the year of the ant
Whew! Y'all. Summer is here in full swing in the Northeast! And it is an early one at that! Monday is my mowing day. I don't know how many acres I mow, but it can take me anywhere from 3-5 hours. Today, it took me about 3.5 hours. I did take a little break so maybe more like 3 hours. Anyway, I started at about 8am this morning and finished at 11:30 and I think it was already 80 outside!
In other news, is it just me or is it the year of the ant? We have sugar ants. We have carpenter ants. We have ants everywhere. I was mulching the garden (using bags of mulch I bought last year that sat outside all winter) and there were ants (little ants that bite...but not fire ants(I don't think)). I think it's because of summer getting here early. Or that's just my theory. I will say that the nice thing about summer being here early? Sitting on the front porch at night watching the fireflies along the river. Now that's nice.
And I know I said I wanted to spend more time in this space and then I kind of disappeared! BUT! Such good news! I think I can sell at the farm market I was anticipating selling at. NY State had said only 'essential' vendors at first. Which meant I couldn't sell (essential being food vendors and the such). But once they opened it up to non-essential vendors as well, that means I qualify. Of course I have to apply to be a vendor so I'm working on that part now. I have some paperwork to get together but hopefully I'll be all set by the end of the week. The first market would be a week from Friday. And with all the new regulations, I have to rethink my booth space. Plus I'm low on stock so I need to get that ready as well. I have a lot of things on order but I have most things handy. Oh! Speaking of good news. The libraries are opening back up (which I think I've mentioned before) but the one in town where I have a part time gig (as needed) needs me to work tomorrow! I'm happy to get out of the house for a few hours and get back into the swing of things. Of course there are all kinds of regulations on that too. I have about four pages of instructions to work through before tomorrow. No biggie! AND, if all that isn't enough for you, I'm doing my first gig as Chicken Librarian outside of my own space! Well, my first gig since March 11th that is. Thursday is Mac & Cheese make-along with the Cooperage Project.
In other news, I'm still doing the craft along until the end of June as it stands (with me leading a craft) but starting in July we're changing it to just be a 'craft along' where you bring your own craft and we sit and chat and craft together with our own projects for an hour. We did this last week and it was so fun and relaxing! So if you want to join me with your own craft, even before July, please do! Information can be found here.
The garden is doing really well. I thought it wasn't for a couple of weeks. The beans and cucumbers in the hay wagon were looking like they weren't growing but I think they are now. They just needed a minute, I guess. I've been spending a lot of time up in the garden getting the soil amended, getting mulch on the beds, making things pretty. I feel good about it now. I was going to have the Mister build me some smaller beds for the herbs, but then I decided to just interplant them with the veg. And the herbs seem to love it! So I'm just down to fencing my broccoli and brussel sprouts and netting my strawberries. Why fencing just those? Because some critter is eating the strawberries and brussel sprouts! And adding mulch to the hay wagon and two of the raised beds. Then this fall I think I'll have the Mister build me two more beds so I can plant some fall/winter crops. I had enough wood left over to build those beds and I think I'll have enough dirt too! YAY!
What else? I helped some friends butcher their meat birds yesterday. I ain't gonna lie, it upset me. But it needed to be done and I need to be able to do it. I helped pluck the birds and if I get the chance to help them with their last batch, I want to butcher the birds--not do the actual deed but rather take the birds apart after plucking. I want to raise my own meat birds again and then butcher them on the homestead. We're working out the logistics now, but I did order 20 birds for delivery in August. Speaking of meat. We also ordered our pig for the year. We're splitting it with friends but we should have enough to last. It's been so hard finding meat this year! We also did a bulk order of chicken meat as well. And ground beef. We don't have all the ground beef we need but I'm on the list for some for later this summer. So. By fall we should have all the meat we need to last until next summer.
In between all these good things, the Mister has been busy doing some little things around the house for me. He hung some of my smaller cast iron skillets. He made a shelf for me in the laundry room! I'm so excited! I can store all my cast iron, pyrex, and stock pots. Plus my flour and sugar surplus. I did have to rearrange the laundry room a little. I'm not thrilled with that but whatever. It's just cosmetic. I had the smaller shelf in between the washer and dryer but in order to access the stuff on the lower shelves of the larger shelving unit we decided to move the washer back over next to the dryer. This was the original set up but I moved it around earlier this spring. Sigh. But I'm thrilled with it all so there's that! I can now store all my canning jars in the pantry. He also replaced the door knob on the screen door. That door leads to the front porch, where I spend a lot of time, but the latch was broken. We kept having to close the front door since Corny likes to jump up on the screen and see what's going on. I was afraid he would be heavy enough to push the door open but now I don't have to worry about that. YAY! It's the little things, y'all.
Let's talk about those little things, m'okay? I'm sure I've told you about the one guide who brings me orchids as an apology for doing something silly. Or to preempt his silly behavior. Well. Now he's bringing me cacti! The one above is so beautiful. But it wanted to be repotted. So I did that. The orchid above is a mini-orchid that he brought me. He also had some for his room but he was throwing them out. So I rescued two of them and repotted them. They wanted to be repotted too. I sometimes think I'm crazy, but seriously, y'all. They tell me these things. Houses also tell me what color they want to be (the house down the road was white and the new owners started painting it brown and every time I drove by it I just kept saying "it wants to be white"). Chickens tell me their names. I think I must be certifiable. Annnyyywaayyy. Moving on. HEHE. This past Saturday my Facebook Live session was on quick pickling. I'm working on the blog post for that (and all those other Live events) but the pickled veg was so pretty I needed to share that with you all here. Right now. I couldn't wait! I also thought it was funny to show the kitchen in a state of disarray after the live session. We processed a lot of food this past weekend too. I even made butter with the leftover cream from making ice cream the weekend before. I froze one part of the butter. I made basil butter and put it in the freezer. Then I took the pint of heavy cream I had left and made a batch of butter for the fridge. It was so pretty in my blue pyrex dish that I just had to share that with you too.
And I am sharing some of my recent book purchases. I don't normally buy books and I certainly don't buy new books. But all these books are worth every penny spent. Some were on my Amazon Wish List and I got them for Christmas. But others were ones I decided I needed for my homestead book shelf. And they're the ones I want to read right now. So I have them in the chair next to my desk so I can pick them up when I have a free moment. I did a new thing where I linked the book to the picture! Technology, y'all!
I think that's it. I think that's everything that's been going on this past week. I should have some time to get those facebook live posts done and on the blog. It's going to be a busy and hot week so I hope you all stay cool! I hope you're doing well.
'til next time
-k
xoxo