I know it must be autumn somewhere! Here that reality is still mostly in my dreams. We’re still in the 90s and still mostly dry. There are a few tiny signs of change though, that I’m magnifying in my mind, because I can hardly wait! It’s been a terrible summer.
See, right there, 3 red leaves on my favorite Sassafras tree! (Very soon to be featured in an ‘Herbal Explorations’ post)
But, I’m not going to complain about that now. Instead we’ve got lots of happy snaps, and even a few scary ones.
We’re gearing up for the fall/winter garden, getting the beds ready for the transplants that have been growing under lights for a month and are very ready for their new outdoor home, just as soon as the temperature drops a bit.
Hang in there brassicas, it’s almost time!
We just started harvesting sweet potatoes from the boxes waiting for replanting.
Those vines helped keep the goats happy and healthy during the extra long heat wave.
Summer keeping a sharp eye on Shadow even though there’s a fence between them. None of the goats have warmed up to him, despite all his best efforts!
The peppers have come back with gusto after another dose of compost dressing and removing their shade cloth.
Jalapeños and banana peppers and the now monstrous cranberry hibiscus on right that is finally just starting to bloom.
Cucumbers again, yippie! Plus hurricane lilies, turmeric, zinnia and basil keeping the bees happy. And lots of bindweed (morning glory)—scourge to the industrial farmer—a hardy, lovely and welcome cover for the rest of us.
I’m getting about 1/2 gallon of milk a day from 2 goats and making cheese often—mozzarella and soft chèvre every week and a hard cheese whenever I can accumulate at least 3 gallons (preferably 6) in the freezer. The larger the hard cheese the easier it is to age properly and goat milk works just fine for cheese after freezing.
The easiest cheese to make and so delish!
But I’m really looking forward to making Camembert and Munster again. Just like all things natural, cheeses also have seasons. I was very disappointed by a so-called Brie I just splurged on from the grocery store. They should call it a processed Brie-like imitation and market it in the aisle with Velveeta. Quel scandale!
A few more friendly faces . . .
As I mentioned last update, we had a sausage-fest this summer, that is, a super-high percentage of males born, of all species—cats, pigs, sheep, chickens, goats. So odd.
Now we have 3 young male cats, a new thing for us. But one of them is a real scaredy cat, we’re never able to get close to him and he’s rarely around except for meal time.
Always crouching in the shadows and darting off even from the camera.
Also odd but true—our black cat, Mittens, hangs out with our black Shadow and our blond Tony hangs out with our blond Bubba and Buttercup—go figure!
“Hey in there! Where’s our breakfast?!”
I love spiders, especially these beauties, but some folks find them scary, apparently.
Now here’s a real foe . . . .
Gross! Looks like right out of a horror movie. And he has a lot of friends haunting our compost heap. 🤢
But who loves ‘em but our very scary Halloween rooster . . .
Poor guy, we’ve no idea what happened to him, but he is one scary-looking dude!
Soon we will be making the tough but necessary fall homestead decision—who will get bred and who will shuffle off to freezer camp?
But not a care in the world for these contented creatures!
Hope you’re having a fine Sunday and thanks for stopping by!
A quick reprieve from ruminating about technology for some recent happy snaps. I’ll try to not do too much complaining about the weather. But I know how hard that’s going to be so, here’s a deal, for every complaint I will offer one bonus. 😁
Dortmund climbing rose makes a surprise appearance
The extreme heat, and drought, is not normal, so I really wish folks would stop saying it is.
Bonus! It’s reassuring how remarkably resilient some plants and animals are.
Hibiscus for tea, to be blooming soon With plenty of irrigation and shade cloth the re-seeded cucumbers are coming in, lots of okra, eggplant, peppers. And sweet potato vines, which the goats especially love.
One green melon from one surviving plant, I think I’ll name those saved seeds the Miracle Melon.
Not much harvesting happening, but at least something. A few figs and grapes, some herbs and elderberries for flavoring kombucha.
Bonus! We can fully appreciate how precious water is to all of us.
Pretty obvious where the sprinkler spray stops
Man changing the climate? Perhaps.
Man changing the weather? Definitely. Do they care how toxic and dangerous that is? Seems like no.
Bonus! We can observe different species peaceful tolerance of the other under times of stress, as well as which critters are more heat tolerant. The honeybees only appearance in the garden at the moment is at this water trough where I feed some tadpoles. But, bumblebees are going crazy on the salvia, wonderful!
It’s so hellishly hot by 10 am we can’t stand to be outside anymore.
Bonus! We can feel like heroes as we try to keep the critters as comfortable as possible.
This cool-looking wasp followed me inside, maybe hoping to keep cool? It’s been living happily on this ‘longevity spinach’ (gynura procumbens) for nearly a week. I didn’t realize they could live so long alone, indoors and with no nectar. The wasps must eat something on the leaves, there’s loads of wasps on the okra leaves too.
