How ever you call them, it's work!

We planted seven tomato plants and we were worried that we might not have enough so we got two bushels from a local greenhouse. They were 12 dollars for a bushel. After a full day of peeling, chopping, de-seeding and canning we ended up with about four cases of canned crushed tomatoes. T.J. made stuffed bell peppers with one of the pint jars and it was delish!

Then our tomatoes started to come in! Oh boy!

I ended up making another case of crushed tomatoes and now three batches of salsa. I still have enough of them to make four or five more batches of salsa. I think that I will make one more salsa and then make spaghetti sauce with the rest. I need to mix it up some.


This is just a small sample of what we have.

Hiding!

I thinned the zucchini plants the other day as they aren't putting out new fruit. Now I see why! Two of these big boys were on one plant. They were on the back side of the plant that's hard for me to get to and also under some big leafs. I measured them. Over 18 in for all three! The big ones will go feed the chickens.

Here's Maggie. TJ is working out of town and is home on the weekends. Maggie misses him. I mean, I do in a pinch, but it TJ that she wants.

It's starting!

I kid you not. On Saturday there were no ripe tomatoes in the garden. On Monday I went to out to pick some peas and I saw this cluster of roma's that were ready to be picked and some other kind of tomato. Today I'm going to have a turkey/bacon/tomato sandwich for lunch.

Oh, the bacon story. On Sunday, T.J. and I went for a Sunday drive and when we went through a small town we saw that a store was selling 10lbs of bacon for $12. We bought some. It's some of the best meaty bacon I have ever had. It's irregular sliced, that's why it was on sell. So far, I have not seen anything wrong with it.

Around the farm

I spy with my little eye a almost ripe tomato! Yum Yum. This is just the start of them.

The pumpkin patch is taking over! And there are little pumpkins showing

Remember how cute the baby chicks were? Little balls of fluff? Well, this is what they look like now. Not so cute, they look more like roasted chicken or fried chicken now!

I have a glut of zucchini now (Wow, wonder how that happened) Tonight for dinner I am making a zucchini casserole, also start on making zucchini relish, and I think for breakfast I will make zucchini muffins.

About time I posted!

Here are the chicks, they are nine days old in this pic. They are starting to really chow down on the food. In about 3 more weeks we will start to let them go outside. We have not lost a chick yet so we are still at 32 chicks. The dark one's name is Lucky as he/she will not got to freezer camp.

The garden is really taking off! Zucchini's are starting to show. I have about 1000 that are about 2 inches and I'm sure in a few days they will be baseball bat size.

Pumpkin patch. It's starting to spread into the row that we planned on planting more radishes but with the warm weather we are going to put off planting more of them and just let the pumpkin plant go where it wants to. (Within reason)

How does your garden grow?

The two rows on the left are potatoes and the row on the far right is the tomato plants. I counted and already I have 3 green tomatoes!This picture makes me start to giggle hysterically as it's a row of summer squash and zucchini!

Row of peas. Pay no never mind to the weeds. I weeded for a few hours the other day and got over heated and called it quits before I got to these. I will get to them in a day or so.

Row of very hot radishes and a row of slow growing carrots. We have eaten a lot of the radishes already and TJ has planted some more. He really likes them.

In the back we have pumpkins

then in the middle it's squash

and in the foreground is cucumbers, that are kind of being slow.

Also you can see that we have planted some sunflowers to the far right.

I don't know why I didn't take a picture of the lettuce and the beets but we have them too.

We will be eating good when it all comes in. I might need to eat some ice cream to balance all those veggies!

My Garden

I have nice garden now. It's so nice that I have to weed just so it looks as good as the fence!

TJ built the fence to keep the chickens out as they loved digging out all the worms and they knocked over the plants. Now we don't have that many chickens and we keep them penned up it the large goat pen.

We (TJ did the planting) planted tomatoes, potatoes, beets, peppers, carrots, peas
squashes, cucumbers, pumpkins and a watermelon.

