The peas have pretty much quit producing, though I do have to check every day. I think it's just too hot. Most of the plants are in good shape, though, green and robust, so we're hoping they get going again when the weather cools off a bit.
The pole beans are blooming furiously, so we'll soon be slaves to beans. Looking forward to it.
Earl and I hit town yesterday to fill a prescription. It was hot and boring, and the highlight of the trip was a stop at Zip Trip for ice cream cones. He had vanilla in a cup, and must have gotten "brain freeze," as he kept shaking his head and looking funny. I gave him my cone after removing every trace of chocolate ice cream as it was chock full of gluten.
C. is keeping the food driers going 24/7 with herbs and rabbit greens. My friend Vicki gave us a cool dehydrator from the 1970s – it's a Harvest Maid, and looks like a microwave. Does a beautiful job.
I'm working on organizing the hallway, and the front yard.
Nothing exciting to report.
Six eggs today.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Pea slave
No, I'm not talking about being a slave to an over-active bladder, though I am.
Remember when we got the peas planted so late in the season, and worried that we'd get none? Hahahaha. I am spending three hours a day picking peas. Every day. And I'm pretty glad to do it. I love shell peas. And the dogs love snap peas. And we have lots. We've had them with new spuds in cream sauce, steamed with butter and salt, and in salads. The extra fridge has big bowls waiting for me to shell or break them for canning or freezing or drying or eating. And soon it'll be cool enough for me to get out there and pick some more. It's good. If we're really lucky, we'll get enough put away to have peas once a week all winter.
The weather has been hot, hot, hot. A thunderstorm is forecast for Saturday, then back to hot, hot, hot. Peas aren't crazy about hot weather, so we're keeping them watered and picked, and hoping they keep producing.
Also, we have a prisoner.
He's a young pocket gopher, and I just reached down and picked him up by the tail in the garden as I was headed in one evening. He's now installed in an ice cream tub in an old bird cage, and not real happy about that.
Em, who is tenderhearted, and hasn't had these little bastards tunnel up under her tomato plants and just suck a whole plant into the ground, is all for us returning him to his gopher family. We said no way. I was planning to relocate him to the woods someplace far away from gardens, but Washington state law prohibits releasing him anyplace but our own land. Legally, we can kill gophers (but no lethal traps without a permit) and we can live-trap them, but that's it. So we're not sure what to do with him. Meantime, I deliver garden greens to him.
My friend Allison was telling a story about her parents, who were plagued by squirrels. They were nature-lovers, and weren't about to go shooting or poisoning them. So they caught one in a live trap, killed it with carbon monoxide from the car exhaust (said to be painless and humane), and left the furry little body on a platform in the woods frequented by eagles and hawks.
Makes perfect sense to me. Shoot, I use a battery-operated mousetrap that electrocutes mice, then I feed them to my chickens. It seems harsh for a vegetarian, but we all draw the line somewhere. I will kill to keep mice out of my kitchen. And gophers out of the garden. And to protect myself and my people and my animals, I suppose. Just not casually, for dinner.
I keep offering him as a pet to my friends. He's kind of appealing, in a hamster-on-steroids kind of way. No takers, though.
Remember when we got the peas planted so late in the season, and worried that we'd get none? Hahahaha. I am spending three hours a day picking peas. Every day. And I'm pretty glad to do it. I love shell peas. And the dogs love snap peas. And we have lots. We've had them with new spuds in cream sauce, steamed with butter and salt, and in salads. The extra fridge has big bowls waiting for me to shell or break them for canning or freezing or drying or eating. And soon it'll be cool enough for me to get out there and pick some more. It's good. If we're really lucky, we'll get enough put away to have peas once a week all winter.
The weather has been hot, hot, hot. A thunderstorm is forecast for Saturday, then back to hot, hot, hot. Peas aren't crazy about hot weather, so we're keeping them watered and picked, and hoping they keep producing.
Also, we have a prisoner.
Em, who is tenderhearted, and hasn't had these little bastards tunnel up under her tomato plants and just suck a whole plant into the ground, is all for us returning him to his gopher family. We said no way. I was planning to relocate him to the woods someplace far away from gardens, but Washington state law prohibits releasing him anyplace but our own land. Legally, we can kill gophers (but no lethal traps without a permit) and we can live-trap them, but that's it. So we're not sure what to do with him. Meantime, I deliver garden greens to him.
My friend Allison was telling a story about her parents, who were plagued by squirrels. They were nature-lovers, and weren't about to go shooting or poisoning them. So they caught one in a live trap, killed it with carbon monoxide from the car exhaust (said to be painless and humane), and left the furry little body on a platform in the woods frequented by eagles and hawks.
