Spider Morning

Our days are still hot, but the mornings are a little cooler.

This morning we had fog, so I roamed around the farm and took pictures that hint at the season change. Spider webs. Flourishing loofah blooms. Cedar galls. Green sweet gum balls.

 

 

The open grass was scattered with little spider web pockets.

I visited my old chickens.

 Punkin was camera-shy, so I waited until she turned around.

On their fence is a passion flower vine.

 My zinnias continue to cheer up the world! I've picked so many.

 

 I finally cut most of my large sunflower heads and put them on the front porch to dry, out of the beaks of greedy birds. I grew these to feed my own birds, who have names and give me eggs.

 Tall, bright sunflowers in full bloom are beautiful, but there's something lovely about this dried flower head too, with its curling petals.

 Virginia Creeper is ... well ... creeping, right across our front porch.

 

 I've found one, and only one, ripe, luscious fig this year :(

Today Adam declared that he would back the Jaguar out of the garage and begin the task of putting it all back together.

He drove it part-way to the farm three years ago, so it's not an issue of its not running, so much as putting all its little parts back in all their right places. The front dash is removed, and one front seat, and the wires are everywhere. When he lifted the hood to inspect the engine, he discovered that others had been there before him.

Mice. They pulled in everything they might possibly need for a massive nest in this dark, protected space. Twigs, paper, chicken food (sigh). Well, when that engine revs up, they'll be glad their babies aren't in there trying to sleep!

Last question, friends: We hope to paint the shutters on our house sometime (like ... in the next year, haha). Here's their color now, kind of a bleached-out pale blue/gray.

With the bright red roof, they look all wrong. Should we paint them:
1) black
2) green
3) red to match the roof

Please advise!!

Farm Update: July 3

I haven't done a farm post in nearly two months. I have various excuses: rain, rain, and then a bit more rain. A wedding. The outrageous heat. But truthfully, I had energy for one blog, not two. There you have the unvarnished truth.

For future reference, here are a few stats:

*3 chicks survive from the May clutch. I think two are hens, but unsure still. They are nine weeks old today.
*Ethel is broody on four Ameracauna eggs, one week in. 
*It's a bad tomato year. I have about 25 plants in the garden, but the Mini Orange plants are performing badly because of excessive rain - rotten fruit. The 2 plants in pots with drainage did better.

*Matt's Wild Cherry tomato plants are doing okay. The 3 plants that overwintered on the porch have done extremely well. I should try that again. I had abundant cherry tomatoes all through June, which is early. The rope trellising is not a good solution for tomatoes. We need a new plan. Cages are too short for vining varieties.
*Cucumbers are bearing very well. The pickling variety turn yellow quickly. But the rope trellising is perfect for cucumbers. We will do that each year.

*I started my Blue Lake bean plants too late. I have 8 plants in a bed fenced against rabbits. Difficult to weed. Pepper plants also in there, and growing well.
*The greens bed was fabulous. We could not eat or sell even a majority of it.
*Babies' Breath and Chamomile did not grow well. Heavy rain destroyed the first and heat/weeds destroyed the second.
*Carrots appear to be growing well. No sign of orange root yet. I sowed seeds on March 29.
*A good year for onions, which were put in as sets last fall. At the end of June their tops were down enough to pull them. They're curing on the front porch. Then I think we'll store them in the frig.

* Each year our potato harvest improves. Adam harvested them today. He'll brush off the dirt and we'll store them in the spare bedroom.

*I've had decent farm sales at the market, selling nearly everything. 
*I have so much tomato sauce left over from last year that I'm cooking it down and turning it all into tomato paste, which Adam uses most readily in cooking.

Reduced by half, after simmering for a day

*We ate some peas this year, but did not freeze any. We don't tend to remember what's in the deep freezer, and garden produce sits there for a long time, uneaten. Need to improve on that.
* I made a batch of tea tree soap in February, one of lavender in March, and just made a mixed batch last week. I've steadily made batches of Healing Herb Ointment, Bee Balm, and Insect Repellent Lotion Bars, all of which sell well. I'll make a bit of ointment for ourselves today because we use it so often.
*Herb beds are doing very well, if weedy. I made a large batch of herbal tea (mint, lemon balm, tarragon, lemongrass), and sold the first tin of it at the market on Saturday.

*Adam's willow tree starts are doing extremely well. Thicker wands have grown better than thinner ones. 
*My seven loofah vines are looking very good. They won't bear until autumn. I sold almost all of my last year's loofah scrubs.

I think that's about it! If you want to know more about what's happening in our lives -- the roof, the wedding, the dogs -- skip on over to my other blog, Through a Glass Darkly. Thanks for stopping by!

Sylvie Goes Broody!!

