It’s been so long since an update I don’t know where to start. Or where to end, or what to include. But I figure there have got to be a few readers out there hankering for some other news besides the shitstorm coming at us from the global mafia and the media cartels.
Mostly done, finally!
In my last update we’d started remodeling the kitchen. That was a very big DIY job, it took a very long time, and we’re still not totally finished. But we are very pleased with the results that were easy on the budget and tested our creativity, skill and resourcefulness.
I thought I’d include our first time redoing the kitchen, in 2009 when we first moved in, with the previous owners’ belongings to haul away before we could begin. It had been empty for many years and the mice and roaches had taken over. It was a disgusting experience, the worst of which we got to avoid this time, so that was a bonus.
This time we also repainted the ceiling and walls and all the cabinets as well as the breakfast nook bench and storage unit Hubby had built previously. He also replaced the countertops and handcrafted new lighting and shelves, expanding on the same ‘steam-punk’ style as he used on the entryway table he built last year.
Work in progress:
Just installed butcher block countertops, quite the challenge when floors and walls aren’t level or plumb!
After way too many lost hours, I was not always a happy DIYer! But I am pleased with the result.
I spent a lot of time stripping and re-staining the kitchen table. I still want to dress-up the windows treatments and paint the doors and bases of the table and stool. But then we got too busy and had to devote our time to the garden and orchard.
The cucumbers and zuccini that were badly damaged by hail in late spring did make a bit of a comeback, but now are succumbing to the heat.
Unfortunately and as usual, a lot of the time devoted to the garden gets wasted because of crazy weather. This year has been no different and we had a lot of rain at the wrong time for some crops at some stages. The older peppers did fine with it, but the younger ones look terrible and are not recovering. Same with the tomatoes. The heirloom Scarlet Runner bean is struggling and not producing, but is still quite pretty as an ornamental.
I’ll be writing about those seeds, as well as the ones that grew this great big beautiful Black Hopi sunflower (the tallest I’ve ever seen!), in an upcoming post about Gavin Mounsey’s book Recipes for Reciprocity, because the seeds came from him.
These cucumbers were just the right age for survival and are going strong now.
I’ve gotten good at succession planting over the years for the reason of crazy weather. In very early spring I try to get tomatoes, flowers and herbs started, but am often disappointed by late frosts. Days of heavy rain and high humidity with overcast skies can easily cause damage to younger more vulnerable plants in early summer. By this time of mid-summer I’m sowing more cucumbers, herbs, and sometimes beans, but it’s often already too hot for them to get established. At this point, we get what we get until fall brings more hope.
But of course I can’t be satisfied with that and am always experimenting. Often it’s fall tomatoes or melons, which rarely work out. This year it’s the challenge of romaine lettuce through summer. I seriously doubt it’s possible, but I’ve got a tray that has just germinated under lights inside to give it a try. I’ll put them in a shaded box, with plenty of hardwood mulch in an attempt to keep the roots cooler. It’s been in the 90s everyday lately, humid and not cooling off much at night, but there’s still some growing that wasn’t smashed by the heavy rain and hail a couple of weeks ago.
Left photo is view from garden, normally the creek is not visible at all. Right photo is walking along the power easement to the very flooded creek banks.
We also had another big oak tree die suddenly in the prime of life. The last one was just taken (partly) down by the electricity company’s crew because it risked falling into their cables. The latest one Hubby will have to fell himself, before it comes down on the fencing. That will probably be after he fixes his bridge to nowhere that he just built last year in response to flooding and was nearly taken out by this year’s repeat performance.
Sudden Oak Death Syndrome?
In the last two years, with no tornados or hurricanes to blame, we’ve had three large trees right around us flash out dead in a matter of days. Rather disconcerting to me, to say the least.
No such bounty this year I fear.
Still, let’s end on a positive note. Some years are better than others. We had an inexplicably bad blackberry year, but this year was excellent. Hubby made blackberry wine with much it, which was much better tasting as a young wine than the one I tried to make and age last year. Some years we have amazing tomatoes. Other years it’s great melons. Maybe this year it will be spectacular grapes?
It doesn’t take much for fabulous meals when food is fresh. Fermented herbs and veggies add flavor and nutrition with just a little garden surplus or foraging time. The chanterelles always do better with lots of rain. Hubby’s delicious young blackberry wine makes such a refreshing spritzer when mixed with kombucha. Eating seasonally from our land is so rewarding even when we don’t have a bumper crop.
