AUGUST??! It can't be almost AUGUST!! Where in the heck has this year gone?!
Up early this morning so I can have a little peace and quiet before the boys wake up - although the dog was the one that woke me up; cold, wet puppy dog nose to the back of your neck will do that When I opened the door to let him out, I could hear the rumble from a lot of boat engines; the noise was even louder when I went out on the porch filling the hummingbird feeders - must be a fishing tournament on the lake today.
I need to hear the rumble of a tiller engine here in a bit, but it is going to have to wait - it's still too wet out there. I don't want to wait too long though - it's supposed to get up in the 90's today. I still need to mow down one area where I planted beets that suddenly popped up with a ton of red root pigweed before I start tilling. Guess I could let it grow and harvest the seed heads as amaranth.....Nah!! Plenty of pigweed elsewhere on the farm if I want to do that - I don't want to be tilling it out of the gardens for the next billion years!
We are looking at rain tomorrow and then a couple of showers during the week, and I have an odd work schedule coming up - one on, two off, two on, one off, one on, two off - I swear I'm not going to know what day it is or if I'm coming or going! Anyway, that means that the tilling needs done today; and then I need to get some more mulch put down in the garden . The yellow pole beans are still sprawling across the ground rather than climbing, so I may till them out as well - I put the darn things up on the fence, they wait till I turn my back and flop on the ground. I guess I could just plant green pole beans on their fence, and then plant yellow bush beans where I till out the pigweed and hope for a decent fall crop. I do need to find a place to plant my fall beet crop as well since it's nearly August.
Had a pretty good day yesterday - finally got caught up on sleep after a crazy work week and being up for 30 hours on Thu/Fri. I woke up feeling pretty good so got a few things done around home before I headed to town to pick up the boys. Had to make a run to pick up some mulch for daughter - WM had some on sale for 98 cents/bag, and the Hyponex stuff was $1.50 a bag. When I take the boys home this afternoon, Hubby and I will pick up several more bags for around here.
Once Hubby got back from his shooting match, he helped me can peaches - I peeled and filled the jars, he put 'em in and out of the canner. We only did three batches - total of 15 jars. I'm using a stock pot with racks in the bottom to can them in rather than the normal water bath canner - I can get a batch of 5 jars ready in the time it takes to process the first batch. This last half bushel Hubby picked up were small, and just didn't ripen well - he got them on Monday and they were still hard after 5 days out on the counter. I'm going to have to take a look at the next box I get to make sure they aren't the same instead of just putting the box in in the van - I'd like to put up at least 100 pints, plus another 20 jars of jam - if I can find enough of the low sugar pectin I like to use - the Sur-Jel brand in the pink box. Maybe I can get the guy at the grocery store to order it for me...
Once we were done with the peaches, we started in on a couple of bags of dark cherries that my co-worker buddy bought on impulse, ate a few of, and then decided to bring to me. We washed and then pitted both bags, then I ran them through my small food processor - small one due to the large one being hidden somewhere in the storeroom - or at least we think that's where it is; it could have migrated to daughter's house like my rotisserie Once they were all chopped, I dumped them in a half gallon jar; they filled it about 2/3 full. I added black cherry juice from Aldi to finish out the half gallon; and we will make it in to jam later today or sometime tomorrow before I take my pre-work nap. I'm going to have to soak my hands in bleach water once it's done - the skin on my thumbs and fingers are stained black from the cherry juice; doesn't look good for my patients.
Hubby's job today or tomorrow while he is off work is to find out why my big rain water tank isn't filling with rain water - I hope like heck it doesn't have a crack in it. I guess we need to pull it out of it's corner and check it, but that's gonna mean moving a bunch of stuff - ugh! Maybe I could hook up one of my other tanks for now but I really want to find out what is going on with the big tank.
Well, my coffee cup is empty; reckon I'd better give it one more refill, then head out to get started on that row of pigweed. You folks all take care - and stay safe out there, people are getting plumb crazy!!