 We are excited on the farm. Sylvie Hen (on the left) appears to be BROODY! I've never had a broody hen before, but I'm hopeful she will stay on those eggs and we may ... we may ... have some baby chicks! Here's Sylvie's tail feathers from behind:

 In this particular coop/run are Arthur the Roo (who was rather aggressive with me today), Lady Grey (who is darker), and Sylvie.

 The other hen there is Autumn.

Sylvie has wanted to sit on some eggs for several days. Today she wouldn't get off. Autumn and Lady Grey will go in the box and lay eggs, and Sylvie will snuggle them under her feathers and sit on them too.
When Arthur got aggressive today (perhaps because he had a broody wife?), I kicked him a bit across the chicken yard. One must be assertive with a roo. I also put food and water right next to Sylvie so she feels free to stay on those eggs!

One day last week I got these four eggs. The green one is Autumn's. The two larger brown ones are the silkies' eggs. And that teeny-tiny egg? It was the very first egg that Ethel laid, after her molt. It's so ridiculous! 

 Ethel and Punkin are quite unpredictable in their laying now, but I feel more certain their eggs are fertilized. So I might sneak their eggs under Sylvie to be hatched. Could be fun!

Here were my feet a few days ago.

 We've had some sunny days, and the ground feels great on my feet. I enjoy walking around the herb gardens, removing dead annuals, weeding, and otherwise tidying up the beds.
I'm still processing my loofahs for sale at the market. They have sold well for only $1 each.

 Adam made this fine set of concrete leaves to sell to the coffee vendor at our market - we swapped in part for a 5 lb. bag of whole bean Carolina Pecan coffee -- yummy!

 Here are Arthur and Autumn, enjoying a dust bath together one day. She's his favorite hen. I do hope we can successfully temper his aggression, because without him there will be no little chicks.

 This past week Adam finished clearing the orchard and began the next big project: clearing the fence line.

He overdid it a bit, and wrenched out his right shoulder. It's a bad shoulder and needs rotator cuff surgery at some point. He'll take it easy on the fence clearing for a while. He had his two burn barrels ready. Swinging the machete is what did him in.

I do enjoy balmy days in early winter, here in the South. They are a blessing. Our front porch, wrapped in plastic sheeting and quite toasty in the afternoon, warms the house.

Today I cleaned all the dead basil bushes from two beds, removed the last tomato plant, stripped the loofah vines from their fence, and dug out the overabundance of oregano in the herb bed. It was quite satisfying. Adam is cooking and baking for our Christmas visitors: Julia and Anna and Anna's boyfriend, Gramm.

 Gramm is delightful and a wonderful conversationalist. Don't they look happy?
Julia is a master of face-making, so we don't even let it bother us anymore, haha!

She's just teasing :)

Curing in Autumn

 Adam is making more leaves. These are smoother, with fewer bubbles. Here's the first big one he did, painted.

 

I suppose he has about 15 leaves of various sizes in various stages of development. They should dry (or cure) slowly over the winter. Above you see a Japanese Magnolia leaf. He embedded a hook in the back.
 He smoothed the back of the big leaf. The two green hostas above will have light green veins.
Our new puppy, Trixie, wants to help sort pecans.

 Some friends have said it's too early for pecans, that they won't be fully developed. But from reading on two state extension websites, if the pecans are dropping naturally (not from wind), and the husks are dry and fully open (or off entirely), then the pecans should be fully developed, after curing. Curing, or drying, should take about 10 days.

 Adam dug all the sweet potatoes. Here they are, drying ... curing ... on our front porch, on wire racks.

 Some are tiny. Some are mammoth.

They also cure about 10 days.

And I have a steady stream of loofahs coming through their process of curing, deseeding, cleaning, bleaching.

Our small 2nd crop of white potatoes are coming along. I wasn't going to sneak a peak, but then one potato was showing already ....

 My Blue Lake green bean plants are looking very bedraggled from bugs, but I got another bag of beans today. I've been blanching and freezing them.

 Here's Adam's new compost pile inside the garden fence. Beyond the fence you see the big field our friend bush-hogged for us. It looks so good! 

 All the grass out there will eventually be raked into this pile too.
I have one remaining cherry tomato plant in the garden that's bearing. It was a volunteer, I think. I thought it was declining, but it seemed to get a second wind!

 

It has lots of blooms and green tomatoes, and plenty of red ones too. I picked a handful of about 20 today.

I'll take that! 
I love how the produce of a small farm changes so much from season to season. Some crops come around a second time (since we have a long growing season). Some come in bursts -- like Adam's leaf-making. He can only do it now, when the leaves are mature. In a couple of weeks, all these leaves will be yellow and dying. And elephant ears won't be big again until mid-summer. I like that we live in a dance-like comradery with these seasonal shifts of nature. I love that at any given time I can have eggs and nuts and beans and peas and tomatoes and herbs from my own plot of earth. That is quite rewarding.