Processing the Harvest

Chicken group dust bath under my little plum tree a bit ago" 1024x768



I think this one is smaller 800x600

And this one is smallest - 640x480

I will try the loader from my computer but always distrusted it, passing through flickr first seemed better, but do not know why for sure. But right now my ip is from Chicago so things are probably somewhat cloudy anyway. So here goes


and here

 

Hi Colne,
I can see all of them - from the largest to the smallest,
Jenny
lovely brood ...

 

Hi jenny, but wait a bit and an admin will blast me for using up the space. I was just seeing - is there some size they wish to be the maximum?

and I'd also like to move out of the village community I live in at present

To a bigger town, or a smaller, or solitary - are you getting social or misanthropic? the curse of USA is how almost non-existent our walking communities are. Like in Italy or Spain when everyone, families and single, all promenade about having a coffee in town in the evening. Here we drive to Wal-Mart and buy some ice-cream and something silly we do not need - and that was our socializing.

(Vancouver you could go to the Gastown district and watch the Junkies - or Stanley Park and stroll about which is nice.)

 

My wife is off to the farmers market with 8 dozen eggs to sell. I started the dried onions last evening and actually filled the trays till they were so high they would not touch, just resting on the stacks of sliced - tube like - onion greens. A whole shopping basket full, about 5 pounds. They will dry to 4 ounces, about 20:1. Most dried products go to about 10:1 so shows how unsubstantial the green onion is. I poured them into a bowl and mixed them, put them back to dry more, and they are almost done except the odd corners where still very damp ones hid.

In USA canning was a huge part of life in rural settings just a couple generations ago; there is plenty of land and a tradition of growing veg. Meat is also canned here, and all the supermarkets, Wall-Marts, Dollar stores.........sell canning jars. I picked up a dozen wide mouth quart jars for $9.98 yesterday at Froogles. The lids make a %100 seal so are good for storing dried products - but I will vacuum pack quite a few because they will take so much less space. Lids are also purchasable cheap - the band which holds the flat, rubber coated, lids are reusable.

(picture from web)


We begin every evening meal with a soup course, These dried onions are excellent for tossing into soup - look good, and give a mild but pleasant flavor. (Last night I made purple cabbage, carrot, sausage, noodle soup which was a wonderful shocking blue in color. Great fun.)

 

800x600 is about the right size Colne. Don't worry about the pictures if they are slightly over this, GC will automatically adjust them when you hit the Upload a File button.

I'd like to move out to somewhere more open. Surrounded by farmland would suit me fine but finding a property in that situation here is not easy, or cheap. I've been living in a village for nine years and I'm not really suited to living in a community. I'm not misanthropic, I just want a quiet life away from the constant noise of everyday community living, noisy neighbours, barking dogs, builders etc.
Below is a thread I started on GC some while back that you might like to see. A taste of the Isle of Man if you like.

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/out-and-about-today.45782/

I would like to see Vancouver and the areas both my son and daughter live in but it's unlikely to happen, I have a fear of flying.

I would imagine you and your wife are pretty self sufficient, it's a good way to live!

 

"" I have a fear of flying""

That is what benzodiazepines are for. Nice thread on Man, makes my place seen very squalid - but then the weather is easy here

edit - sorry if I ended bruskly, my wife came back and I must put the soup on.

Edit again - she has been at Gospel Palooza
''3rd Annual Gospel Palooza
April 12

A joy-filled day of community gathering and live awe-inspiring Gospel music performances by Christian and Gospel Musicians, choirs and groups. Participate in the 5K Hope Run/Walk, antique car show, marketplace of arts, antiques and crafts, live auction and don't forget to please your taste buds as you feast on local cuisine

There can be really good gospel on the coast - but too many festivles today so they all suffered - I will drop in tomorrow. Get a shrimp sandwich

 

Summertime.....a lovely piece of music. Thank you for the compliment on my thread.

 

Old Man River;
he don't plant taters,
he don't plant cotton,
And them that plants em are soon forgotten


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eh9WayN7R-s#t=180


It is pouring rain outside and things blowing over on the porches and under the house, thunder and lightening, rain beating on the metal roof, flood warnings (not for me, I only flood from strong winds, rain does not because I am so near the sea) - And the sluggish bayou is running like a brown river.
What a night for a storm! A full moon, a lunar eclipse, and it is a 'blood moon' where it rises red and huge over the bayou coloring everything - but not to be seen tonight. The drum circle at the beach washed out. And I have been listening to some more Gershwin, such great theatre.

 

I hope all is well after the storm Colne!

Here is more information for you on the wheel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laxey_Wheel

 

You see that is what I meant - How on earth could that video ever be made and not tell the water comes through an 'inverted siphon'! Otherwise it does not make sense.

