KenshoHomestead

Terminate, Abort, Kill

The political establishment and media outlets, including those in the so-called ‘alternative community’ are guilty of faulty narrative framing in order to create maximum conflict and division.

My goal with this post is to offer each side of the ‘abortion argument’ ways they might tweak their strategy in order to improve their position against their opponents. I don’t mean only the Right/Left positions, because a growing number of folks around the world have already left that reservation far behind and are entertaining other ‘spaces’—the new buzzword.

I will dare to conclude with a very easy solution that will never be accepted by any political or religious group, because it is the most individually empowering solution possible.

On the ‘Political, Religious Right-Conservative’—how might you improve your position?

Those who you deem to convince that abortion is wrong and should be heavily regulated, if not illegal, are not swayed by your terminology misuse. The science terms for the development of the fetus: from zygote to embryo to fetus to baby, are replaced in your arguments by the word ‘baby’ in all circumstances, and this is done even by those who consider themselves “alternative” and devoted to science, like Mike Adams, ‘The Health Ranger’, who rages on regularly about ‘baby killers.’

The popular ‘Let the states decide’ argument is not really an argument. It is a power-based position, one to choose in order to deflect taking a position personally based on individual circumstances, while allowing others (as in scientific authorities and politicians) to make the decisions for everyone. Local politics is hardly independent of federal influence. The Left’s concern is one of access. The notion that a teenage girl who wishes to terminate her pregnancy should hop on a bus (with her parent’s permission we assume) to travel across an entire state, or several, for this two-hour procedure does not address their primary issue. It’s not just about the money.

Slogans such as “on-demand abortions” and “using abortion as contraception” are misleading and ignoring the science. The ‘morning after’ pill (used to be called Plan B)* is considered here to be exactly equivalent to the surgical procedure in the first trimester, as it is in the last. In fact, these procedures are about as similar as an egg is to a chicken.

“Human life begins at conception.” Yes, but all life begins at conception, including synthetic life. This leads into the ‘murder is a slippery slope’, another faux-argument, because there is no evidence whatsoever that girls who have abortions go on to commit murders later in life.

If it is true that ending a pregnancy prematurely is the same as murder, and that it is making our society more cruel as a result, then war, all war, must also be included in that conversation. It appears that you wish to blame women for societal violence for ending the life of a zygote, while to fight in wars, sometimes to the death, is considered heroic. There is an inconsistency in your position that is seen by your opponents as weak, evasive and hypocritical.

On the ‘political-secular Left-Progressive’ —how might you improve your position? The abortion industry should be your main cause of concern, if you wish to influence your opponents.

Normalizing all forms of abortion and ignoring the crimes of the industry are two weaknesses making you appear callous and insensitive, which is not the image the Left is expected to be crafting.

Science is in your favor, but not as your periodic scapegoat. It is not logical to cling to science when it comes to terminology, but then to deny the religious mantra of “Human life begins at conception.”

What we used to call “Test-tube babies” prove human life begins at conception. As does all of life. In vitro fertilization is incredibly popular and reliable. If you’re going to use science to back up your arguments, then actually use the science.

Where is the science today? Our bodies, and our genetic make-up, are becoming technological tools in service to the ‘higher power’ of AI.

First came Petris, then came Wombs, then came Bubba in a baby carriage!

Demonstrate to “the Right” that their real enemy is not those who would choose to discard the zygote developing in their womb, but those who currently consider the womb, and in fact the entire body, as irrelevant to future life.

The social engineering component of this normalizing process is ‘equality’ for the “LGBTQ community”.

‘Assisted Reproductive Technology’ is the latest terminology for this ever-growing industry. ‘Abortion’ is rolled out for public consumption to obscure and obfuscate this fact. Abortion, as a moral issue, has been all but irrelevant for decades considering where the Science stands.

Unwanted pregnancies and ‘unwanted’ embryos.
Where once we had adoption, now we have surrogacy, and . . .
An emerging market!

