August days

The kitchen garden has reached it's peak capacity. The pumpkin is taking over the lawn, the tomatoes are  knocking over their supports, the cabbages are getting fat, and we're over run with broccoli.

Very pointy egg this morning from my aged Araucana hen.

Such a  good apricot year!  I managed to process 40 lbs before I made myself sick eating too many.

Heading to the root cellar with the latest apricot jam and dill pickles in the wheelbarrow..


Buck and Mike have the right idea.  Napping away the hot afternoons in the cool living room. 

July

How did it get to be mid July already?

In-Between

It's August; how'd that happen?
I'm between house guests, between thunder storms, between milking; I'm even between books.  There's a lull in the action right now. All the animals are napping, there's laundry on the line and not a  cloud in the sky. Feels strange to have so much quiet. 

Weathering the storm

Thunder and lightening have been rolling though my neighborhood ever afternoon for most of the week and are expected to continue for several more days. So not a lot of computer time for  me. Which really hasn't made an impact except for the neglect of the blog.  Between the garden and the goats I'm out side most of the time anyway and by the time I drag myself indoors whatever thoughts I had for a post has disappeared.  Someone really needs to come up with a way to blog directly from my brain. That and fix hot flashes. Although I think if the world of science would spend less time working on more versions of Viagra we would all ready have that cure. Damn hormones.
 But I digress.... lots of photos and new nonsense when the weather calms done.  Well maybe not until after the next batch of summer guests leave. This weekend starts the next round of summer visitors that stretches into September.

So cross you fingers that the lightening doesn't hit anything important or start a forest fire. 

A thankful 4th

Today has been one of those perfect summer days I dream about in January. Clear blue sky with  just enough breeze to keep it from being too hot.  The garden is starting to produce; we have fresh lettuce  and strawberries. The roses are is full bloom, perfuming the yard.  The goats are getting fat out in the pasture.  

My bee stung hand has finally deflated. The last six days I was chained to an ice pack while my right hand looked like a catchers mitt. Stupid Yellow Jackets. So I'm really thankful for a fully functional right hand!  

And the goat milk ice cream that's churning away in the kitchen.  

Hope all of you have a Happy 4th too!!

Under attack

Mrs. Brown enjoys roses too.

It's been a busy morning so far. Milked the goat by 6.30 - almost a quart of milk! That's a record for Nellie, she earned her raisins today. On the way back to the house to strain the milk a humming bird flew into the side of my head. We both were quiet shocked. After setting the milk into an ice bath I went back out to do the chickens, where the same humming bird nearly hit me again. Not sure what that's about. A Bantam bounced off my shin on her way out the door. Every one's in a hurry today. They must know that now the rain has finally stopped we're in for a heat wave. Supposed to be over 100 next Tuesday. 

Anyway the morning chores ended with an angry cloud of Yellow Jackets boiling into the big hen house when I opened the vent window.  A very pissed bee chased me out the door and stung me on the hand. My right hand. I don't have life threatening reactions to bee stings, but I am a sweller. In the past a sting on the hand will swell into a lobster claw and extend up to my elbow. It's been 3 hours and so far the ice packs and Benadryl have kept it localized. So I'm hoping not to be out of commission all weekend. 

Smoke Zombie

Smoke from forest fires in central Washington and Idaho is blanketing the area. While everyone is happy there are no local fires burning, the air is terrible. Even people without allergies are walking around with irritated eyes and headaches. The whole town looks like it's recovering from a hangover.
US Forest Service Fire Mapping

I made this zombie hat the other day while hiding from the smoke indoors. Thing 1 wants to be a zombie for Halloween so this may be part of what go to school that day. Making the eyes was a little disturbing, especially when the kittens ran off with the dangly one.

Weeds

I may have gotten overly enthusiastic in my bid to eradicate weeds this week. First I went out into a patch of thistles that had laughed in the face of Round-Up.  A week after spraying they had droopy heads but hadn't died. So like some demented golfer struck in the ruff, I hacked my way up across the hill. Unfortunately the thistles were hiding a tree stump. That stump grabbed the whacker out of my hand, bent the shaft, and knocked me down the hill. I rolled a few times and landed ungracefully in a clump of Snowberry bushes.  Deciding to retire from battle for the day I picked the leaves out of my hair and limped back to the house.