Up early this morning so I can have a little peace and quiet before the boys wake up - although the dog was the one that woke me up; cold, wet puppy dog nose to the back of your neck will do that When I opened the door to let him out, I could hear the rumble from a lot of boat engines; the noise was even louder when I went out on the porch filling the hummingbird feeders - must be a fishing tournament on the lake today.
I need to hear the rumble of a tiller engine here in a bit, but it is going to have to wait - it's still too wet out there. I don't want to wait too long though - it's supposed to get up in the 90's today. I still need to mow down one area where I planted beets that suddenly popped up with a ton of red root pigweed before I start tilling. Guess I could let it grow and harvest the seed heads as amaranth.....Nah!! Plenty of pigweed elsewhere on the farm if I want to do that - I don't want to be tilling it out of the gardens for the next billion years!
We are looking at rain tomorrow and then a couple of showers during the week, and I have an odd work schedule coming up - one on, two off, two on, one off, one on, two off - I swear I'm not going to know what day it is or if I'm coming or going! Anyway, that means that the tilling needs done today; and then I need to get some more mulch put down in the garden . The yellow pole beans are still sprawling across the ground rather than climbing, so I may till them out as well - I put the darn things up on the fence, they wait till I turn my back and flop on the ground. I guess I could just plant green pole beans on their fence, and then plant yellow bush beans where I till out the pigweed and hope for a decent fall crop. I do need to find a place to plant my fall beet crop as well since it's nearly August.
Had a pretty good day yesterday - finally got caught up on sleep after a crazy work week and being up for 30 hours on Thu/Fri. I woke up feeling pretty good so got a few things done around home before I headed to town to pick up the boys. Had to make a run to pick up some mulch for daughter - WM had some on sale for 98 cents/bag, and the Hyponex stuff was $1.50 a bag. When I take the boys home this afternoon, Hubby and I will pick up several more bags for around here.
Once Hubby got back from his shooting match, he helped me can peaches - I peeled and filled the jars, he put 'em in and out of the canner. We only did three batches - total of 15 jars. I'm using a stock pot with racks in the bottom to can them in rather than the normal water bath canner - I can get a batch of 5 jars ready in the time it takes to process the first batch. This last half bushel Hubby picked up were small, and just didn't ripen well - he got them on Monday and they were still hard after 5 days out on the counter. I'm going to have to take a look at the next box I get to make sure they aren't the same instead of just putting the box in in the van - I'd like to put up at least 100 pints, plus another 20 jars of jam - if I can find enough of the low sugar pectin I like to use - the Sur-Jel brand in the pink box. Maybe I can get the guy at the grocery store to order it for me...
Once we were done with the peaches, we started in on a couple of bags of dark cherries that my co-worker buddy bought on impulse, ate a few of, and then decided to bring to me. We washed and then pitted both bags, then I ran them through my small food processor - small one due to the large one being hidden somewhere in the storeroom - or at least we think that's where it is; it could have migrated to daughter's house like my rotisserie Once they were all chopped, I dumped them in a half gallon jar; they filled it about 2/3 full. I added black cherry juice from Aldi to finish out the half gallon; and we will make it in to jam later today or sometime tomorrow before I take my pre-work nap. I'm going to have to soak my hands in bleach water once it's done - the skin on my thumbs and fingers are stained black from the cherry juice; doesn't look good for my patients.
Hubby's job today or tomorrow while he is off work is to find out why my big rain water tank isn't filling with rain water - I hope like heck it doesn't have a crack in it. I guess we need to pull it out of it's corner and check it, but that's gonna mean moving a bunch of stuff - ugh! Maybe I could hook up one of my other tanks for now but I really want to find out what is going on with the big tank.
Well, my coffee cup is empty; reckon I'd better give it one more refill, then head out to get started on that row of pigweed. You folks all take care - and stay safe out there, people are getting plumb crazy!!