Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Knitted hat
dear friend visited last Thursday and walked me through knitting a hat. here it is, my first hat!
Monday, August 11, 2008
Sauerkraut-making season
harvested 5 of our cabbages, totaling 17 lbs. husband cleaned them off, weighed them - a 6 lb-er!
shredded them...
and crushed them in the our harsch crock until their liquid rose above the level of the cabbage. added brine, and it's good to go! will ferment for six weeks in the crock, then will go into the fridge for us to eat.
shredded them...
and crushed them in the our harsch crock until their liquid rose above the level of the cabbage. added brine, and it's good to go! will ferment for six weeks in the crock, then will go into the fridge for us to eat.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Harvesting Garlic & Onions
Finally harvested garlic and onions yesterday, between downpours. Stalks were browning on the garlic a couple of weeks ago and it was ready to come out, but supposed to harvest after a few sunny days, which we never got, so out it came yesterday, soggy with a few of the stalks starting to rot. Onions came out right on time, when their stalks had all been lying on the ground about ten days.
Amazed again this year at the baby worm nurseries created by the garlic roots. Such tiny little things, just about 3/4 of an inch long, and almost traslucent some of them, with grown worms wrapped around the roots near them. I suppose that perhaps the garlic roots, being so thin and dense, are ideal for baby worms because they can intertwine amongst them and thus be safer from moles and other predators.
Father-in-law lent us the back of his garage to dry them in, since our porch is much more exposed to the humid weather. We set up a construction fan to blow on all of the plants so they wouldn't rot from all the water in them, and today they are drying and beautiful. 160 garlic bulbs, 50 onions.
Amazed again this year at the baby worm nurseries created by the garlic roots. Such tiny little things, just about 3/4 of an inch long, and almost traslucent some of them, with grown worms wrapped around the roots near them. I suppose that perhaps the garlic roots, being so thin and dense, are ideal for baby worms because they can intertwine amongst them and thus be safer from moles and other predators.
Father-in-law lent us the back of his garage to dry them in, since our porch is much more exposed to the humid weather. We set up a construction fan to blow on all of the plants so they wouldn't rot from all the water in them, and today they are drying and beautiful. 160 garlic bulbs, 50 onions.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Hornworms
the hornworms have found the tomatoes, and the wasps have found the hornworms.
more rain, more rain, more rain. summer squash and zucchini have been putting out many blossoms for a month now, but we've only gotten one vegetable from each plant so far. the rain two summers ago also created this issue. i've read that rain can cut down on the visits from bees, so i've been pollinating them this week with a paintbrush to see if that will help. but each time i do it, the blossoms all have at least one bee drinking away within, so i don't see how lack of pollinators could be the problem.
house wrens are busy feeding their little ones, woodpecker (downy or hairy? i still confuse them) has been making daily visits to our suet feeder (with the suet from our grass-fed cow), and black raspberries are ripening all around us!
more rain, more rain, more rain. summer squash and zucchini have been putting out many blossoms for a month now, but we've only gotten one vegetable from each plant so far. the rain two summers ago also created this issue. i've read that rain can cut down on the visits from bees, so i've been pollinating them this week with a paintbrush to see if that will help. but each time i do it, the blossoms all have at least one bee drinking away within, so i don't see how lack of pollinators could be the problem.
house wrens are busy feeding their little ones, woodpecker (downy or hairy? i still confuse them) has been making daily visits to our suet feeder (with the suet from our grass-fed cow), and black raspberries are ripening all around us!
Friday, August 1, 2008
Birds
a couple of days ago, i spotted a large moth resting on the inside of our porch screen, so i opened the door and, snapping the screen with my fingers, sent it on its way. it flew in its wild moth pattern toward a nearby tree, and a small bird shot down from the sky and proceeded to chase it. the moth zig-zagged and swirled successfully for a few moments, but then the bird caught it and shot back over the roof of our house to wherever it was going.
our house wrens' babies hatched last week. can you hear them cheeping?
our house wrens' babies hatched last week. can you hear them cheeping?
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Milky Way
back from my brief unintentional hiatus.
have decided to take a few things off my plate, in order to free myself up to be more present in the moments of my life. to that end, i will only be writing on this blog once a week or so for a little while, at least until i get past the sense of responsibility to write daily. may return to writing here daily, or may not, will depend upon what it takes for me to slow down in my life.
looked up at the stars tonight, so many and so bright after weeks of cloudy evenings. saw the milky way with cignus flying through it for the first time in months, not having given the night sky much time for a while. thought of how looking at the milky way is looking out towards the edge of our galaxy, through the densest portion of it. remembered how, in the past, the milky way reminded me how awesomely huge the world is, how alone and insignificant we are, compared to the rest of the universe.
tonight, though, something held me back from feeling these things. though i thought of them, they failed to raise me up into the skies, into the dark expanse of space, away from all of my petty worries and plans, as has always happened in the past. i remained steadfastly my self standing on my porch on this night in this place. it was as though there were a string pulled too taught to let me fly off into the depths of wonder and imagining, too taught to let me rise above where i was.
have decided to take a few things off my plate, in order to free myself up to be more present in the moments of my life. to that end, i will only be writing on this blog once a week or so for a little while, at least until i get past the sense of responsibility to write daily. may return to writing here daily, or may not, will depend upon what it takes for me to slow down in my life.
looked up at the stars tonight, so many and so bright after weeks of cloudy evenings. saw the milky way with cignus flying through it for the first time in months, not having given the night sky much time for a while. thought of how looking at the milky way is looking out towards the edge of our galaxy, through the densest portion of it. remembered how, in the past, the milky way reminded me how awesomely huge the world is, how alone and insignificant we are, compared to the rest of the universe.
tonight, though, something held me back from feeling these things. though i thought of them, they failed to raise me up into the skies, into the dark expanse of space, away from all of my petty worries and plans, as has always happened in the past. i remained steadfastly my self standing on my porch on this night in this place. it was as though there were a string pulled too taught to let me fly off into the depths of wonder and imagining, too taught to let me rise above where i was.
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