The next day I hopped on the riding mower, figuring flat ground would be safer. While mowing the center of my driveway, I veered off to get a swath of goat weed that was thriving on the edge of the hay field. Despite a few gopher holes, the mower and I returned without incident.(Unlike the week before when a blade fell off for no apparent reason.)  It wasn't until I got back to the house that I saw my eyes were red and irritated. This should have been my first clue.

The next day I woke with a runny nose and watery eyes. By the time I sneezed my way to the bathroom one eye had swollen shut. The weeds were taking their revenge.  For the next few days I looked like a survivor from Burning Man. Blood shot eyes, breathing heavily and covered in scratches and strange bruises. A few days in an antihistamine haze later and I'm mostly functional again.

Post chemo I've had problems with allergies like I never did before but this was especially nasty. Also I can't keep my eyes open and sneeze at the same time. Weird.

Weekending

Baby Robins in the grape arbor.

new baby

old baby

Zucchini - Zucchetta Trombolina 

The weekend seemed to fly by. Lots happening in the gardens, new arrivals, and friends dropping by.  Mrs Brown has been setting again. (I remembered to write down when she started this time.) On Saturday her first egg hatched. She has abandoned  one of her other eggs but she's still on the nest with a blue egg. This will be the last batch of eggs sired by  Mr Fancy-pants. He had been getting more aggressive with us this last year and after one more round of rooster golf, he took a short walk to the woodshed. The chicken yard is much quieter these days.

In the garden, harvest time is upon us.The zucchini is going nuts and we dug the potato bed with some help from Bucky. The potato plants hadn't died off all the way but a mouse had taken taken up residence. So it was either dig them now or loose the crop.The mouse seemed to have a preference for the Yellow Fins , he mostly left the reds alone.  As it was the harvest weighed in at 25 pounds!!  I can't fault the mouse for his excellent taste, the yellow fins are marvelous.

In progress

The lettuce, by some minor miracle, hasn't keeled over in the heat yet. So I've bunches of butter crunch for salads along with piles of pesto pasta. I made a huge batch of pesto and froze most of it, but not before making an enormous pot of pesto linguine. It was heavenly! I did try to freeze some of the pesto in ice cube trays. This was supposed to be an easy way to store it in manageable amounts. However, when it came time to break it out of the trays it wouldn't come. I ended up partially thawing them and then bagging it. If anyone has a better way to store frozen pesto please let me know. This was very frustrating.

In other garden news the first of the beets have come in. I was so impressed  with our harvest that I thought we'd have enough to make pickled beets,  always a salad bar favorite. Alas, while looking impressive it only made two pints. And then one jar didn't seal. I used this recipe, picked completely at random. Any one have a favorite recipe if I get enough beets to try again?

It's been too hot in the afternoons to be productive outside so I've been trying to sew. Trying being the operative word, since half the time I'm exhausted from my mornings in the garden. That and I am easily distracted, my bed and a pile of new books being especially hard to resist. Thing 1 and 2 will eventually be the recipients of my work. Providing I ever finish the moose shirt. 

Summer time in the garden

The cherry rush is on

Since last posting the weather has turned hot and humid, with thunder in the afternoons. Now 2 sets of  aunts and uncles are here for the cherry glut. Over the last 3 days we've picked about 120 pounds of cherries and processed almost all of them. There are cases of canned cherries,  dried cherries, pickled cherries, and cherry cobbler and pie. My hands are stained purple and my stomach will probably rebel if I eat any more. I'm ready for a nap in my chaise out on the lawn with the dogs. There are 4 terriers running around with their tongues hanging out. If we can keep the Westies out of the cow pies for the afternoon, I'll count that as a win.

The Dancing Tomato

The tomato rush is on and the kitchen is filling up fast. The lovelies glowing in the sunlight above are my all time favorite cherry type. The appropriately named 'Sungold'. 

My new domain name is up. In the next few days Frustrated Fibers will be replaced by The Dancing Tomato.  So the new address is  http://thedancingtomato.blogspot.com. Much better search results come up than with Frustrated Fibers. That's all about dietary fibers and stomach ailments, gross.