I've been using the doorknob as a gauge of how much she has grown. This was September last year, and September this year. It's almost as good as a measuring tape in itself!
Thursday, September 08, 2011
one year of growth
I've been using the doorknob as a gauge of how much she has grown. This was September last year, and September this year. It's almost as good as a measuring tape in itself!
fall garden notes
The radicchio is also coming up now. That makes for everything planned to come up there is now showing some sign of succeeding. I found about a dozen more dry pinto beans on the vines and put them in the dry storage area. It is amazing what shows up when you just sit there and really look at a plant in the sunlight. I would never have seen those dry pods hanging there if I hadn't really been looking for them. There was even one dry pod underneath the plants in the dirt that stood out just on one edge in the mud - I opened it and found three dry beans inside it that were seed quality. As I was sitting on the ground looking at the lentils sprouting I saw one dry pod hanging off of the otherwise dry and withered sticks of the Provider green beans. The seed was not in excellent condition, ie: not something I would have put in with the 'good' seeds for next year. I found a place to plant it in the fall square and if it grows, it did not go to waste.
The new lima bean pods that came on are filling out slowly. They really needed the hot weather, but there are flowers on the vines and if they produce more it will be welcome.
I'm nearly ready to go up and bring Grandma some of the 'fruit of the labor' of the garden, mixed cowpeas and green bean snaps in a container, as well as some more dry seed and nearly half of the Blue Jade sweet corn seeds we received. She gave us some watermelon seeds :) and the Sandhill catalog. I need to get our order together early next week.
from top to bottom:
Lina Sisco, from seed savers
cranberry type from a soup mix
'Esme' cranberry type grown from a soup mix bean last year
I put these in the fall planting as an experiment, to see if they will produce plants that are more similar than dissimilar. The 'Esme' is planted nearest to the lima trellis. I have a suspicion that they are all just slight variations on the same thing. The dry pinto beans I've been getting from the same plants have about as much variation in them.
I found a dry gourd in the valley and pulled seeds out of it. It was a 'volunteer' growing in the grass from seed we bought several years ago.
///
Also, thinking far ahead to a time in the future. Esme would be a little older then, and would be able to take more responsibility and help out on a 'farm' that might have some goats and chickens. Several people at my work keep 'a few' goats and cows on their property. They use a local butcher in Puryear to process the meat at a certain time of the year. We could save corn and grains and pumpkins and other things to feed to a dozen or so chickens, and let the goats graze in the valley and clean up all other leftovers. Grain and forage could be saved and fed to the goats and chickens over the winter. The chickens would produce eggs, and we could mix other vegetables and grain and eggs together to make a supplemental dog food, to reduce but not eliminate how much store bought food we rely on. If the goats were processed at the local butcher we could use the 'excess' in that way, as well. We already get bones and trimmings from the butcher, and give them to the dogs sometimes, when we buy our own food.
We also make a pot of 'glop' once in a while for them now - out of any fat we have leftover from our own meats from the store, a cup of cooked dry beans, and cooked oatmeal or rice and mixtures of leftover veggies. Mark says I should throw a can of tuna in it when I make some today, as we have one nearing it's expiration date on the shelf and fish and/or fish oil is also important in dog food recipes. Even with three times the work to make/keep/store a supplemental food but a third less storebought food it would still be a success. I bet leftovers would freeze for a few days at a time. There is a lot of work to do before the chicken idea would happen - fencing for one. But I count learning how to grow these different grains/plants and getting used to tending, gathering and storing the produce as necessary preparation work.
////
A shout-out to three blogs I've been reading lately:
Hard work Homestead
Subsistence Pattern Food Garden
Down on the Allotment (UK)
Not that we will ever go as far as all of these... but I'm learning a lot.
Oh, and the dog glop turned out just fine - I need to use a bigger pot this next time and boil the beans a little longer before I put in the rice.
The new lima bean pods that came on are filling out slowly. They really needed the hot weather, but there are flowers on the vines and if they produce more it will be welcome.
I'm nearly ready to go up and bring Grandma some of the 'fruit of the labor' of the garden, mixed cowpeas and green bean snaps in a container, as well as some more dry seed and nearly half of the Blue Jade sweet corn seeds we received. She gave us some watermelon seeds :) and the Sandhill catalog. I need to get our order together early next week.
Lina Sisco, from seed savers
cranberry type from a soup mix
'Esme' cranberry type grown from a soup mix bean last year
I put these in the fall planting as an experiment, to see if they will produce plants that are more similar than dissimilar. The 'Esme' is planted nearest to the lima trellis. I have a suspicion that they are all just slight variations on the same thing. The dry pinto beans I've been getting from the same plants have about as much variation in them.
