Partly cloudy, 78
We were supposed to get some rain last night, but it never materialized. Like, it seems, every other rain forecast in the last month. We are getting our typical mid-Summer dry spell. While the hayfield stops growing, and we have to keep watering the garden, it also means I need to mow the lawn a lot less, freeing up some time.
The garden is growing like gangbusters, and harvest is underway. In addition to the aforementioned peas and beans and potatoes, we have been harvesting carrots and salad makings as we go, and the summer squash is coming on strong and ready. Karen has made some truly remarkable meals from the squash blossoms themselves! She has filled them with cheese, battered them and fried them - well, what's not to love? We should put them on a stick and sell them at the Iowa State Fair!
We've been harvesting black raspberries for the last two weeks, and it looks like they are winding down. I baked a blackberry crisp, and we have turned them into jam, and frozen them as well. They are my favorite berry.
Last weekend I made my very first batch of home made sausage! It took a bit of trial and effort to get the sausage maker/grinder to work properly, no thanks to very inadequate proto-Chinese instructions included in the box. But once I got the right combination of attachments on the thing, it was pretty fun! It actually looked a lot like the italian sausage in the butcher shop, and it tasted at least as good, if not better! I grilled some up for supper the next night, and we vacuum sealed and froze the rest for future use. I am proud.
We are making progress toward stocking the types of tools we need as well. We got in the campstove for canning that I mentioned in the last post, and we also recieved some electric poultry netting, that will allow us to move the chickens around the farm, yet keep them out of spaces we don't want them, such as in the tomatoes or other parts of the garden that are vulnerable to chicken pecking and scratching. We want to put them on grassy, weedy areas, let them eat bugs and grass, etc. We can also double the use of this netting by using it on pasture for pigs, too, or so I've read from other pastured pig producers.
The tractor is still down at the neighbors'. The diesel injection guy recc. re-building the pump, since it was time, and though it will be very tough to come up with the money, I felt we might as well have it taken care of now rather than have it go in the middle of winter when I have two feet of snow in my driveway. And this does not address the issue of metal in the crankcase, which is not a good sign. Every time I think of my tractor, I get a kind of a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I literally see those little dollars with wings symbols on them. The purchase of this particular tractor may have been a very expensive bad move on my part. It certainly has been a learning experience for me. I know more about what can go wrong on a diesel now than I wish I knew. I only hope that this learning lesson in the school of hard knocks will be over once I get her back and running again, and we have a long and happy future ahead of us. I do keep telling myself that this is a machine, and it can be fixed and restored. I am thinking of trying to locate a basic diesel mechanics class at a local community college so that I can understand and maintain her better once I do have her back here.
We were supposed to get some rain last night, but it never materialized. Like, it seems, every other rain forecast in the last month. We are getting our typical mid-Summer dry spell. While the hayfield stops growing, and we have to keep watering the garden, it also means I need to mow the lawn a lot less, freeing up some time.
The garden is growing like gangbusters, and harvest is underway. In addition to the aforementioned peas and beans and potatoes, we have been harvesting carrots and salad makings as we go, and the summer squash is coming on strong and ready. Karen has made some truly remarkable meals from the squash blossoms themselves! She has filled them with cheese, battered them and fried them - well, what's not to love? We should put them on a stick and sell them at the Iowa State Fair!
We've been harvesting black raspberries for the last two weeks, and it looks like they are winding down. I baked a blackberry crisp, and we have turned them into jam, and frozen them as well. They are my favorite berry.
Last weekend I made my very first batch of home made sausage! It took a bit of trial and effort to get the sausage maker/grinder to work properly, no thanks to very inadequate proto-Chinese instructions included in the box. But once I got the right combination of attachments on the thing, it was pretty fun! It actually looked a lot like the italian sausage in the butcher shop, and it tasted at least as good, if not better! I grilled some up for supper the next night, and we vacuum sealed and froze the rest for future use. I am proud.
We are making progress toward stocking the types of tools we need as well. We got in the campstove for canning that I mentioned in the last post, and we also recieved some electric poultry netting, that will allow us to move the chickens around the farm, yet keep them out of spaces we don't want them, such as in the tomatoes or other parts of the garden that are vulnerable to chicken pecking and scratching. We want to put them on grassy, weedy areas, let them eat bugs and grass, etc. We can also double the use of this netting by using it on pasture for pigs, too, or so I've read from other pastured pig producers.
The tractor is still down at the neighbors'. The diesel injection guy recc. re-building the pump, since it was time, and though it will be very tough to come up with the money, I felt we might as well have it taken care of now rather than have it go in the middle of winter when I have two feet of snow in my driveway. And this does not address the issue of metal in the crankcase, which is not a good sign. Every time I think of my tractor, I get a kind of a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I literally see those little dollars with wings symbols on them. The purchase of this particular tractor may have been a very expensive bad move on my part. It certainly has been a learning experience for me. I know more about what can go wrong on a diesel now than I wish I knew. I only hope that this learning lesson in the school of hard knocks will be over once I get her back and running again, and we have a long and happy future ahead of us. I do keep telling myself that this is a machine, and it can be fixed and restored. I am thinking of trying to locate a basic diesel mechanics class at a local community college so that I can understand and maintain her better once I do have her back here.
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