Here we come to save the day! Bubba in his tub and Buttercup in her sand hole.
The final bonus of bonuses! I can tackle all kinds of indoor projects I’ve been neglecting, like organizing the closets, washing the windows and floors, attending to the neglected pile of sewing . . .
The only true bonus of that list is that I find it so objectionable I’ll instead be reaching for another novel I’ve been meaning to read. 😆
Times are tough, the mood around here is tight and demoralized. I won’t sugar coat it. Two months of 100+ degrees and no rain is bound to have emotional as well as physical consequences. We are victims and I refuse to pretend otherwise.
It’s one thing after another and because it’s so hot everything takes far greater effort. I’d go down the big list of all the things breaking down and all the things we can’t keep up with, but it’s way too long.
And no one likes a complainer, right? Don’t wallow in misery, right? Don’t bring others down?
If I had a dollar for every time I read or hear somewhere some version of—“Don’t play the victim”or “You’ve got to get out of the victim mentality” —I’d spit on it, wad it up in a tight ball, and shoot it out the barrel of a gun right between the eyes of every idiot who repeats such self-serving nonsense.
We ARE victims and there are a great many of us. Victims of medical experimentation, victims of weather warfare and disaster capitalism, victims of theft, victims of bullying and coercion, and that’s just those who are lucky enough not to be victims of far worse.
What is the ‘victim mentality’ exactly and who does it serve if we all bypass it? Who does it serve if we swallow our anger and resentment and bitterness?
Folks like to say it serves oneself, as in, then the dark emotions don’t haunt you and bring you down. They say we shouldn’t be vindictive, or hang on to past abuses and that hate will eat away at our souls and even cause cancer and other serious diseases.
In fact, it’s blind optimism and relentless positivity that keep folks stuck in denial and complacency, which can easily prove fatal, for the individual and the culture.
It is considered extremely ‘uncool’ to ‘play the victim’ even when you are a victim. Why is that? The media would have us believe everyone is playing the victim and that’s what’s wrong with our culture—so litigious, everyone looking for a handout, too many snowflakes.
While that may be partially true, and most certainly exploited, they leave out one very big piece of the social puzzle. Like, should we not be concerned that we have created a culture with so many victims, whether perceived or real?
I’ll leave y’all to ponder that question for a bit while I digress.
Because, we SO ROCK!
Sure, it really sucks at the moment. But at such times I take more notice of all the things we’ve done right. It’s not bypassing all that’s gone wrong, it’s holding both reality extremes in my mind at the same time.
We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary, and 15 of those years we’ve had this property, which we purchased, BASED ON BEING VICTIMS. After Hurricane Katrina, we saw first hand what the government response is to a crisis and we also saw how helpless most folks were. It was very eye-opening. We took action, to make sure we were not victims again.
We were victims again. And again. These are not ‘natural’ disasters, not one of them.
But for argument sake, even if the hurricanes and tornado were not manipulated by man (they were!) the consequences of those disasters were most definitely exacerbated by man.
These are disasters with perpetrators. Each time the (supposed) natural disasters were made far worse by people. We were robbed after the first one, as well as permanently losing my teaching contract at that time. The second time we were left paying 3 rents—one on the apartment we couldn’t live in, the mortgage on this property that had no finished home to live in yet, and the house to which we evacuated. The third time saw more grifters try to take advantage of our compromised and very stressful situation under the guise of helping.
Each time we’ve taken action based on that victim status to try to ameliorate it for the next time.
That’s why we rock. In the last 15 years we have carved out an awesome wee homestead. We cleared loads of land, just the two of us and a little old tractor. Built a cabin, 3 chicken coops, a corral, a large garden, a large orchard, remodeled our home, acquired many different kinds of livestock, have been learning beekeeping, foraging, cheesemaking, herbalism and LOADS of other life skills that were completely new to us, and have helped a few others on their journey to do the same.
As victims it is our duty to arm others (or at least try, especially for the next generations) with the tools they will need to bring down the perpetrators who currently evade us. It only serves the perpetrators to pretend there are no victims, or to micro-manage others’ victim status and behavior.
A victim mentality can be healthy, or it can be destructive. What most folks do is try to exploit it or minimize it.
They try to exploit it by using it as an excuse to do nothing—this is not a victim mentality—this is a grifter mentality. They try to minimize it because the folks around them are too lazy, indifferent, busy, selfish, adolescent, or cruel to listen to them and allow them to express their true feelings rather than those that are socially acceptable and make everyone else feel comfortable.
The guilt and shame should go squarely and solely on the shoulders of the abusers and those making excuses for the abuse. If victims of repeated abuses turn into individuals with a grifter mentality it could be because they’ve witnessed so often first-hand that this is the winning strategy in our culture. I seriously doubt telling such individuals to stop ‘playing the victim’ will do a damn bit of good. And, why should it?