Makes perfect sense to me. Shoot, I use a battery-operated mousetrap that electrocutes mice, then I feed them to my chickens. It seems harsh for a vegetarian, but we all draw the line somewhere. I will kill to keep mice out of my kitchen. And gophers out of the garden. And to protect myself and my people and my animals, I suppose. Just not casually, for dinner.
I keep offering him as a pet to my friends. He's kind of appealing, in a hamster-on-steroids kind of way. No takers, though.
Monday, July 3, 2017
It's my birthday
so I'm sitting here eating chocolate ice cream. And if it wasn't my birthday, I'd still be eating ice cream. It's hot out!
Em, bless her heart, made me a gluten-free chocolate cake, with garbanzo beans instead of flour. It sounds weird, but is delicious, and sort of cheesecake-ish. I think we've discovered the secret of successful GF cooking: don't try to imitate ordinary dishes. The texture is never right. Just make something tasty, however strange. She buzzed up a can of chick peas in her blender, added the usual sugar and eggs and such, and baked. Came out really well. Thanks, Em!
She dropped the cake off, along with two dogs and her two big weird tortoises, on Saturday. We're keeping everybody over the long holiday weekend, so the kids can go camping at Priest Lake.
We're doing the usual gardening tasks today. The alpine strawberries have been producing like crazy, so I've been out there picking the little things, and popping them in the freezer for jam-making later. C. is planting little patches of carrots and beets here and there. The spuds seem to need constant mulching. And the driers need to be kept full of greens for winter rabbit food. And the weeding... and the picking....
We got the Subaru food dehydrator in operation.
It's just a clean old nylon-net curtain stretched over poles in the back of the car. I can roll it up, fold the seats back up and be ready to drive in just a couple of minutes, should we need to go somewhere. I like the operating cost, and the fact that it doesn't heat the house up. Makes me feel like such a virtuous hippie.
We're off to buy milk and eggs, then back into the garden.
Three chicken eggs today. The guineas are somehow hiding their eggs, despite being locked in the chicken yard. It's a mystery.
Em, bless her heart, made me a gluten-free chocolate cake, with garbanzo beans instead of flour. It sounds weird, but is delicious, and sort of cheesecake-ish. I think we've discovered the secret of successful GF cooking: don't try to imitate ordinary dishes. The texture is never right. Just make something tasty, however strange. She buzzed up a can of chick peas in her blender, added the usual sugar and eggs and such, and baked. Came out really well. Thanks, Em!
She dropped the cake off, along with two dogs and her two big weird tortoises, on Saturday. We're keeping everybody over the long holiday weekend, so the kids can go camping at Priest Lake.
We're doing the usual gardening tasks today. The alpine strawberries have been producing like crazy, so I've been out there picking the little things, and popping them in the freezer for jam-making later. C. is planting little patches of carrots and beets here and there. The spuds seem to need constant mulching. And the driers need to be kept full of greens for winter rabbit food. And the weeding... and the picking....
We got the Subaru food dehydrator in operation.
It's just a clean old nylon-net curtain stretched over poles in the back of the car. I can roll it up, fold the seats back up and be ready to drive in just a couple of minutes, should we need to go somewhere. I like the operating cost, and the fact that it doesn't heat the house up. Makes me feel like such a virtuous hippie.
 |
| That's kale drying there. The poles are mostly sections of fishing poles that we picked up at the estate sale of a fishing-pole repair guy. We have hundreds of the things. |
Three chicken eggs today. The guineas are somehow hiding their eggs, despite being locked in the chicken yard. It's a mystery.
Friday, June 30, 2017
Bird bath
I'm sitting here holding a wet chicken wearing a bib. Birdie is still damp from her bath in the kitchen sink, and is eating oatmeal while I blog.
I'm hoping C. will take her and blow-dry her, so I can go tidy the hallway or something. It's 82 degrees out, and we're avoiding the garden until evening.
Earl and I did a little shopping in Deer Park this morning. He was very good, so I bought him a little box of crackers. I let him open it himself – I think he enjoyed ripping up the packaging as much as eating the contents.
Two eggs today.
I'm hoping C. will take her and blow-dry her, so I can go tidy the hallway or something. It's 82 degrees out, and we're avoiding the garden until evening.
Earl and I did a little shopping in Deer Park this morning. He was very good, so I bought him a little box of crackers. I let him open it himself – I think he enjoyed ripping up the packaging as much as eating the contents.
Two eggs today.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
An interesting few days
It's hot again, so I'm sitting here eating vanilla ice cream. I've been out tying up tomatoes and reinforcing the tomato towers.
