I always enjoy this time of the year. The leaves are beautiful, the air is crisp and it’s fun to decorate with all the gourds I grew all summer long. This year, all the decorations were in place – but one extra one showed up – Yikes! Guess which one isn’t one of my normal fall decorations?!?
It’s been an okay year for my tomatoes – not great – but okay. We’ve had plenty of fresh Big Beef tomatoes for bacon/tomato sandwiches and enough Amish Paste tomatoes to can enough sauce to get us through the winter. But, with only a few tomatoes each day or so, it makes it hard to get enough at one time for a big batch of canning. The other day I stopped at the local farm for some fresh corn. Sitting there, right in front of the corn, calling my name – was a 30 pound box of tomatoes – for $3.50. I mean – you just can’t pass that up! I was so excited, I forgot to get the corn.
I hurried home, ran the tomatoes through my strainer contraption and simmered the juice for hours and hours. We ended up with 12 pints of tomato soup and ate one jar that night with grilled cheese sandwiches — because I couldn’t wait to try it. The others got canned for a cold winter’s night. I’m dreading winter – but I’m looking forward to more of that tomato soup.
We took a week of vacation and although we missed the farm and our furry and feathered friends and my gardens – sometimes you just need to get away. It was nice to come home – until we found we had squatters living in our house. Yes, they broke in while we were gone and took up residence. Yellow jackets had taken over our bedroom. Not just one or two – but a lot of dead ones on the window sills where they died in frustration trying to get out the windows, and several more flying frantically around looking for a way out. We do sometimes get the errant wasp that seems to come down from the attic, but I couldn’t figure out how this many yellow jackets were getting into the house. The next day there were more, and the day after – still more. We checked the windows – the screens all seemed tight. We checked the attic for a lot of buzzing – but it was quiet. I sat quietly and watched the fan vent in the bathroom waiting for a yellow jacket to make it’s entrance – but nothing happened. And then we went to bed. Just as I was dozing off – I got stung, THREE times – on my leg – under the covers. And it HURT!
It was WAR!
In the light of the day I started ripping apart the bedroom – and then I noticed – saw dust, and dead yellow jackets on the roof of the porch – just to the left of the window on my side of the bed. They definitely had a nest – but we have a stone house. Doesn’t one trump the other? You would think!
These nasty yellow jackets had burrowed into the wooden window sill, through two feet of wood and stone, and made an entrance into the bedroom behind my night stand. I put my ear against the window sill – and it was a-buzzin’!! After several doses of bug spray applied with one of those tiny wands into the entrance holes both in the bedroom and outside the window, all is quiet. Chris shoved some steel wool into the holes so there will be no more yellow jacket traffic in and out of our bedroom.
As for the pictures – when we were in the throes of trying to get rid of these things – I forgot to take pictures. I could show you a picture of my leg with a huge, red welt – but that’s not a good picture either.
We’ve had bees for three years now. The first year – we got nothing, the second year – we got next to nothing (6 pounds of honey), the third year – we thought we got nothing. The beekeepers association said that if you don’t have honey by the end of July – you aren’t getting any, so pack up your hopes and dreams and wait another year. But… our bees are just late bloomers. They waited until mid August and in the span of about two weeks brought home nearly 70 pounds of dark, sweet honey.
We had used the extracting equipment last year – hardly worth the effort, but I guess it was a good “dry run” to process the amazing 6 pounds of honey. This year, we at least had a process in place and set to work early in the morning. Several hours later – we have CASES of the stuff. In fact, I need to go buy more honey jars! I guess that’s a good problem to have.
It’s hard to believe that summer is winding down already. It’s been hot and/or rainy all summer which meant every time I thought we’d eat outside on the patio, it was too hot, too wet or both. But the weather has changed already. Days are shorter, there’s a cool breeze and this weekend was one of the rare opportunities to eat dinner outside. Not just for us – but for “the herd” too. Happy Labor Day!
We use our basement a lot. It’s not a typical basement. I can’t just go down the basement stairs into a nice, finished space. Instead I have to go outside, to the side of the house and unlock the exterior door that accesses the basement. It’s a bit dreary. It sometimes gets mice in the winter, and it definitely gets cobwebs and other creepy-crawly things.
But it stays fairly constant around 60-ish degrees which makes it a great choice for being my root cellar, wine cellar, cheese cave, and storage spot for all the canned goods from the garden and two freezers full of frozen meats and vegetables. It’s definitely an important part of our house – but it didn’t look like it.
I decided EVERYTHING needed to come out of the basement so we could really deep clean it, and then paint it. It looks so much brighter and I’ve reclaimed corners of the basement that I confess – I was a bit scared of what might be lurking in the shadows. Then we painted the floor with gray garage floor paint to keep the dust down.
And then we pulled out the shop vac. In the four weeks since we’ve painted the basement, we’ve sucked flood waters out of it three times. A gentle soaking rain is no problem – but an inch and a half in twenty minutes is more than the basement can manage. At least it sucks up easily off of the new painted floor, except for the few places where the rain has loosened the paint.
