The Coif sisters

Caught the debutants dusting in the garden.

They're so weird.We think they're hens. I called them Beardie and Buzzy for a while. Maybe Coif and Do? C. votes for Lenny and Squiggy. I'm tempted to make a little headband for the black one, and chop the grey one's beard off square in a ZZ Top tribute.

The tail-end of September

The days are shorter, and the garden is frost-burned around the edges. Nearly all of the cabbages and winter squash have been cut and rolled inside. Hundreds of green tomatoes are out there, slowly blooming toward pink, or orange. Pink or orange is good enough for us – we snatch them off the vines and pile them to ripen in bowls and pans and boxes all over the kitchen. C. keeps a huge pot of tomatoes cooking down on the pink stove, canning them as salsa or spaghetti sauce or plain tomatoes, then filling the pot again. The house smells delicious.

The hay guy came.

His truck didn't fit into the barn.

He says three people can move one of those 1,200-pound bales. We're hoping the children will be up soon to wrestle those things inside – I'm pretty sure they'll fit through the door.

End of summer

And the beginning of Indian summer, right? Yeah!

Washington continues to burn. It's still smokey here, though a storm blew in today and actually rained some.

Dr. M came out and attended Autre, the unlucky chicken. I don't know what the hell happened to her, but one morning this week I found her all bloody, huddled in the chicken yard, the door to her cage in the chicken house hanging open. That's a heavy door, and she must have been under horrific attack to have pushed it open. Her chicks were hiding, but OK.

Something snatched her head bald, ripped off half her comb and left her at least half blind. Only her head was injured, and M said it looked like burns. Weird. A pecking assault by her jealous sister? A raccoon with a flame thrower? A carnivore would have bitten or killed her, not just attacked her head, and there's nothing on her cage that would trap her head. I found a place along the rock foundation where something the size of a guinea or a cat could squeeze into the cage, and blocked it.

That's not gatorade in the jar - it's a farm antibiotic mixed with water. M slathered Autre's poor head in Neosporin, gave her milk and oats and a big drink, and tucked her in. She's a good doctor.

Autre's leg is improving. She's got that going for her.

C. chipped away at the 44 pounds of cucumbers she's picked lately. Half went into a crock in the girl's bathroom, more into the stainless steel soup pot (we think of it as a crock at this point), and the rest will go into jars.

And what garden posting would be complete without mutant vegetables?

Blue sky

Yesterday was lovely - clear skies, yellow sun and white moon and breathable air. I even smelled the dairy farm at dusk.

 Today the smoke is back, though we're not completely socked in. There's a little blue above, but smokey around the horizons. It was good to have a respite.

We made and canned salsa yesterday, spending hours chopping, seeding and roasting tomatoes, onions, tomatillos and peppers. It takes five pans of roasted tomatoes to make four quarts of salsa. C. filled the rest of the canner with dill pickles.

I made four loaves of zucchini bread, but the lower oven element seems to have gone out so they were less than successful. Edible, but not great. I hate to waste ingredients and time and expectations, and make a HUGE mess for so little return. Kewpie says it is delicious, though.

Autre seems a little better. She and the chicks are really enjoying rolled oats soaked in milk. C. took her out of the Johnny Jump Up as she kept getting tangled up and had trouble reaching her water.

Autre's little grey daughter got stuck badly in the cage wire and C. had to cut her loose with fencing pliers. On a farm, it's always something. The chick was limp and shocky but seems to have recovered.

I stand poised to name the chicks, but C. says we have to wait for the crow, or the lack of a crow. (How do you know when you've heard a non-crow?) No idea what sex they are until they start making noise. Calling them hens is just magical thinking, I know, but can't help it. I'm an optimist.

I'm working on the pantry today, adding some shelves and hanging racks.

Pretty bird

The Northwest is on fire

and the sky is a sick yellow-grey, with bits of ash drifting down. The air-quality people keep changing Spokane's rating from "unhealthy for sensitive groups" (would that be psychics? interior designers? redheads?) to just plain "unhealthy," and back again.

The great outdoors smells like smoke and tastes like ashes.

We're a long way from any active fires, but the topography around here tends to hang onto dust and pollution. It's pretty smokey out there. It's maybe the worst fire season in Washington history, and three firefighters were killed in Twisp today. We're all hoping for rain, and soon.

So the little guineas, just three weeks old today, are sleeping on roosts just like the big birds.

Pretty cute the way this little guy is sitting on papa.

The little pied guy is having trouble getting all the way up there.

Mid August

The house is full of tomatoes. Big ones, small ones, ripe ones, not-quite-ripe ones. C. spent hours yesterday peeling them and poking them into jars and canning them. I made rolls again and am sitting here with tomato dribbles on my shirt from a lovely toasted tomato, pesto and parmesan sandwich. I love those things, but no matter how many I eat the kitchen is still overflowing with tomatoes. We struggle to keep up. It's a good struggle.

Our habañero peppers are ripe, so C. can can some salsa soon. And spaghetti sauce. And veggie soup.

And the cucumbers! She has a six-gallon crock full of salty cucs turning into pickles, and probably 30 quarts of new dill pickles in the pantry.

Autre the chicken is still limping badly after her two weeks of confinement in the chicken house, so I made her a "chicken chair" out of a fishing net, some fiberglass screen and a banana box. It's a little like a Johnny Jump Up, only with a pissed off chicken inside instead of a cute baby.

Chicken legs are slow to heal and splints are not helpful, so we'll just let her bounce there for a few weeks and hope for the best. I figured the two chicks would want to sleep under her, so made some holes in the box for them. No, they want to sleep ON mama. Idiots.

In other weekend news, I made a two-floor rabbit tower out of a sonotube. We're making more bunny shelters so Marty can safely go back in with the group. We moved him in with Smokey after the other guys beat up on him, but he has refused to become civilized. He says only sissy rabbits use litterboxes. I say piddle on the floor in your own room, you little long-eared butt-monkey. The sainted Smokey will stay in our bathroom with his sissy litterbox.

I hooked up the new (to us) washer.  Made my new version of no-bake cookies with peanut butter in the middle. And the ultra-secure chicken yard has been tested (and definitely NOT approved) by those roving little keets. They are not pleased at their confinement. I put a little hatch into the garden so we can easily let them in there, and maybe keep them from roaming too far from home.