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Where-oh-where has this past week gone?
It's been spent in a combination of trying to stay ahead of the garden's harvest, trying to finish a moderately sized outside project, trying to get my energy back from the week long attack of germs I contracted and trying not to panic about the near catastrophe caused by our 2-1/2 year old, 6' long Frigidaire freezer in the pantry.
First of all, it's amazing what the garden is producing considering the dismal start it got the first half of this summer. I'm grateful for every little vegetable that has matured and can be squirreled away for our eating pleasure and sustenance in these coming winter months, but does everything have to ripen at once?
Yes. The answer is yes.
Because of our whacky weather, even the "early" crops didn't have decent weather to grow in until mid-summer (or beyond) so I now have shell peas still ripening on the vine. Today. At the very end of August. That's how it's happened this year, so that's how we'll take it. At night, I dream of picking beans, of steaming pots and kettles on the stove, of jars pinging on the counter, of trays of quiescently freezing berries. It sure is an intense period.
On Tuesday of this week, we discovered quite by accident that the floor under our relatively new, big freezer in the pantry was . . . soaked. With water. The tile had buckled and the sub-flooring was saturated. Wha . . . ? Huh?
In this terrible, hot humid weather we've been having, I've been like a crazy person (a quote from my husband), constantly checking and monitoring the temperature in the pantry. It's never gotten over 70° and we've managed to keep (what we thought was) a good air flow in there.
Come to find out condensation was building up (why? why? WHY?!) on the back of the freezer (which was a good 3-4" away from the wall) and running down to the floor and under the freezer.
On the extremely hot, sticky, humid day when the problem was discovered, the condenser was making an abnormally loud noise and the side of the freezer was too hot to hold your hand on it. I had to empty the very full freezer, we had to get the huge thing out of the small pantry and into the garage . . .
. . . which necessitated taking off three doors and moving darn near every stick of furniture in the house. (Believe me, deodorant was of no use that day.)
Then we had to rip up the ruined tile and start drying out the plywood sub-flooring.
The good news is that we didn't lose any food in the process. The bad news is we don't know why we had the problem in the first place. Detailed researching, gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair is still in progress. I am not happy about the state of the pantry. Husband is not happy about the huge freezer taking up needed space in the garage.
But it's a small problem compared to lots of others. Could be worse. We'll figure everything out. I'm no longer sick to my stomach thinking we were going to lose everything stored in the freezer. And that the freezer was going to catch fire. And that the floor of pantry was going to have to be torn out. It will all work out fine.
Now I'm going to go to bed early so I can dream of canning beets.
We're all doing the best we can to make it through these crazy, hot, humid last days of summer we've been having.
Our granddog, Tucker, has found the coolest place in the house and has claimed it as his own comfort zone. The tile under the wood stove in the kitchen and the cast iron of the stove itself stay cool to the touch even when the rest of the house seems to be roasting, and it didn't take Tucker long to figure that out.
This very hot weather we're having? Somehow it just doesn't seem right that the bulk of our summer was comprised of cool, fall-like days and now that autumn air really should be here, we're hitting 90° days, one after the other.
Hey! Who's in charge of the weather these days, huh?
I mentioned a while back that we've recently had three broody bantam hens. The two hens who were sharing one nest hatched out four Black Australorp chicks.
It's hard to get a good picture of the two mamas and babies because the chicks move so fast. Also, the second the hens see me with my camera, they shout, "Run, children, it's the paparazzo!"
It's kind of a neat arrangement. Both hens are raising the four chicks and the chicks, not knowing any different, think they have two mothers.
Another curious thing . . . three of the chicks refuse to go into their shelter at night where their mamas and sibling are locked away safe from marauding, possible chick-eating critters. They go off (we have no idea where) to spend the night snuggled down together. First thing in the morning, before the chicken doors are opened for the day, the three of them can be seen zipping around all by their lonesomes.
Why is it that when we order day old chicks from the hatchery, we have to keep them under a brooder light with special food and water for so long, until they are feathered out and deemed developed and old enough to make it in the great out-of-doors chicken yard by themselves?
These little guys being raised naturally (except for being smart enough to snuggle under a warm, safe and secure mother hen body at night) have no special heat lamp or water or food and are doing just fine.
Best to let nature take its course? The natural way is the best way? Obviously, having a mother hen (or two) to take care of the chicks and show them the ropes, so to speak, works very well.
I'm functioning, but I am d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g. I made myself get ready and leave home to do a few errands first thing this morning. I knew it would be the high energy point of my day so got out and going before I could talk myself out of it.
Went up to the farm to resupply us with fresh, raw milk products. Stopped at the co-op to pick up a special order. Then to the post office and dropped some books off at the library.
As I was driving home with the windows down, I thought, "What a beautiful day! I think I feel pretty good."
Stopped at our mailbox on the highway to get our mail. By the time I got in to the house, I was feeling crummy again. (It must have been the supreme effort of getting out of the car, opening the mailbox and carrying the two pieces of junk mail back to the car.)
I asked Papa Pea to help me carry my load in. (That would be the things in the car I had collected on my journey; not me personally.)
Put things away and went out to help hubby finish picking blueberries. I then checked the shell peas and discovered they had to be picked. So while Papa Pea harvested raspberries (our biggest haul of the season), I picked peas.