“During the selection and transfer phases, many embryos may be discarded in favour of others. This selection may be based on criteria such as genetic disorders or the sex. One of the earliest cases of special gene selection through IVF was the case of the Collins family in the 1990s, who selected the sex of their child.[137] The ethic issues remain unresolved as no consensus exists in science, religion, and philosophy on when a human embryo should be recognised as a person. For those who believe that this is at the moment of conception, IVF becomes a moral question when multiple eggs are fertilised, begin development, and only a few are chosen for implantation.”
In vitro fertilisation – Wikipedia

That was then . …

This is now (actual already 5 years old, because, it’s proprietary). …

What do you think the new market(s) are going to be?
I bet you already know, that is, if you already know there are ‘Bio-bags’ used to grow lamb fetuses.

(Figure from a 2017 Nature Communications paper describing an extra-uterine life support system, or “biobag”, used to grow lamb fetuses.[1])

In 2017, fetal researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia published a study showing they had grown premature lamb fetuses for four weeks in an extra-uterine life support system.[1][6][7]

Gender equality and LGBT[edit]
In the 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex, feminist Shulamith Firestone wrote that differences in biological reproductive roles are a source of gender inequality. Firestone singled out pregnancy and childbirth, making the argument that an artificial womb would free “women from the tyranny of their reproductive biology.”[25][26]
Arathi Prasad argues in her column on The Guardian in her article “How artificial wombs will change our ideas of gender, family and equality” that “It will […] give men an essential tool to have a child entirely without a woman, should they choose. It will ask us to question concepts of gender and parenthood.” She furthermore argues for the benefits for same-sex couples: “It might also mean that the divide between mother and father can be dispensed with: a womb outside a woman’s body would serve women, trans women and male same-sex couples equally without prejudice.”[27]

This is a global industry.

“None of this is surprising of course. Russia loves genetic stuff.
In August 2019, the State Duma commissioned a report on how to upgrade Russia’s outdated laws so that humans could be genetically enhanced in cool new ways. The study examined:
… the possibilities of conflict-free development of a new generation of technologies for using assisted reproductive technologies (genome editing, metabolic management during pregnancy, etc.) to create a new (contractual) type of society based on more advanced legislation.
The first step was obvious: we need to know everyone’s genome.
In July 2021, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko revealed plans to issue “genetic passports” to all Russians, with special attention given to the little ones.”
https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/genetic-russia?utm_medium=email

The most appropriate course of action for a concerned society is the same one that is most appropriate for the individual.

That is: Take Charge of Your Fertility!! — That’s the title of a book that’s been around since the ‘90s that should be taught in every school.

Why do schools teach more about sex education than reproductive education? I can think of many reasons, many of those centering on money, power and and the social engineering required to keep the proper channels well-greased.

I was taught the only choices for a girl are abstinence, or artificial birth control methods like: The Pill, IUD, sponge, condom, etc. Abstinence until marriage sounded as absurd to me then as it does to me now. Expecting a girl to ignore or erase her sexual maturity for a decade plus is simply cruel and is bound to create issues individually and for the society.

Yet each of these offered birth control methods require regular purchases from the drug store or doctor.

Imagine how empowering it would be for a pre-teen girl to understand her menstrual cycle, physically and emotionally. The process of Natural Birth Control is so easy and it trains a girl to listen to her body. Anyone who can remember to take a pill every day can learn how to read their basal body temperature every day.

Unfortunately I knew nothing of this method until I was nearly 40.

Of course, I understand it is not fool-proof, but then there is the ‘Plan-B’*. There are natural abortificants as well, if only the information were made available.

If a girl chooses against pregnancy, and she knows her body thanks to a proper education that tells her immediately when there is a fertilized egg just then attaching to her uterine wall thanks to her basal body temperature (as it is something she will most likely not feel) and long before that mass of cells should be called ‘a baby’, she can disrupt the development of the embryo, and not have to live her life with the label of ‘murderer’ thrown at her every time the socio-political engine decides to roll down those tracks, again.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health by Toni Weschler, MPH

*Notice again the inflammatory language in the renaming of this product, “Emergency Contraception”. To take contraception daily is far more profitable than to take one pill a month only when you need it.

It is my sincere hope that biologically-informed, naturally-gendered girls will someday prove that they do not need the government, or the corporations, or the priest-class—scientific or otherwise—to control their fertility.

We are perfectly capable of managing our fertility and reproduction all on our own with the proper information and resources.