Hopefully we are now out of the rainy season (until next year) but I sure wish those people that built this house back in 1853 had thought to put in a French drain with a sump pump – or at least a hole for a sump pump so that when electricity and such mechanical devices were invented, we could have just plugged one in.
At the end of every day when I finally curl up on the couch to watch a few minutes of TV before I fall asleep, my eyesight is always drawn to the eyesore on the ceiling. We have a bit of a vaulted ceiling and over time, it has cracked where the drywall seam is. It’s a normal thing that happens but it looks ugly.
Now when I climb on the couch, I have a new view. We’ve had box-beams installed to cover the seams. It looks amazing. They are stained dark to match the beams in the kitchen and give a natural flow from one room to the next. I think it gives the room a more complete look and maybe even makes it feel cozy – not that we need cozy as it hits 100 degrees outside – but this winter, I’ll appreciate cozy even more.
At the beginning of every year, I start planning my garden. I choose seeds by determining which ones are best for this zone, which are disease and pest resistant, how long it takes until they produce the desired food, etc. A lot of consideration goes into it – and then it’s still just a guessing game.
The peas came up thick and nice – and then they just sat there. They refused to bloom. I was ready to tear them up to free up space for something that might produce, but then I saw one or two blossoms, so they got a reprieve. I waited. Nothing else happened. No more blossoms and no peas on the vine – which means no peas in the freezer. I pulled them out and planted some ornamental corn so at least we will have Indian corn and corn stalks for decorating this fall.
Other plants – like the beans – have taken off! In fact – they need to STOP! I pick colanders full of beans every morning and have them in the freezer by each night. The freezer is full of beans.
The squash are going crazy. We’ve been eating zucchini every week and I can see that we’ll be eating acorn squash and butternut squash all winter long.
The tomatoes I can’t quite figure out. The Big Beef slicing tomatoes are doing great. They are big and juicy and plentiful. The San Marzano are few and far between and the ones we do get are empty inside. Most years the garden overflows with cherry tomatoes – this year we only get a handful or so each day. Unless my Amish paste tomatoes come through, we won’t be making much sauce this year.
The star of the garden has been the potatoes. Last year I got tiny potatoes – barely larger than the pieces of potato that I planted in the first place. This year, I tried some other varieties and gave them more space to grow. We now have 36 pounds of really nice potatoes – and some small ones too that are always fun for smashed potatoes cooked in bacon fat until they are crispy and ridiculously fattening!
And who knows what else we will get before the growing season is over.
Our barn was completed back during the winter when the weather wasn’t conducive to a coat of stain. But the winter snow and spring rains started to weather the wood, so we needed to make it a priority.
It seems like every project around here comes with the need for a new piece of equipment, which is what got us into this predicament of needing another barn in the first place. All this equipment needs a place to be stored. This new equipment – a paint sprayer – definitely earned its keep.
After two days and six gallons of stain, our rough-hewn pine boards now look like cedar. The barn looks more established, like it has settled itself on the farm and blends in with the trees. My forsythia wreaths stand out better against the darker stain and give it a pop of color. But… never to leave well enough alone, now I think we need little black shutters on each side of the window. That will be the next project.
To take a line from Old MacDonald’s farm – we now have goats here, there and everywhere. I’m not sure how that happened. We had just two goats – Heidi and Peter. They are brother and sister. Heidi is a year-old doe, and Peter is a castrated male (because male goats stink and are aggressive, and we just needed a companion for Heidi). But, I thought we needed to add another doe. We were in search of a baby so it would be a year younger than Heidi – to liven things up around here. And, because eventually I’d like to have goats to milk so I can make cheese for something to do in my old age – so I need females (does) to make babies and give milk. You know, Biology 101.
A friend sent me a link on Facebook to some sweet looking babies at a farm about an hour from here; we piled into the truck with Arianna, took a dog crate with us and off we went. Somewhere along the way, our plans derailed and we came home with two one-year-old does. They were so cute, how could we say no. Hei-Hei (which is weirdly close to Heidi) took an immediate liking to Arianna and followed her everywhere. We didn’t want Hei-Hei to be lonely and feel left out when we introduced her to Heidi and Peter – so it seemed like Hei-Hei should bring a friend. Rory is also a year-old goat with a shiny black coat. We renamed her Black Beauty.
Black Beauty was a bit more skeptical of us and needed some coaxing to leave her pen, so we decided it was safest to put her in the dog crate. With two goats to transport home, Hei-Hei got to ride in the backseat of the truck with Arianna who didn’t seem to mind sharing the ride.
When Hei-Hei and Black Beauty met Heidi and Peter there was some excitement in the barnyard. Everyone was running around, checking each other out and butting head; but then Pono (the miniature horse) kicked up his hooves, reminded everyone that he “rules the roost,” and everyone settled down. Now, they are inseparable, bunking together in the barn, grazing together in the pasture and giving Pono a headache as he tries to keep track of four goats!
No Rhyme or Reason Farm 