Thursday Open Thread 7-27-2017
Morning - serious subjects and events the last few days on C99 so I just did photo diary Tuesday of the day and have added some thoughts and observations. For new readers I run a hobby farm, create an environment I like living within and experiment with different techniques for self sufficiency. Outside the boundary of the property is the good and bad of the "real" world the traffic, wWalmart, lots of people, water restrictions, community events, libraries, concerts and modern life.
Farm Report
Habits and routines form surprisingly fast and many of them provide our sense of stability. The livestock on the place are calmer and appear more content when each day is similar to the one the day before.
The chickens are not aware the pattern has only existed since May of 2017. They start pushing at the gate by 8:30 every morning expecting to be let out to forage for the day. They race out the door, turn right and run completely around the garage to get to the corral. There is a small opening into the field just to the left the hens could use, but the rooster is too big to fit. He and the hens always take the long route, even if I have the gate to the field open. (patterns)
As the quality of the fields have improved this trio gets less time in the pasture grazing. They are 15 now. Time passes fast. Originally they were to guard the sheep. Did not work out as expected are now pasture ornaments.
Sometimes it is easier to let hard to eradicate plants simple have their space within adequate borders. The old fashioned phlox and field peas keep the weeds from growing in this space.
The colors of mid-summer: deep greens, browns of dried grasses, new branch growth and maturing fruit.
Wild medicinals - willow creating an island in the ditch.
Wild medicinals - mammoth red clover has expanded into a new field.
Unexpected visitor on the evening walk (black tail deer) on the way to feed the barn cats.
end of day
Comments
Please add your garden and food preservation reports
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
We're getting our share of
triple digit temps here in south-central TX so our big garden is starting to shut down production. This spring we didn't plant a wide variety of veggies just radishes (which have long since been harvested), onions, sweet peppers, and tomatoes all of which produced nicely. We didn't put in cucumbers, squash or okra and I don't remember why. Oh well. Okra does well in the heat so I feel I have been negligent.
In my container garden around the house I have herbs, hot peppers, one very prolific and giant tomato plant, and two spindly eggplants that are not doing well. The big struggle now is to keep these watered in the heat which is harder and not water-wise when you use containers. I have good luck with my herbs primarily because they are like weeds in that they are hard to kill. So I have a green thumb for
weedsherbs and have been harvesting and drying them all through spring and summer. I have a few books on herbs that tout their various benefits so I operate on the assumption that these claims are true. I actually am taking that information on faith, but it sounds good. (They do smell and taste better that store bought herbs.)I like your red clover. We use it as a cover crop for nitrogen fixing during our garden down time but I would like to plant in in our yard. We have deer in the yard though and they would just decimate it. The bees love it, it smells good, you can use the flowers for tea, and it enriches your soil. Clover is great stuff. Legumes as well.
Enjoyed your pictures, wish I had chickens (but not burros)... nice sunset pic.
Medicinal herbs
There is actually quite a bit of scientific evidence for various herbal health benefits. You can do your own research online through pubmed, or if you have a specific question, you can pm me and I'll see what I can (ahem) dig up for you.
This week's wonder herb is rosemary, which can be grown outdoors as a perennial shrub in warmer parts of the country or indoors in a sunny window. Aside from tasting and smelling great, rosemary has documented benefits for general stress/anxiety relief and for reducing agitation in dementia patients. It has antimicrobial and antifungal properties of its own and its essential oil is being studied in combination with antibiotics to treat resistant bacterial infections. It is also as effective as Minoxidil in the treatment of male pattern baldness
Thanks
I didn't think about using Pubmed as a resource for this...good idea. I am very interested in the use of herbs for medicine, just as I am interested in food as medicine. I'm slowly gathering information on both but most of my sources are not from our western medical field.
I sort of take my rosemary plant for granted because it does so well here....it basically takes care of itself. That's very interesting about it being a possible candidate for use against antibiotic resistant bacteria. Fascinating in fact, seeing how antibiotic resistant bacteria is very bad news.