So, all hail the victims! And more power to us. Not the corrupting brand of power that turns us into tyrants and perpetrators ourselves, but the inner-power it takes to hold that victimhood out for all to see, in order to enlighten, to righteously blame and accuse, and to give the next generation a better chance at identifying their abusers, holding them accountable, as well as in fortifying their own lives and livelihoods against further victimization.
Ug, am I in a mood! Read on for a big fat bitch fest.
First I’m going to bitch about the weather. Then I’m going to bitch about the garden. Finally I’m going to bitch about all the dumb bitches.
I will end with one positive paragraph, however, so y’all can leave satisfied that there’s no need to fret on my behalf. 😆
Let me first set the proper tone.
Time stamp 35:53. It’s an old clip, but as valid as ever. Oh my, do I have rant-envy! How I wish I were this good!
You’re worried about what you’re putting in your fucking body?! What about what you’re fucking breathing?!!
I listen to Carol nearly every day; she’s one of the precious few who gets what’s happening and has a proper level of peeve about it all. Go ahead and give the first 30 minutes a listen, if you care to hear about all the (manufactured!) weather destruction around our realm.
If you want to be that person, who writes in the comments that all this is normal and they can’t control the weather, feel free, because I could use a good target for all this vitriol!
And just for the record, I know they use the word ‘control’ to confuse folks, because then they have plausible deniability. Because they don’t exactly “control it” like we control the thermostat in our homes. They manipulate it, where and when they can, in order to cause destruction, in order to profit from disaster capitalism and play the Stocks with weather futures and food prices and every other piece of the economy which is weather-dependent, which is a whole helluvalot.
If you are safe and secure in your tiny little area, good for you, your region is not on the targeted list, YET.
This is not about Bill Gates and his ‘proposed’ solar radiation management. This is SO much bigger and he is one drop in the bucket of the wild, Wild West that is happening in our skies and with our atmosphere. It’s been going on for decades! I’m SO SO damn tired of the denial and the Pollyanna pretending and the stoic excuses!
The general consensus that we can just keep throwing money at the problems and they will magically get fixed by technology is not just absurd and dangerous, it is fatal.
How’s this for the next big fix by Big Biz?
“Now, the likes of Bayer, Corteva and Syngenta are working with Microsoft, Google and the big-tech giants to facilitate farmerless farms driven by cloud and AI technology. A cartel of data owners and proprietary input suppliers are reinforcing their grip on the global food system while expanding their industrial model of crop cultivation.” From Net Zero to Glyphosate: Agritech’s Greenwashed Corporate Power Grab “Whereas traditional breeding and on-farm practices have little or no need for GE technologies, under the guise of ‘climate emergency’, the data and agritech giants are commodifying knowledge and making farmers dependent on their platforms and inputs. The commodification of knowledge and compelling farmers to rely on proprietary inputs overseen by algorithms will define what farming is and how it is to be carried out.”
How do you make the world believe there’s a climate emergency? It takes a lot more than hyped-up media coverage and fraudulent stats—there has to be something to cover after all. Enter mass-scale weather modification in key areas—droughts, floods, earthquakes—YES THEY CAN!
Not to mention they’ve cornered the markets of: Disaster Preparedness, 1st Response, Disaster Relief, and Reconstruction, of the entire globe.
Someone has to keep shaking that can to keep everyone fighting you know!
“There’s a meme that circulated on social media a while back that perfectly sums up the polarized, manipulated mayhem, madness and tyranny that is life in the American police state today:
“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti Mask. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar … and why?”
Weather warfare is real and it is happening. And it is going to get worse.
Around here, with nearly two months now without rain, high temperatures, drying winds, it’s very easy to grasp what sitting ducks we all really are. We spend the entire mornings just trying to keep what’s not already dead from dying. The time and energy and repetition is exhausting and demoralizing. The afternoons are spent indoors, grateful for the air conditioning and that we’ve had no animal fatalities from the heat, so far.
Most of the garden is dead and depressing. The tomatoes fried, the cucumbers almost gone and getting bitter, the squashes mostly dead, even the heat-loving luffa, which has never succumbed to the heat in past summers. One of four chayote squashes is still barely hanging on, and that’s supposedly another heat-lover.
Not even regular watering helps.
Thinking this ‘heat dome’ could be parked over us for another three months, or wildfires could be next on their battle plan is more than I can bear. I set a single perfect pinecone on the windowsill to remind me fall will surely come, eventually.
Then come the normalizers, Lord Have Mercy! The Fucking Chemtrail Deniers, How I LOATHE them! Let me count some ways:
The evolution of the geoengineering psy-op as I’ve experienced it over the last decade or so has been a recurring nightmare.
