CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL: Let the Games Begin!

We have been preparing the front yard to become an addition since early April. Today it went from looking like this: 

to looking like this:

 Exhilarating in a fingernail biting kinda way. Michael and I have a lot of learning ahead of us, and a lot of physical labor. 

The addition hopefully will provide a number of benefits. 

• Irene will have an in-law apartment that is closer to ground level, eliminating as many stairs and narrow doorways from her life as possible. 
• We will have storage space indoors so that we can bring our belongings in from the pole barn. 
• We will empty the pole barn so we can use it as work space. 
• We will have room to have visitors!  
• We can have family over for holiday dinners and seat them all in one room. 
• I’ll have room for spinning wheels, looms, and related equipment. 

This may take us several years to complete, but it is exciting finally to begin. 

GARDEN JOURNAL: Currents, Red and Black

The currants remind me that July’s gem is ruby.  

Black currants probably should be called spineless gooseberries, but then who would try them? 

 We picked both in the sun and heat of yesterday, saving jelly making for the cool of our rainy today.  Red currants have pits and so must be made into jelly. Black currants have tiny seeds and make a velvety jam. Basic ratio is one to one, juice or fruit to sugar. Both have natural pectin and jell wonderfully. Ah, we are jelly rich!

GARDEN JOURNAL: The Great 'Scape

Beginning of July and the garlic begins to ripen. The soft neck varieties put out “scapes” or seed heads when they are thinking of becoming adults.  

 They can be sautéed or grilled or chopped fine and added to anything, and add a subdued garlic flavor. The scapes should be removed so the plant energy goes into making bulbs. Another month and I will be braiding garlic full time. One of the best times of year!  I’m hoping we have a basement constructed by then. Wish us luck and dry weather. 

CULINARY JOURNAL: Red

The cherry trees announced High Summer in resounding chorus. We answered the call: 

 Michael plants trees wherever we go. The reward is coming back to mature trees. Nankin cherries are more like bushes, with small, tart fruit: 

 One tree gave us enough fruit for 14 jars of jam.  July red to chase away January blues! 

Why An Dot? Why A No Duck?

Because the ducks can’t fly yet!  This is one of the skitterish Wyandottes. Wouldn’t be cuddled, but liked the view from my hat. 

LIVESTOCK JOURNAL meets GARDEN JOURNAL: Ducks Playing Piranha

What we do with lettuce overstock for fun.

LIVESTOCK JOURNAL: Chicks Eat Oats and Ducks Eat Oats

Went to the local feed mill today. Michael assured me that it looks exactly the same as it did 40 years ago. Bought 50 lbs of oats for $9.50. Came home and spread them around my chicken-viewing chair. The friendly chicken hopped right up, knowing I’d have a treat waiting on my knee. The skitterish chicken was so distracted by this unexpected delicacy that I managed to pick her up and get a close-up. 

No idea yet what breed of chicken this is, although I am pretty sure we have Wyandottes and Light Brahmas. They all approved of the oats:

We have 26 chickens and 15 ducks. Although the ducks are 1 week younger than the chickens, they are significantly larger:

So have a nice day and duck! 

GARDEN JOURNAL: Shouldn't These Be Walking Already?

End of June and the root vegetables keep growing. Hardly the time for hot soup…anyone have a good cold turnip recipe?  I may try grilling them, if it doesn’t rain this afternoon, but like a piece of steak rather than wrapped in aluminum foil.  I’ll update with a culinary post if my experiment is a success. 

CULINARY JOURNAL: Herb Omelettes

I love digging in the dirt, as well as the side benefits such as fresh herbs. Walked out and gathered a handful for breakfast omelettes:

Recipe:

Mix together 2 eggs, a tablespoon (or more) minced scallion, parsley and basil, salt and pepper to taste.  Heat omelette pan to very hot, add a shy tablespoon of butter. If the pan it hot, it should foam. When butter is melted, add egg mixture. Rotate pan and shake pan  to allow egg to have maximum contact with metal. Once egg is partly cooked, it will start to roll on itself when you jerk your pan towards you. Add a little flip at the end and it will turn over. Turn  onto plate. Sprinkle with cheese of your choice. Bon appetite!

PS: that is Michael’s fresh bread and yes, I did share the toast with him! 

NATURE JOURNAL: Floating Islands!

We went fishing last Thursday, but I haven’t had time to post photos until today. Wolf lake produced more yellow perch and several northern pike. I’ll have to figure out how to make a video of how to fillet fish. Another day. For today, a photo of a floating island will have to do!   

Okay: One more of the fish:

GARDEN JOURNAL: Gophers Begone!

Webought another set of gopher traps from our local feed store after the gophers ate my first set. Michael obtained a bunch of ground staples for fencing out predators from the fowl pasture, and I adopted a couple to discourage my new traps from walking off.  This worked!  

 Gophers have incredibly soft, lovely fur…despite being destructive rodents. My township still provides a bounty for them. I wonder if I will ever recoup the cost of my traps?  I’m a sense, I hope not!  At least, not as long as my garden  remains unmolested.  Another peaceful day in the country. V

GARDEN JOURNAL: Worse Than Cutworms

We have a lovely garden. We battled cut worms earlier this year, digging them up as they feasted on our baby pea plants. Just recently we have vermin worse than cut worms:  pocket gophers. They burrow underground and eat huge swathes of plants in a blink. Argh. We bought a set of traps. I watched a YouTube tutorial and set them. I checked them. THEY ATE MY TRAPS!!!  Both of them. We will be buying more traps tomorrow. No photos. Nothing to show. Sigh. 

CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL: It Has a Roof!

Michael sank the posts for the tractor shed on May 20th. Today, one month later, we finished putting the roof on. In the meantime, we also built a duck hut and a chicken shack, worked in the garden, mowed lawn, finalized a certiorari petition, moved electricity, cooked, cleaned and washed…we’ve done a bunch. Have more to go. Good clean fun.  

But it WAS Michael's Post!

How would you like to see a picture of Arthur? 
Around here you get a name if you recover from an illness or if you are sufficiently  cute……Arthur is a good name for a duck don’t you think?

Michael

LIVESTOCK JOURNAL: Chickens Ready for Bed at 6:30

On account of rain…. The ducks of course had to be herded home ’cause they like the rain just fine. And so we stopped working on the tractor shed roof also on account of rain and are making a rhubarb coffee cake to be served warm with vanilla ice cream. M 

FISHING JOURNAL: Floating Islands and Yellow Perch

Wolf lake. Darn cool. Michael’s father always said there were floating islands on that lake, and by golly, we saw one!  Small rounds of cattail bog migrate from side to side, sailing with the wind. The same wind created a chop on the water, which is when yellow perch love to bite!  Between the two of us, we caught 19. Aunt Harriette and Irene will be having their long-awaited fish dinner.  Now it’s time to put the livestock to bed.  V 

FISHING JOURNAL: Wolf Lake - Polk County, Wisconsin

Monday.  We visited with Aunt Harriette this morning after taking care of some of things for her.  (Harriette is Michael’s auntie, who is 96 and appreciates being sprung from the Old Folks Home every now and again). We took her out to lunch at the Kozy…they really do have good hamburgers and will fry the onions if you ask them.  On the way back to The Land we took a detour through Fish Lake Wildlife Reserve to check on the swans who had been nesting within sight of the road.  They were off their nest and escorting a clutch of four cygnets through the cattails.  Now Michael is making dinner for us here (Irene has to eat between 3-4 pm due to health issues), and then, since our day is pretty much schmeised anyway, WE GET TO GO FISHING!!!!

Having found nothing but wee ones at Atlas Mill Pond ten days ago (the last time we had a rain day from construction and garden duties), we are going to explore Wolf Lake.  Don’t know if there are fish in there, but we are willing to find out.  There is no regular boat access, so we will be throwing our canoe in from HWY 87 (there is a place to pull off where Wolf Creek crosses under the road) and paddling up the creek to the lake.  If we have luck, I’ll let you know.  If we don’t, well, I won’t be bragging that one up…unless, as is usual, even if we don’t catch fish, just being on the water is worth sharing.  Ten days ago the blue flag started to peek out at shore’s edge, the water lilies began to carpet the surface of the shallows, and blue herons hung about being great.  Eager to see Wolf Lake.  V

LIVESTOCK JOURNAL: Strong Fences Make Good Neighbors

Today we released the prisoners!  Their 50′ of plastic fencing that we had been using to control their movement was getting small, even for month-old birds.  We took part of the area we fenced years ago to protect trees from deer and added rabbit fence to the bottom, in an effort to discourage the neighborhood cats, dogs, raccoon, foxes, etc., from helping themselves to a chicken or duck dinner.  We will see if we have any luck with that.  We are also protecting our garden from the birds, who would love to eat all of our fresh lettuce if they could.  The birdies love the new pasture and immediately set about hunting down spiders, moths, worms, weeds, and any other tasty morsel that caught their eye.  I’ll eventually get around to posting photos of the chicken shack and duck hut we made for them, but I’m feeling pretty successful in getting this one done.  Time to make dinner and eat some of that lettuce ourselves!

A Day in the Garden

Today we concentrated on the neglected garden space. Michael turned the sod over on this one in March, soon after the ground thawed. I planted herbs , squash, peas, and beans when it seemed as if spring had come. WRONG. Cold and damp discouraged my seeds (except the herbs) but not the weeds!  Hoed it up again and replanted with peppers, eggplant, and more tomatoes. Saved the edible weeds (a spinach family member my mom calls quelites) and added it to the pizza toppings. Revenge is tasty. 

Journals, Topics, and Other Learning Curves

When we get better at how to work this blogosphere, we will divide our posts into areas of interest, such as the Garden Journal (a photo of which I am proudly displaying with this post, hopefully); Livestock Journal; Nature Journal; Culinary Journal (which tends to be a cross-over of all the proceeding…); Construction Journal, and I am sure there will be additions to these as we go along.  This is a way of sharing knowledge and the SHEER JOY that goes into making and caring.  Last year, the garden spot you see above was a grassy field.  This year, it is growing onions and beets and turnips and potatoes and lettuce and tomatoes and, and, and…you get the idea.  Oh, those vibrant plants in the foreground are rhubarb.  We hope to make wine with them some day.  But that is a story for the Construction Journal!  Duty, and laundry, calls.