I will need to start hilling the potatoes soon. More work but when all said and done, it will be nice to have all the yummy veggies to eat.

Why did I do that?

When I was down in Colorado I had the young man that was watching the place dig up my garden and make it bigger. Why did I do that? The very first year that i was here I gardened and kind of had some fun with it. This summer it seemed more of a chore that anything. I did get some nice zucchini out if it but everything else kind of fizzled out. Now that it's a lot bigger I will have to plant more and do more work. I think that I have a love/hate thing with it. One part of me is already thinking about what I want to plant and spring is a long long way off. The other part of me is dreading dragging out the hose to water and the weeding! Yuck, who likes that? And then you have to do something with all that you planted. I'm getting hot and cranky just thinking about it!

I am done wrapping soap for the craft fair. I counted and I have 295 bars of soap ready to go.

Update.

Here is a picture of some soap that I wrapped. They will still go into a small bag with a label and a pretty bow on top of the small bag. OK, the bow may not be so pretty as that it really not my forte. I'm taking this soap to CO with me and will see what I can sell there. I almost have my soap site set up. Wrapping soap is not hard, just kind of boring. I think I will get some books on CD and read a book while I wrap soap. I am getting faster at doing it as I have a little system now.

We had a hard frost last night. When I went to feed the girls this am their water bucket had a nice layer of ice in it. I have a garden hose out to the pen and that was also iced up. I had to break up the ice and dump that water out and bring the bucket inside and fill it up from the kitchen sink. I don't have running water out at the goat pen ( other then the hose ) and I will be sink filling the water bucket 2 times a day when it's winter.

Let's not talk about the garden. May it R.I.P.

Here's a picture of Maggie ( left ) and JuJu (right) I know, it's not that good of a picture but it's really hard to have the goats stand still and look at me. That is a branch of oak that I tossed into the pen. I toss one in the pen almost every day. Pretty soon I wont be able to as it will be winter and no leaves on the tree. I will cut some pine for them and toss that in. The really enjoy the branches. Maggie will sometimes stop eating the grain and come out and eat oak. JuJu, on the other had will lick the grain clean then go check out the oak.
I just want to say a word about my dinner tonight. I put some pork neck in the crock pot with 2 small onions chopped, 1 apple chopped and about 4 cloves or garlic. When I came home I took the meat off the bone, strained the onion,apple and garlic out and made a rue and made a WONDERFUL gravy. I made some mashed potatoes to go with the pork and WONDERFUL gravy and man was it good.

This and that.

Yep, Tainter Turtle was right. ( And others also ) That vine thing is a wild cucumber. Not poisonous but not edible either. I will have to go check out the web site that Ceder View Paint Horses pointed out.

Good day at work. I went in a few hours early so that I could hook up my lap top to the power point projector thing-a-ma-gig. I'm going to be teaching a (Very ) Basic computer class so I wanted to go over the stuff and do some real practice not just reading over the curriculum. In doing so I somehow messed with my settings. I would almost blame my Dad for messing with it but he's not here. ( But I will still blame him! )

I got off work at 8pm and got home by 8.25pm. I need to get some lanterns. I had to pull the truck up to the garage so that I could shine the truck lights inside. I'm thinking about getting the propane kind that you screw in a small can. My friend Rose thinks that I should get a battery kind that you can turn on and off from a distance with a clicker type thing. I wonder how bright that one would be? How long would it last?
The girls had their hooves and heads up and overlooking the pen checking out what was going on. They LOVE me, it has nothing to do with that I bring them food. ( Not! It is so about the food with them )

What is it?

What kind of plant or vine is this? It has this pod like fruit that is covered in sharp little spines.

It is fast growing and is taking over a pine tree and also my blackberry patch.

Garden bounty.

Today a friend from work dropped off 3 bags full of corn fresh from her garden. I ended up with
16 bags with 2 cup of corn to each bag. It was not hard to do, just takes time. The husking, the cleaning, blanching, cooling down, cutting off the cob and then to the freezer took about 3 hours.

