We had such cold weather lately, with the highs struggling to get above 40 degrees F. Yes, Will did go out and cut a bunch of firewood for next winter. I kept busy in the house, trying to get the laundry done and a multitude of dishes washed. That’s the one disadvantage of eating what you grow; you end up with a lot of dishes, pots and pans that need washing. No microwave dinners happen around here or frozen dinners to pop in the oven. It’s kind of funny. The guy at the dump says he misses seeing us as we only have a small bag of trash once every couple weeks, where most folks are regular dump visitors with big bags.
I was excited as yesterday, our box of onion plants arrived from Dixondale Farms in Texas. Yes, I prefer to plant our onions from seed. But we are just too busy planting other crops to do that. Yes, I have planted onions from sets. But we like more variety in our onions than the plain Yellow Stuttgarter onions available at the stores. Fortunately, I had tilled up the Wolf Garden “onion area” again, so it’s ready to plant. Today we have our wonderful helpers, Mike, Dara, and Sherri here and Sherri said she wore her grubby pants just in case we were going to plant onions. Guess what we’re going to do after lunch?
Gas prices (and everything else!) have continued climbing and we’re wondering where it’ll all stop. If they keep going up, we’ll have to stop shipping our seed packages to customers every single day and switch to every other day as it’s a 30-mile trip, all total, to town and back. As we have a flat rate shipping price of $5 and most packages cost more than that to ship, we’ve got to cut corners somehow, without cutting service.
Our fox mom has moved her pups to the north of us, and we haven’t seen her since. Her pups were getting big and we think she’s afraid our dogs will find them outside the den and kill them. We do miss seeing her but are glad she’s farther away so she doesn’t think chicken dinner would be good. — Jackie
Hi, Jackie: I understand about your lack of garbage. Months ago my husband came up with the bright idea that we should start eating from our 800+ inventory of homemade canned goods from my larder. So grocery store visits are few, purchasing is greatly decreased, garbage amount per week is tiny, and clean jars ready to be put away is a large amount each day. Regards from far north California.
Yep, eating from your storage pantry is a great idea. And the more you do this, the more you’ll want to can up even more. At least that’s the way with me. Just don’t eat it all up and not replenish. : )
Today and tomorrow will be the final planting push, mostly a second round of bush beans, pole beans, corn, squash and watermelon. After that the garden will officially be “in” except for a few sunflowers and zinnias.
We picked the first handful of peas yesterday but it’s going to be a race with powdery mildew to see who gets the rest of them first. Over the years nothing I’ve tried seems to work on the mildew.
The last head of broccoli will be cut in about two days and then we’ll get side shoots for a little while longer before the plants get pulled. We’ve really enjoyed the broccoli this year!
We’ve had nice temps in the 70’s lately but this week will see 80’s and then 90’snext week. It was nice while it lasted! :)
Wow, that’s amazing that you’re near ending on your peas and broccoli. My broccoli is only an inch high right now. It looks like you’re heading for summer pretty soon. We had 23 this morning!
Happy Mother’s Day! We also have a 30 mile round trip drive to the nearest town for basic groceries and farm store. For major shopping and extras it’s a 45 mile one way trip, so 2 hours just there & back driving. But to live where and how we live it’s well worth it. Just have to plan fewer trips with the fuel prices so high. Still very dry here, planted 2nd round of lettuce and radish today in dust 4 inches deep. We don’t often see the foxes here, they are beautiful, but I often hear them and the coyotes in the creeks across the valley. Peace and good health to all!
Yep, we living where we do. For us, going to a bigger town with Walmart and a farm store, it’s 27 miles, one way. It’s not bad, after living in Montana, where it was 50 miles, one way. But we sure don’t go often.
It’s been dry still here and we sure do need rain.
Happy Mother’s Day Jackie!wow that’s a big expense during these times @30 miles to post office. I Really feel for you trying to keep costs down. Myself ( many others too I bet) would understand the raise in prices. You and Will are such dedicated people. It’s not just corporations who must raise their prices. Farmers barely break even but they are living the life they choose. We are all fortunate who do. Finally got my squash in but am running outof Room! In the garden. How on earth you guys keep cross pollinators far enough away even with all your big gardens! Have a great day
With 200 acres, we keep our gardens far apart, with heavy woods in between them. Two of our gardens are 1/2 mile from the house! That’s why I love my solar powered golf cart!! No fuel and it sure saves my knees. We also have lots of clover planted around all of the gardens to hold the pollinators right there, not go off searching elsewhere for pollen.
Dear Jackie,
I had just capped & washed 2 gallons of fresh strawberries when we had an unexpected death in the community. I didn’t have time to freeze or jam them, so I tried this instead. I vacuumed sealed my berries in 1/2-gallon mason jars and put them in the refrigerator. I hope they will keep until I get to them. I had vacuumed sealed juice and salads before, but never fresh berries. I’ll let you know if they keep and how long. Some days you just do what you can.
Yes, you do sometimes just do the best you can do. I haven’t done this myself but do know folks who have done it with success. Good luck!! Sorry to hear of the death in your community. I hope you dried those strawberries before putting them in the jars as it cuts down on the possibility of mold.
Slow spring warm up here in Southern Wisconsin. Frost warnings previous 2 nights. I’ve been exposing started veggies to outside 1/2 hr twice a day. The peppers didn’t like it and some of the tops fizzled with the cool air. I too got more firewood stacked up. 20 new baby calves/10 cows to give birth. Fuel prices are too high. Happy Mother’s Day. It still is another day in Paradise (and I’m not being sarcastic). It’s a blessing to have the joy of country living.
Yes, it is a huge blessing to be able to live in the country! We got a heavy frost this morning, and 23 degrees. Right after doing our annual Mother’s Day trip with the family, to Byrnes Greenhouse. I put all my booty in the greenhouse when we got home. Thank God!!
Those flowers are the ones that grow at my place too – the patch that I thought was a goner but has recovered nicely as I keep the garlic mustard out of it.
Spent another 1 1/2+ removing violets from the strawberry patch. After I’d dumped what I’d weeded and put everything away, of course I see I missed one. I’ll get it next time as I need to make another pass as some other weeds came up (of course). Should not take as many hours as violet removal.
Nights are getting warmer so hoping to find some morels. Now we need some rain. Despite all we got not that long ago, you see clouds of dust as the farmers plant.
The price of gas and diesel is not going to drop any time soon. If we’re lucky it will start, yes start, coming down in 2027. To paraphrase the movie “fasten your seat belts, it is going to be a bumpy night” – except it isn’t going to be a night.
I hope you get some morels soon. We had a very cold night and heavy frost last night. Brrr. Just when I thought our spring was getting very close. Mother Nature thought different. Yes, it’s very dry here. We sure need a good, all-night rain. Fire danger is extreme right now and when you live in the middle of the woods, you sure watch the sky for smoke every single day when it’s like this.