Nice asses :-)
Thanks soe, great photos. I looked up miniature donkeys, are they?
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/other/donkey/mini/
Love donkeys, grew up with one on three steep acres. Her name was Twinkle Toes and some evenings before dinner my dad would go down to the gate to "get her going". With words and hand claps and whistles encouraging on, she'd run a loop around the pasture the whole time braying. We'd yell "Gooo Seabiscuit" if I remember correctly and she'd buck and try to go faster. Good times. How do you spell it? ... aaw - hee - haw - hee - haw!
relax '66
---
The ISP bill was $66.66 for the first time ever. EVIL. lol bummer being superstitious, sometimes can't help it. What's with all the sixes? http://mysticalnumbers.com/number-6/ It's perfect, thanks.
Thursday again, Jumpin'Jupiter.
NP: Queen - Hammer To Fall
peace
Great picture
I had not met a donkey until I was over 40. Then I boarded some for a friend, a standard and some miniatures. Same personality simply different sizes. Snowflake is a too tall to technically be a miniature. She is 4 months older than the other two. They still squabble like young animals. Never provided formal training, stand for the farrier, come when called and do not pull on the halter when we are walking. Same training I do with the dogs, except no sit when I stop walking.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
I have done some terrace gardening in various containers, but
herbs were the only edibles. In the city, basil is a silly price, but easily grown, even on a terrace or in a window. In summer, an ear of corn and a caprese (mozzarella cheese, tomato and basil) is a favorite summer meal, so having basil on the terrace is handy.
I've never done any preserving. Mostly, I can post only about food shopping in the city! However, I am very careful about what I ingest. What I buy need not all be organic, but it has to be free of added carcinogens, irritants and the like. And just because insect poo or whatever might be "natural" doesn't mean I want it added to my food. And ingredient I don't recognize, I google.
On the board where I used to post, some posters would challenge me perversely and pointlessly about additives like baking soda, though they knew exactly what I meant by chemical additives. I will always believe they were paid industry troll, as were those who got borderline abusive any time someone suggested consuming less salt.
Speaking of which, I've noticed a sudden phenomenon. Foods are lasting outrageously long in my fridge. I had bought some cherries weeks ago that were hidden by too much food in the fridge. I took them out yesterday and they were not rotten. Only heaven knows what they are doing to zombie-fy our fruit and veg to that degree. So, that pushes me to buy even more organic in the future, despite the price of some items. Of course, with the demon seed Monsanto and others sell, the demon crops are bound to take over soon. Things like the birds and the bees and the wind don't understand organic farming.
When organic farmers sued Monsanto (Solicitor Kagan arguing for Monsanto on behalf of the Obama administration), I read that corn as far South as Oxaca, Mexico, grown organically for hundreds of years, had already been contaminated. Another reason for more people outside the US to love us.
Off topic: seems the military has money for everything but medical treatment for transgender troops. No end to the money it will spend on almost anything, including things that are already obsolete. The prison system of Massachusetts treated a transgender person who, at the time of treatment was either accused or convicted of homicide, ffs, but we can't do that for a member of the military, ready to lay down his or her life?
Now ya did it!
I can't get that Paul Simon song outta my head: Monsanto take my chromosome awayyyy.
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
Good morning
We've had a great garden this year. We've had regular rains this year, and have hardly used the water we collect in the cistern. I'll take a few pictures to share next week.
July is tomato time in my part of the world. We've already made many quarts of sauce and salsa using our onions and peppers in it as well. We've been eating lots of green beans too. It is too hot for lettuce but we do have plenty of basil.
Here's what's on the table left from yesterday's harvest -
Here's hoping you are all doing well!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning, SOE ~~
Lovely pictures this morning. The chickens crack me up - no pun intended - when we had chickens, a similar scene was carried out by them here every day, too. We hope to have chickens again next year. We've got to remodel our chicken coop first!