I’m thinking it might be helpful to those new to the topic and also to those compiling the multi-colored yarns of our clown world for knitting a scarf for their future grandchildren.
No kids, the skies did not always look like this. Don’t believe the Con-trail Believers!
Some early ‘rationales’ for the lines, dubbed chemtrails, back in the ancient past (circa 2010) — these would be the various layers of gaslighting I heard during my first inquiries on the topic.
*First tier. This is when I would randomly ask Google questions like, WTF is wrong with the sky? What’s the difference between weather and climate? What’s a ‘space fence’? What the hell is wrong with the weather? Answers: Planet Nabiru causing atmospheric disturbance The wind patterns changing due to ‘El Nino’ Contrails, a con that keeps on giving WiFi, atmospheric phenomenon due to widespread wifi Radar, result of new tech
*Second tier. This is when I started seriously questioning and challenging on social media. What’s geoengineering? What the fuck is wrong with the weather? What are ‘sun dogs’? What is ‘solar radiation management’? What are chemtrails? Answers: Not there, my imagination (yes, I got that regularly) Military operations, not my business (ditto) New brand of ‘green’ Jet fuel Military chaff End of days Coal Fly Ash Military fuel dumps Contrails, the con persists!
*Third tier: Self-replicating Nano-bots (now we’re getting somewhere!) Space fence, for real! Germ warfare Weather warfare (DUH!) My imagination—yes, still!
I do try to focus on the positive, and there is a bit of it. Hubby’s first sunflower-melon patch was a big hit. It’s gone now, but we’ve got some really amazing watermelons to celebrate his success!
The pumpkins have also been pretty impressive, and amazingly they are still alive, though it does feel odd to have ripe pumpkins laying around everywhere in July.
Guess who else loves pumpkins? The plants got so big they’ve grown past the garden fence into the goat’s forage area, so, fair play.
But selfish old queen that she is, she wouldn’t share a single bite with her mates!
For a couple hours in the morning it’s not so terrible standing still in the shade with mist from the sprinklers blowing on me.
At least the okra is still alive
Moringa, a lovely plant that just might make it long enough to produce before frost.
While we definitely have fewer pollinators visiting the garden this summer, at least we do still have a few nibbling at the drying flowers. May they survive and multiply!
And of course, tomorrow’s Funny Friday, so that might help my torrid mood. 😆
Sometimes I look at Handy Hubby and whine, “Please, make it stop!”
Then I think of the shrimp scene in the film Forest Gump—you got your boiled shrimp, your fried shrimp, your grilled shrimp, shrimp creole, your gumbo . . . .
Only with me it’s tomatoes.
In my defense I planted so many tomatoes because last year was not good for tomatoes, so we didn’t can up nearly as much as we wanted and were way short on salsa. The crop burned up so fast, it was pathetic, even though I planted just as many, we got far less.
So this year I was really determined. Decidedly, way too determined.
And, while we do (still!) have a bumper crop, it’s not exactly ideal, because once again, it’s so hot so fast that they are burning and exploding on the vine if I try to let them ripen properly. So, I have to bring them in to ripen, which means I’m really, really sick of looking at them everywhere.
Due to excessive heat we have uneven ripening, sun scald and plants dying while still full of unripened fruit.
But they are good, so, so good! My very favorite way to enjoy them is so simple—sliced and liberally doused with salt and pepper and served with— Everything!
We can chow through a good many this way, and it lasts for just a month or two, which makes our enjoyment all the sweeter.
So garden fresh you can eat them naked!
Then you got your salsas, your chutneys, your marinaras, your tomato soup, your creamed tomato soup, your plain canned, your Rotella style, spicy juice for cocktails, ketchup, barbecue sauce . . .. 😆. Did I miss anything?
And the cucumbers. Oh please, don’t get me started on the cucumbers! How I long for them all winter, and within two months can hardly stand to harvest them any longer.
I purposely planted fewer this spring, planning to stagger them more, for a longer season. In fact, there should not be so many cucumbers at all based on my inputs, and the sad fact that there are NO bees on them. By that I mean our own honey bees are not visiting our garden, though there are two colonies within 75 feet of it.
Speaking of bees, half of my colonies, that’s 3 out of 6, have perished this summer. I’m not surprised when I lose a colony over the winter or early spring, but 3 that were going strong into the summer, this is unheard for me, and super depressing.
I also notice far fewer native bees, and the ones I am seeing are much smaller. The wasps seem to be doing very well, so maybe that’s who is keeping us in bushels of cucumbers at the moment?
And of course we’re offering the surplus to anyone! We give it to neighbors, bring it to gatherings, get the word around that it is available, for free. What we can’t eat or give away goes to the goats and pigs and they need to eat too!
So, when I get the occasional comment that we should sell it at the farmer’s market or somewhere equivalent, I understand the well-meaning at heart. But, what I’m actually self-censoring myself from saying does stray a bit from the habitual and expected smile and nod.