Homestead Happenings

Just a wee hodgepodge of happy snaps and some light commentary for today.

Our preserving efforts have been at fever pitch with bushels of cucumbers and melons coming in. The Noirs des Carmes cantaloupe that was my main prize experiment for this summer has been a success, for the most part. We’ve gotten loads of melons, way too many to count, and the majority of them have been good.

But many of them have ‘exploded’— and that’s not just split, but within a day, before even being fully ripe, they’ve blown open completely. Some are tasteless even though fully ripe. Some are softening while still small and unripe.

The pigs have been the great beneficiaries of these rejects. I do understand why this melon is not commercially available and is not a favorite at farmer’s markets either, even though when they’re good, they’re delicious. Though some of these issues could certainly be the extreme heat and drought, they do not last long once they are ripe. They must ripen on the vine, and once ripe they last only a few days before rotting.

For us they’ve been prolific and very tasty even under stressful conditions, so they will be a keeper. Needless to say, we’ve been eating A LOT of melon! Melon for breakfast, snacks, aqua fresca, desserts, juice, syrup, jam and smoothies.

A small fraction of our harvest, preparing to make preserves.

Our marmalade efforts were disappointing. Three different recipes, two with pectin, and none of them set! 😩 They are still delicious and will go to good use in desserts, kombucha and cocktails, but still, it’s not what we were going for. And, now I won’t give any of them as gifts, which was the plan. And, it’s annoying not knowing what happened. Old pectin, maybe? Anyway, I’m sure I’ll forget about all those ’ands’ this winter when the fresh melons are long gone and I’m pouring our yummy ginger-melon syrup over french toast! 😁

We’re trying to take advantage of the heat by trying out a recent gift, a sun oven!

Our place is so small and we love cooking, but it’s hardly economical heating up the whole house every afternoon, when it’s blazing hot outside, and while inside the air conditioning is blasting away.

Our first attempt, baking a spaghetti squash in our new sun oven.

The kids are growing so fast! I’m slowly, gently trying to ween them. In this heat I don’t dare take too much milk for us, just enough for our morning coffee. But the daily training is still essential, for us all.

Around 5:00 am I separate mamas and kids for about 5 hours. The kids are eating grains and forage already, but they don’t like to be long off those teets, that’s for sure! By 9:00 they are wailing and it’s hard to listen to them while we’re working away outside, but it must be tolerated.

I train them on the milk stand and bring them a wheelbarrow full of sweet potato vines, which they devour.

Lots of banana peppers and figs, but they seem to have stalled in their growing or ripening.

Hercules and Athena in left photo; In right photo is Chestnut and Walnut on the left and Summer with Blue Bonnet nursing on her to the right.
.

A few baffling successes have been carrots and broccoli that are still producing in this heat! This is a first for us. I guess I got the timing and variety just right, for once. They are both under shade cloth and not totally productive or tasty, but good enough for us and a very nice surprise.

I’ve started some seed trays of tomatoes and lettuce indoors for the fall garden. Fingers crossed, I’ve never had successful fall tomatoes so far, but you never know, considering those carrots and broccoli!

Is It Life, Or Is It Politics?

Money sucks the life out of Life.

While folks argue about what is life, Life has become a fucking clown show.

It’s the conquering aristocracy who calculate their conceptions to the sky clock.

Normal folk had sex. And had sex, maybe even daily, maybe even from puberty to death. And the women drank tea each month until they decided not to anymore. Then they had a baby. Worked for centuries.

Then came in The Nobles. The Church. The State. The Medics. Not necessarily in that order. All there in order to provide protection.

That is, each from the other.

When the nobles, the church, the state, the medics, decided the peasants were having too many babies, or too much sex, or too much leisure, they stepped in. In order to provide protection.

And then when they needed more soldiers to fight in their future battles, or more souls on the lands they just conquered, they dictated to their peasants, “Have more babies for our nation’s-religion’s-tribe’s greatness!”

And when they decided once again there were too many babies they dictated to their peasants, “Your babies will be cursed with the plague!” That’s the modern equivalent of “Your babies must be sterilized!” Or, “Your germ-factory children are killing Grandma!”

Or, “Global climate change is caused by overpopulation!”

