Posted on 06/11/2022 5:09:19 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Lol!
I don’t know but if it is I don’t want to catch whatever it would lure!
Interesting! When you do, I’ll cross-post your results to the Monthly Fiber Arts Thread! ;)
I hope you have a chance to visit Rainbow Fleece Farm in New Glarus sometime. We had a really fun day there learning about wool processing and carding and spinning yarn, etc.
Besides a milk cow, Beau won’t let me have sheep, either. He says, ‘Sheep are just LOOKING for a reason to die!’
You know, they CAN be eaten! Not ALL will be lost Sweetheart, LOL!
We may compromise on Angora Goats. He gets the weed control in the woods and pasture and I get the fur. :)
No 2nd mortgage required - because early this morning I revised
my shopping list -
"Hmmmm, Let's see - Okay, I'll only get one of those
instead of two ... mmmm Okay, I've never tried the store
brand of that item, but since it costs $2.40 less than the
name brand, there is no better time than the present
to try it out..." etc.
But even with the downward revision, I still came out $16 above
my proposed budget for the trip.
And I spent $14 for a tomato cage and two vegetable seedlings
at Home Depot.
So today's 'economic damage' was minimal. LOL!
I just looked that farm up. I think if I stood in the middle of my field and shouted, they’d probably hear me!
You’re living up to your handle, splendidly. :)
Get to know your neighbors! I’ll bet they’ll give you all the free sheep manure and spent hay you can haul.
I’d also check their curb-side stuff on Trash Day. You might get lucky with an old spinning wheel or other treasures! :)
Victory garden is doing well for the most part. It's looking like the wet weather we had in May hurt a few of my tomato plants. I've given them all a good dose of fungicide and they're looking a little better now, but the jury is still out on half a dozen of them.
I did two plantings of potatoes a couple weeks apart. The later planting looks to be doing much better than the early planting. None of the plants are showing any sign of fungal disease, so probably is a result of the excessive rainfall in May. To be on the safe side I gave them all a dose of fungicide when I treated the tomatoes. Hopefully they will snap out of their funk and get on with it.
Mrs. Augie's cucumbers have begun to produce. She started three quarts of lacto-fermented pickles yesterday. Those should be the first of many to come this season. We've been eating green salad for a few weeks now. I'm hoping that putting that stuff on the shady-ish side of the garden will delay the bitterness that comes with summer heat. I noticed that quite a few of the pepper plants are starting to produce flower buds. The winter squashes are all vining like crazy and starting to make little baby squashes. Summer squash was planted out and is coming along nicely. Probably a week away from seeing blossoms on those.
In between fiddling in the garden I worked on a few other projects over the weekend. Got started removing a handful of dead trees below the pond dam. One down and mostly picked up, three still to go. The mulberry tree that came up in the garden fence not long after we built this place has been on my watch list for a couple years now. I left it alone in hopes that it was a female and would produce berries, but after ten-ish years it has become apparent that it is a male, so it's going to get whacked and will join its dead neighbors on my pile of stovewood.
I picked up a couple five-gallon pails of TWP on Saturday, and got the first coat applied to the swim dock. I'll put another coat on the deck, then circle back with a brush and get a good coat on the rim joists.
Great progress on all of your projects, as usual!
Mom is coming out to stay for a few days this week. She couldn’t WAIT to get off the farm when she was a girl, but she sure likes ‘playing’ at mine. Beau is in Canada fishing until this Saturday, so the girls are running wild this week, LOL!
Speaking of ‘girls running wild,’ on Sunday I DID have a neighbor’s beef cow and her baby stroll through my garden! A few phone calls later, he had them rounded up and the fence fixed and all was well. Surprisingly only the two got out - usually when one finds a way out, they ALL do, so that was pure luck! They didn’t wreck anything in the garden, but left a few piles for me. I’m used to that. Weber liked to poop over there, too. But, he’s in the freezer now...
Since we’re under a heat advisory for two of the three days she’ll be here, I started two lists: Inside and Outside. We’ll do the ‘Outside’ stuff at the crack of dawn, then move inside and away from the heat. ‘Inside’ activities also includes a trip to a garden center I haven’t been to yet this season, some frozen custard at Culver’s and some shoe shopping. ;)
Belated Happy Birthday!!!! My garlic is doing great the second year. Miss your posts and pictures. God bless you and Lady Bender!
Funny, here in Michigan Purple Cow is an ice cream joint.
“Oh, Gawd! I hate all exoskeleton bugs with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns!”
what about lobsters?
Quite a few of my seeds never germinated / sprouted indoors this spring. Cukes, watermelon, honeydew melon, “snake” gourds, eggplants. Maybe 20% of the Opo sprouted - those that did seem to be doing ok now. Tomatoes very poor. Pumpkins started fine & are taking off. Ditto cantaloupe. Zucchini ok but 2 fell over & broke (split) stems when about 1-1/2” tall. But they kept going on 1/2 of the stem and seem to be ok. Seeds were all packaged for 2022 and from “brand” companies (Livingston & Burpee).
The “starts” shelves are in an upstairs room @ a south facing window. Watering was good / soil moist but not saturated except briefly during watering’s. It may be the room got up to near 100 deg. F one day while we were away. Would that much heat for several hours kill planted (but not yet sprouted) seeds of some plants? :-(
I’ll try again with some, but with such a late start will be lucky to get produce by fall, I’m afraid...
I have not posted much but I have pictures. I am in between cataract surgeries. Last one tomorrow. Spent most of last week in the garden catching up. Everything is growing great. Best garden ever this year. Eating asparagus, radishes and romaine so far. I don’t know what I am going to do with the kale! LOL.
They’re Sea Bugs. And they’re delicious, so they get a pass. :)
The poor thing was so weak that she literally couldn't stand up to run away. I picked her up and took her to aspiring crazy cat lady #1 Marine Daughter for resurrection. Headed back to work and the other "something" was back in the road looking for little sister. I let him run down the road until he was so tired he couldn't run anymore, stopped, picked him up, and took him to Daughter's house.
Two days after I captured these two we found the momma cat dead alongside the road not far from where the kittens were. There wasn't any sign of her being hit by a car or dog chomped. I expect that she was just worn out from a life of scrounging for food and having kittens two or three times a year.
Warmed up, dried up, bellies full, ticks removed, and much happier than they were the day before.
Mrs. Augie and I are going to take these two to our house once they size up a bit. We have four cats now - only one of them less than 10 years old. It will be good for them to have somebody new to play with.
Never fear! We will have a week devoted to 'All Things Kale' later in the season! As for me, I use mine fresh in salads, or use it to make Pesto, or I chop and freeze it and use it in soups and Quiche.
Glad to hear your first surgery went well. Hope the second is just as successful!
I had problems with germination this season, too. And then problems in the greenhouse when temps were swinging from 40 at night to 100 during the day! It stunted a lot of stuff and some haven’t recovered.
I also got Aphids! I NEVER get Aphids! So annoying!
This is a less-than stellar growing season for me. Too much rain, not enough sun, and temperature swings that will give you whiplash! Frustrating.
I’d like to say it looks like the rest of the month is evening out, but I don’t want to jinx myself anymore than I already am! ;)
It’s only a 4 foot row and still pretty small. I figured I would blanche it and vacuum seal it for the freezer. Use it on pizza or omelettes. Maybe soup. Hubby won’t eat it. And I may not like it either. ;)
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