We harvested our garlic about 10 days ago. We ended up with a better than expected harvest, for which we are grateful. Our water situation was iffy this year and grasshoppers over-ran us. We've finally gotten a handle on them, but not before the devastated many plants. We're uncertain why they were so bad this year, but many in the valley complained about them this year.
I awoke to welcome rain! It has skirted us for weeks. It was finally our turn today. More is expected throughout the day, so I hope this does not negatively impact my flight to NYC tonight.
Have a beautiful day, folks!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Thank you for every picture and every story . . .
This is "feel good" reading.
I have mostly been gone the past two weeks visiting family and helping a friend move, so the garden needs tending. Am also determined to have a real fall garden this year, which means planting in August. So these 5 new round bales need to be conditioned yesterday, since I learned from the first try that they need more time to cool down. I am still picking lots of Japanese eggplant, a few tomatoes, and an occasional cucumber. The okra and pumpkin planted in the finished onion patch look very happy. I see one little pumpkin. Of the sweet potato slips, only 3 survived, but I have more to plant and will try them in bale this time.
Ordered Cucuzzi squash seeds. Anyone tried them before? Contemplating fruit and nut trees to plant this fall.
Like randtntx, temps have been in the 100s the past couple weeks, so a person needs to get up at 5 to get any work done. Yikes!
But . . . we are getting lots of eggs now. We increased our chicken area and the mommas hatched about 30 babies this spring. The new area is a 12 x 40 chicken wire covered outdoor structure. Seems to be working.
Time to try your egg freezing technique!
Wishing everyone a great day . . .
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
@mhagle I'm jealous about your
I'm jealous about your japanese eggplant. I won't have time to plant in August but hopefully I can find something suitable to plant in September. I might just try eggplant again.
I like them alot . . .
If you pick them younger, you don't have to peal them. Toss them around the fry pan with onion, tomato, and butter.
I am not a consistent gardener at all though. Two years ago I got eggplant. Last year I didn't get any (though I tried!) Last year lots of yellow squash. This year only a few.
Speaking of jealous . . . I sure would like to have a container garden like this!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Your eggplant recipe
sounds wonderful. Isn't it amazing how good things taste fresh out of the garden. Oftentimes the simplest way to prepare them is the best.
I'll find out what nutrient it is and let you know next time I see you comment.
Consistency is tough with a garden. We never know what our outcome will be or how our efforts will pay off. We joke that it would be cheaper for us to go and buy our produce at the grocery store than it is to plant. Oh, and the peel of the eggplant is supposed to be high in some kind of nutrient. I read that somewhere.
Good orning, Lookout. Maybe I'll have a report later,
still getting going today because routine disrupted early am, patterns and such, you know.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Beautiful glimpses of our lucky life, right?
Just got in from picking tomatoes for tomorrow's market and, as expected, got next to none, about a pint from my 110 plants. It's been raining here so constantly and for so long now, months!, that all the field tomatoes are splitting. And there's a blue heron standing in one of the pastures instead of up at the ponds. Not a good sign. Selfishly hoping it rains cats and dogs tomorrow morning. Because our greenhouses (high tunnels) are going in in October, we decided to grow many different varieties of tomatoes to see which we thought best for taste, texture, and harvesting. We have about 25 varieties growing in our two gardens, and I for one am voting to dump heirlooms and concentrate on cherry tomatoes. My small patches of indian corn, which I'm growing for someone who asked for flour corn, have been munched right in a line at 4 feet, like some one used a hedge trimmer. Damn deer! Still, I'm thanking god or whoever for living this wonderful life, though I gotta ask: grasshoppers, god? Why?
@GusBecause I know, what are
I know, what are grasshoppers good for anyway? Fish bait I guess.
I ask, why fleas?
At least grasshoppers feed other things. Fleas? Blood-sucking little bastards don't feed anything that I'm aware of, save the nematodes that eat flea larvae (yay nematodes). But if I had a garden, I'd be hating on some grasshoppers too, I'm sure.
I love that you grow food.