Catching up

Well, summer has been and gone, and all kinds of stuff has happened.

C. adopted a new dog. That's her on the right. She's a 15-year-old Maltese-poodle mix, toothless, bouncy and deaf as a post.

She is very demanding. C. calls her Imelda. 

My plan for zero population growth in the chicken house was a bust. Every day when I collected eggs, I poked under the three setting hens. There were never any eggs, and rummaging under their feathery butts seemed, well, rude. So I quit. And the little fiends managed to lay and/or steal a dozen eggs, and hatch six chicks. I'm sure all six are hens. Really. Damn.

Skeeter and one of her three chicks.

The hairdo sisters hatched three between them, but Skeeter stole one.

The garden has been amazing. We got our first tomato, a Dzvin, on July 21. We've had a steady supply since – tiny cherries, huge pink Prudent Purples, meaty plums... C. has a batch of herbed tomato sauce in the canner now. Yesterday she canned a batch of choke-cherry syrup from fruit she picked from the roof. And she made and canned catsup for the first time. Delicious. And chili sauce, which is basically spicier catsup, full of tomatillos, peppers and garlic. 

She's kept rabbit greens, sunflower seeds, shell beans and all kinds of other stuff rotating through the food driers. 

And our boy was up the other day and put his chef skills to work chopping cabbage for kraut.

The house is full of food, which is just how I like it.

More later.