Rain, Rain, Rain

Everything is brown

Rain comes and opens the skies

Leaves are on the ground.

Rainfall: 3.0" by sundown and still falling.

Day 171 of 365

Overcast all day with a drizzle of rain after lunch.

• Low: 74
• High 81

Rainfall: not enough to measure

Haiku

Digging potatoes.

Sky grey, air thick, drops of sweat

Was that a raindrop?

Harvested:

• cabbage
• potatoes

Finally dug the last potato bed. Still muddy but it had to be done. Scant harvest and some of them were soft and rotting, I'm guessing from sitting in too damp of soil for so long.

Weeded the bottom-most garden bed as well. It's way to wet to till and the ground is too soft to even "weed" with the lawn mower, but everything pulled out easily by hand.

Made cole slaw and sauerkraut with the cabbages. Made carob ice cream for dessert.

Day 160 of 365

Overcast and light fog in the morning, clouds off and on for the rest of the day.

• Low: 70° F
• High: 91° F

Haiku

Garden smells of dill.

They're volunteers for pickles.

Hurry cucumbers!

Harvested:

• potatoes, 15 lbs 13 oz from 2 of 3 beds (planted total of 10 lbs)
• sand cherries, a few
• dill

Seeds collected:

• kale
• collards

Watered the strawberries, table tomatoes, and green pepper plant with rainwater. Goodly pressure for my little one piece sprinkler. The diameter of the circle of water was about 6 feet, perfect for my beds.

Day 124 of 365

Foggy this morning
Dew drenched, wet until late sun.
Muggy, then, all day.

• Low: 64 F
• High: 85 F

Rainfall yesterday, another 0.2"

Dan finished scything the front pasture for hay.

Made 2 different cheeses today, one mozzarella, and a chevre type. That was a first. I used buttermilk to culture it. It's draining overnight so I'm curious as to how it will taste. I'll find out tomorrow.

Made a loaf of bread in the breadmaker. Used sourdough starter but with yeast for a quick rise.

Harvested:

• strawberries
• broccoli

Eating:

• milk kefir with strawberries
• poached eggs on sourdough bread toast
• fresh goat butter and strawberry jam
• big lettuce salad for lunch, with aged goat cheese
• salad to accompany lasagne for dinner. Added some fresh picked broccoli.
• chocolate pudding (our milk & eggs) with goat whipped cream

Day 120 of 365

A faded blue sky
Southerly wind hot and dry
Summer soon to come

• Low: 57° F
• High: 90° F

Alphie's weaning has officially begun. I'd hoped to let him nurse for at least 3 months, but as is the way with bucklings, his adult hormones kicked in at 8 weeks of age. He had begun to pester the does by trying to breed them. No one is in heat so I didn't think there was a chance of anyone being bred, but besides them having to constantly fend him off, I have the new, 1 week old doelings to think of. All this means that I am now getting all of Surprise's milk. Today's total was 5 quarts. I did milk early yesterday afternoon, so I'll be curious over the next several days as to how much I get. Maybe it's time to get that ice cream maker. :)

Mulched the last potato bed.

Cleaned out Ziggy's stall and started a new compost pile.

Cut into cheese #15. I'm eating them out of order. :) Quite sharp; noted it was made with yogurt cheese whey. Excellent toasted on leftover pumpkin pancakes.

Dan hasn't really loved any of the first batch of cheeses I made. I'm thinking part of that may be because the milk was just a tad "goaty." Now I realize it was a B vitamin deficiency. With the addition of yeast extract, Surprise's milk has sweetened right up.

Harvested:

• lettuce
• strawberries
• broccoli

Eating:

• milk kefir
• strawberries
• water kefir
• pickle relish
• sourdough pumpkin pancakes
• goat cheese

Day 115 of 365

Baby wrens have fledged
Fluttering around the yard
Oops, here comes Riley

Pretty nice day, actually, with a brief rain shower at dinnertime.

• Low: 58
• High: 81

Rainfall: scant; not enough to measure.

Dan finished cutting the wheat at the bottom of the garden and then started scything the front field for hay.

Made a coconut cream pie with bulk unsweetened coconut from my food storage. Good use of extra eggs and milk.

Made butter and buttermilk.

Harvested:

• strawberries
• lettuce
• radishes

Eating the food:

• Breakfast was sunny side up eggs and sourdough toast with fig jam.
• Ate a huge garden salad for lunch with lettuce, radishes, hardboiled eggs, and goat cheese.
• Pizza for dinner with homemade, home canned pizza sauce, home grown garlic, & goat mozzarella. And the coconut cream pie.

Day 112 of 365

Summertime clouds but
not summertime temps. Later,
an evening shower burst

• Low: 45
• High: 74

Rainfall: < 0.05"
Rainfall for May week 1: 3.2" (plus)

Harvested:

• lettuce
• strawberries
• broccoli
• radishes

Made mozzarella.