Here's JuJu chomping on some corn husk and silk. It was kind of hard keeping them away from mine while I was taking care of the corn. They kept grabbing the corn that I was working on. I would quick husk some corn and toss that on the ground so that they would go for that instead of what I had in my hand. I didn't want them to gorge on the fresh stuff so I only let them have a few husk each then I started to bag it.

Abby likes fresh corn. I gave some to the goats but them were more into the husk and silk. Not the corn. Might be that they can't get it into their mouth. This is not a problem for Abby. She ate 3 cobs and I ate 2. They are so sweet and tender that they tasted good just the way they were.

Abby sure is getting a lot of gray on her muzzle but then old dogs are best!

I got these from my garden today when I got off work. I don't like it when the zucchini gets that big but that's what happens when you think that you will pick it in a few days. They grow really fast. If my boss does not want them then I will grate them up and freeze them for winter.

Stop! Tomato thief! Abby took this right off the cooler. She was tossing it up in the air and was trying to bite it. But I don't think that she liked the flavor of the tomato.

Another tie.

This is a bad picture of my tiny little egg plant. I hope that because I'm growing it I will like it. I don't really care for egg plant. This is the whole " if you grow it you will be more open to liking it" thing. Kind of like how you have kids help cook diner and they will more likely eat some green stuff on the plate. Yep, I'm trying to trick myself........Shhhhhh don't tell me ok?

Tonight I made 4 pints of pickles beets. I forgot that I had them boiling on the stove and I was wondering what the dirt smell was coming from. I even thought that my neighbors must be cooking something odd on the grill. Turns out it's me! I had a big mess to clean up. They had plenty of water left, just boiled over.

I went into the big town of Eau Claire and canceled 2 of my accounts with Wells Fargo. I set the trip counter on my truck. It's 34.3 miles one way to go to the bank. That's 68.6 miles round trip to deposit a pay check. I opened up an account with a local bank that I can go to before/during or after work. Much closer. It's just that I had that account with Wells Fargo way way back when it was still National Bank of Alaska. It's just one more link with Alaska that I have cut. (Sniff sniff)

To feel better, I went to a restaurant that a patron from the Library recommended. She had received a book about speaking Tagalog and we got to talking about Asian food and the lack of a good Thai place. This place was good. A mix of Thai and Chinese. It was the lunch buffet but even that was good. I looked at the menu and they had some dishes that I like. I will be going back and ordering off the menu. The buffet was not spicy enough for me.

When I got home I finished "The last Child" It was a good book. It was not a life changing book but it was a good plot, interesting characters. The writer told a good story. Sometimes that's all I need from a book. Just be a interesting story. On to the next book.

Went to a garden party.

This is some kind of squash that I'm trying out. I can't remember the name of it but I have about 10 of these little guys. I know it's not a hard squash like acorn or butter nut.

The tomato plants are doing nicely. I think that I will eat a lot of BLT's and have nice thick slices of vine ripe tomatoes on my sandwiches and some for salads and then be down with them. Not like last year when I had all the cherry,pear and grape tomatoes coming out my ear and rear. ( That what happens when you eat a lot of tomatoes. I mean a lot! Just sharing. Sorry Mom and Dad. I know that that's a TMI. )

I have lots of blossoms on my zucchini plants. What will I do with them all? I know tonight I'm doing some on the grill for dinner. I also know 2 casserole dishes that I can use them up in. I still have 3 pints of zucchini relish so I'm not going to make more of that.

Something is eating the tops of my green beans. I know it's not goats. I think that the something might go hippty hop and is all big ears and fluffy, you know, like a bunny.

Busy Busy.