Because what I sometimes hear, though I’m sure was not at all the intentioned meaning is: It’s really not enough that you work your fucking ass off to produce all this fine produce, you should now go out and spend money on gas hauling it to town and suffer through the rules and regulations and pay for a booth and market it to a public who mostly doesn’t give a shit what they eat, and let’s face it, mostly just wants it cheap and convenient. So, don’t just plant it, nurture it, harvest it, sort it, wash it, package it, but now haul it to a market 20+miles away and stand there in the blazing heat all day so you can clear about $30.30 a truckload.
Sounds so awesome! Sign us up! 😳
On a brighter note, here’s something you’ll really like, because the world really does need one more cute kitten video!
Oh and Happy Independence Day y’all, thanks for stopping by!
A few updates from our very busy and already very hot summer. We’ve got bad news about the blackberry issue mentioned last month; a brief report on what Handy Hubby has deemed our ‘ SummerSausage-fest’; some harvest and critter happy snaps; and a really funny question. Ending, like the beginning, with my favorite flower.
Kakai hull-less pumpkin
Novice seed-saving mistake on my part—don’t plant Kakai pumpkins next to zucchini. Even though one is a winter squash and the other a summer squash, they are both part of the same family: Curcurbita pepo.
According to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange “Curcurbita pepo: Most zucchini and summer squash are of this species. Winter squash varieties do not store well and are best eaten within a few months of harvest, but also need less time curing to sweeten up. Best planted in monthly successions throughout the summer due to vine borer susceptibility. If you have trouble growing these squash, try luffa gourds or Tromboncino summer squash as a substitute for zucchini.”
I planted these pumpkins for the first time because a friend gifted me the seeds. The seeds are so delicious I decided to try them even though I’ve not had success growing pumpkins in years past.
Well, these are a big success! Except, now those seeds have surely been cross-pollinated with the neighboring zucchini, which according to this farmer, means the seeds will no longer be hull-less, defeating the whole purpose of planting this variety of pumpkin.
Don’t I feel dumb!
And dumber still! We are no closer to solving the blackberry issue. Hubby did some scientific-like sleuthing to eliminate potential variables. One commenter on a forum said what we were seeing was totally normal blackberry development and we just had to wait a bit longer for our huge harvest.
So, Hubby took some before and after photos, about two weeks apart. As hopeful as we were that he was right, we were skeptical, and he has now been proven to be wrong. Unfortunately for us, the mystery remains and the blackberry harvest is puny.
But, we have been blessed with a few weeks of prolific chanterelles, which we love, though their tiny size requires some patience while picking. I’ve tried them preserved in oil for the first time and we’ve been enjoying them in crepes, omelettes, soup and sauces.
Chanterelles and while foraging for them we find Not-Bert ducking and covering! 😆
We’re also getting a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers, with Hubby continuing to pressure can while I remain fixated on fermenting.
On left Pressure canning carrots, green beans, banana peppers and jalapeños; fermenting the same on right.
Harvest Art!
We rarely eat an entirely vegetarian meal, but with so much produce I thought I’d challenge myself to use every vegetable in one meal. As it’s so rare I thought I also better commemorate it with a photo!
Tomatoes topped with my own aged chèvre; cucumber and corn salad with salsa verde; veggie casserole au gratin; kombucha cocktails
More garden happy snaps.
Hollyhock and elderberry
Pictured from left to right: tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, green beans, tomatillos, flanked by Black-eyed Susans and sunflowers‘Delicious’ variety, one of our most successfulMore Black-eyed Susans and sunflowers! Along with carrots left for seed-saving, marigolds, thyme, Thai basil, mojito mint, Mexican tarragon
Because obviously we have a lot more seeds than sense or cents, Hubby decided we didn’t have nearly enough to do with a huge garden, an orchard and squash plot, and a menagerie of critters, so he planted a separate melon maze as well! It’s actually pretty impressive and already producing, but we’ll see with this heat and drought how well it does. We were hoping the ‘El Nino’ predictions would be correct and we’d be wetter and cooler this year—so far, not panning out!
Hubby’s ingenious companion planting—esthetically pleasing and practical— sunflowers helping to shade the melon mounds.
Patty’s first litter: 9 males and only 2 females!
And still dumber still!! We’ve been gifted an unwelcome ‘Sausage-fest’ this year as far as livestock goes. A whopping 80% male birth rate among pigs, goats and sheep.
Of this year’s kids: 1 female, 4 male
Of course, all the critters are cute little blessings, but no one really wants a Sausagefest.
However, Hubby did take the next big leap in livestock rearing and learned to castrate the piglets. He’s been avoiding that like the plague for YEARS! The lambs and kids are pretty easy and he’s been doing that since the beginning. But piglets are a different story.
