In the Garden

I spent today in the garden just doing the watering.  It's suppose to be in the high 90's and low 100's until the weekend.  I don't have a drip system in my garden beds, that will be ANOTHER Winter project.  I'm glad it's still hot: good news for the sweet potatoes and maybe some tomatoes will ripen.

My Basil Is Still Doing Great!

Chard, Peppers and Marigolds Still Going Strong

Marigolds and Zukes in the Barrel

Organic Mushroom Compost Grows Great Gardens and SURPRISE: Mushrooms!

The New Planting of Root Crops and Flowers

Snaps for the Bees and Cauliflower for ME!

Sweet Potatoes and Celery

Sweet Potatoes and Petunias

Poor Sad Little Tomatoes

Cabin Weekend

We had such a wonderful weekend.  We sewed, ate, talked, laughed, read, napped, watched movies, talked more and laughed till we cried...I am so lucky to have such great friends!

My View From the Deck



6 Napkin Burgers and Limpy Fries at the OutPost!








My Sewing Corner





Paula and Nancy with the New Camera                   

 


Renaissance Outfit Number One




Paula with a Beard!




Paula's Sewing Corner!




Nancy helping with the Outfit




Me Sewing




The Queen of All!



I'm Outta' Here!

I'm rushing around unpacking the truck of garden *stuff* and reloading with cabin *stuff*.  I just can't wait to get up there...it's Fall and it will smell soooo nice...piney, cool, crisp, smokey: YUM!  Just having a few days with my friends, great food and good movies: gotta' love it.  Paula emailed me she's cut out 40 corsets!  I haven't done ONE!  Hopefully I'll catch up with her!

Am I Done Yet?

I managed to make 4 pints of vanilla chocolate fig jam, 3 pints of apple lemon jelly and the roasted tomato basil soup is on the stove waiting to be jarred and processed...whew!  I keep thinking I'm almost done canning for a bit and then I think of something else.  I have so many peppers in the garden...I chopped and froze a couple gallon bags of bell peppers...now I need to do jalapenos and what's left of the pablanos.  I'm going to roast some of the jalapenos and the pablanos and can them when I get back from the cabin.  I need to do more apple sauce too. 

My sister in law sent me a couple pictures of her new chicken coop...I know what my husband and boys are going to be doing for Mom as soon as harvest is over...I am so in love with her coop!



Tomatoes and Figs

I just love my Farmers Market.  Monday I came home with a lug of Early Girl tomatoes, a couple pounds of string beans and my favorite Heirloom cherry tomatoes, some Fuji apples, pears, 20 pounds of worm castings and 40 pounds of popcorn old maids for my hens...pretty good haul if I don't say so myself.

I have the last of the figs bubbling in the pot for the last of the jam.  Vincent, Leah and I cut up the tomatoes and put the Early Girls in the oven to roast and the Heirlooms in the dehydrator.  I'm going to dry the string beans too.

Tonight was Family Fun Night...we had a fresh taco bar/ Spanish rice/ tortillas and hold on to hats: Spumoni ice cream...it was way noisy and loud! And we decided to change the day to Thursday.  DIL Sarah and Les's fiance Teryn have Al-a-Non on Wednesdays and we want to support them...



Rain

Today I woke up to a wet deck and garden...we got rain...a tiny bit of rain...warm rain.  I wanted to pull the tomatoes and the rest of the melons...but I have Hank and he wouldn't let me.  I want to get the lettuce in and I want to plant the brocolli and cauliflower I got from Griff's, but I didn't get that done either...I feel morose...sad...tired.

I wrapped and froze the enchilada casserole: 8 full meals!  I added the turkey soup and beef stew to the bulging dining table (I still am working on the food storage room).

It's the TV.  I had promised myself no tv until 5 p.m. but I couldn't/wouldn't do it...I can hardly believe how easily I slipped back into the TV habit...I will start again tomorrow...Monday.  It's so amazing how much I got done in the few days that the TV was off...TONS DONE...clean, organized, managed house...loved it.  Now Alicia is back from Mexico and I am being irritated out of my home...I need to work on that.

Les and Teryn brought my cord to the sewing machine...so tomorrow I will clean it and set about doing some sewing.  I will pack up the sewing items that will head to the cabin with me this weekend.  I will plant my lettuce and pull my tomatoes...it will get done!  NO TV!

Busy! Busy! Busy!

