Still picking raspberries

I picked another mess of raspberries last night. Brian enjoyed some on ice cream. I'm holding out for more cobbler. This time I picked our canes, which have almost finished, and then headed down the driveway to forage for more. There were several good patches, including one phenomenal spot where the berries were bigger around than my thumb. This magical spot is thanks to run-off from our neighbors' pile of horse manure. Motivation for me to get ours mulched again this fall using some sheep manure.

During my foraging, I checked on one patch that I thought was raspberries, but turns out they are blackberries. They are loaded. Unfortunately, this patch is in the middle of the next field the sheep are slated to graze. We may have to fence the flock out of the blackberries. If we don't, there will be nothing left. I don't mind them pruning the canes later, but I would like to get some blackberries.

In other exciting news, the pullets have started laying! At least one of them has, because I have found one mini egg every other day over the past week. In other chicken news, but not so exciting, we have lost 5 chickens in recent days to some kind of marauder. The first to go was a beautiful, black Jersey Giant hen. Apparently she was attacked through the electrified net, but the predator couldn't pull her through it. I found her in a mess of feathers up against the fence. A day or two later I went out to feed the three roosters in the bachelor coop and found only feathers. All three of them were gone. Then a few days later I discovered a small patch of feathers just outside the fence around the layers' coop. I quickly counted, and one of the Rhode Island Red pullets was missing. I suspect she was outside of the fence when she was nabbed. Not sure what's getting these chickens, but we have everyone on lock down.

Of course, there isn't much we can do when the silly chickens run around outside of their fence. When I went down to the layers' coop this morning, two pullets were wandering around outside. The Rhodie flew straight up in the air and back over the fence as soon as I got down there. The White Rock kept running into the fence and trying to get through a 3-inch square hole. They don't call dimwitted people "bird-brains" for no reason!

Photo update, part 2

And now, photos of everything other than flowers!

Three-week-old broiler chicks hanging out in the starter house. Most of them have enough feathers now that they don't look too ugly. Yesterday we opened up the door and let them have access to pasture. We're thinking of not using our little huts this time around to make it easier to feed and water. The chickens will still have access to the outdoors, but they won't be rotated around. We'll see how that goes. These chickens are bred to do two things: eat and grow. As a result, they aren't the most active critters and they make a lot of manure. The biggest advantage to the huts is that the chickens move to clean grass twice a day.

The first year we were here we planted black and red raspberries and blackberries. We haven't had outstanding berry production so far, but this year they are finally coming into their own. I have picked black raspberries twice. We made custards and cobbler with the first batch. If the second batch doesn't get used tonight, they are going in the freezer so they don't go to waste. The red raspberries have produced just enough for eating straight off the plants - a super delicious treat!

 The garden is all planted and coming along nicely. I tied up the tomatoes again yesterday and they are looking really good; lots of blooms and some small fruits already. The beans in this picture look a little sad. This was about a week after planting, and the lima beans (in the middle three rows of this picture) didn't have the best emergence. I replanted them and they are looking much better now.

We have a lot of mint and every year I think I should make mint jelly. But I never get around to it. This year, I actually did it! I canned 9 half pints, which should go really well with lamb dishes. I also made some mint-infused ice cubes so we can enjoy minty additions to food in the middle of winter. The same evening I also picked oregano for drying. Usually I put this off until the end of the season. That works, but by then the leaves are all bug-eaten and the stems are really fibrous. This young oregano was tender and very easy to work with. I need to remember to pick early every year!

The butterflies are starting to appear more and more often. Saturday I spied this one, which I believe is a Zebra Swallowtail. I have never seen one of these before, but they are really striking with their vertical stripes and long, long tails.

I believe I mentioned a while back that we had been working on the basement. We haven't done much since that initial push, but here are two photos to show what we have accomplished so far. This first one is a little sample of what the basement looked like before we started. On one side this wooden shelf/bench ran the entire length of the house. It wasn't bad as a work surface, but it didn't provide much help for organizing and storing things. The walls were bare block, and the floor was bare concrete. Pretty much a blank slate. 

This is the corner that will become the basement kitchen, to be used for all of our various canning, meat processing, sausage making, beer and wine making, and so forth. Plus we will be building a pantry for storing canned food and storing all of the various pieces of equipment that go along with all of these ventures. We used a masonry paint to seal the wall and an epoxy floor coating. This picture was taken right after one of the epoxy coats was applied, so it looks uneven, but it dried to a perfect finish. Next step is framing in the two walls that will separate this room from the rest of the basement. Who knows when we'll get to that, but we will...eventually!

Whew! Now all the photos I've taken have been sorted, filed, and uploaded (if blog-worthy). It seems I haven't taken any lamb photos in quite some time, so I will have to remedy that.

Photo update, part 1

I have been snapping pictures but they haven't made it to the web. So here's a virtual tour of the bank bed over the last month and a half, oldest images first. This first group was taken May 12.

Early buds on the desert candles, also called fox tail lilies (Eremus)

'Southern Charm' verbascum, one of my favorites!

This was a particularly good year for the irises.

The gorgeous clematis at the corner of the house.

The weigela was beautiful this year, but it bloomed so early that there were fewer hummingbirds visiting it than usual. I have since trimmed this bush back drastically. I do that every other year to keep it a manageable size because it is planted right beside the house and in front of two windows.

I am really pleased with these alliums; I don't know why this variety is called Persian blue, it looks purple to me! They are in the very tempting sale catalog I received from Breck's. The catalog arrived just days after I had decided I really didn't need to buy any more flowers. But there are a couple of really good deals in this catalog. So far I haven't caved, but I probably will...too many gorgeous bulbs at too good of a price!

