Are Those Clouds or is That Smoke?

Looking across the Valley from the eastern foothills I asked my husband if what I saw in the western foothills were weird clouds or smoke...he thought clouds...when we dropped down into the Valley you could smell it...smoke.

It's hot and dry and that means...Wildfires...and our foothills west of us are getting hit and hit hard....5 fires all on the ridge.  Cal-Fire has set-up at the Fairgrounds in Colusa and are working around the clock.  The local small rural fire departments are lending a hand.  Several of my vendors' from Maxwell and one from Stonyford were unable to make it to last night's Farmers Market.  Word was sent out via Facebook looking for people willing to board evacuated farm animals...it just makes me so sad.  Please keep these good folks and their animals in your thoughts and prayers. And thank God for our brave women and men fighting these devastating fires...true heroes.

Local Newspaper Image

Note How Dry It Is.

Maxwell

 

Things To Do When Your Husband Is Driving You Nutz

Seriously...the guy is getting on my last nerve.  Can't say why, maybe it's the heat...but he's just hanging around the house being a pain.  Since his heart surgery he's not allowed to lift anything over 5 pounds...can't do certain movements...to top it off he has severe carpal tunnel in BOTH hands and he's having hand surgery tomorrow (thank goodness).  So the strongest man in my life, my helpmate, my doer of things is out of commission.  I couldn't take any more so the other day so I suggest the two of us take a short drive to the Gold Country (a favorite for both of us).  We drove up to Grass Valley, had a nice lunch of pasties, walked around town (not a lot...he get out of breath pretty fast), hopped back in the car and drove down to the longest existing covered bridge in the United States...Bridgeport.

I Did Not Take This Picture...Didn't Want To
Walk Down to The River!

This Man Reads Everything!

Closed For Repairs...The Bridge and The Man!

Looks OK To Me

Gotta' Check Out The Yuba River

Big Sluice

Ahhh...My Favorite: A Big RED Barn

From Bridgeport we headed back down to the Valley, while still in the foothills we took a quick side trip to another old Gold town SmartSville.  Notice that Capital S...yep...the town was named Smartsville during the gold rush, but when the post office was set up the S was accidentally dropped...the townspeople were ticked off..so they really make a point of adding the S.  Not much going on in SmartSville.

Catholic Church

Our nice drive ended with a bite to eat in Marysville (named after a surviving member of the Donner Party)...Always get a kick out of dining in Marysville!  Then the 45 minute drive home.  It was just the break in our routine we both needed.

Harvest Monday....July 9, 2012

I have a bit of a harvest to share this week...volunteer potatoes, apricots from the tree next to the corn field and the last of the white peaches off of one of the 5 in 1 grafted peach trees, a bit of bitter chard I fed to the chickens, more corn than I know what to do with and lots of eggs!  My main harvest this week has been seeds.  I let the spring garden go to seed and I'm harvesting leek seed, chard seed, kale seed, and lettuce seed.  I'll continue to do this for the next few weeks.  I'm going on up to my cabin Thursday for a week and then up to Little Grass Valley the following Sunday for a week...I held off on planting anything.  Suppose to be really hot for the next couple of weeks.  We have the East and Mid-West's heat wave heading our way.  Not a good time to be planting transplant trays.  I'll hold off and resume my every-other-week planting when my vacations are over.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying all of my permiculture fruits and veggies!  Please join my gardening friends sharing their Harvest Monday's over at Daphne's Dandelions.

Chard: Bright Lites and Fordhook

Apricots...What Will I do With You?

Two Fingerling Varieties and A Russet Variety

Lots and Lots of Eggs

How Sweet It Is....

The sweet corn is READY!  Yahoo! Lucky me...this year my son grew a few nice patches of sweet corn along with the feed/flint/ethanol corn (yeah a few ears crossed..I wonder how many miles to the gallon I'll get?).  I think he felt bad for me not getting all the corn I wanted at the Produce Stand last year.  So, today he delivered my first box...I immediately drug out the canning equipment and went to work.  I did try something new...I found this on YouTube and couldn't wait to give it a try...and guess what...it works!

One of Several Sweet Corn Patches Sharing the Field with
the Flint/Feed Corn

I have quite a routine worked out.  I pop two ears of corn in the microwave and hit the timer for 6 minutes.  While I wait I cut the corn off the ears (previously microwaved) and put the kernels in the jars and pop them in the pressure canner.   The box only gave me 5 pints and 10-- 1/2 pints.  I think I'm going to need a few more boxes!  I need to can at least 15 pints and 30-- 1/2 pints.  I still have 8 packages of frozen corn on the cob from last season and I'll be dehydrating those and replacing them with freshly frozen corn on the cob...maybe 15 packages of 4 ears each.  Sounds like a lot of corn doesn't it?  Well, it really isn't...I remember when the kids were little I canned corn by the quart not the pint/or half pint and I used to freeze at least 200 ears for corn on the cob.

The First Of Many Boxes

My New Toy: Corn OFF The Cob Shaver

 I also baked oatmeal cookies while canning the corn. Worked out pretty good.

Oatmeal Cookies!

What a nerd...no pictures of the finished corn...or baked cookies!  They must be on the phone camera!  Stay tuned!  By the way we aren't going to be eating all of that sweet corn from the field.  We have a number of employees, friends and family that will be sick of corn by the time the fields are cleared!  And I'll haul a few hundred ears out to the Farmers Market on Monday.

Harvest Monday

Wow! Another Monday...whew!  Monday's are busy days for me.  I water the garden and clean the coop in the a.m. Watch my granddaughter all day.  Put together and e-blast out a newsletter for the local Chamber of Commerce.  Manage the Farmers Market.  Sell eggs, honey and mushrooms at the Farmers Market.  Settle disputes at the Famers Market.  Try to educate people about food at the Farmers Market. Manage SNAP vouchers at the Farmers Market...the Farmers Market takes up way too much time!  So here ya' go...a few photos of my Harvest Monday (just today's...I keep forgetting to take the camera with me when I head out to the garden)...joining up with other's over at Daphne's Dandelions.

Potatoes, Crooks, Zuke and Cuke!

Doughnut or Saturn Peaches

Bee Food