Solstice

Through the troubling times in this country, the one bright spot here on the homestead has been the vegetable garden. Whether it's food on your plate or in the ground, the sight of that kind of goodness always warms the heart, strengthens the spirit and reminds us that no matter what, we all must still eat. 

June has been filled with showers and summer-type thunderstorms. It has not been unusual to see pouring rain with thunder and lightning at 10 am followed by bright sunshine and blue skies by 10:30, or by bright sunshine with simultaneous rain, but it hasn't deterred (and may even have helped) all the desired growth and abundance out in the garden.

We're up to our ears in snap peas, lettuce and onions, all of which performed beautifully in the cool weather. Surprisingly though, even the tomato plants are happy and have been growing like gangbusters. I started everything from seed this year due to March being filled with COVID concerns, so I feel especially proud of this garden, as I usually rely on at least a few (and sometimes more than just a few) transplants to provide a quick turnaround from planting to eating. But not this year.

And last night we sampled the first of our potato crop. My mom told me once that there is nothing more wonderful than a freshly dug potato, cooked and served with some butter and sour cream, and she is absolutely right. Fresh potatoes have a stronger flavor, are creamier and much lighter on the palate than older potatoes are. 

So here's a little photo summary of all the green goodness.

The California Olallieberries are very happy living in Oregon. Plenty of berries on the vines. I'm thinking we could give Linn's in Cambria a run for their money!

We have more snap peas than we know what to do with.

Baby pumpkins, which haven't even blossomed yet.

Some of our tomatoes -- Roma at the rear and 4th of July in foreground. Plus the irrigation system I just finished installing. We'll use it in July and August, mainly.

Some of the onions are going to seed, but we have more than enough so that's OK. I like their cool, spiky alien-ness. 

Wildflowers in one of the beds over the septic system.

Spiderwort with blue hydrangeas in background

I planted five rhubarb plants, and two have really taken off (far right). No cutting any the first year, but 2021 is looking hopeful.

My Yuzu tree, brought from California, is doing great!

And no photo-heavy post would be complete without an image of a deer peeing in the yard.

All the little things

It's been a year of big things but a summer of little things. Little things are, after all, what ultimately makes the world go 'round, whether for good or bad. A magical day is usually comprised of a bunch of good little things. The Roman Empire fell because of a series of bad ones.

Around the homestead we are finally in the swing of growing, picking, and prettying up outside, and touching up, refining, and replacing inside. I'm in the process of painting all the trim upstairs white, which means a little bit of painting, every day. And I've also been refinishing the oak trim downstairs, removing old water damage on the sills, and re-sealing with stain and polyurethane clear coat. Every day there is some little thing inside this house that's improved upon. Or outside. And that feels good. Because even if it takes 1,000 little improvements, once they're all done it will add up to the house looking great -- one big win for us. 

I don't know about you, but I actually enjoy a series of little tasks so much more than one large one. If I can spend my days doing 11 completely different things -- outside for this, inside for that, I'm generally pretty happy. In high school, I was a sprinter, never having been any good at distances. Perhaps it's the same principle. Put forth a little burst of energy for one thing, rest, then move on to the next thing. 

Here's a little of what we've been up to around here:

There's always laundry, but no rain means drying outside.

pumpkin dog biscuits

 

Cukes, zukes and tomatoes coming along nicely. Big Ag did a fantastic job on these raised beds, and the hay bales in the back will be planted soon, too!

Goodbye oak trim. Hello crisp white paint. Wall painting next!

Speaking of painting....exterior house painting coming in September!

A country bouquet to brighten up the house.

But I have Flowers!

I am happy to report that once again, I kicked a cold virus in the ass due to my willingness to sacrifice all and take a day off to sit on the sofa and nap. This proves, once again, that laziness does in fact sometimes have an undeniable evolutionary advantage.

So today I thought I got under-paid on my timesheet and contacted the gal at work who takes care of such things. She, in turn, contacted the lady who actually cuts the checks. They looked everything over and decided....I was in error. Pay stub was correct. Which, once I looked closely enough at my pay stub, I totally saw, too. Oops.

I'm pretty hard on myself for such human mistakes. I hate that I put my friend and coworker out for nothing and sent her on a wild goose chase. But here's the thing....I have flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. Mason jars, too.

Apology.