I have a long list of content coming up during the swelter season, so all the more excuse to stay indoors. Thank Man for air condition! đ
Wow, Iâve posted no update since the end of August (aka Late Swelter Season). Now here we are already well into Weather Whiplash Season, my how time flies!
This post weâve got lots of happy snaps, the usual weather bitching, some cheese boasting, and long laments about our dear Shadowâs woes.
Notice the band-aid on his ear? Useless. But, apparently we needed to learn that the hard way.
Sometimes time flies, but when things get really bad, it crawls. Especially when it goes instantly from nothing much to Holy Shit!
And as bad as it is, in the big picture the weather whiplash is still way worse. So, best get that report out of the way first. No rain, in our rainy season. No real season at all, just a rainless rollercoaster, and not nearly as fun as that sounds.
Not natural clouds, folks! And soon the kids wonât be able to see any difference, though the atmosphere has significantly changed in the last two decades, as the weather has changed, as they lie about their climate scam, and charge âcarbon taxesâ to ordinary folks to pay for their madness. Makes me SO FURIOUS!
I could be taking such photos on a regular basis, but it gets old. And then someone could comment on the âprettyâ sunset. đ¤Ż. Argghhh, Noooo! Canât someone please make it stop?!
No? Ok, moving on.
More bad news. Weâve had the most prolific acorn year since weâve been here, thatâs about 15 years. Sounds like good news, I know. It is good news, in many ways. The pigs are getting fat, the sheep and goats are gorging. Literally. And thatâs the problem. One of the young twins gorged himself to death. It was terribly sad. His little stomach ballooned up as if his body couldnât contain it anymore and he was suffering for hours.
Iâd read baking soda could help, but it did not in this case. Perhaps it was too severe. I also read thereâs a surgical procedure which would alleviate the pressure in his gut, but I donât have the confidence to perform that myself and the vets around here donât treat goats. I held the little guy for a long time, trying to keep him warm and help him feel better, but we lost him. Oh the perils of animal husbandry!
Another problem of the acorn bumper crop is much less severe. We live under a large oak tree and have a metal roof. Itâs been rather windy lately and once those nuts start shaking loose, itâs kinda like the sky is falling. If our veteran neighbor with PTSD comes by I expect heâll be darting for cover quick, because it sounds eerily like machine gunfire when they get popping off the roof.
The acorn perks include some plump pigs and happy goats, two of which Iâm still milking, which is making for some very tasty cheeses.
Under the oaks: happy pigs, sheep and goats.Can you spot the perfectly camouflaged foraging pig?Happy goats make for delicious cheeses.
Iâve gotten so successful Iâm confident enough to get very daring!
Chèvre wrapped in sassafras and fig leaves for aging.More aged chèvreâthe top log is covered in dried goldenrod leaves and flowers, the bottom one is wrapped in honeybee comb.Our first pecan harvestâless than impressive, but still delishLactarius paradoxus mushrooms, homemade goat cheeses and first Japanese persimmon
Our fruits were nearly non-existent this summer, but we did just get our first âcropâ of persimmons, a whopping 5 of them! A couple of years ago I harvested lots of them from a neighborâs tree and they were delicious; that was the first time weâd ever tried them.
Fuji persimmon
We planted both varieties, but the American variety takes much longer to start producing fruit and the fruits are generally smaller. These pictured above are Fuji, quite different, harder, larger, less sweet, not at all astringent, and also very tasty. The closest in taste Iâd say would be a very ripe mango, the American varieties are especially super sweet, like jam.
If youâd like to learn more about this fancy fruit, hereâs an enthusiastic lesson from James Prigione.
Weâve been getting a few mushrooms, but the lack of rain is certainly hindering our foraging experience. A friend brought us a huge chicken of the woods, our first time trying it and it was excellent.
Laetiporus sulphureus
The lactarius paradoxus are hard to spot and deceptively unattractive. In fact, they are exceptionally tasty and have a longer shelf-life, and of course a different season, than our favorite chanterelles.
Even while foraging mushrooms it seems the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. đ¤
In the garden we do have two nice full boxes of varied cool-season produce we protect from the frosts with row cover cloth. In addition to lettuces thereâs some broccoli and cauliflower, spring onions, cilantro and parsley, radishes and Chinese cabbage. Weâve also got our garlic already shooting up and a couple rows of turnips started for the pigs come spring. Our neighbors are now buying eggs from us, so we throw in the surplus veggies when we can.