I’m too squimish for all of it, so he never got any pressure from me to buck up, I’m not that big of a hypocrite. The nudge actually came inadvertently from a timely email from a friend who didn’t even realize at the time our current Sausagefest challenge.
In it we are presented with the ‘13 Do’s and Don’ts’ from the CDC about survival after a nuclear attack. It’s even funnier than the original!
From the life-saving list: Do take a shower, but don’t use conditioner on your hair. That’s even better than Duck & Cover! Yes, you read that right! There’s our tax dollars hard at work to keep us safe.
I laughed so hard I wanted to include it somehow in our ‘Funny Friday’ post, but decided it really needed a whole section devoted to it.
So, before you click the link to look it up in order to verify (or afterward, if you promise to come back and reply!) here’s my question.
Can you guess why hair conditioner should not be used in the aftermath of a nuclear attack according to the experts?
Finally, the gorgeous, sublimely-scented Datura to leave us with some beauty and grace to cleanse the palette from the bad hair days certain to haunt us for decades after nuclear destruction. 😂
Datura blossom about to open for the eveningOn the nightstand, just opening, it happens rather quickly
Lots to report since the last HH post. We’ve got slithering scares, miracle kids and lots of garden goodies.
My oh my, we’ve been busy! We haven’t had much time to do leisurely things, like take the dogs for a long walk in the back forty, which you might remember last post when Bubba saved us from a giant water moccasin with his ferocious warning barks.
It’s not that unusual to see snakes near the pond, where we were at that time, or along the creek. But I’m sure you can imagine my surprise finding them in the garden!
Look before you grab!
One copperhead under the squash, which I was lucky not to grab by mistake. It’s very typical of me to reach down without thinking as soon as I see something that shouldn’t be there, like twigs or weeds or dead leaves. Or, to pick a mature fruit, obviously.
Sometimes I don’t even wear my glasses to garden, or gloves, or shoes. Guess I’ll be re-thinking those habits now. Just as I reached my hand in, it registered, and I froze, and then laughed.
Hubby finds it humorous that I scream like crazy whenever I see a roach, I absolutely LOATHE them. But a snake, (beyond the startled OH!) even a poisonous one, not at all. I find them pretty amazing, and they’ve never bothered me (and I’ve had plenty of close encounters) or been aggressive, or been in the house. So I feel safe to just laugh and take pictures.
And then call over Hubby to take care of it for me. 😂
The other copperhead was just a baby, snoozing away on a swamp lily frond under the elderberry tree, kinda adorable-like. Here’s some perspective.
The elderberry from a distance, dead center. It’s quite a lovely specimen I think, but a bit too happy there, it’s getting invasive. The swamp lily is just underneath it.Elderberry in the back. Up front, Zucchini and pumpkin—just learned today not only the fruit and blossoms are edible—but also the leaves. Can’t wait to try them!
We’ve finally got all the onions harvested, now just the garlic is left. That will be coming out very soon.
That’s about 2/3 of them pictured here. All the rest were quite small and so we’ll use them up first.
The tomatoes are looking awesome, but I don’t want to get too excited, because that could change any day with little warning. I planted loads of tomatoes because last year was not a good year for them, so I’m extra anxious for a decent crop.
We’ve also harvested all the new potatoes and while not terribly impressive, it was a better effort than past years for sure. The secret did not seem to be growing them in containers, which I tried for the first time, but rather lots and lots of poop. I tried them three different ways this year, none of them particularly better producing.
We’re also getting loads of green beans, after a couple of bad years. And some delicious peppers.
So many green beans that Hubby’s just canned 13 pounds of them! Such a joy for me that he’s taken over all the canning, which I’ve always dreaded. I never even tried the pressure canner and I’m not wanting to even a little. He is quite methodical about the process and can accomplish a lot in a short time and without breakage, far better than any of my past canning efforts.
Efficient, industrial, high yield, detail and process-oriented. Thank heavens for Hubby
But I do really love the fermenting and am experimenting with it very successfully. I made a celery-mint paste that is surprisingly delicious and a gallon of radishes that will last us easily through the summer. Next on the to-try list is green beans.
Customizable, small-batch, creative and so pretty in pink! Much more my style
A friend gave us half a dozen roosters, which Hubby quickly processed into freezer camp to save us from listening to the crowing wars for any longer than necessary. A handyman and a gentleman.
Hubby at the processing station. Not exactly government-approved. Bubba and Buttercup’s favorite days, all the heads and feet they can eat!
A couple of the roos were these little Bantums which became Sunday’s dinner—stuffed with rice and home-cured bacon, herbs and last year’s dried cherry tomatoes—and basted with ginger-melon marinade. Don’t be too off-put by their black skin and bones, they were delicious!
Dinner for two plus the much needed, time-saving leftovers.
Also served with foraged chanterelles in cream sauce and just harvested blackberries over pound cake for dessert. Mmmm.
