More garden info that you don't really want to know

Last night, we had some of our home grown Yukon Gold potatoes. They were really good. Not a bad spot in them and they didn't need peeled. One spaghetti squash is about ready to be harvested. We've never had one before, I hope we like them. We are finally done with radishes and the carrots are slowly growing. We had onions and garlic out of the garden the other night. It's nice going out to the garden and harvesting what you need for a meal. We do have a really bad grasshopper problem that's quite common out here. No more sheep, though. Now, I'll try my hand at canning cherry preserves, as soon as the temperature is out of the 90's. The weather forecaster tells us that our "normal" temperature for this time of year is 84-86. That would be nice. I'm tired of hot weather and there's this small fleeting voice that says it would be nice if it was early fall. That little voice must be out of it's mind, because, after fall comes winter and I'll be living in my snow globe again.

A meal from our garden

Last night, we had a very good meal from our garden. I picked a zucchini, an onion and some garlic. I cooked some sausage, made some spaghetti sauce, cut the zucchini in bite sized chunks and mixed everything together and put Parmesan cheese and Italian bread crumbs on top and dotted it with some butter, (OK, it was margarine), and nuked it to microwave perfection, about 6 minutes. I usually bake it in the oven, but it was a hot day and I was in a hurry, so in the microwave it went. We have leftovers for dinner tonight, but I need to add another zucchini to stretch it and fix some garlic bread. Too bad, our salad makings isn't ready to harvest yet. I also made a pistachio Amish friendship cake for desert. Leftovers of that, too.

A flock of turkeys

Yesterday morning, as I was on my trek down the long driveway to get the newspaper, a large flock of turkey's crossed my path. There were 4 females and about 25 young ones about 6 inches tall and one a little bit bigger. The smaller were still fuzzy and the bigger one was at that ugly stage in life with feathers starting to come in. I know turkeys aren't the smartest of critters, but the larger baby must have been hiding when what little brains turkeys have, were being passed out. It was lagging behind and the adults waited several times for it to catch up. Eventually, they'd just leave and it would realize it was alone and run to catch up with the rest. I'm pretty sure it will be a snack for some animal later. I used to bring my camera with me when I was out and about at our place, but nothing seemed to be picture worthy, so I stopped bringing it. I guess I'll have to start bringing it again. I had to look up on the internet to find out what baby turkeys are called. I was close. They are called poults. I thought it was poulets. I know a group of turkeys is called a flock, but I think this was a herd.

Who's fiber stash is it anyway?

It seems my spinning fiber stash is now my husbands fly tying dubbing stash. At least it doesn't take much for dubbing, and it's not like I have a shortage or anything. Tim told a friend at work who now wants some, so we went through the stash this evening for him. When our daughter, Amy, was here in June, Tim got here hooked on fly tying, so we made her a verity bag of fiber/dubbing, also. If the other fly tiers where Tim and his friend work see the bag full of fiber, I'll be supplying many people. Next thing I know, I'll be in the custome dyed dubbing supply business, since the fiber I/we are giving away is some I dyed. Now, Tim can't grumble about all my fiber, since he's found a use for it, too. That's a good thing. Now I need more for us. Tim has now found out, that you can never have too much fiber. I could take his feathers and add them to the yarn I am plying. I don't think that would go over very well. Who would have thought feathers could be so expensive.

*^%$#! Sheep!!

This morning at 5:00AM, we heard a thunk on the side of the house and several loud Baaaaa's. The sheep were back. Not 8 this time , but 17, thanks to the populations explosion behind us. They found the garden. We don't need to worry about too many radishes anymore. Apparently, sheep like radishes. They sampled everything else but they should survive. The sheep were careful and walked between the rows of potatoes, though. Tim went out and told them to go home, and they took off. I see they are in the pasture furthest away from us now.
Tim saw a buck, down and speckled fawn in the yard on his trip to get the newspaper out of the box at the street. He said the doe and fawn were playing, chasing each other around. The buck stood up really tall and snorted and stamped his feet when he finally noticed Tim. Then they took off to go wherever deer go during the day. Life is interesting up here.

Garden update

Our garden is doing pretty well. The potatoes are growing nicely. Hopefully, we will get a good crop. The zucchini and spaghetti squash seem to have magically disappearing zucchini and squash. I don't know if deer like them or not. The replanted cucumbers haven't done too much.
We have radishes coming out our ears, and Tim will be so tired of them, since I don't like them.

I harvested some garlic and green onions that were ready. We have a lot more that isn't ready yet. The garlic is hanging on the hand rail of the back steps. No vampires will get in the back door. I thought I would dehydrate the green onion tops. Wouldn't you know, the only place I have to do it is in the house. Now, we can cry up a storm. I wonder if strong onion smell will chase away anything? Visitors, maybe. The deer don't like garlic and onion tops, though they did try them.
The deer have trimmed the pepper plants. The spinach went to seed without getting leaves big enough to harvest. My carrots have managed to end up all over the place and the red leaf lettuce is just now getting around to growing. I hope it doesn't snow in the near future so we can harvest the rest.
All in all, our first garden up here is doing better than we expected. We did eventually put a fence of sorts around it to keep the deer out, but it only worked to confuse them when they got in the garden so they could trample it better.

What! No rain?

Here it is, the 4th of July, and no rain. It has always, more often than not, rained on July 3rd and or 4th. The 3rd was my birthday and it rained the day I was born, and just about every birthday since then, no matter where we have lived. I'm kind of disappointed. It would be better than temperatures in the 90's. We do have a slight chance of thunder storms tomorrow night and Monday thru Thursday, but it won't be the same.

I have embarrassed my kids in public

It was unintentional, but I have embarrassed my kids in public. I used to carry my takli spindle and cotton balls with me for something to do while waiting in doctor's' offices and where ever else I ended up waiting.
After sitting for a bit, I'd pull out the spindle and cotton balls and start to spin. It was a great way to get people to ask about spinning, as well as passing the time. My kids didn't think so. Seems it was "embarrassing" having people stare and then come over to talk. As a formerly very shy person, it didn't bother me any. I liked showing people cotton ball spinning.
I am slowly teaching myself how to tat with shuttles and wonder what the kids would do when I pull out my shuttles?
The way I look at it is, turn about is fair play. My kids have embarrassed me in public too.

I caught a bass!

Saturday, I caught a big mouth bass. It was a huge one. Only about 6 inches or so, but it was a big mouth bass. I also caught a perch. It was a pretty fish. Both were released after they had their photo op. One thing that was biting more than the fish was the mosquitoes. We wondered why people were bundled up in hoodie sweat shirts and wind breakers. They were zipped in with the hoods tied snugly. I was zipped up after I was bitten a few times. Next time, bug repellent is a must. It was really pretty at Chase Lake. So many places to see and so much to do up here.

Things you can see in one day up here

We like to go for drives on weekends. We see so much that we never expected to see and are amazed by. So many people up here seem to take it all for granted since they see it all the time. I hope we never do. A tank of gas is well worth it.