3 of 6 colonies survived our terrible summer. The hives are a bit hodge-podge at the moment while we do maintenance on them.
The honeybees are occasionally making an appearance, though since the frost there is little for them to forage. One of their last favorites is another one considered a ânuisance plantâ by the âexpertsââitâs called tree groundsel and itâs pictured after the frost in the right photo above, in the background behind the boxes. Quite a lovely late-season plant, if you ask me.
And approaching it before the first frost sounded like the buzzing metropolis that it was! A last hoorah for the bees.
So we come back to the current day and our crazy Shadow drama. It all started with a tiny Band-Aid.
Heâs got the ear-span of a small plane and we have the living room space of its cockpit. When he shakes his head he invariably hits some piece of wall or corner of furniture with his Dumbo ears and itâs actually pretty amazing it didnât happen already: a tiny gash on the tip of one ear that he doubtlessly cannot even feel.
Forever happy and oblivious
We were racking our brains for several days, trying everything we could think of and just digging ourselves deeper. One tiny failed Band-aid led to bigger Band-aids led to bigger wraps led to taping menstrual pads to the poor creature!
Nothing was working. We also tried several over-the-counter products, like liquid Band-aid, blood-clotting powder, and some spray-on crap. Not only was nothing working, they all seemed to be making the problem worse.
We even tried to craft our own âNo flap ear wrapâ made out of my doo-rags, which also didnât work. So, we purchased a pricey one online which should be arriving any day now. Obviously, this is a universally common dog issue. A result of over-domestication no doubt, but thatâs fodder for another post.
Then I start racking my pea brain in frantic desperation. How to stop the blood flow pronto?! Crimp his ears with clothes pins? Tie his ears up on top of his head with a scrunchy? Stitches? Soldering? How about just cut the whole ear off? Yes, we did briefly consider the vet. But weâve been spending the many months since we got him trying to detox him from all the vet potions and it feels we are finally making some headway there. I kept imagining the new meds that would be required for this new issue and their invariable side-effects, which would start us off at square one with his detox.
Clearly I donât think very well in high-stress situations. I was really trying hard and the bad ideas were piling on. The blood, which had gone from a tiny occasional drop, to a full-on drip, to a steady stream, and from then within a few hours a sprayer-hose in every direction with every shake of his head. And that boy loves to shake his head.
Between the blood splatter and the acorn fire it feels we could be living in a battlefield training zone.
Yup, the crazy, bloody mess had arrived and is still visible all over our living room, deck, porch, siding. We covered all the furniture and even the walls with old towels and sheets. Hubby started following him around everywhere, with a giant towel extended between his outstretched arms each time he sensed a head shake was about to turn into a sprayer-hose of the sticky, red, splatter paint across the windows, the screens, the ceilings even. (Where are those magical elves when you need a deep house cleaning?)
We needed a miracle, and fast!
And thank the heavens, I got that miracle in one brief email. Thank you UK herbalists, Kath and Zoe, miracle workers! It shouldâve occurred to me sooner. Me, especially, considering I did start the Herbal Explorations pages earlier this year and have been getting educated on herbal remedies. It honestly did not occur to me that herbs could solve this acute issue. I didnât think anything would be fast or effective enough, especially when every other thing we were trying had failed and even worsened the problem.
Zoe suggested powdered myrrh as her preferred method in order to stop the blood flow, but we didnât have that on hand. I ordered some online, but in the meantime chose among her other options, yarrow, and we have plenty on hand because I like it in Kombucha. I made a strong tea with it, as well as grounding some up into a powder and that whole concoction I held on his ear a few times with a cloth, some of that powder getting into the wound and sticking there, and the blood flow finally stopped. Holy Heavens! As of this writing we are still in good form and have our reserve remedies soon arriving in the mail.
What I clearly need now is an official Herbal First-Aid course. Herbs are not just for gentle healing and routine health, I see, they can be used in emergencies, too.
Why did I not think about it sooner?! It seems like such a no-brained to me now, that Iâve started to consider other potentials that didnât occur to me at the timeâlike the old Russian folk remedy bees podmoreâwhich I just happen to have been saving for a rainy day for 3 years now.
Quite an expensive lesson, but a welcome one nonetheless. đ
Thank you from Hubbyâs âWhite Elephantâ! đ
A huge thanks and deep bow to Kath and Zoe, from all of us on the wee homestead! đ đ¤