So tomorrow I will take my kind and patient coworker these, as a humble request to forgive this lady who doesn't see well without her glasses anymore and never should have been looking at her pay stub without them.

I also currently have dried figs, cucumbers, apple pie filling and preserved relish to get me back into people's good graces if flowers don't work.

For all my bitching about how hard it is to maintain this place, there is no denying that sometimes it pays to live here, especially when you need to make nice to someone because you were a ditz.

The Race Is On!

Ready...

At the 48 hour mark, it's easy to see who is winning the germination race. It's the zinnias, by a huge margin. But there is also activity in the Sugar pie pumpkins, the Waltrip butternut squash and the Black Beauty Zucchini.

Set...

I love watching seeds sprout. They are each so different in how they grow, but for some the speed with which they germinate and get started is quite amazing.

Go!

There's also a whole mess of transplants in the sunroom, which have had several weeks to grow and will probably get planted next week.

First Fruits

First lupin.

After our rainy weekend, we are drying out and warming up, which is actually quite nice.  All over the signs of spring are becoming apparent -- the early-blooming trees, and a few flowers and buds on almost everything.  The rain was a much-needed drink for everything and a great softener of the soil, so I spent most of this morning weeding around my trees and vines, by hand.  I love the frogs and toads who sing to me all night long, enough that I am willing to forego spraying anyplace which might provide a habitat for them.  And when the soil is this loose and wet, pulling weeds is honestly just as easy as spraying them.

As I was working this morning, I spied the first wildflowers on the hill, as well as the first lupin blossom.  My own habit is to never take the first fruits of anything from our property -- not flowers, fruits or vegetables -- for ourselves. Instead, I like leaving it, if possible, as an offering to God and the land itself, as recognition that I play only a small part in the cycle of life around this place, and that most of it is not within my power.  Flowers are easy to leave, but since leaving produce on the vine to rot is not always wise, where it's not practical to do so I give it to the field or the chickens, as a way of passing it on instead of taking it for myself.

I realize I'm not the first person to dedicate "first fruits" to the Creator or Mother Nature, so I'm guessing there's something instinctive and hard-wired into this method of honoring the natural world.

Mr. Roadrunner.

As I was working in the sunshine, a large roadrunner sat on one of our fence posts and sang his song to me. The song of the roadrunner is a low, almost mournful kind of "hoo, hoo, hoo," but mournful is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder; I sensed my roadrunner friend was feeling good and looking for a lady friend, so obviously the low hoo-ing is a spring sound, filled with hope and anticipation.

And so, with my seed packets and empty mason jars, I am also filled with hope and anticipation with the start of this new season.  Hoo hoo to the roadrunner and everything else coming back to life in this season of Newness.

Waste not, want not

A few months ago, I purchased a bag of dove and quail feed for my pigeon and two doves.  Inside the bag were some pea seeds, which were uneaten by any of the birds, and therefore fell onto the floor of the flight cage, where they remained until I cleaned it out. What a waste.

After being collected and mixed in with the chicken waste and a bunch of straw, I spread the mixture over one of our raised beds to sit and compost for a few months.  I covered the bed with a black tarp, and in a few weeks when I removed it, lo and behold, the peas had sprouted. Not a waste at all.

At that point I decided I could use a good nitrogen fixer in the soil as well as a good cover crop, so the peas got to stay.  They grew and eventually blossomed into gorgeous colors of all kinds -- white, pink, red and salmon.  Definitely not a waste.

They formed pea pods, but the pod casings themselves were too tough for them to be eaten as snap peas.  What a waste.

 But instead I let them ripen and picked them with the goal of shelling them. Not a waste after all.

Tonight I had green peas with dinner, cooked lightly and covered in butter.  Perfect. Now the peas are in my belly and the pods are back in the compost pile, where they will break down and become soil for new plants.  No waste here. Once the peas are broken down by my digestive system, they'll end up being eliminated by my body and head through the septic tank out into the leach field to return to the earth that way, while the pods will stay stay topside and grow some new plants as they decompose.

In the next couple of weeks, I will plow down the pea plants remaining and they will return to the soil to provide nitrogen for the next thing that's going to be planted there.  Perhaps if I'm lucky, a few ripe peas will go to seed and give me another crop of peas. 

Compost, plants, flowers, food, compost.  What a lovely cycle, and not a bit of waste in it, if you just relax and let nature take its own course.