I made turkey soup the other day and managed to can 5 quarts today.  I just peeled and chopped the last of the $6.00 apples and will sauce them in a bit...I think I will make fruit leather out of it.  Tess just came by and told me the apples on her tree were ready, so later today I will pick enough for a couple quarts of pie filling and then dry the rest.  I made a big beef stew last night and will can the leftovers when I get back from picking the apples.  Two loaves of spelt bread are cooling on the counter.  I still have the cooked-up burger and sausage for the huge mock enchilada casserole waiting to be thrown together.  It seems Saturdays are always the day I get the most done.

I still need to plant my seeds.  Wanted to do that yesterday, but I am babysitting Hank for Sam and it's hard to get anything in the garden done...I am so afraid he will wander off or chase after a rabbit and get run over.  Hopefully Sam will come home tomorrow and pick him up.

I only got one egg yesterday.  I think my girls have moved their nest: AGAIN!  And it's been overcast and cool, that always cuts down on the egg production.  I think I'd like to get another 5 or 6 hens and really work on getting some regular *customers*.  I will be setting up the outdoor produce stand in November.  I should have some butternut squash.  I've thought about setting up 6-8 raised beds out front for *U-PICK*....so I've got a couple ideas rolling around.

I Feel Fall

The Harvest has begun.  The vine-seeds, sunflowers and beans.  The tomatoes are finished and fingers are crossed the cotton will produce...the rice is still green...and the late season organics Sam planted still need a few weeks...but the Harvest has begun.

I've harvested my Australian Butter Squash (7) and 6 of my Sweet Dumplings, 3 are still on the vine. There are melons still waiting to ripen.  My tomatoes are a failure, I will need to rethink for next year.  My sweet potatoes have luscious leaves: hope there's some sweet potatoes in the ground!  I've pulled up all of the beans...the bush beans sucked, but the last minute pole beans did great.  Peppers did great, but I did have a lot with some sort of brown blotches...I will do research on that this winter.

I planted broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower...and the chicks dug them up, so yesterday I replanted and built mini screen houses out of window screens to protect them from the chicks.  Today I will build and new cage area for the baby chicks.  I have planted fall carrots, beets and parsnips via seeds.  I need to plant my shallots, onions, garlic, lettuce, more carrots, beets, parsnips, turnips, rutabagaa, mangle beets and cabbage...whew!

Looks like weekend rain.  I need to run up to the cabin, I accidently took the wrong electrical cord from my home sewing machine up to the cabin machine...and I have sewing to do: Renaissance Faire Corsets need to be sewn!

Farm/Yard Sale Just Down the Road a Bit

Oh Boy!  I want this! Why? Because my grandma had one and I thought it was the grooviest thing on Earth...Showed Sam the picture and guess what: He wants it!  So, if it hasn't sold by the end of the day, one of us will have it: hopefully Sam...I don't need more junk!

This is my purchase: canning jars!  Some are pretty old and I'll use those for the dried stuff.  Pretty good haul.  I picked up some nice fencing too...looks like I'm closer to getting my goats.

Went out to the vine-seed field and picked about 20 lbs of squash and 20 squash blossoms.  I'll grate and freeze most of the squash...slice and dry a couple and stuff and fry up the blossoms (that will be a first).  I still have 1/2 a box of apples to sauce and dry, the Australian Butter squash is ready to store and or can and I have about 4 cups of figs ready for jam: mission and golden: should be good.  I keep driving by the elderberries and should stop and pick more, just haven't done it yet.  I would love to do more tomatoes, but our processing tomatoes are gone, I'll check out the Farmers Market on Monday. They're cutting corn and sunflowers and hope to get my hands on some for winter feed...we're harvesting melons for seed and I've loaded up on the males for the chickens to snack on...they just love the melons: so do the bees.

Home is Where My Mess Is

I spent the week organizing a kitchen that hasn't had anything done for 10 years!  It was awesome!  My housekeeper has had to go back to Mexico and I am free to take things out of draws, cabinets, and throw what I don't want away!  And I have thrown away 4 large FULL garbage cans ...boxed up 4 banker boxes with keepers (?).  I always have cluttered counter-tops...too much of everything...now nothing on my counters on the island.  At the kitchen sink I have my 3 ladies that hold my cooking utensils, so baskets of fresh fruit and veggies and that is it NOTHING ELSE!  It looks so nice...I think I'm a minimalist that hoards!  Stuff, stuff, stuff...I hate it!  I thought it would take 2 days MAX...so far it's been a week and I think I have another 2 days before I'm done.  I have also had to turn OFF the tv...what a distraction and time waster...I'm addicted to just the sound of it...it's like having someone over...you enjoy the company, but Oh My...nothing gets done...so off with the tv: sort of...news from 5-7: OFF and then on at 5:00...OFF at 6 and then on when Bill comes home. I did a lot before I took the TV OFF challenge, but now: WOW!