I found a dry gourd in the valley and pulled seeds out of it. It was a 'volunteer' growing in the grass from seed we bought several years ago.
///
Also, thinking far ahead to a time in the future. Esme would be a little older then, and would be able to take more responsibility and help out on a 'farm' that might have some goats and chickens. Several people at my work keep 'a few' goats and cows on their property. They use a local butcher in Puryear to process the meat at a certain time of the year. We could save corn and grains and pumpkins and other things to feed to a dozen or so chickens, and let the goats graze in the valley and clean up all other leftovers. Grain and forage could be saved and fed to the goats and chickens over the winter. The chickens would produce eggs, and we could mix other vegetables and grain and eggs together to make a supplemental dog food, to reduce but not eliminate how much store bought food we rely on. If the goats were processed at the local butcher we could use the 'excess' in that way, as well. We already get bones and trimmings from the butcher, and give them to the dogs sometimes, when we buy our own food.
We also make a pot of 'glop' once in a while for them now - out of any fat we have leftover from our own meats from the store, a cup of cooked dry beans, and cooked oatmeal or rice and mixtures of leftover veggies. Mark says I should throw a can of tuna in it when I make some today, as we have one nearing it's expiration date on the shelf and fish and/or fish oil is also important in dog food recipes. Even with three times the work to make/keep/store a supplemental food but a third less storebought food it would still be a success. I bet leftovers would freeze for a few days at a time. There is a lot of work to do before the chicken idea would happen - fencing for one. But I count learning how to grow these different grains/plants and getting used to tending, gathering and storing the produce as necessary preparation work.
////
A shout-out to three blogs I've been reading lately:
Hard work Homestead
Subsistence Pattern Food Garden
Down on the Allotment (UK)
Not that we will ever go as far as all of these... but I'm learning a lot.
Oh, and the dog glop turned out just fine - I need to use a bigger pot this next time and boil the beans a little longer before I put in the rice.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
tiny germination pictures and a daffodil dress
Out in the garden taking pictures of the fall plants as they come up. Why? Because it is so cool to see tiny things 'become.'
I spent about an hour out in the garden and found a red tomato, lots of yellow ones, field peas and black eyed peas and beans and more. A whole new string of zinnias is drying in the garage and there were about a handful of dry Mississippi Silver cowpeas hiding from me under a leaf from a stalk of corn. The pinto beans have reached 'shelly' stage again and I am again so happy to have planted them this year.
The fall planting is : pinto beans reseeded from another plant in the garden, purple hull peas, calendula from the Kirk Estate's seed packet, radicchio and green lentils from Cherry Gal, and a few red lentils from a store packet. There are a few other 'trial' seeds on one side, a single squash seed from the Jarrahadale to see if it will germinate and a single kernel of dent corn and handful of broom corn bits, all from elsewhere in the garden during that morning. *ha* I shouldn't even write down that I did that!
Been thinking of trying a garbanzo bean to see what it is like. someone else has already done it and posted a great article. It sounds like an interesting plant and a great one for a dry season!
And I tried sewing the other night, and it was a failure. I thought I could make something larger because Esme has grown so much. But, as usual, she is not a standard 'across the board' size. I went back again last night and tried a second time.
This is McCalls 7708 size 3, with skirt and bodice alterations. I want to call it her 'daffodil' dress. The printed fabric is from Hong Kong and is very very tiny girls watering daffodils. Also the other colors of the dress were in my stash and seemed to fall into that same vein. I finished the zipper, sleeves and tie backs this morning just before we went to the grocery store. I am glad it fit!
Esme is such an odd size... her chest and waist measurements are still a size '2-3' while her length measurements are a size 4 or 5. I have to extend all of the dress bodices and all of the pants legs. She is a strong, 'solid' three year old, just taller than they consider her age to be. And these are vintage patterns - modern patterns don't seem to fit her at ALL... she seems to fall in a size '1' for chest measurement for the modern pattern I've made for her before.
A lady at the store admired her dress and said 'she can't be three...' I told her she would be four soon. She said, 'Well.. even if she is almost four... she's such a big girl!'