We learned that the towers were tippy on Monday. It was hot and muggy, and I was out mulching potato plants. I was hunkered between the pea and potato beds, pulling old hay out of bags and poking it around the bases of the spud plants, when the weather decided to break. The sky got grey, a wind came up, and splotches of rain fell. No big deal – we garden in the rain all the time. Keeps the skeeters down. And rainstorms out here are often brief.
So I'm poking hay, and poking hay. The rain gets heavier, and the wind starts lashing the trees. Poke. poke. These things usually blow over pretty quickly. I'm getting damn wet, though, and the thunder is rolling. Poke, poke. The rain is coming down so hard my glasses are channeling rivulets. Can't see a thing. The thunder is becoming constant – and the lightning is making brief, quick flashes just to the north. Hmm. Might be time to go inside. I heave myself up out of a puddle with the help of the terrace wall, grab my metal cane, and start for the house. The air has gone white with water and the ground is covered in puddles. I'm bent way over, clutching my useless glasses in one hand, rounding the tall wire fencing that supports the pole beans. It's times like these I remember the guy from work who was struck by lightning in a fishing boat. Years later, he still had no eyebrows. My old neighbor in Denver, who lost his big toes to lightning. Those four farming sisters killed by a single strike of lightning out in the fields, in that southern novel. (OK, fiction doesn't count. Stop thinking about that.)
I'm working really hard to get up to the house. It's taking forever, the thunder a never-ending rumble, the lightning dancing close. I see the lights in the house go out abruptly, then I make it up the steps and inside, and C. hands me a towel. I made it.
We light the candles, and read by battery-operated LED.
The power is still off the next day. We find a can of Sterno and a folding survival stove (good thing we buy weird stuff at estate sales), and make coffee with the water we keep in gallon jars on the fridge, in case of outages. (The well pump is electric.)
Fortunately, the freezers are nearly empty – just ice cream and a few quarts of Chinese cabbage. But I worry about my lovely gluten-free chocolate ice cream turning to runny sludge in there. I finally whip the door open and grab it, and close the door quickly. It's soft foam, not very tasty, but I eat it anyway. I get a stomach ache.
Out in the garden, one of the bean towers has blown over. And a bit of the brush pea-trellis. And one of the stepladders supporting tomatoes. The plants look undamaged, except for a battered rhubarb. And rhubarb is tough.
Apparently one of the power poles on our west fence line is among the casualties, as crews are over there with backhoe and cherrypickers Tuesday afternoon. A few hours later, our lights come on.
We really need to look into a backup power supply, just for the freezers and pump.
We learned that the towers were tippy on Monday. It was hot and muggy, and I was out mulching potato plants. I was hunkered between the pea and potato beds, pulling old hay out of bags and poking it around the bases of the spud plants, when the weather decided to break. The sky got grey, a wind came up, and splotches of rain fell. No big deal – we garden in the rain all the time. Keeps the skeeters down. And rainstorms out here are often brief.
So I'm poking hay, and poking hay. The rain gets heavier, and the wind starts lashing the trees. Poke. poke. These things usually blow over pretty quickly. I'm getting damn wet, though, and the thunder is rolling. Poke, poke. The rain is coming down so hard my glasses are channeling rivulets. Can't see a thing. The thunder is becoming constant – and the lightning is making brief, quick flashes just to the north. Hmm. Might be time to go inside. I heave myself up out of a puddle with the help of the terrace wall, grab my metal cane, and start for the house. The air has gone white with water and the ground is covered in puddles. I'm bent way over, clutching my useless glasses in one hand, rounding the tall wire fencing that supports the pole beans. It's times like these I remember the guy from work who was struck by lightning in a fishing boat. Years later, he still had no eyebrows. My old neighbor in Denver, who lost his big toes to lightning. Those four farming sisters killed by a single strike of lightning out in the fields, in that southern novel. (OK, fiction doesn't count. Stop thinking about that.)
I'm working really hard to get up to the house. It's taking forever, the thunder a never-ending rumble, the lightning dancing close. I see the lights in the house go out abruptly, then I make it up the steps and inside, and C. hands me a towel. I made it.
We light the candles, and read by battery-operated LED.
The power is still off the next day. We find a can of Sterno and a folding survival stove (good thing we buy weird stuff at estate sales), and make coffee with the water we keep in gallon jars on the fridge, in case of outages. (The well pump is electric.)
Fortunately, the freezers are nearly empty – just ice cream and a few quarts of Chinese cabbage. But I worry about my lovely gluten-free chocolate ice cream turning to runny sludge in there. I finally whip the door open and grab it, and close the door quickly. It's soft foam, not very tasty, but I eat it anyway. I get a stomach ache.
