I am just so amazed that food can grow from the ground, which sounds so absolutely silly as I type those words, but I grew up in the city where we just bought food.
Above are some of the things in the garden. When I look at the spaghetti squash (lower right) it'll be double that size in a few days and probably ready to pick by the end of the week! It's just incredible. All the years we've had the garden The Cultivator* has done most of the work and just tells me what to weed or what to pick when he needed a hand, but this year I've taken the initiative to be more involved in the day to day care. This week I noticed that the zucchini grows between the flower and the root of the plant, it's just so fantastic!
So in this new 'day to day' care, I have noticed a slue of bugs. This is the first year growing cabbage. What is the little green lava or excrement on the leaves? When cleaned up they appear to not have gone into the head of the cabbage, just outside open leaves. Part of me wants to know, and the other part of me agrees that ignorance is bliss. I know that the first year we tried broccoli and cauliflower there were so many bugs in them that I just couldn't eat them (the dogs and chickens lucked out)!
Our summer meals consists of about 85-95% of foods from our property, and hunting on our property... the more I read about slaughter houses, and pesticides the more happy I am to learn and cultivate home make/ home cooked meals. Last night I made pesto from some fresh basil from the farmers market, along with green beans and zucchini, and salad; all so delicious. I also made some a couple of whole wheat loaves yesterday too, but they were more dense than the last bach... every time is different.
Our guest came back from the WE Fest yesterday... oh the stories had us in stitches through dinner! Sounds like you have to have some thick skin and a filthy mouth to survive, but the super rude get beat up. I think I will never want to go!
This is the sort of support I get from my dogs while I hover and crouch pulling weeds & picking veggies. Every time I move from one chore to the next and they find the next shady spot, by the clothes line, by the wood pile, by the chicken coop, by the garden, by the chopping block... what a glorious life of a dog! The chickens and cats follow us around too... but generally they meander a bit more.
Oh, and don't forget to admire (hehehe) my horrible bush trimming! LOL, the bush under my office window looks like the head of frankenstein! Hoping to have alliums across the front this fall... I've been removing rock for over a month now... have about a 3 x 1 foot area left in front of the big butterfly. Everything is the same color in the front, it really drives me crazy! The old wheels came with the house... and I don't know what else to do with them so they remain. I am making a ceramic insert for the butterfly with our address (maybe), it's a huge piece of metal meant for flowers, but I keep it upright because it looks better. It was a gift from my folks, a nice piece I just haven't found it's permanent home.
"That Sesame!" I find myself saying that a lot. I was working tranquilly in my office once in awhile stopping to watch the beautiful hummingbirds feed outside my window, when all of a sudden a blur pops up from the window pane below. That stinker Sesame using her paws to snatch the hovering birds and eat them up. I tried to rescue the little bird but Sesame runs faster than I do, so by the time I caught her, the little guy was dead with his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth like a cartoon, or Gene Simmons! I had to take down the feeder to avoid more carnage.
We all went to visit T today, Pipes wanted to see her sheep, and I wanted to give her cabbage and the baby bunch I made on Saturday. Anyway they have a nice garden so we were garden chattin' and I learned how corn is pollinated, and that you mound potatos and clear onions... good info. I will have to check into our onions tomorrow. T cans her green beans, she said they are still soggy that way...I am still thinking about what to do.
We later went to town for dinner at a 'mongolian' restaurant... we had more laughs about the crazy festival where they drove the golf-cart taxis. The conversation went to movies then The Butterfly and the Diving Bell, then to his naked body floating scene, to a package delivery I received that ended up being a peep show too. We laughed so hard about perverts, bad deliveries and small packages!
Here is the garden as of yesterday afternoon. I pulled up all the black paper, and The Gardener* ran the tiller down one row before the weld on the handles of the tiller broke. We need a little post work done, and of course some more tilling...but we are well underway and Nana has offered to co-garden with us.
Lulu & Leo spent the entire beautiful Saturday outside all day, with the exception of a nap. They spent it sitting on the mower steering.
I planted them this year, for whatever reason they didn't come back last year. Pays to buy a larger plant. The chickens don't eat these or the peonies.
Also known as Lulu... she was being super cute. But honestly who am I kidding she's always super cute even when she's screaming at me. We had a really rough day yesterday. It was the heat I think? She was exhausting all day. Oh well, only 18 more years of fun, fun, fun. Good thing I love her with every fiber of my being!
We decided to try a new laying chicken breed this year, the Gold Star. Seems they lay about 1 month before the rest of the hens. It was just in time too, we actually had to buy a dozen eggs last week. We had older pullets, but we also have a fox who discovered the food supply, and ate all our layers, except one hen... but she doesn't lay eggs, just crows like a rooster (figures the fox didn't take her!). We call her Hen Who Crows and she may be dinner this summer. If she's going to crow like a rooster, she should protect like a rooster would too!
