Mid-week update

It's been a doozy since I've last posted.

During this time:

We sat down to three Thanksgivings with family.

My great aunt passed away suddenly.  There was a viewing and a mass. It's really sad and I'm glad I took the little guy to visit when we had the chance.

Our little guy has a terrible cold.

Happened to look in his mouth yesterday and found three teeth popping out. Felt like a real winner as a parent for not noticing sooner.

I missed opening day of deer season to stay home with him. That's fine. My chances of seeing a deer, let alone a legal buck and successfully shooting it = snowball's chance in hell so I don't think I missed much.

Now I'm sick and my husband is sneezing too.

I hope this ship turns around soon.

Thanksgiving preps & first snow

The little man and I just returned from grocery/booze shopping in preparation for Thanksgiving. There really wasn't that much to buy and I forgot my list at home anyway so it was a short trip.

We did all of our grocery shopping at the local Aldi's and managed to buy about 90% of what we needed organic.  Thanks Aldi's!  They even had organic flour this week so I got 10 lbs for bread making.  On the way to pack our groceries we passed a group of Amish women who had just checked out.  Around here the Amish buy their milk, eggs, bread and frozen french fries at the big box store like everyone else.  These ladies were buying tubs of non-dairy "dessert whip", canned pumpkin, lots of bread and..... an entire case of pre-made gravy.

Gravy.  I don't know why this was the "what the hell" thing for me but there you have it.  I feel sad when I see people buying junk like this because it is so easy to have something so much better.  I wanted to say "LADIES.... when you take the bird out of the oven... all that stuff in the bottom of the pan... that's where gravy comes from. Your gravy is already half done! I mean, you know that right? Right??" 

Yeah.  Well...

Moving on...

This is where pie comes from.

Ok, now I'm finished.  Promise.  That was a really good squash for pies by the way.  Musquee de provence in case you want to grow it.

I want to remember for next year that we got our first snow this weekend. About 4 inches.  It seems like a lot to get in November here, but it happened.  I put more straw down in the poultry yards today and reinforced the duck ark with three bales to give them a more sheltered place.  Which most likely they won't use having come equipped with their own little down jackets and layers of fat.  But I'll feel better knowing they have it if they need it.

Happy Thanksgiving. 

Buying seeds & camping stuff, selling off my youth

It's been a week of buying and selling for me. Buying treats for myself and selling off things I no longer have I use for.

On the "buying" front I've found some real bargains this week.  Seed Savers Exchange was having a half off sale on select seeds so I purchased some I needed.

Not the best picture.  I bought two of my favorite lettuces that I realized I had poor germination on this year: Forellenschiluss and Yugoslavian Red Butterhead.  They are both sooo beautiful.  Hillbilly tomato was a new one I grew from a transplant this year and the tomatoes were flavorful and they were heavy producers.  And they threw in a free postcard! In adult fashion, I've updated my seed inventory

At an Amish-run resale shop today I found these treasures for the camper.

Eight vintage school lunch trays for $1.50.  Four of each color. Now mentally add hotdogs, smores and baked beans to this picture.  Awesome, am I right?

This Smokey Bear comic book was also $1.50 and will be framed and hung in the camper.  I remember a couple of years ago reading in Smithsonian magazine how once upon a time, in the 1940's, a young forest ranger found a little bear cub with charred paws crying in a tree after a forest fire had put out.  Its mother was presumed dead.  He climbed the tree, pryed the cub off of the branch and tucked it in his jacket.  He called the cub "Hotfoot Teddy" and the little cub eventually became a mascot of the U.S. Forest Service.  You don't get a better story than that.

 On the selling front, I've come to the decision to sell off the rest of my video game collection. This was a hard one and hurts because in a way it feels like I'm selling away my early 20's. I've parted out some of my collection over the years but there's still a big pile of it here: Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and Atari.... There is a box of literally close to 200 Atari games in the basement that are going to be sold as a group. And my Pac-Man arcade machine, that has to go too.

I literally have one of these out in the garage.

I'm slowly digging things out and getting them on Ebay.  I'm telling myself that if I really miss them that badly when the little guy is older I can always buy some back.  The arcade machine, though, that's going to be pretty irreplaceable.  I'm going to try not to think about it too hard.  Marie Kondo warns that getting rid of these things that fall under the "memorabilia" category of your life is the hardest part and boy she wasn't kidding.