Out in the garden, one of the bean towers has blown over. And a bit of the brush pea-trellis. And one of the stepladders supporting tomatoes. The plants look undamaged, except for a battered rhubarb. And rhubarb is tough.
Apparently one of the power poles on our west fence line is among the casualties, as crews are over there with backhoe and cherrypickers Tuesday afternoon. A few hours later, our lights come on.
We really need to look into a backup power supply, just for the freezers and pump.
Monday, June 26, 2017
The cockeyed optimist plants peas
Sure, they'll be plenty of room between rows for picking! And 34 inches is certainly tall enough for pea trellis! See, here, on the packet? "Plants grow to 30 inches high."
Snort.
The peas on the outside of the fences are relatively well-mannered Lincolns. On the inside, a variety new to us, and ridiculously vigorous.
C. caught the peas just starting to twine together across the path. I made a bunch of ties out of binder twine with a clothes pin on each end, and used them to pull the plants back to their trellises. It's still tight in that path, but I think it's passable. But then, I'm a cockeyed optimist.
Snort.
The peas on the outside of the fences are relatively well-mannered Lincolns. On the inside, a variety new to us, and ridiculously vigorous.
 |
| Our '"short" peas, taller and wider than expected. That disappearing thing in the middle is the path. |
 |
| The improved path. Wide enough? |
We'll need to add some strings or something to the trellises for height. How tall are they apt to get? Who the hell knows. I guess we learned something for next year.
It's hot out, over 90, and I'm sitting here eating chocolate ice cream. I darted out, fed the chickens, hauled a couple of bags of bedding hay out to the potato beds and spread them on the tall spud plants, then came in to cool off. If I'm quick about it, I can keep that up all day. If I stay too long, it's over.
The potato plants have to be heavily mulched several times over the summer, or the spuds will get green where the sun touches them. Fortunately, we have lots of old hay for mulch, since some cheapskate bought crap hay last year.
C. is out in the heat, planting something in the second-to-last empty bed.
The dehydrators are full of spinach and kale, and I'll be rigging the car up to dry stuff today, too. Our volunteer kale bed is really productive, dammit. The rabbits don't like it much, though they'll eat it gladly in January. I don't like it much, either. I've been looking up online recipes for kale chips. Maybe they're delicious. Hey, it could happen.
OK, time to dart out again and do a little gardening.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
The hay is in
I sound as if we sowed it, harvested it, put it in the barn. Ha. Two nice young fellows from Deer Park did all of that, and I just handed them some money.
It's lovely hay, all green and soft – and the animals, mouths full, have given their approval.
C. and I had spend the afternoon in the last of the barn prep: hauling pallets in and bagging old stuff, in the heat and dust. Feh. Then I reinforced the keep-the-goats-out-of-the-hay wall, and beefed up the hinges and clips on the inner gate. We will have no dancing and pooping on the winter food supply, goats!
So we were ready when the guys drove up with truck and trailer piled high with hay bales. They unloaded, pulled the giant tarp (really an old vinyl billboard) over the neatly piled bales, and waved as they drove off.
Neighbors, if you're looking for good grass hay, I can give you their number.
Tomorrow, it's back to the garden. The greens are coming on in serious waves, and we need to pick, wash, and dry for winter. Over and over. We were up until 2 last night getting spinach in the driers, mostly because somebody here is a procrastinator. And it isn't me. Well, okay, I am – but it wasn't. C. says she'll do better.
After remembering all that hot, dry barn work, I think I need more ice cream.
Seven eggs today.
It's lovely hay, all green and soft – and the animals, mouths full, have given their approval.
C. and I had spend the afternoon in the last of the barn prep: hauling pallets in and bagging old stuff, in the heat and dust. Feh. Then I reinforced the keep-the-goats-out-of-the-hay wall, and beefed up the hinges and clips on the inner gate. We will have no dancing and pooping on the winter food supply, goats!
So we were ready when the guys drove up with truck and trailer piled high with hay bales. They unloaded, pulled the giant tarp (really an old vinyl billboard) over the neatly piled bales, and waved as they drove off.
Neighbors, if you're looking for good grass hay, I can give you their number.
Tomorrow, it's back to the garden. The greens are coming on in serious waves, and we need to pick, wash, and dry for winter. Over and over. We were up until 2 last night getting spinach in the driers, mostly because somebody here is a procrastinator. And it isn't me. Well, okay, I am – but it wasn't. C. says she'll do better.
After remembering all that hot, dry barn work, I think I need more ice cream.
Seven eggs today.
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