Vegetable tour - progess and notes

This post contains many pictures - dial-up beware! 
Here’s what the gardens look like now in mid-August.  The heat has been 102* for the last three days - I guess maybe it’s time for that mean, ol’ dry land gardener to drag out the sprinklers and soaker hoses!
We’re just been busy keeping everybody (except us) in [...]

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Winter

We spend all summer harvesting sunlight, just so we can meter it out over the dark days of late fall, and winter, and then the lean spring while waiting for the new spring growth.  Grass, firewood, hay, vegetables, meat, milk, seeds, fruit and suntans.  It’s no wonder we worship the sun.  We long for it, and [...]

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Farnsworth, you’ve got weeds

Poor Farnsworth, I know how he feels - I’ve got a bad case of weeds too!  Some are by my own hand, which, when they present themselves, make the light bulb go on (sometimes.)
I won’t take the blame for these weedy garlic rows.  Overwintering alliums are hard to keep weed free, since they span two [...]

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This last week in the garden - vegetables

It’s always a struggle to get things in the gardens and greenhouse under control before we start haying.  So far, we’re behind.  While the guys were making noise yesterday, I snapped off all the garlic scapes for pesto, and the bolting tops on the multiplier onions, the weeds in the garlic I think I will [...]

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Biting off more than I can …

chew, weed, can, freeze - fill in the blank.
About this time of year, I get impatient.  When I’m on the tractor tilling the garden, it looks too small.  When I’m planting seeds, or weeding it looks way TOO big.  I change my mind about things about 10 times a day at least.  It always gets [...]

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Trying not to be wasteful

I always feel guilty if I waste food.  Whether from over planting, or being over zealous in my harvesting.  I try to ask myself, “Is this better on the vine, in the ground, … , OR in the refrigerator?”  The refrigerator is usually the most wasteful place for me, it costs money to run, and [...]

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The year of the gradual garden

After the big letdown with Jetta’s calving,  I was kind of glad that it rained most of the week.  I just didn’t feel like planting any garden.  We let Jetta lick and clean her calf, and eat the placenta.  The amniotic fluid on the calf, contains natural pain inhibitors, and eating the placenta helps prolong colostrum [...]

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Jetta is going into therapy

She has to - she can’t deal with her owner anymore!  I broke down and called the vet yesterday, and he gave me several reasons that I shouldn’t worry about the calf.
•  The first baby can come at anytime.
•  The bull, (whom we only know as Willy) may throw late calves.
•  The owner can’t [...]

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It’s not the planting

It’s not the actual planting, it’s all the work beforehand and after, that takes so much time.  Making compost, seeding, tending, irrigation planning, and soil preparation.  This list could go on in more detail, but, it’s a long time and a lot of work from the idea of growing your own food, to get that food to the table.  [...]

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I’m worried

Not about Jetta, just about the world we live in, in general.

Last night, while working in the greenhouse, this was the only bee in there!  We couldn’t keep our honey bees safe from black bears, so we quit trying to raise them, thinking native pollinators would do enough. 
Living in a maritime climate, we have many cloudy, overcast [...]

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New stuff, but no baby Jetta

We moved the cows from the Coyote (here we pronounce it Ki-yo-tee) field and through Cougar Heaven with no mishaps.  One calf was born in the woods, but his mom bedded (told) him in the field we were moving them to.  Smart Cow - she’s Jetta’s aunt, one of my mutts!
The road to Cougar Heaven.

 
I [...]

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Cool to warm- the greenhouse

It’s that time of year when the greenhouse morphs from a safe haven for cool colors and foods to the hot vibrant colors and flavors of heat loving crops.  The biggest challenge  to planting for the summer, is getting the soil saturated beforehand.  In my lottery dreams - I would rebuild my greenhouses and make them [...]

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A little nature and a whole lotta nurture.

Cornish Cross chicks in brooder - day 5.  “Are we in the forest?”

I’m not a PC chicken farmer.  By this I mean I don’t let my chickens free-range.  There I said it!  The F-word of the pastured poultry world.  But, I know raising these chickens for part of our meat supply is an un-natural task.  [...]

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Weekend highlights and greenhouse love

Despite my whining about the re-fencing, I was able to get some garden chores off of my list.
Hoping to accomplish by May 1st, weather permitting:
♣ Dig the last of the parsnips for the milk cow, and also cook some to check quality.
The cow thinks they are OK, the human thinks they look OK, despite 8″ of [...]

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Crazy, normal week as usual

“In order to teach, there is a lot more to learn.”  Bud Williams, cattleman,  low stress livestock handler extraordnaire.
Jetta update:  Taking the heifer by the horns, literally, has put me in control.  Somewhat.  My daughter told me I looked nervous the other morning during chores.  She was right.  The routine is working and all my [...]

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Moon not holding water

I’m always comforted when the clouds clear, and I can see the moon.  Today it wasn’t holding water, which means it’s going to be dry for several days.  Duh!  Does the moon think I don’t watch the weathermen on TV?  I do, but I don’t know why, my barometer and the animals, soil, grass and wind [...]

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So much to do

There is so much to do, I don’t know where to start.  A list helps a little, but at this time of year, a list just frustrates me.  We are unsettled because our chore list has changed so much.  We moved the cows out to pasture April 4th.  So now the grazing season begins, and [...]

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