And the best saved for last this post, the miracle! In the last post it was Bubba who was the savior, this time it was Buttercup.
Take a bow, Buttercup!
We’ve got two pregnant does, due the first week of June. Because of that I’ve been a bit weary putting the herd too far from the corral, but I did it anyway. They are such homebodies normally and always come right back to the gate after disappearing into the woods for a while. Sometimes it’s harder to get them to go out and forage instead of sticking their head through every fence.
Bluebonnet, notorious fence-clingerKee away from the garden!Double-protection required for the grape vines along the fence
Go forth and forage lazy goats! There’s acres of woods to eat, not my landscaping!
Except, only Phoebe disappeared into the forest that day. Alone, and so unlike her. She is the most herd-oriented of them all. She’ll start screaming if the entire group isn’t together at all times. If she was separated from her sister the first year, or her twins the year after that, you’d think from her incessant screaming that all hell’s broken loose. I’m sure the entire county can hear her sometimes.
But, silence. It happened about 3 or 4 pm, I suspect, that was the last time I saw her with the rest of the herd at the fence. We didn’t notice until it was time to put them up for the night in the corral. She was no where in sight, and we immediately went searching. We knew something must be very wrong. We searched until dark with no luck.
I went again the first thing the next morning. All the places I figured she might be holding out, having prematurely dropped her brood, waiting for them to get their legs, so she could bring them up to the usual gate. I walked all along the areas they frequent. It’s very easy to tell where the scrub gets thick again, compared to where they’ve eaten everything up to shoulder-height. I called out for her, listened for any responses or rustle of leaves, nothing.
After coffee and milking Hubby and I went back out together, along with Bubba and Buttercup. Shadow had to get left behind because the goats are still very weary of him. Bubba and I searched and called for an hour or so, nothing. I started to think the worst.
We went back and I was making some toast and cheese before heading back out again, so hungry. It was already hot and muggy and I was sick of slogging through the poison ivy and mosquitoes. I was stuffing a bite into my mouth when a very sweaty Hubby comes up to the window yelling.
“I’ve been yelling for you!”
What?!
He found her! He went far beyond where I’d stopped when he noticed Buttercup started weaving back and acting determined. He followed her and she stopped at a bewildered Phoebe and newly born triplets.
It took us another couple of hours to lure her back while carrying the triplets in a laundry basket across pretty challenging terrain.
But it was a happy ending and mama and babies are all doing well!
Continuing on from the previous post, more weird scenes. Plus, lots more happy snaps, an update on Scrappy with video clip, danger averted, and mushrooms galore.
Starting with the weird and disgusting, so those trying to eat and read, or others simply of an easily-queasy disposition, may skip right down to the happy snaps post haste.
Thanks to the lovely rains last week, which may or may not have destroyed our blackberries (still documenting), we’ve been finding plenty of mushrooms. Some we know very well, like chanterelles, and hunt for them routinely. Most others we collect, and I try to identify, usually without success.
Elephant ears and chanterelles, edibleOthers of questionable ediblity, plus a few of the magical variety!
Occasionally that proves to be a disgusting lesson. Boletes in particular bring unwelcome inhabitants and you may just wake up to this sight as you’re making your morning coffee.
If that concerns you, best to leave them in the wild and admire from a safe distance!
Not edible, but cute!
Staying in the weird-disgusting realm, I mentioned last we lost an established bee colony, which was a big disappointment. I wanted to figure out what went wrong with them, and thankfully Hubby noticed the empty hive almost immediately, thanks to the observation window, that so many beekeepers complain about.
I was able to bring all the comb in for inspection. It was highly unusual, because the colony left behind quite a bit of resources, in this case pollen. That means something must’ve been very wrong. Luckily we did capture a swarm off this hive the last month, so it wasn’t a total loss. The culprit behind their total departure from the hive, the dreaded wax moth.
Hubby noticed immediately the spotty brood pattern, sure sign of a failing queen. Had he not noticed and had I not taken action, very quickly all the colony’s painstaking acquisition of pollen and long, hard work of drawing out the wax comb, all would’ve been lost within a fortnight. Wax moth damage in a hive is truly disgusting, the clean-up of which is probably the dirtiest job a beekeeper faces.
Saving the comb, therefor the pollen, therefor the hive body, was the silver lining to this colony collapse. And, it was a good scientific observation for me. What happens is the wax moth eggs as they develop, having been laid in the empty cells where the bees then place their pollen, grow into larvae that pushes out the pollen. From that point they squiggle around a lot. Some of them are able to make it as far as the next room in search of a place to cocoon. Pretty amazing!
Bee pollen is actually pretty tasty, is said to be healthy, and makes a great flavoring for kombucha. I’m sure they eat the larvae in some cultures, just like with silk moths, but don’t worry, I’m not that weird, yet.
