We’ve been stymied by storms. They seem to visit every other day, leaving us steamy hot in between. No basement yet. The tractor shed progresses slowly. It now has a wall, canoe rest, window, and drainage for what will become the winter coop. Hope to begin on coop walls and roof tomorrow.
When weather defeats us, we go fishing!
In addition to cherries and currants and apples and wild plums, Michael planted apricot trees. They are Manchurian Apricots, which are cold hardy, but semi-wild and so variable in output. They also tend to ripen all at once, fall on the ground, and immediately rot. Michael has been checking on them daily. Today he announced the apricots were ripe.
We are watching the storm that will fill the moat approach on weather radar. It gains in intensity as it draws nearer. Who says life in the country is boring?
On the St. Croix River. Nevers Dam, a boat landing and historic lumber site, lives about a mile away from us. We need to learn to fish the river, but this was much too windy a day to leave us much fishing leisure. So we had to enjoy the beauty instead. Aw heck.
The basement guys have been doing amazing things with large equipment.
We will be sleeping in this house tonight. No jumping on the bed for us! Most of the posts were still intact. Only the ones on the outside edges were rotting…which are the ones left. Hope the guys who will jack up the house get here before it rains again!
This is the blue tarp Michael and I put over the insulation in the floor 18 years ago. Still looks pretty good. We are working on what we can while our access to outside electricity is limited. More photos later.
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.
This may take us several years to complete, but it is exciting finally to begin.
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!
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.
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!
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.
What we do with lettuce overstock for fun.
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!
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.
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!
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:
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
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.
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.
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
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