In the meantime they kill off all the witches who know all the safe brews. Always, in order to provide protection.

They cry about the horrors of unplanned pregnancy! Or, the horrors of killing God’s creation! In tandem. In concert.

They leave out the facts. A woman could potentially have approximately 1, 233 children in her lifetime, according to God. That’s an approximation, of course.

A man, good heavens, we’d need a mathematician to calculate that! Harems exist for a reason.

Everything we know about human reproduction originates in animal husbandry. And it’s absolute nonsense when science and culture claim that all women in a tribe will cycle together with the moon.

What sort of evolutionary sense does that even make?

The ‘Red Tent’ was always about the tea.

Homestead Happenings

Just trying to keep cool these days, physically and mentally. We can’t spend all day outside anymore, as we’d prefer. It’s crazy hot and dry and we’re losing the crops at a rapid clip in these unprecedented June temperatures.

Fortunately, we can spend the hot afternoons in the cool kitchen, adding to our skillsets and our supply of delicious homemade staples—such as ferments, my domain, and canning, Hubby’s expanding speciality.

Canned dill pickles on left and an array of ferments fresh from the garden—cucumbers, radishes, carrots, tomatoes, beets . … and our first ‘Noirs des Carmes’ melon of the season.

It’s so hot and dry, and generally miserable day and night, that I find myself continually amazed at how resilient some species are.

Swamp lillies on left, in part shade and getting supplemental regular watering, and poppies, so lovely and tolerant.

Also getting supplemental water and looking great, the most cheeriest of all the flowers, no contest.

We’ve lost the tomato crop prematurely. It wasn’t a total loss though, we’ve got enough for fresh salads and salsas, but not a bumper crop for canning, unfortunately.

And the fresh ones are delicious! Literally, the variety is called ’Delicious’ and they really are not fibbing. Saving those seeds for sure.

And, we’ve got a cucumber first, a volunteer! And with that another mystery with a pleasant surprise.

‘Arkansas Little Leaf’ pickling cucumber

I’ve planted this variety for several years now because it’s been such a great producer. But I’ve not planted it with any intention of seed-saving, so it’s gone in right next door to other cucumber varieties, and melons, and squash, without a second thought.

And yet, it’s produced a true-to-type volunteer, which I most certainly will be taking seed from! We regularly get cherry tomato volunteers that produce beautifully, and always get volunteer tomatillos, Luffa, cilantro, basil, but this is a first for cucumber.

Volunteer ‘Arkansas Little Leaf’ coming back over the fence

Other crops like the peppers are still producing fine, but the spaghetti squash is also starting to peter out already.

Garlic curing with spaghetti squash and just-harvested melons; the big green sea of ‘Noirs des Carmes’ cantaloupe now ripening; sweet potatoes and Black-eyed Susans, un-phased by the heat, as long as they get plenty of water.

The birds and bees and 4-legged manage much better than we do.

Though, let’s not forget, they are watered and fed and do no real work and lay around all afternoon and evening!

The milk stand has become their playstation!

There’s not nearly enough milk for cheesemaking yet, but I’m studying up!

Thankfully for the good old-fashioned snailmail I’ve gotten a divine treasure—a guide to traditional French goat cheese-making—originally published in the 1950s, in a humble effort to save the world from industrialized cheese.

Obviously, he did not succeed, not by a long shot.

But it is still a fascinating read on a sweltering Sunday.

Squash Mysteries

Hey, you bee, you got my cucumber in my Trombetta!
Right?!

Some interesting twists and turns in the garden, as usual.

I did realize that cross-pollinating between cucumbers and squash do occur. It’s result is sometimes ‘parthenocarpic’, fruit that is seedless.

But, different fruits off the same plant?
This is news to me.
But, I’ll bet the Robo-Bees in the future technocrazy will have an ap for that!

These really did come off the same plant, same age, Hubby just happened to harvest some before I got a side-by-side photo. Next time.

I have the big seed-saving goals this year, but there is a learning curve for sure.

Because of space requirements, and that learning curve that seems to be getting steeper by the month, I decided to start with just a few crops. I already do most of the herbs, and the other easy stuff, like okra and sunflowers. I’ve ventured slightly into peppers and tomatoes, with negligable results.