I didn't think to take a picture of the fence. I will do that tomorrow and show you all. It's all coming together. It just amazes me on how much "stuff" you need to get to make a fence. It's not just fence. You need post and wire and and wire to hook the fence to the post. You need a post pounder and a sledge hammer. Don't forget that you need a post hole digger. And you never buy enough on the first go around. I had to run up to the store 2 times today for "stuff"

When at the first store I bought some flowers and 2 tomato plants. I got all the flowers replanted but left the tomato plants alone. It was really windy and I didn't want the wind to knock them over. I set my new flowers on the ground behind stuff so that the wind wouldn't get them so bad.

With it being so windy we didn't feel how hot it was. There was always a cool breeze. Tim got a real bad sun burn. He had that nice Alaska white skin. I got a burn also but not that bad of one as I already had a farmers tan going on my arms. Still stings but I don't think that it will peel. I also burnt my scalp. I'm scared to wash my hair tomorrow and run a comb through it.

Being so fair skinned I'm surprised that I didn't take better precautions. I usually have SPF gad-zillion on. I have had a few bad sun burns in the past and I know better. I will slather myself with gunk tomorrow.

Big expectations

When I move here to Wisconsin, I was sure that I would weed out my front flower beds and have a beautiful flower garden like my Mom has up in Alaska. I planted 2 bleeding hearts, they didn't make it after that big hail storm when I first moved here. I also planted from seed, a bunch of poppies, well I couldn't tell a poppy from a weed so I didn't pull anything and the weeds ( I now know what they look like!) took over and now all my weeds have died due to the hard frost that I have had. I need to rip them out now, but, that's work! I would rather read or nap then pull weeds. There! I have admitted to all that I am lazy! or I think that I would do better if I had company while I was pulling weeds. I also planted 8 sunflowers plants, also from seed. They were to get 6 feet tall with the flower head 8in across, something like that! Big giant ones that were going to be impressive! Well, only 2 made it, and they are about 2 feet tall, and the flower head? I would guess about 3 in wide? Oh well. maybe I will get motivated and pull some weeds here this weekend. I can see ( in my minds eye ) what it would look like if I had wonderful, beautiful flower beds. Next year I will do better!

Garden post plus

Yesterday,on Thursday I cleaned out my garden. Being that I have had 2 hard frost all but the carrots bit the dust. Well, the rhubarb was still alive, but it needed a transplant so I moved them to the front of the house, maybe they will do better there. I pulled all the dead tomato, zucchini plants and pulled up my two melon plants. I did have about 5 melons, but none ever got bigger then my fist. I cut one up, tasted like a melon that you can get in Alaska! just smaller! not very sweet andvery bland. Also dug up about 10 carrots, these where better then that last batch, by better I mean bigger, but I must have planted rainbow type of carrots as I have very white/cream colored ones and orange ones.The white ones, no mater how I ate them, they are bitter, the orange ones, not bitter, but still that carrots taste! I think when it comes right down to it, I don't really like veggies unless they are cooked. My friend Ruth in Alaska hooked me up with cooking carrots in pineapple juice with brown sugar and butter, now that's the way to eat carrots! I cant think if a raw veggie that isn't better cooked.........thinking...................noop, needs to be cooked.

On a whole different subject, I mowed that yard today, I only saw 5 frogs! So I don't think I was too much of a frog killer! That did make me feel better. Killing frogs makes me sad. Not a cry baby sad, just a bummed sad, little guys are just trying to live their little hopping life in my yard.

P.S. That was one of the smaller melons.

Brrrr

I feel like I still live in Alaska! This morning it was chilly! The temp inside the house was at 57 so I turned on the heat and got the house up to 66. I know if my Dad was here he would have the heat cranked to 72! It seems like in one day it went from summer to fall but I have been told that we will still have some warm days coming. I think that I have taken to warm weather like a gofer to my yard! I have to say though that I don't really care for the humidity! YUCK!
This is how cold it was at 7am Tuesday morning!








And this is what it did to my garden! No more tomatoes! YES! Oh I mean rats!
I was so liking the abundance of fruit of my labor.


A little Haiku for you.

Tomatoes are gone!
No longer will they nag me.
I wish I had some.