Cut another wheelbarrow load of the wheat at the bottom of the garden before it rained. This, I'm drying for hay. I cut it with my hand sickle and decided to lay it out on top of the stubble to dry. That way it can get air circulation underneath. 

Eating:

• Breakfast: milk kefir on cereal
• Lunch: sourdough toast with goat cheese and green tomato salsa, water kefir soda
• Dinner: big salad with lettuce, broccoli, goat cheese, pickled eggs, and the last of the parsnip cake (which was in the freezer.)

Day 110 of 365

The day began with
a chilly, blustering wind
Then after lunch, rain

• Low: 51
• High: 58

Rainfall: still falling. Will get a total tomorrow

Definitely not a garden day. I did manage to turn and water the newest compost pile.

Harvested one strawberry. The row cover has really helped. They don't have bites taken out of them.

Baked a loaf of sourdough bed. Very slow to rise.

Eating:

• milk kefir
• strawberries
• chevon stew with root veggies
• water kefir
• whipped cream

Day 100 of 365

Clear before sunrise,
beautiful almost full moon.
Then the sky turned gray.

• Low: 50
• High: 75

Started to rain after evening chores. We only got a sprinkle.

Planted:

• cucumbers, Straight 8 (Shumway's)
• radishes, Pink Beauty (Sustainable Seed Co)
• sorghum, Mennonite, (Baker Creek)
• popcorn, Japanese Hull-less (Shumway's)
• 2 hybrid tomato plants

The cukes are a new variety for me. I planted them in the 3rd pea bed, thinking I'd like to try growing cukes with a trellis. The radish seeds are leftover from last year and were a freebie. The tomato plants are for green tomatoes to can for frying. (Not worried about saving seed from these).

Harvested:

• parsnips

Coming Up:

• potatoes
• Jerusalem artichokes
• sugar beets
• Red Detroit beets
• Swiss chard (I think)
• flax? or else there's an awful lot of something coming up in that bed!

Found 5 eggs stashed behind the hay feeder. 

And somebody took a big bite out of my almost ripe strawberry!!!! I dug out a row cover and covered the bed with that. There are a lot of green berries so here's hoping for a good harvest. 

Eating:

• milk kefir
• water kefir (soda)
• goat cheese
• sourdough bread
• goat milk
• lettuce

Day 97 of 365

Chilly morning for
milking. Saw two southbound geese,
then the sun came up.

• Low: 38° F
• High: 66° F

Harvested for salad: lettuce, broccoli, kale

Day 93 of 365

Humid and cloudy
this morning it looked like rain
Then the sun came out.

• Low: 60 F
• High: 79 F

Planted: Red Norland potatoes, 2 beds, with seed potatoes leftover for more. The ground is really too wet but we have rain forecast for every day this week with a 70% chance on Friday.

One bed is with the cabbage I transplanted. The cabbage was looking a little purplish, but responded beautifully to the rock phosphate I added the other day. I mulched the beds with compost as well.

Gave the strawberries a good dose of compost.

Weeded some.

Mulched the mangels I'm letting go to seed.

Harvested:

• parsnips

Day 88 of 365

Overcast today
In the winter I like sun
In the summer, clouds

• Low: 60 F
• High: 81 F

Started a new sourdough starter today.

• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups filtered water
• 1/4 C whey

Still feeding stored sweet potatoes to the goats (and us). The Vardamans have been excellent keepers.

Day 86 of 365

A sunny, hot day
Not as bad as it could be
The few clouds did help

• Low: 57
• High: 83

Weeded another of my front yard herb beds. Planted Flanders poppy, which is not on my edible/medicinal only list! But when I was a little girl, I loved my grandmother's red poppies, so I wanted to plant some.

Indirect independent eating project took up most of the day, hauling sticks to a central location for the day we can rent a chipper. I never have enough mulch and renting a chipper annually for all our fallen and cut twigs and branches works for us.

Day 85 of 365

Humid this morning
Clouds passing through all day long
Now it looks like rain.

• Low: 55 F
• High: 78 F

Planted:

• Sugar beets, Bucklunch seed from Shumway's. My fall planting was a no-show so I hope this one does better.

Prepared 2 beds for potatoes, adding rock phosphate. Hope to get them planted next week but the soil is still very wet and rain is forecast in the next day or so.

Harvested:

• kale
• parsnips

I plan to dehydrate the kale for my goat mineral & vitamin mix.

I don't keep track of daily egg counts anymore, but wanted to mention that my green egg laying Ameraucana, who rarely lays these days, left me a teeny, pullet size egg today. Several days ago I got a regular size egg, so today's was odd.