Cucumbers, melons and squash are all in the ‘challenging’ category. I thought I planned correctly when I put the ones I want to seed-save at opposite ends of the garden, but then. . .

In my reference book, The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds by Robert & Cheryl Gough, it seems pretty hopeless. “Recommended isolation distance for varieties that can cross-pollinate is 1 1/2 to 2 miles; recommended isolation distance for other Cucurbita species is 1/4 mile.”

As in, Miles?! Oh my.

And furthermore, there’s another squash mystery. I’ve got zucchini right by Trombetta, as already mentioned. Yet the zucchini leaves, which look gorgeous, better than I’ve ever seen them, are flowering, and not producing. Yet the cucumbers and Trombetta are producing like crazy, and the Trombetta leaves are not really looking too good.

Zucchini in foreground looking happy, Trombetta at left, yellowing

Any gardener, myself included, would immediately claim a gorgeous zucchini plant flowering just fine, but not producing, is the result of poor pollination.

But, I know, that’s highly unlikely. First, I’ve seen bees on them. Second, the nearby Trombetta and cucumber, also bee-pollinated, are producing just fine.

So, what gives?

And furthermore, more, why does spellcheck capitalize Trombetta and not zucchini?

I’m open to facts, theories, or random guesses.

A Stranger in a Strange Land

Just what are the Globalists and their minions taking from us, really?

They are stealing our wealth, that much is very clear. In that move they are accumulating enormous power, those two go hand in hand. They are creating a monoculture—their ideal “One World”—which on the surface to a great many around the world sounds like a nice thing.

These folks, mostly the young and those of ‘aspiring’ economies, expect to see more opportunities, a more equal distribution of resources, better access to education, a higher standard of living.

I want those things for them too.

This doesn’t sell as well in the U.S. and other Western countries. Our standard of living is already quite high, relatively speaking. So the promotion angle of their scheme is different with us. We get verbally spanked for being too successful.

We get optimal inflation and free training in resilience and a taste of tyranny and are expected to be grateful for it.

Whether you buy into the Globalist socio-economic vision or expect to benefit from it is the crux of most folks’ concern—either for or against—if they are concerned at all.

But what’s really being stolen, the root of the issue, as I see it, is much more serious than material gains or losses, or more convenient global commerce. Or mass immigration. Or even a totalitarian takeover.

Both Hubby and I were avid travelers when we met, and continued in that vein for many years afterwards. Most of this was before widespread use of the internet, when traveling alone was really traveling alone. If you got homesick you waited two weeks for a letter, or stood in line at the pay phone, or just suffered through it.

Mark Twain has supposedly said, “Traveling makes you humble.” I believe he meant the real kind of travel, not the group tours through Europe hitting ten capitals in ten days brand of modern tourism. No military base or corporate job or trust fund to cling to either. Those types are real traveling about as much as glamping resembles real camping.

To be a stranger in a strange land is a consciousness altering and life changing experience. When I saw McDonalds and signs in English and waves of expats, I got my fill of nostalgia quickly, and moved on. I experienced lots of loneliness. LOTS. I was scared sometimes. I put myself in some compromising positions, which I then had to navigate without the safety nets of language, cultural familiarity, kinship, or commraderie. “Travails” —that is the deepest purpose of travel and what separates a traveler from a tourist, or an occupier.

When I see signs in this country in Spanish or Chinese I feel sorry for those travelers, or immigrants. They are missing something essential through our obsession with making everyone feel safe and welcomed.

They are missing the life-changing opportunity to become ingratiated to another, in testing their own metal, in developing their own personal resilience and emotional fortitude. And ultimately, their ability to adapt to an environment, and to transform themselves.

We are not doing them any favors by denying them these opportunities and calling it welcoming and inclusive.

What we are actually doing is fostering weakness and projecting our own sheltered materialism onto all those who come here in order to experience cultural strength and conscious, courageous individuality—in us—and in themselves.

Homestead Happenings

Busy days on the wee homestead as we try to maximize our production with the swelter season clock ticking. The scheduled weather is HOT and DRY for us for the foreseeable future and just staying on top of the watering is a big task.