So, things come and go.  Things change and people change.  It's all just a part of life.

Cooking, sewing, book review & game camera snaps

Not much to report lately.  I made the quince jelly yesterday but it didn't set up.  At all.  So I have to buy pectin and deal with that tomorrow.  Listed some more things on Ebay.  Started working on some homemade Christmas gifts for my son; a quilt and a soft fabric book.

 I also read this book this book called Bootstrapper by Mardi Jo Link that I picked up at a thrift store.  It was a fun, easy bathtub kind of read about a woman who, with the help of her three sons, becomes more self-sufficient on the farm she lives on in order to keep the property.  According to my affiliate link the book retails for $3.46 which just seems sad. I really enjoyed it.

For fun, I thought I'd share some fun pictures from my game camera.

I got my game camera as a gift one Christmas and it's been one of my favorite gifts ever.  It's so much fun to set up and see what's going on around the property.  The one I have must not be sold anymore. but here's an affiliate link to what must be the new version of it. This is some of what goes on around the place when I'm not outside.

It's really good for taking candid shots of ducks.

Apparently we have a dog coming around.  I have no idea who this dog belongs to.

This little buck has been around for a couple of years now.

This doe with the missing leg has been around for two seasons now and has sucessfully raised a pair of fawns each year. 

It takes great nighttime shots and I regularly stick it in the poultry run overnight to check if I'm having a raccoon problem.  There's nothing more infuriating that putting the card in the computer and finding pictures of raccoons frolicking around the chicken coop. Which hasn't happened lately, thank goodness.

I opened an Etsy shop

I have a deep love for finding treasures.  Unexpected things that are just so beautiful that they for whatever reason that they can't be passed up.  Thrift store, auctions, yard sales - I love the thrill of the hunt.  I'm looking for things that are not necessarily valuable in a monetary sense, but that are unique and have a story to tell.

I started selling on Ebay many months ago and found that my love for this was really something more  than just simple selling  or "flipping" - what I thrive on is the idea of taking something beautiful and matching it with someone who will really love it.  Like a personal shopper, but for vintage and unusual items.  So, I opened an Etsy store today.

I'm starting with a handful of postcards that I bought at a local re-sale shop.  They are all of the same family around Pittsburgh, PA and are posed scenes of fishing and camping.  I held a few back to frame up but the rest are going to new homes.  They're too amazing not to share.

This one is handwritten "Aunte Gerte" on the back.

The same woman?  She's lovely.  I'm guessing these postcards were photographed in the 1920's?

Here's a link to the Etsy shop, or you can link to it from the sidebar

Expect to see more postcards, vintage feedsacks and linens, quilts and so on.  Whatever I can't pass up saving.

Honey harvest, garlic planting & a vote

This weekend my uncle and I helped my dad harvest the honey off of the family hives.  The bad news is that a very bad season has only left him with two hives to go into winter.  Ironically this is the same number we started the season with, before some wild swarms were caught and hived.  The good news is that it looks like we ended up with about 80 lbs of honey harvested.  I mostly use it for baking and spreading on toast.

We spent an evening uncapping and spinning out the frames.  The honey will settle in buckets for a couple of days before being bottled.

We also had a very warm day yesterday where the little man fell asleep in his car seat while we were running errands.  I set it in the shade and used the unexpected free time to plant my garlic and do some more cleaning up of the flower beds.  Planted 3 bulbs of garlic between the fence and the wine bottles I used to mark the end of that bed.  

Took the little man with me to vote today.  I held him up so he could watch as I voted and when I hit the vote button he said "Yish!" which is his "yes!".  "Yes, we voted!" I told him and then we high-fived.  No idea what the outcome of this election is going to be but at least I registered my opinion.

An unexpected gift of quince

Quince are a bit of rarity around these parts.  There are old apple and pear orchards everywhere but quince not so much.  Not many people know what they are or what to do with them.  I absolutely love quince; their shape, the odd fuzz they're covered with and the way they perfume a whole room with the smell of pineapple.  I like that they are stubborn and have to be coaxed into being edible with a long slow cooking, and the bright pink color they turn in the pan.