*******The rest of this post is safe for the easily-queasy!********
But, there is still danger afoot! And Bubba lets us know about it. A water moccasin on the loose and ready to terrorize the troop, if not for Bubba’s keen scouting.
Bubba sounds the alarm, such a good boy!
In other homestead news, Scrappy, whose Mama rejected him at birth, is doing just fine raised on the bottle. Hubby even set up a portable milk station for him, which he adjusted to almost immediately.
Scrappy-doo, quickly trained to the movable milk station. He stays with the flock, but comes a runnin’ for his 3 square meals a day!
In garden news we’ve been harvesting onions and we’re quite pleased with the prolific results for the 2nd year in a row. We’re about 2/3 to completion. Where the onions and garlic have come out, we’ll be planting okra, sweet potatoes, and melons.
The tomatoes and green beans are coming in great, and a few forgotten flowers too.
Never forgotten, Datura, one of my very favorites. If only I could capture that most sublime scent when the blossom first opens!
In more critter news, Shadow is still adjusting well to country life, with occasional hiccups. Like, he still likes to chase the goats and the lambs if they stray too far from the herd.
Is he gone yet?!
Only the pigs remain unconcerned with his massive curiosity.
And he seems to find the kittens quite exasperating!
And that’s kinda weird for us too, because we’re not cat people, this is the first time having kittens around at all, yet they seem to be taking over!
It’s an exhausting life for a townie-dog, I’m sure!
Weird scenes inside the homestead! What have we to add to the big wide web of weird today? A couple of things only, along with some sad news and some happy snaps. Successes and failures, as usual. Trying to keep them all in stride, which with the wild flowers and a short country drive, isn’t too big a challenge at the moment.
Creepy visitor appearing everywhere after the rains
Best to get the crap out of the way first, I prefer. We’ve got seemingly severe blackberry failure and an established bee colony suddenly lost. I could write exhaustively on just those two, but since I’m already exhausted, I’ll keep it brief. And continue the relentless churning in my mind alone.
These photos and several more have seen the cyber rounds this week, let me assure you! And the cornucopia of responses we’ve received is rather astounding. Long story short—we’ve had some lovely rains, finally. But it sent our blackberries from thriving and gorgeous, to this brown, crispy-looking horror nearly overnight.
Not just a few bushes either, the entire row, a dozen bushes easy. It looks terrible. So we got a bit frantic and have been sending photos to Ison’s Nursery, where we got them. Also, to various friends and forums, where we’ve had answers to run the gamut: too dry, a virus, a fungus, a blight, Botryosphaeria canker, empty pocket syndrome, aphid damage, and then the kicker . . . This is totally normal development.
Wait, whaaat??
You mean to tell me these could be normally progressing blackberries and after many years of growing blackberries we just never noticed it before?!
Well that would certainly be a big and welcomed WOW! Yes please!
But unfortunately, I don’t think so. They look brown and shriveled beyond anything I’ve seen in any of the online photorama. And there’s no sign of aphids, and it’s not cane blight, and it’s certainly not too dry, although I totally understand that guess, since that’s exactly what it looks like.
And I do so appreciate all the speculation, seriously! It gets me thinking and exploring every time and I do so love all the effort and camaraderie inherit in it. Be wrong, it’s not the end of the world!
Of course, what I did so notice among the seeds of speculation was the one that was, unsurprisingly, totally missing. Toxic rain perhaps? Some other oddities in the atmosphere, perhaps? Not on anyone’s radar? Really?
No idea what’s happening in this photo with the blue dot-purple ring, I just snapped the shot with the tablet as soon as I saw the trail while busy in the garden.
On better themes . . .
I also took some lovely happy snaps of the wild flowers blooming along the road, which was so much more gorgeous than what I was able to capture here. But I tried, and that should count for something, no?
And on that note, this post will have a Part 2 to finish later, cause that’s all I can manage at the moment. More to follow, so much more!
Thanks for stopping by!
I leave with a song that motivates me when I really need it most. Hope it works for y’all too!
This grows all around us for the better part of the year. I knew the name, but didn’t realize it was edible until recently. I was so pleased to learn that, considering how plentiful it is around here, that I had to dedicate a ‘weed’ page to Spiderwort.
In the garden the poppies have been so gorgeous, I just can’t get enough of them. They’ve been so prolific I feared they would completely crowd-out the nigella, which has such a tasty seed, but blooms a bit later. Luckily, I found a little patch still making room for itself.
The nigella are the light blue, star-shaped flowers here. Their seed has a grape-like flavor and is delicious in bread and tea.
The poppies contrasted with the calendula are simply gorgeous, the pictures don’t do them justice!
Daylilies, another lovely edible. Cilantro blossoms and calendula on left, culinary sage on rightDon’t forget the dandelions! Actually, these are ‘false dandelions’
