The Weekend might as wells

JULY 18th

We have the worst case of the "might as wells" this weekend.

Started off simply enough, I put together a couple of the new Laminate floor pieces so we could get a good look at it, looks good...  If this works as well as I think it will I can see more of this in my future.

Bathroom floor planks, soon...

Next I was going to put the belt that fell off back on the tractor pulleys, then ended up mowing the deer yard and a bit of what I missed on the side yard on Friday night.

One of our shrubs was way overgrown, we'll have to give a whole bunch of them a heavy trimming this fall. I grabbed the loppers and made the pathway wide enough so we can drive the tractor through, amazing how much debris you get off on shrub. Loaded the brush up in the trailer and hauled it off to the brush pile and mowed around the shrubs.

It was a hot one, that's for sure...

Went down cellar to look at the washer hookups, we replaced all the copper pipes with pex pipe last year and the two washer hot/cold washer lines are still copper.  We'd like to replace those, it can be done, but I'll have to cut the copper out with a saw though and then use SharkBites to connect the pex to the washer valves.

                                                Shark-bite fitting

Rose went and got the big aluminum stepladder out of the barn, there is some overhanging lilac and bittersweet vines (Some of the bittersweet vines were 3" in diameter, that stuff will grow 20+ feet in  a year) and those black cherry trees that are hanging down on the shed roof that need to be cleared.  I grabbed my hatchet, and my camp knife and jumped up onto the roof, ok, fine, I gracefully crawled up onto the roof trying real hard not to fall off, damned knees... Cut out a ton of crap that also needs to be hauled to the burn pile.

Camp Knife

Rose picked all of the basil, she cleaned and sorted all the leaves, I loaded them into the dehydrator, nine trays worth.  I set the dehydrator for 95 degrees for 2-4 hours, never works out that way as whenever we're dehydrating anything it always works out that way with the humidity.  The smell of basil fills the air.  Two hours later I checked it and it wasn't dried yet, we'll let her go overnite. In the AM I checked it and adjusted the temp higher again to get more of the moisture out of it.

 

Basil starting to dry

Our berries (Blue, Black, and Raspberry) are starting to ripen, maybe if it ever stops raining I'll get to sample some.  That is if the birds don't get them all first.

 

 

Stay Safe out there

What did you do this weekend, anything good?

Let The Harvest Games Begin

Let The Harvest Games Begin

We'll rush to get it all harvested, it's always a mad rush, getting everything chopped, blanched, dehydrated, canned, dried, and otherwise put up.  Generally all while working in a 87+ degree kitchen.  We purchased a propane turkey fryer burner a couple years back, it's a lifesaver to be able to get large quantities of hot water going in the back yard for blanching veggies as well as for canning, (canners dump constant steam into the kitchen for an hour and a half at a time.)

Rose already has some herbs drying in the kitchen, the herbs are all doing well.

Raspberries around the farm are starting to come in, it's always the hottest part of the summer...  Blackberries aren't too far behind. Our blueberries all seem to be coming in one berry at a time...  not ideal.  Berries all get washed, and frozen in small batches then added to a larger bag once they are all in.

This week we picked and put up some Kale, it hasn't been through the frost yet, (a frost makes the kale sweeter). Swiss chard and soon, turnips (maybe this weekend)

Kale before blanching.

Squash are setting buds and small squash, our tomatoes have lots of buds... we were late putting them in so we're a couple weeks behind.

Storms came through last night Wed evening, not much in the way of rain I saw Mass. got hit good.

And the sky grew dark...

Potatoes are growing like weeds with all this rain, once we get the heat back they'll be no stopping them.

Did I tell you the Turkeys came back? We had a tom and hen with some poults stop by the deer yard, I never saw the Tom, Rose did, they've been here twice that we know of, they aren't being a pain, dogs don't seem interested, they'll polish off any grain the deer don't finish. As long as they don't make a mess of the yard, or the deer yard we're OK with them. 

The yard is blooming like crazy

The Herb buckets are doing well

Basil

 Rosemary and Turnips below that Rose planted for me

 

 Turnip

I was adding mulch to the potato bed late this afternoon, I mowed the lawn, damn it was hot, I was surprised at the levels of compost, leaves to. still in the garden beds.  We cooked up a batch of Swiss chard for dinner, twas good, I need to cook it for a little longer than I did.

Turkey's and four or five poults came back Thursday afternoon..

 

Rose is working in the dining room this week, she's pulling all the teapots down, cleaning, and re-arranging. 

 

We're replacing the clothes dryer, we have a bad case of might as wells, so we're replacing the bathroom floor as long as the washer and dryer are already out of the room.  This'll be my first foray into installing some of that snap together waterproof vinyl plank flooring, ought to be fun.

Stay safe out there

 

 

July 2021 Twin Fawns

 

TWINS

One of the smallest does that comes by had twins, they're big enough now she's bringing them out for a nibble.

July 2021 Twin Fawns

 

That's all for this morning!

Fifth of July

Fifth of July

 

Wasn't quite sure what the weather was going to do. We planned a cook out and a few fireworks.  Turned out pretty nice all day.

Mom & Dad came over so we had to bring out the Pichenotte board. Dad was in his element, I think he let the whippersnappers win one game.

Via Wikipedia, Pichenotte (PĒSH-nut) refers to a family of several disk-flicking games, mostly French Canadian in origin, including crokinole, and carrom. Pichenotte is a Canadian French word meaning 'flick', which is derived from the European French word pichenette (PĒSH-net), also meaning 'flick'.

Jarrod brought over a cooler of meat for the BarBQue.  So we cooked up some chicken, sausage, pork, and steaks, corn bread & Potato and Macaroni salad. Rose and the boys did the baking, Jason made cornbread and James made Cheesecake, everything was great!

Weather was great, the Gazebo kept the bugs away for the most part

Dad put on a Magic Show and performed some amazing magic tricks!

Pick a card from the deck, any card...

James was lighting Roman candles leaning them away from everyone stuck in a cinder block with another block leaned against it so it doesn't change position.  One decided to blow out the side of the tube and exploded all 5 balls at once right there at the block, everyone is fine, and that kids is why you don't hand hold fireworks EVER!

Mom & Dad left before the main fireworks event, surprisingly as we'd been lighting off small fireworks, crackers, and jumping jacks out comes on deer, then a second appeared 10 minutes after Mom & Dad left. 

You can see the Firework for the Finale' on the ground in the foreground on the pic below.

July 6th, Oh and we have a fawn that doesn't listen to Mom and stay down in the grass and be quiet.  This is a hungry little fawn and comes out in the morning daylight to grab a snack.

Nibbling bits of oats in the grass

And then walking upright over to the feeder, wow

And smart too...  I know there's corn in that feeder let me at it...

He stood right up and walked to the feeder to try and grab a morsel of corn

Pretty cool to see that, this fawn's smart...

Stay Safe!

 

4th Weekend

Happy 4th of July

Well the weekend started off cold and wet Saturday morning.

Jarrod and the band were playing at the Weare Farmers market, yes in the rain, we went up around 11am and stayed till around 1pm. The rain mostly held off but it drizzled the entire time. "Jamie D and the Blue Monkeys"  Really is too bad it was raining, would have been a great spot for a concert, plenty of seating and a farmers market to boot.

 

If we get back into the heat next week the garden is going to explode with this rain.  Yeah, we still need more... 

Tomatoes are setting flowers

Potatoes already need to be hilled up again

Swiss chard need to be picked and cooked up

Squash row is doing well.

Kale is coming along

Basil and Sage in one of the grow bags.