There is a big old tree up by my grandparents' house that is overloaded with them most years.  We've been given permission to stop and pick them but there is another person who does this also and it's so late in the season I assumed I'd missed out for the year.  Not true; the other person had picked most of them but there were still some at the very top.  My father came over the other day and set some on my windowsill.  I smelled them before I saw them.

We spent some time visiting with my grandparents yesterday.  I took up some homemade bread for them.  A couple of weekends ago Grandpa had two heart attacks, one of which was a major one and his heart is functioning at about 30%.  He just turned 90 and is of a generation of farm men that were born tough.  He decided that everything the doctor told him is a load of BS and told me that he "didn't have a heart attack, he just had some pains" and is carrying on like nothing happened.  He mostly wanted to talk about gardening and the upcoming election.

It was a good visit.  Afterwards, we stopped by the tree with a bucket and an apple picker.  My father picked the fruits and I helped my little man walk them over and place (not throw!) them into the bucket.

There were enough fruit left that I'm going to make a batch of quince jelly.  Also, I'd like to try making quince paste which is like a fruited gummy candy.  I guess it's hugely popular in Spain where it's eaten alongside cheeses.  If anyone actually reads this blog - have you cooked quince?

Woolly bear winter predictions

I've seen a lot of woolly bear caterpillars over the years, but never have I seen one that looked like this.  He only has a tiny bit of black on the front of him.  According to the The Old Farmer's Almanac  the larger the rusty band the milder the winter. So.... no winter? We can only hope.

Yes, I was so excited about the caterpillar that my child is unsupervised.

My seed inventory

Well, it's November 1st.  The garden is still a mess, the leaves need to be raked and already my thoughts are turning to spring.  It's a sickness.  It's involuntary and I can't help it.  But it's not completely my fault - around here seed catalogs start arriving in November.  And you better be ready for them because I've learned the hard way that some of the new or rare varieties are already sold out by Christmas time.

So today I parked the little man in front of a Charlie Brown special for half an hour and emptied out the contents of the crisper drawer onto the table to take inventory of what I already have.  Yep, my seed collection takes up an entire crisper drawer of the refrigerator.  I wanted to do this that way when the fever strikes, I can refer to this list and remind myself that 1) as gorgeous as they look I really do hate beets and 2) there is NO ROOM for another variety of winter squash....  seriously. OK, maybe just one more.

Usually, this is done on a scrap of paper, but then I lose it (on purpose?) and then buy too much.

This is for my own record keeping so I'm sorry if the following doesn't make much sense.

This is a huge pile.  What a mess. Please keep in mind that some of these were free, some of them I paid as little as 3 cents a packet.

I Marie Kondo-ed my way through the seed pile, sorting through things that I didn't need, didn't like, had expired and so on. Here's the finished product:

All of the unwanted/expired seeds went into a container to be used to seed the poultry pasture next year.  This was a big hit this year and I'd like to do it from now on.  The birds loved it, it was pretty much free feed, it provided shade for young birds and it looked great.  In 2017 the birds will be getting a great mix of buckwheat, clover, millet, wildflowers, turnips, peas, beans, greens and various root crops.  

So when those catalogs are in the mailbox and I'm all hot and bothered I'll remember that I already have the following.  Anything in green I am free buy because I have little or none of. 

• Root veg - parsnips, mix of carrots, turnips, radishes, Lisbon onions, buy onion sets, buy potato including Rose Finn Apple
• Greens - mix of heirloom lettuces, spinach, kale, flamingo Swiss chard, Yugoslavian Red Butterhead, Forellenschluss
• Corn - Early Golden Bantam, Country Gentleman & the purple kernels I saved from Smoke Signals
• Peas/beans - snow peas, sugar snap peas, Hutterite soup bean, bush bean mix (I mix all kinds together so as to get a varied harvest), cow peas
• Melon - Heirloom cantaloupe, watermelon
• Cucumber
• Brassica - Brussel sprouts, cabbage
• Tomato - beefsteak, black krim, pineapple, monarch, brandy wine, Hillbilly potato leaf, indigo apple, violet jasper, plum lemon
• Summer squash - patty pan, zucchini
• Peppers - buy transplants including pimento and jalapeno
• Winter squash, obviously my weakness - sugar pie, Australian Butter, blue hubbard, Potimarron, Marina Di Chioggia, Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato, turban, three kinds of acorn, Butternut, Spaghetti  good Lord, why not get just go ahead and get some more?
• Herbs - parsley, thyme, oregano, basil, cilantro, rosemary
• Flowers - sunflowers, bachelor buttons (edible!), nasturtiums (also edible!), paper moon scabiosa, zinnias, morning glories, dahlias & cannas.  These are the only flowers that spark joy.
• Quince and pawpaw seeds