Inside then to shell and process peas, sort and clean berries and get them in the freezer saving out enough for us to eat fresh.
Have had a real taste for potato salad (nuthin' wrong with my appetite) so furtively made my way out to the potato patch (hoping Papa Pea wouldn't see me) and dug two pounds of nice sized spuds. Made the potato salad to have with dinner tonight.
My throat isn't sore so much anymore as it just feels closed up, swollen. Had a hard time sleeping last night because I kept snortling, chortling and almost gagging because of lack of air. Papa Pea and I played a rotating game of one on the couch, one in bed . . . okay, now switch for a while to see if I could sleep better in a different spot.
It's so hard to lay low this time of year. One person cannot do it all so I feel I have to do what I can even though I have very little energy.
After dinner, dear hubby did the dishes on the condition I would stretch out on the couch with a book. (Well, okay. If you INSIST.)
Shortly after I did so, dear daughter stopped in to pick up Tucker. She came into the living room wiping sweat from her face. She stopped dead in her tracks and said, "Mom, you're lying under a quilt and you have a polar fleece jacket on."
"Yes," I replied, "and I'm still cold."
After she left I almost immediately fell asleep and didn't wake until 8 p.m. I don't even remember putting my book down.
Now I'm ready to put my jammies on and sack out for the night. Wonder if I should start in bed or on the couch?
This is our second day of summer. Or our second day of really hot weather anyway. Ninety-ish out in the sun. Since we haven't had any rain in a month, just these two days have hit the garden hard.
Papa Pea couldn't sleep much last night because we couldn't get the house cooled off and it was not comfortable. I couldn't sleep because I developed a sore throat. You never know how often you unconsciously swallow during a night's sleep . . . until you have a sore throat.
As the day has gone on, a headache and slight pain in both ears have entered the mix. So far it's not really a cold. No cough or drippy nose. I've know something was wrong for a couple of days. Sure, I've been working hard between the garden, the wood working, and all the usual stuff but rather than just feeling tired, I was feeling yucky. Not good. Uncomfortable. These germs were obviously invading my body and trying to take hold.
I feel I've got no one to blame but myself. There's been enough physical work going on around here this summer that I thought I could let myself be over-indulgent in . . . dum-da-dum-dum . . . sugar. Now I'm paying the price. The body just has to work too hard to process an overload of sugar. Or at least my body does. I know this yet I fell of the sensible nutrition wagon, right on my head.
I staggered out to the garden this morning to check the shell peas. Oh, how I was hoping they wouldn't have to be picked until tomorrow. No such luck. Big, fat pods were hanging everywhere and when I touched them, they felt absolute hot. This is NOT pea growing weather, and I felt I had to get them out of that broiling sun.
My dear husband dropped what he was working on and came out to pick with me. I think he (wisely) figured this was easier than hefting my unconscious body back into the house after I passed out in the heat. Sitting at the kitchen table shelling the peas (and then processing them) was a task I could almost handle. Although I did crash on the bed for an hour nap right in the middle of the job.
After dinner tonight, much of the garden was wilted and hanging limply, and I knew I had to get some water on it. I especially don't want to chance losing the blueberries and raspberries that are bearing heavily right now. I had to use the hose to water because much of the garden is so tall our sprinkler arrangement wouldn't do the trick. I got a little less than halfway done when I felt the hose was too heavy for me to hold any longer. (Yup, pitiful, but that's how I felt.) Papa Pea came out and saved my bacon again by finishing the job for me. It took him almost an hour. I know I couldn't have done it.
Geesh, I just HATE it when I feel so beat up and run down and weak. It doesn't happen very often but when it does it sure does make me appreciate how great I feel 99.9% of the time.
When Chicken Mama stopped by tonight she asked how I was feeling and I gave her a report. I said I'd been drinking a lot trying to flush the germies out of my system.
"Not alcohol, I hope," she said.
No, dear, not alcohol. No wine. Just a lot of whine, whine, whine.
There is a feed crop for animals that has been grown since the Middle Ages, but not widely known (or grown) in the U.S. today. It's the lowly mangel, and I've put in an experimental garden bed of them this year.
Mangels are a root crop. Root crops generally do well in our area so I thought I'd try to grow some for use this winter as a supplemental feed for our chickens.
Supposedly they can grow up to twenty pounds and two feet long. (Oh, my.) This one I pulled from the garden a couple of days ago is about the size of a medium-large potato. I doubt any of mine will reach the twenty pound mark, but if we are fortunate enough to get a long fall this year, I'm sure they will bulk up a bit more than this.
Although a copious quantity of information on the mangel does not seem to be readily available, I have read that they have long been considered excellent feed for a variety of livestock including cattle, pigs, sheep, rabbits, goats and chickens.
The mangel seeds look much like chard or beet or turnip seeds as do the greens and roots. Like turnip or beet greens, the leaves are edible by humans as is the root when harvested young. One source suggested mangels can be boiled and mashed like potatoes.
Nutritionally they are lower in sugar content than beets and contain more protein. They're touted as a valuable energy source.
They even have a history in jolly old England of being used to brew a potent alcoholic beverage.
So if you're looking for a good energy source or nice ale to serve your livestock with their daily ration of grain, mangels might be worth looking into.