The cuspid tooth that has been bothering me broke off at the stress point today. It is now jagged, but finally doesn't hurt there. It is not a front tooth, only visible if I grin really wide. I will likely have to get a dentist to look at it and see if they can file it down.. if they will even do that. If it didn't have the jagged edge on one side I would not have even noticed that part of it was missing. Mark said if he had lost a piece of tooth he would have definitely noticed... I told him it was just that ready to be gone. I never had braces and I have all of my wisdom teeth - which caused a lot of pressure!
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
tiny notes
Very tired, and now it is cold enough for sleeves and pants and an extra blanket on the bed at night! I went out in a hooded sweatshirt to pick the beans this morning. Several of the Shackamaxon beans have turned purple and begun to swell with some seed. I hope they make it. I took two inside to dry and left some on the plant. The first beans came off of the Mayflower bean, took long enough! We had a hard rain and I was worried about saving seed on a few of the items. Harvested several whipporwill cowpea pods for eating - the green on green speckles made me jump at first as I opened them - then I remembered that they are supposed to be speckled. I had just had a purple hull pea pod with speckles on those because a caterpillar was living in the pod halfway down... so my temperature was set by that, already ;) Also the calendula from last Friday's planting is sprouting, but no lentils or radicchio yet. I am wondering if the cold weather will end out the tomatoes once and for all?
Tried to make Esme a dress last night but it ended up large in the neck and small in the armholes. It was a size 6. I might be able to save it, but the fabric I used was leftover from another dress of hers, so it might not be a total loss anyway. It has been over a month since I've sewn - I should have known couldn't just get back in the driver's seat and rip something out in a few hours like usual.
Esme was playing with my pincushion and she usually pushes any needles down into the cushion one by one and I have to go find them. Thus, also, I've gone to keeping only one out in the cushion at a time. I was looking for the one I KNEW was there, and was not finding it. I called her over and asked her to look at my needlebook full of new needles and go find me the one like it she had had. She thought hard, then ran off downstairs (I really hoped she had not taken it there!). She came back grinning and had something behind her back. She presented me happily with an aluminum pie tin. *facepalm* Clever, though, she found something that looked like all the glittery silver needles! While she was downstairs I did find the missing needle - it was pushed down in but I had a hard time locating it.
mail came today: blue sweet corn (blue jade), lina sisco beans, black plum tomatoes and lots of herbs.
I went out to the garden just after work and found VERY tiny threads of growth where the lentils are planted. I will see if I can get a picture tomorrow. Maybe I'll have this new dress finished tomorrow, too. It kind of looks like a daffodil with the color combination ;)
Tried to make Esme a dress last night but it ended up large in the neck and small in the armholes. It was a size 6. I might be able to save it, but the fabric I used was leftover from another dress of hers, so it might not be a total loss anyway. It has been over a month since I've sewn - I should have known couldn't just get back in the driver's seat and rip something out in a few hours like usual.
Esme was playing with my pincushion and she usually pushes any needles down into the cushion one by one and I have to go find them. Thus, also, I've gone to keeping only one out in the cushion at a time. I was looking for the one I KNEW was there, and was not finding it. I called her over and asked her to look at my needlebook full of new needles and go find me the one like it she had had. She thought hard, then ran off downstairs (I really hoped she had not taken it there!). She came back grinning and had something behind her back. She presented me happily with an aluminum pie tin. *facepalm* Clever, though, she found something that looked like all the glittery silver needles! While she was downstairs I did find the missing needle - it was pushed down in but I had a hard time locating it.
mail came today: blue sweet corn (blue jade), lina sisco beans, black plum tomatoes and lots of herbs.
I went out to the garden just after work and found VERY tiny threads of growth where the lentils are planted. I will see if I can get a picture tomorrow. Maybe I'll have this new dress finished tomorrow, too. It kind of looks like a daffodil with the color combination ;)
Monday, September 05, 2011
bits
High winds and cool day out there, about 75 tops today. I peeked at the fall garden plot and the quick pick purple hull peas are already poking through the surface - that is a 3 day germination! That was what I saw last time, too... but still, pretty amazing to me.