Hubby’s pond water pumping system is a life saver for the plants, but it still requires an entire morning per section in the garden, around the house, in the orchard, which means he’s walking back and forth, moving hoses, rearranging sprinklers, and sweating. It’s not easy, or free, but comparatively it’s our best option and I’m very grateful for it!

Adding shade cloth and screening wherever we can.

And, while I’m on the gratitude train, let’s give a big cheer and thank MAN for the air condition! We’ll be spending much more time indoors for a while, me especially.

Welcome new additions to the garden this year, Poppy and Nigella. Very happy for these, I’ve tried many times for poppies with no luck, and the nigella was gifted from a friend and the blue and white flowers are so darling and the seeds so delicious!

We continue to experiment with different preserving techniques and flavor combinations and it’s SO much more enjoyable for me to have his company and help in this endeavor, now that he’s home all month long!

Last year’s experiments of watermelon rind pickles and melon butter were a fine success we hope to repeat again this summer. Lately he’s also been making cream of mushroom soup from our foraged chanterelles that is SO delicious, as well as blackberry preserves. He’s also canned a bunch of potatoes and made a huge batch of ratatouille for the freezer. That’s a first for both of those, so we’re looking forward to the taste test.

The cucumbers are coming in well, the melons still looking very promising, but the heat is definitely taking its toll on the tomatoes already. That is disappointing because we do love tomatoes and needed to re-stock our marinara this year. Hopefully we’ll find some neighbors with a bumper crop who are willing to trade for some of our prolific squash!

Lots more to share, on another day! 😁
Thanks for stopping by!

Trial & Many Errors

There’s the good kind of failures—like those you are able to remedy; And the bad kind—like those you can’t control; And the worst kind—like those you could control, if only you could figure out what went wrong.

We have a collage of all 3 today!

Failed cheeses, failed fruits, and sun scorch.

Penicillium roqueforti has dominated my Little Turds and now we have little blue turds, which is a big fat failure.

This is the most aggressive cheese fungus and once the spores get started it’s extremely difficult to correct the issue. As much as I love blue cheese, this is not the process for making it. As a surface mold it does not taste good, it’s the veining of the blue cheese that brings out the nice flavors. I don’t make blue cheese, because in order to make other cheeses you must exclude the blue to get the white (geotrichum candidum),or any others, to dominate.

Even a hobbyist will quickly learn that you need a separate space, equipment and unique aging fridge just for the blues. This particular invasion happened very quickly, in just 2 days, because a beverage fridge does not make a very good aging fridge for cheeses. But, it’s all I’ve got. The temperature varies unexpectedly and you can’t control the humidity. Sure, a lot of cheese makers out there claim there are certain tricks for modifying the humidity levels of the mini-fridge, but they just don’t work, or they are far too high maintenance for me.

The fridge got too cold by just a few degrees, and this was the result. The two without any blue are from an older experiment, also failed, because their white fungal coat is not thick enough. I’m hoping a snug fig wrapping will magically transform the problem. But, I doubt it.

Wrapped in fig leaves (with a bit of sage on one too, to cover the naked parts) back into their Tuperware-fashioned high-humidity space, and back into the aging fridge.

As for the little blue turds, I’m going for maximum shock treatment, just to continue the experiment at this point, because I think they are beyond repair. I have them at room temperature now and I might even try spraying on some geotrichum candidum, just to see what happens.

The orchard is a continual string of failures, the nectarines being just the latest one. We’ve planted so many fruit trees in there we’ve lost track. We planted a couple of plums, one that actually produced for a couple of years, then both suddenly died. The grapes are looking terrible this year, the apples hardly ever bloom and never produce any fruit, the peaches die a year or two after planting, and now we finally got some nectarines and they look like this. The worst part is, once you cut out all the bad parts, the few nibbles of good fruit you have left are absolutely delicious.

We’ve got one reliable pear tree, another two that get a great crop about every 3 years. And the figs, my favorite, that are on some boom-bust mystery cycle we haven’t figured out.

Hubby is beyond frustrated with the fruit trees, so he’s got a mini-project filling up the orchard now, his own hog feed production line.

I think he’s trying to teach those miserable fruit trees a lesson by planting a thriving row of squashes between the rows as feed for the pigs. The cost of feed is getting crazy! And of course, we’d much rather feed the pigs off the land. Trombetta and chayote squashes, and luffa, are growing great and will soon make for some happy pigs.

