has to make a business trip over her birthday.  So schoolish things are going to mostly wait until after next week. And on the other hand, Gareth just finished reading Animal Farm and Katydid has been writing a long story whose main characters are all birds... owls and hawks, I think... and the little boys are playing with penguins and other sea life toys. The big kids have been working on a little math every day, too.

What I'm reading: Hmmm.  That's a tough one.  I'm kind of in the middle and in-between books. I've been paging through the books that come in this "homesteading" package.  We watched the breadmaking video yesterday, and the little boys immediately wanted to make bread.  I was mostly struck with envy for the West's pantry!

Around the house: I'm working on the kitchen.  Andy finished up the painting while we were gone, so when we got home, there was all the painting clutter to clear, stuff to rehang, etc. I'm taking this opportunity also to declutter, to organize the pantry (such as it is), to order some curtains and a bookcase for gardening and cookbooks, and basically to clean.  I've gotten the pantry re-organized, the pots and pans cabinet sorted out, and one of the counters looking a lot better. Progress is a little slow due to sickness.

In the garden: Hurray! We broke ground over the weekend.  Peas, beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach, chard, and radishes are in the ground. (Well, Pip and Pop did the radishes and chard, so who knows how they'll come up.  We'll see.) We'll start on potatoes and onions this weekend, and I expect we will begin to get shipments of berry bushes and strawberry plants next week, too.

A few pictures:

 

 

Trying to keep the chickens from scratching up seeds.

 

I call this one, "Pea Fences at Dusk.  With Trucks."

Country Diary: Still Winter

Today Is: February 22, 2009... George Washington's birthday... and my sister's birthday :-)

Weather: Let me show you:

And this is the view out the dining room window where I am sitting right now:

For once, however, we are not on the bullseye for a snowstorm. This latest storm is dumping most of its snow east of here. Our prediction is for 2-4 inches. I think we've already gotten about two, so we must be working on the 4. Periodically the wind will kick up and a cloud of snow will billow off the roof. The light seems to be the only thing that changes this time of year, and it is coming back.

I am thankful... that every day sunset comes a little bit later! And that we will be spending some time in Tennessee with family next month.

From the kitchen...  a cup tea with milk and honey right now. We had tacos for lunch and Chipmunk mostly ate taco sauce, which he licked off his fingers. Tonight I am thinking about curried lamp chops -- because I need to use up the rest of this lamb in the next month or so -- with some veggies from the freezer. We're still working on our own beans and corn. The lamb chop recipe comes from Quick Fix Meals: 200 Simple, Delicious Recipes to Make Mealtime Easy. I got this book a few years ago... I think when I was pregnant with the twins. I have never actually cooked out of it, though.

I am wearing... plum-colored fleece shirt, fuzzy tan pants, Birkenstocks, and a baby, sleeping on my shoulder.

I am reading... lots of books about homeschooling in high school, and also The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. I started this last year and put it down when I was about half way through. Now I'm picking it up again. Good stuff. The author was the scientist in charge of the Human Genome Project. Oh, and Discovering Fossils: How to Find and Identify Remains of the Prehistoric Past (Fossils & Dinosaurs) for Gareth's new paleontology "course" (I have had this book on my shelf for years -- bought it for $.25 at a library book sale -- and now it's finally coming in handy!) And Designing the New Kitchen Garden: An American Potager Handbook. Gorgeous book -- lots of photos -- lots of inspiration drawn from medieval monastery gardens.

I am creating...  a paleontology course for Gareth. I've been collecting resources off the web, books, and project ideas, and now I need to pull them all together onto a sheet that Gareth can reference himself.

I am hearing: Farmerboy adding up how much money he can make on extra chores as he puts on his snow gear to head out to the outer garage with Andy. They're going to clean up a bit and take an inventory on lumber; a new chicken coop, turkey roosts, and brooder boxes will need to be started ASAP.

From the learning room... see above for the paleontology course. I need to switch out the early February books for Lenten materials and also our books about sugaring time, which ought to be here soon... We're going to wrap up our study of ancient Africa and move on to ancient China, and we might switch from caves to weather, based on interest.

Farm and Garden: Well, stuff is finally happening. We got our seed order in, finally, even though Seeds of Change was completely out of cover crops and we had to scout around. This year we ordered seed from R.H.Shumway, Baker Creek, Pinetree Garden Seeds, and smallish amounts from Territorial and Seeds of Change. I didn't get any tomato or pepper seeds this year because we will be out of town just when we need to be starting them, so we'll buy 99% of our tomatoes and peppers as live plants from a local farm. I say 99% because I could not resist buying sweet pea tomato plants from Territorial. Next up: I'm about to order 15 heritage turkeys from Murray McMurray, and chickens from Meyer hatchery -- 30 heritage breed meat chickens (White Rocks and Delawares, not the typical Cornish X Rocks), 10 laying hens of various breeds, and 10 Old English bantams for Katydid and Farmerboy.

Around the House: I got a little more caught up on laundry yesterday. I don't do laundry on Sundays, which means I will be behind again tomorrow. Andy finished painting the kitchen today, though, so I am excited about getting all the stuff off the island!

I am hoping... that it warms up soon. Enough to melt some of the snow and get the little boys outside.

A few plans for the rest of the week... We have to make up a vision therapy appointment for Katydid and we'll have Mass on Ash Wednesday, so it looks as if it's going to be a busier than usual week. Andy will have some brief out of town trips, too. So my plans for next week mainly involve survival. :-)

A picture or two:

 

My "new" kitchen!

 

The tea set given to my father and my birth mother for their wedding made it off the island and back onto its perch atop the cabinets WITHOUT BEING BROKEN. I am sure it's a miracle. I think it looks much better against the yellow wall than it did against the white. But it's hard to tell in this picture.