Some bonehead who has to have help to change a wheel on her car probably was commissioned to do an instructional video on a massive Victorian machine and so wrote the most inane script possible.

The engineers, factories, industrialists, political and legal thinkers of Victorian Britain transformed the world and modern British schools teach of how Arabs invented algebra and architecture and Britain was a nation of unenlightened superstitious slavers slaughtering themselves in the trenches of WWII when not carpet bombing Iraqi wedding parties. That and how to use anything electronic to play games and send selfies.

One despairs of the modern educated.

 

And as an aside Bertie Wooster's uncle was Lord Yaxley, could there be some link?

But the storm has passed leaving cool weather, I am wearing a light sweater, surprising for this time of year. And the brightness outside is so sharp and green. Every good spring rain storm causes a visually noticeable growth spurt - plant leaves that were tiny things between cotyledons the day before yesterday when I planted them are now fully formed leaves on the cucumbers. My Japanese persimmon buds have shot up to just bursting from being small, closed bumps.

I have yet more tax work to do and am traumatized by yesterdays all day tax marathon. I have to wind it all up (I had two years to do) and it looks like I underpaid by too much - could be more than I expect even, and I need to find out and send off what it takes. I hate tax time, it hits me twice a year and is the reason I have no money.

So I will go out again and see about setting the traps, and just stare at things, and dread doing what I have to do. I did the year prior yesterday and am $530 poorer already - this final push of doing last years threatens to set me back three times that - Bad day in beautiful weather. But that is todays harvest - unpaid bills coming home to roost and be processed.

 

Colne, the video was probably produced for tourism and I 'm sure anyone that was interested would have looked into the engineering side themselves.

After the bad (rain, wind and flooding) but mild winter we've had here the good spring that we're having so far is welcome. I and many others here have been gardening in short sleeves and a number of us are saying plants/trees are ahead by about three weeks this year.

The sooner you have your tax issues done the sooner it will be off your mind, okay you'll be lighter in the pocket but think of the lovely weather you'll be able to enjoy without it niggling at you.

 

Taxes put off for tomorrow - ha ha, niggling (more like pounding)

I have a pot of chard on, so many greens in the garden! Then garden turnip and yellow carrot simmering with a huge (bought) russet potato for the last of the discount turkey I baked last week.

And I bought a small peat pot with 4 globe artichoke seedlings in it (1$). I have never grown them before and am not sure they really grow here, but will be interesting.

 

Rather grey out and cool, but pleasant enough, be a great day for physical work - this is from my porch a couple minutes ago. I have two crab traps out and hope to get a couple gars only I have not been hearing them at night. With this cold snap, (62F now, 16C, 52F last night 11C) and what ended up being 4 inches of rain, the bayou is cold and fresh. Gar are fresh water fish but like brackish water. The ones I showed were long nosed gar, a small kind - the big ones, alligator gar, live in the Mississippi Sound, part of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as fresh water they are so hardy of salt.

Our otters are fresh water animals but do not mind brackish water at all. The harbor has had a resident otter as long as I have lived here (he is secretive but I fish and net there at night so see him when the people are gone) I think it gets fresh water from a broken or leaking line - all the boat slips have water so miles of water lines are snaking around - and waterlines leak.

Today I plant okra seeds. The old ones I have I started twice and they came up and then die - rather worrying. I cannot grow tomatoes in my main bed because the truck load of soil I bought ($180 delivered, 10 tons, 10000 kg) had some wilt virus in it and I hope something like that has not come which kills okra. So I bought a new pack of seeds, should last a couple years, for $1 at walmart because none of the dollar stores have okra in the 4/$1 seed racks.

And I got some yellow dwarf marigold seeds from the 4/$1 racks and will start trays of them - for the heat of summer, I need zinnias too, my old, free, zinnia seeds never germinated.

The carrots are excellent! I like the white ones that were in the carnival blend because they grow huge, really big. Their flavor is a little pine sap like, a touch of retsina, But one makes a meal. I like the purple ones for mashing - but the Nantes are the best tasting; still I grow all 5 colors mixed for fun.

 

Love the picture from your porch, we would call it a balcony. I noticed you are calling 62F a cold snap, that's warm here. What are your lowest and highest temperatures throughout the year please?

You must have a fair amount of wild animals around where you live, noting the otters. Are there any that you class as pests or dangerous and how do your crops fair regarding animals/insects etc.?

Seeds are quite cheap for you, I can't compare the veg seeds but marigold seeds would cost between, giving you a rough conversion, $1.60 to $5. Vegetable seeds can be quite expensive, tomato seeds for instance (although fruit) will cost approximately $3 - $6 depending on what type are bought and we'd be lucky to get a dozen seeds in a pack.

The carrots look good Colne, there's certainly a variety available for growing now.