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!

I'm a Bee Haver not a Bee Keeper

Yes that is four deep supers stacked on top of each other.  I have created a problem with my bee housing that keeps getting worse.  When we brought my one hive in from the coriander field pollination last month I couldn't wait to get it to my *bee yard* in the walnut orchard behind the house.  Bill helped me put it on a nice pallet, we cleared the area around it...I drug out a rocking chair my friend dropped off for me to give to another friend (sorry Paula)...  Anyway, the next day I go to lift the top off the hive and discover there is no inner cover and there are only 5 frames in the super and the bees had built free-form comb.  The comb was hanging from top to bottom and my quick look counted at least 3 of these hanging combs.  I took the lid w/comb and placed it above an empty super thinking I had some research to do.  I ended up spending several weeks watching YouTube videos of people handling bees, putting wild hives into box hives, capturing swarms, etc. etc.  I also ordered more frames, queen excluder, inner cover and a brush from Mann Lake thinking everything would be here in a couple days (Mann Lake in Woodland is 45 minutes away.)..well they send the stuff from their East Coast operation: even tho they had the items in Woodland!  So today I go out to the bee yard all decked out with my fake bee suit, smoker smoking...lift the top preparing to cut the comb and reattach to empty frames and place in another super...again...it did not go well...the comb is heavy and I can barely lift it, let alone try cut the comb.  I flipped the top upside down and the bees immediately went wild!  I smoked them several times, calmed them down, but still was not able to have the courage to cut the comb.  I ended up putting a super with new frames in the third position...first position has a few frames and some bees...the second super has a queen excluder and 5 frames, then I placed the cover with the comb in an empty super on top of the third...I'm hoping they all fly away to a better bee keeper and I can start all over again and get the right equipment and not depend on my husband and his *friends* to get the right stuff!  Yes that is 2 cinder blocks on top of the fourth super...the comb was about 3 inches longer than the super: I squashed it down...and YES the bees are totally PISSED!  I was out there from 8 a.m. until 12 noon and accomplished not a damn thing.  I have not given up though.  I will have several new hives and will be ordering new bees and a couple queens in the spring.  I hope the ladies I have recover from my man-handling...but I wouldn't blame them if they just packed up and left.

                                    

These are the elderberries I picked from the side of the road while going into town.  I took a pair of scissors and clipped them right into the bucket.  Funny little berries...I've seen them my whole life and never eaten one.  I'm making a syrup and jelly.  I read they are good for colds and flu...I will make about 4 quarts of juice and 6 pints of jelly.

                                           

Still have to pick the peaches on the old tiny bent tree next to the driveway...I have never had any good peaches off of that tree in the 30 years I have lived here.  But this year I watered and paid attention and we now have some pretty nice peaches.  Tessa made a peach cobbler yesterday and said it was delicious.

I have run out of pantry storage in the house and catering storage too!  The steel shelving will go into the old bedroom downstairs and become the new food storage room...I have 2 stainless steel rolling carts, too.  The blue salad bar cambro will be next years fresh produce stand in front of the house and the 3 brown rolling cambros will be sold via craigslist or ebay.  Too much stuff and too much to do!

I'm Sing'n the Cabin Canning Blues!

And The Sauce Begins

The cabin weekend was terrific!  Paula used up all of the old quilt blocks I've made over the years and made curtains/Roman Shades for the cabin!  I made tons and tons of tomato sauce and canned whole tomatoes.  I took 3 huge lugs up and came down with lots of full jars, but I still have a lug and a half to do!  Tomorrow I can the rest.  I would have liked to do it today, but this a.m. I went over to the Business and Visitors Center and packed up my office and removed all of my commercial kitchen equipment...I had lots of help and it only took one hour.  I now feel FREE!  The Community Garden will be managed by me via email and once a week visits, I'll do the Chamber e-blasts from home and go to the offices only when needed...YEAH!

August is for Prozac

Last night at the Farmers Market I had to ask one of the Vendors the date..."August 9th"....absolutely NO WAY!  Have I been zoned out for over a week...snap out of it!  I'm pretty sure I have adult ADD...no I'm serious...totally focused for one minute, easily distracted the next...jump from one project to the next...and ALWAYS loosing track of time.  I wonder if there's a pill for that...took Prozac for a year...loved how it kept my thoughts corralled in and narrowed...I actually visualized this file cabinet in my brain and as each task was finished I filed it...really terrific...then we had a family crisis and my brain refused to handle it..it was like I stepped back and was watching my life as a movie and I had no personal/emotional connection. I quit taking the Prozac, handled *the elephant in the room* and never went back on the *pill*...there are many days I miss it...but it didn't let me be the crazy ADD me that I truly am...and being a wife, mother and friend requires dealing with herds of elephants in the room!

Canned Sam's first batch of tomatoes...would love to do 3 times more...but that requires going to the field and picking them...ow my aching back...suggested to Sam he pull off 2 or 3 lugs from the sorting machine he just rolled his eyes: I'm sure he's just too busy to help his old ma out...we'll see.

Hatched out 4 baby chicks in the incubator: what an adventure: felt like I was the mother hen.  I tried to graft them onto my broody hen, but after a bit she refused to take them...so I've got them under a brood light her in the house (I'll be taking them to the cabin this weekend).  I have another 6 eggs in the incubator I hope hatch out...then we should have plenty of chickens.  I will be keeping a rooster and see if we can raise chicks the natural (lazy) way.

I canned up apple sauce, peaches, plums and pickles.  I still have a bunch of Granny Smiths and Asian Pears from Paula's...I just love having a friend with an AWESOME orchard!!  I bought a couple pounds of Gala apples at the Market and will add them to my next batch of Granny Smith applesauce and no sugar.  I have some small Heirloom cherry tomatoes in the dehydrator.  I made a batch of Claire's pickles and altho I'm sure they will taste great...they turned out wrinkled...I processed them in a water bath instead of just putting in the hot vinegar and sealing...I'm going to do another batch not processed.

The Garden is looking good.  I have a melon a day and they taste great, but I have discovered I'm not that crazy about melons.  I feel I wasted a lot of garden space planting what I thought I should plant instead of things I like...it's something amateur do and I'm no amateur.  So next year I get my melons at the Farmers Markets and Bills fields.  I will grow pole beans on the fences and buy at the FM for canning.  No cukes, cantaloupe, watermelon, zucchini, crooknecks and just a couple winter squash.  More beets, celery, Brussels, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, strawberries, potatoes, peanuts, chicken feed, garlic, herbs and just a few heirloom tomatoes.

Well the reason for my down and out mood is my friend Nancy didn't cut it in the Peace Corps.  I was really planning on living vicariously through her adventure and I am very disappointed . Enough said on that subject.

I have wasted this whole day doing bits of laundry, web surfing and snacking of fresh fruits and vegetables from last night's Market.  It is 4:00 p.m. and I will now shut off this damn computer, check the bees, chickens, garden and clean out the little pickup so I can pack and race up to the cabin tomorrow afternoon.  I will have a day to myself, then Paula up on Thursday, Dee Dee Friday and Nancy Friday late afternoon.