I feel like I'm coming down with what they have at work - and continuing to make foods to feel better. Strawberries in apple-cinnamon oatmeal yesterday, more spinach and garlic with my other leftovers for lunch, along with an orange and apple juice. I put rosehips in my coffee this morning and am brewing another lunch for work that includes onions, apple cider vinegar and all of the rest of the produce out of the garden this morning (black eyed peas, beans, basil and tomatoes). I'll bring the rest of the spinach and meatloaf with that and make that a meal. Jack at work saw my lunch and said the lunch itself would make him sick.. combining orange with spinach. I guess that is why all humans have slight variations ;)
Best of all I gave myself about ten hours of sleep last night. I told Esme I was going to bed early because I needed to feel better. She was unhappy for a moment, but she understood and let me sleep. I woke up at midnight with her Cookie Rabbit toy tucked under my blanket up under my arm. She was fast asleep in her bed. Mark said she came and 'talked' to me for a little bit before she crawled into her bed but he didn't hear what she said and I was still asleep. Very sweet gesture on her part :)
newly collected patterns, sizes 4-6
The blue pinafore ripped yesterday. It was nearly two years old and wow, it still fit. It was originally a size 2, and just proves that size in patterns really doesn't mean anything. Esme is happy I told her I would make her a new dress during my time off this week. I have a new 1950s sundress pattern (bottom left corner) that has come in the mail and a few other patterns I have not tried out yet.
I feel like I'm coming down with what they have at work - and continuing to make foods to feel better. Strawberries in apple-cinnamon oatmeal yesterday, more spinach and garlic with my other leftovers for lunch, along with an orange and apple juice. I put rosehips in my coffee this morning and am brewing another lunch for work that includes onions, apple cider vinegar and all of the rest of the produce out of the garden this morning (black eyed peas, beans, basil and tomatoes). I'll bring the rest of the spinach and meatloaf with that and make that a meal. Jack at work saw my lunch and said the lunch itself would make him sick.. combining orange with spinach. I guess that is why all humans have slight variations ;)
Best of all I gave myself about ten hours of sleep last night. I told Esme I was going to bed early because I needed to feel better. She was unhappy for a moment, but she understood and let me sleep. I woke up at midnight with her Cookie Rabbit toy tucked under my blanket up under my arm. She was fast asleep in her bed. Mark said she came and 'talked' to me for a little bit before she crawled into her bed but he didn't hear what she said and I was still asleep. Very sweet gesture on her part :)
The blue pinafore ripped yesterday. It was nearly two years old and wow, it still fit. It was originally a size 2, and just proves that size in patterns really doesn't mean anything. Esme is happy I told her I would make her a new dress during my time off this week. I have a new 1950s sundress pattern (bottom left corner) that has come in the mail and a few other patterns I have not tried out yet.
Sunday, September 04, 2011
chicken garlic spinach curry with orange pepper
I am coming down with what they are passing around at work, my throat is scratchy and keeps catching with sinus junk. We have such a beautiful tardy/sick monitoring program that most people need to come in sick to prove they are really sick, as to not be counted for a tardy AND a sick day. Basically they clock in, get told they are too sick to work, clock out 'early' and go home as a sick day, or they tough it out all day and get all the customers and coworkers sick. As I said, a beautiful system.
I got up at three a.m. and followed my instincts to make some 'medicine.' I definitely view certain foods as medicine, each having a quality that our body needs.
What ended up on my plate looked awful, but tasted good and made my nose and eyes water in a very good way.
olive oil, onions and garlic sauteed with chicken in a shallow pan
add curry powder, hot madras type
boil together then add enough water for everything to be just beyond covered (swimming)
add about 1/2 cup canned spinach and about a quarter of a large frozen orange pepper
add some black pepper, cover 3/4 of the way and let boil down some
when there is just a little liquid left add a few tablespoons of cornmeal and mix
heat for a bit longer as the cornmeal begins to make a 'sauce'
remove from heat and put on a plate
I had a cup of strong black tea with brandy and this concoction, then slept for the other four hours of the night to wake up and take a eucalyptus bath.
I have to figure out what I should bring to work today. There are some frozen strawberries in the freezer and they are coming to mind.
I got up at three a.m. and followed my instincts to make some 'medicine.' I definitely view certain foods as medicine, each having a quality that our body needs.
What ended up on my plate looked awful, but tasted good and made my nose and eyes water in a very good way.
olive oil, onions and garlic sauteed with chicken in a shallow pan
add curry powder, hot madras type
boil together then add enough water for everything to be just beyond covered (swimming)
add about 1/2 cup canned spinach and about a quarter of a large frozen orange pepper
add some black pepper, cover 3/4 of the way and let boil down some
when there is just a little liquid left add a few tablespoons of cornmeal and mix
heat for a bit longer as the cornmeal begins to make a 'sauce'
remove from heat and put on a plate
I had a cup of strong black tea with brandy and this concoction, then slept for the other four hours of the night to wake up and take a eucalyptus bath.
I have to figure out what I should bring to work today. There are some frozen strawberries in the freezer and they are coming to mind.
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