The rest of these photos were taken later; some June 3, some June 10 and the rest June 18.

The fruits of my labor on Saturday. I got another pickup full of mulch. It didn't go far, but it sure made this end of the bank look much better.

A beautiful lily that opened Saturday. I love the speckled throat.

More lilies, these opened last week.

Coneflowers that I found three years ago on the clearance rack at Lowes. They were distressed and diseased, and it has taken them a while to really thrive, but they look great this year.

I'm partial to orange, so it shouldn't be a surprise that this is my favorite coneflower.

Taken June 10: I love the way the light is catching in this stipa grass in this shot. The mixture of border lilies in front has been a constant riot of color for nearly a month now.

Stella d'oro daylilies; quite possibly the best perennial plant ever. They spread out to a nice ground cover, and they are loaded with sunny blooms for months. In my garden they are the first daylilies to bloom and they are still going when the others have faded.

Desert candles on June 10. These are so neat; flowering starts at the base and progresses to the tip. They are currently blooming about halfway up.

These are the most gorgeous red lilies...the rich red color is amazing.

The clematis off the front porch. This one has struggled, but displayed 5 nice blooms this year.

The mulched edition of Luke's corner. It is coming along very nicely, and the daylilies on the left side bloomed yesterday.

Foxglove.

Another favorite (how can you pick just one?).

Another lily. Orange again. Did I mention that among the tempting items in the Breck's sale, a beautiful orange tulip has caught my eye?

Delphinium

Poppies; beautiful but here and gone pretty quickly. This year instead of waiting for them all to go to seed, I plucked them out and mulched. It sure looks a lot neater. I may not have any poppies next spring, we'll have to see. I am not worried about the seed bank; that is very well established. But, I have noticed that if the ground is bare in the fall I have many more poppies in the spring than if the ground is covered.

Red hot pokers I started from seed a few years ago. They are going strong!

And we'll end the tour with more shots of these gorgeous red lilies!

Don't blink, life goes faster than you think

In the month since my last post, we have pretty much spent every spare minute outside. The garden is all planted now except for the sweet potatoes, cukes, zukes, and sweet corn. The rows are ready for them, but there was a delay in getting the irrigation system working. Brian is away this week, but we should finish planting over the weekend. I ate 5 broccoli florets for supper last night. The crazy heat and humidity we've been experiencing since mid May caused them to bolt without developing nice heads. We'll try again in the fall, provided I remember to start the seeds. I can't blame the weather, but we didn't end up with many cherries this year either. Yesterday I noticed the black birds were around the tree a lot and a saw a pit or two in the driveway. By the time I went out last evening to pick, all that was left was a measly handful. The cherry tree is over 50 feet tall, and even with a ladder in the bed of the pickup, that's all I could reach. At least it was a delicious handful! I don't know what kind of cherry this is, some kind of pie cherry, but it is not as tart as the tree we had back home.

The first batch of 75 broiler chicks for the year arrived May 22. I didn't get any pictures early on, and their in the ugly chick phase now, but they are growing very well. I'm pleased that they learned how to drink from the automatic water bowl that I installed a couple of days ago. Hooray for labor-saving inventions! Plus there should be no danger of them running out of water. Speaking of labor savings, last night I rolled out four hoses so that I no longer have to carry buckets of water to the laying hens, who are far away from a water hydrant way out in the pasture. The new pullets are in with the older group now, and that group of 25 drinks a lot of water when it is this hot.

We've put up nearly 1000 square bales of first-cutting hay and some round ones too. Various breakdowns have slowed progress, but the weather has finally turned from rainy and cloudy to hot and steamy. We had two great weeks for drying hay and are really pleased with the square bales. The corn and soybeans are planted and the wheat continues to look good. The lambs are growing by leaps and bounds. They are at that point in the year where they look fantastic and their mamas are starting to look a bit stressed. We'll wean the lambs in early July and haul the ewes over to New Hope, their land of endless grass. Looking forward to putting our scales to work for regular weights so we can monitor the lambs progress more objectively.

I have planted all of my flowers, except for finding a summer home for the elephant ears, and for the first time ever, I splurged on bark mulch to help keep the weeds in check. It turned out to be much less expensive than I feared. Why is it that I allow myself to be paralyzed by fear of the unknown - happens more than I'd care to admit! Last night I removed a bunch of poppies that are finished blooming, and I'm going to get some more mulch to spruce up that end of the bank. If I keep it mulched I'm hoping I'll be able to see the crown vetch and spray it repeatedly. One day at a time I am making progress in eradicating that stuff!

We hiked to the top of Crabtree Falls with our young adults group from church. It was a good hike, and a beautiful view. Crabtree is billed as the highest vertical-drop cascading waterfall east of the Mississippi, and it was pretty amazing. We also enjoyed an unexpected visit with my Mom, who was here for a nice long weekend. 


Recent wildlife sightings have included many, many big-eyed rabbits, very few ground hogs (thanks to our dead-eyed neighbor), a few deer, but no fawns yet, a large, too-tame coyote over in New Hope (thankfully the lambs won't be going over there), a bear cub 50 yards from the house, and a weird little salamander/lizard that drowned in a bucket on the deck. Never a dull moment.


Our 10th anniversary has now come and gone. I don't know where the time goes! We've also passed the 1 year mark for this blog and for Brian's job with Pioneer (guess I can stop calling it his new job now).

I think that brings our recent activities up to date. Now all I have to do is organize my photos and catch up on my Quicken records, and I'll have my head above water for a little while. It's interesting what can suddenly seem like a fun task when you know it will keep you inside in air-conditioned comfort, rather than outside sweating just for breathing in the 100-degree heat.