Luckily we at least have some giant blackberries to soothe our disappointments a bit.

While the garden is still hanging in there despite intense heat and very little rain, the signs of stress have already started. Even heat lovers like the turmeric are getting sun scald. The leaves of the tomatoes and tomatillos are looking equally sad. I’ve covered what I can with shade cloth and screening, and I’ve got my fingers crossed, and that’s about all I can do about that.

Sir Turmeric has a sunburn and Trombetta’s leaves are looking sad.

If the melons disappoint me again this year, at least I can feel better knowing the bees were very pleased. That is, except for the little bitch who stung me on the middle finger while I was harvesting cucumbers. The simplest of all these problems to solve—must wear gloves now while harvesting.

The Noir des Carnes cantaloupes alive with so many buzzing bees!

Oh, and last but not least, the shallots never bulbed. No idea why. I bet Bubba knows, but he’s not talking.

Homestead Happy Snaps

I have so very much I could be reporting on from the wee homestead, but I only have the energy to share some photos, a couple short vids and a few brief comments.

We’ve got some really weird weather that has us back in long sleeves and pants after a few weeks of blistering heat. I have no time to get started down that fool’s path at the moment. Moving along.

The bees have finally graced us with their presence in the garden, I was getting a bit worried! They are all over the cucumbers, which we’ve just started harvesting.

They also found the cantaloupe at last, thank goodness, this is my primo experiment for this summer. This is a true heirloom French cantaloupe, Noir des Carmes, which you can’t buy anywhere in these parts. I learned from the seed catalogue that what we call cantaloupe in the U.S. was renamed, these ’muskmelons’ in green or orange (with the ‘netted’ skin) are not the original cantaloupe, which does not ship well, and so was never popularized here.

“Noir des carmes” cantaloupe, named after the Carmelite monks.

From top left: Spaghetti squash with backdrop of sweet corn, tomatoes just starting to turn, elderberry just blooming, black-eyed Susan decorating sweet potato vines, and cucumbers starting up their trellis.

Hubby had some surprising success with peas in his ’gorilla garden’ — a new experiment. We were gifted a garbage bag full of seeds, some of them 8 years old, which I thought would be useless. He threw them down in a spot he’d roto-tilled for the purpose, mixed up all the cool-season seeds together and broadcast them, watered them a couple of times, and we actually got a big bowl of peas out of the effort. I so love fresh peas and they are not always a reliable crop around here. He planted them later than advised too, so I was very surprised he got anything at all. He estimates germination at about 20%.

We got a great harvest of onions and canned up a couple of batches of French Onion Soup, mmmm. I have my glove under one in the middle photo to show their nice size. It was our best onion harvest to date, and I think that is owed to all the sheep poop and the mild winter.

I was proudly exclaiming to Hubby some kudos on our team effort with pressure canning the soup when he had to burst my little bubble by explaining how that makes us one teeny-tiny fraction closer to the recommended annual Ball Blue Book chart from 1966.

We have kittens! We just happened upon them in the old tractor barn while gathering dewberries.

The kids are growing SO fast!

They are following mamas into the woods, playing and jumping around and are so fun to watch.

Once again, I did not mean to hit ’slow mo’ on this short vid, but it’s a good thing I did, because you can really see the ‘look’ of triumph in Walnut’s demeanor after she bullied tiny Athena. I guess goats are something of a belligerent species!

And to end, the best part, my new She-shed, thanks to Hubby, which will get an entire post of its own very soon!

Garlic still to be harvested in front of my recycled garden shed—
Oh the joys of being at the top of Hubby’s to-do list!

A Bit on Gardening

“He is grumpy and coarse and all the things I was warned about. He takes his contest with nature very seriously and finds no comfort in its unpredictable forces. Like most gardeners, he never vacations. In winter when all is quiet and still, he would much rather spend his time fretting—about the fruit trees budding, about the relentless springs frosts that may or may not come, about the sun and the moon. Gardeners, I discovered, are tough, content to be grim”

The Cook and the Gardener: A Year of Recipes and Writings From the French Countryside by Amanda Hesser, 1999

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