Yeah, that's a dose of reality right there.  Looks like I'm going to have a full garden again next year.

My seed inventory

Well, it's November 1st.  The garden is still a mess, the leaves need to be raked and already my thoughts are turning to spring.  It's a sickness.  It's involuntary and I can't help it.  But it's not completely my fault - around here seed catalogs start arriving in November.  And you better be ready for them because I've learned the hard way that some of the new or rare varieties are already sold out by Christmas time.

So today I parked the little man in front of a Charlie Brown special for half an hour and emptied out the contents of the crisper drawer onto the table to take inventory of what I already have.  Yep, my seed collection takes up an entire crisper drawer of the refrigerator.  I wanted to do this that way when the fever strikes, I can refer to this list and remind myself that 1) as gorgeous as they look I really do hate beets and 2) there is NO ROOM for another variety of winter squash....  seriously. OK, maybe just one more.

Usually, this is done on a scrap of paper, but then I lose it (on purpose?) and then buy too much.

This is for my own record keeping so I'm sorry if the following doesn't make much sense.

This is a huge pile.  What a mess. Please keep in mind that some of these were free, some of them I paid as little as 3 cents a packet.

I Marie Kondo-ed my way through the seed pile, sorting through things that I didn't need, didn't like, had expired and so on. Here's the finished product:

All of the unwanted/expired seeds went into a container to be used to seed the poultry pasture next year.  This was a big hit this year and I'd like to do it from now on.  The birds loved it, it was pretty much free feed, it provided shade for young birds and it looked great.  In 2017 the birds will be getting a great mix of buckwheat, clover, millet, wildflowers, turnips, peas, beans, greens and various root crops.  

So when those catalogs are in the mailbox and I'm all hot and bothered I'll remember that I already have the following.  Anything in green I am free buy because I have little or none of. 

• Root veg - parsnips, mix of carrots, turnips, radishes, Lisbon onions, buy onion sets, buy potato including Rose Finn Apple
• Greens - mix of heirloom lettuces, spinach, kale, flamingo Swiss chard, Yugoslavian Red Butterhead, Forellenschluss, orach
• Corn - Early Golden Bantam, Country Gentleman & the purple kernels I saved from Smoke Signals
• Peas/beans - snow peas, sugar snap peas, Hutterite soup bean, bush bean mix (I mix all kinds together so as to get a varied harvest), cow peas, Dixie Speckled Lima Bean, Masterpiece Fava Bean
• Melon - Heirloom cantaloupe, watermelon
• Thai Lavender Frog Egg Eggplant
• Carentan Leek
• Apline strawberries
• Cucumber
• Brassica - Brussel sprouts
• Tomato - beefsteak, black krim, pineapple, monarch, brandy wine, Hillbilly potato leaf, indigo apple, violet jasper, plum lemon, pink bumblebee
• Summer squash - patty pan, zucchini
• Peppers - buy transplants including pimento and jalapeno
• Winter squash, obviously my weakness - sugar pie, Australian Butter, blue hubbard, Potimarron, Marina Di Chioggia, Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato, turban, three kinds of acorn, Butternut, Spaghetti  good Lord, why not get just go ahead and get some more?
• Herbs - parsley, thyme, oregano, basil, cilantro, rosemary
• Flowers - sunflowers, bachelor buttons (edible!), nasturtiums (also edible!), paper moon scabiosa, zinnias, morning glories, dahlias & cannas.  These are the only flowers that spark joy.
• Pawpaw and quince

Yeah, that's a dose of reality right there.  Looks like I'm going to have a full garden again next year.