The Chatelaine's Keys

Sharon June 3rd, 2010

Sorry for the lateness of this update, but I was so tired earlier this week that I could barely function. We had a wonderful time at our weekend event – the kids had a fabulous time, the adults had a fabulous time, it was glorious, but it took two days before we recovered. 

And after that, we had to move all the furniture around so that Phil the official housemate of Gleanings farm could move in, which he did this afternoon.  He was here for three whole hours before taking off to spend four days with his girlfriend, but I gather this won’t be typical. 

Phil wants to learn to farm, so he was very nervous that we would have done all the planting before he got here.  He begged me to make sure there was still some planting left to do…oh, Phil, you innocent .

A lot got planted last week, not as much this one, since we’ve been tired and busy with other things, but I’m hopeful that the week that runs from tomorrow morning to next Friday will be good – before I head off for Washington DC next Friday.

We finally had some rain day before yesterday, which we desperately needed, and there’s hope for a bit more – we could really use it.  The weather has been so hot and dry it has been tough on the transplants and the early crops – this is quite unusual for us, I’ve only once before seen my lettuce bolt before the end of June.  Time to start another planting. But the projection is for cooler and wetter in the coming week.

The sheep still haven’t arrived – Elaine, my sheep partner-in-crime has had problems with white muscle disease and hasn’t wanted to stress the lambs by moving them, so the grass is getting tall.  I went and looked at a flock of Jacobs nearby, since I’m pretty determined to get my own sheep, but I’m leaning back towards icelandics.  Keeping an eye out for a local flock – if anyone knows a good one, let me know!

We lost some of the baby bunnies in the heat wave, despite moving them to a cool spot and the judicious application of ice packs, but the surviving ones have turned into little open-eyed bunny creatures.  I’m mulling over the purchase of another doe and buck, and trying to decide what would be fun to cross the cinnamons with.  The setting hens hatched out a few chicks, and the does are being dried off for July/August kidding.

First strawberries came to the table, although we lost a lot of blossoms in  a late freeze and won’t get tons ourselves.  But the local farms are open for picking and we’ll go tomorrow and probably Tuesday for the first batches of jam.  My kids can pick (and eat) an almost infinite number of berries. Yay!

Ok, onto the update:

Plant something: Elderberries, apples, filberts, pears, lady’s mantle, elecampane, liatris, dianthus, peonies, yarrow, maypop, hops, mulberries, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, onions, squash, cucumbers, orach, hollyhock, mullein, breadseed poppies, clover, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, kale, chard, maximilian sunflowers, sage, lemongrass.

Harvest something: lettuce, kale, scallions, spring garlic, mint, chives, raspberry leaves, rhubarb, asparagus, radishes, strawberries, milk, eggs, yarrow

Preserve something: dried raspberry leaves, dried yarrow, made rhubarb sauce

Waste Not: Cleaned out freezer, and found surprisingly few scary things.  Decided not to freeze broccoli in the future, as we don’t like it enough to eat it – prefer frozen lambsquarters, kale or chard, and like our broccoli fresh.  Gave frozen broccoli to chickens who liked it fine.  Froze some cream for butter making…eventually.  Cleared crap out of Phil’s space and donated many things to Goodwill. 

Want Not: Finally got some pasta that wasn’t orzo or lasagna to replace that which was eaten.  Children very grateful.

Eat the food: Learned to make hardboiled eggs in the solar oven (thanks for the tip, Bernard!), ate lots of thai salad (lettuce, broccoli thinnings, asparagus, other veg, hardboiled eggs with peanut sauce dressing).  Made asparagus rolls.

Build community food systems – had a bunch of people at my house .

How about you?

Sharon

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Sharon May 24th, 2010

We are officially past our last frost date, and the great planting marathon has begun.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been planting for a month and a half (longer if you count indoor seed starting) but this is *it* – for the next three weeks, the gardens will be our whole and total focus (well, except for the 20 people coming to my house over Memorial Day weekend, I’ll probably pay a little attention to them too .

Everything needs to go into the ground, even as we’re building and rebuilding our garden beds, improving our soil and planting the last of the perennials and trees.  It all needs to be done yesterday, of course, but there’s a certain rhythym you get into when you are so far behind that it really doesn’t matter which of a thousand things you do next.

Meanwhile, Rosemary had 8 babies late last week, and is turning out to be a great Mom.  Sage has turned out yet again to be a really rotten Mom, and will be culled, I think.  We’re enjoying the milk flow before the inevitable drying up of the does (pre-kidding), and all is basically well.   Thankfully, since the garden is all right now.

Plant something: Apple trees, hazelnut trees, tomatoes, peppers, pennyroyal, nasturtiums, okra, corn, beans, beets, eggplant, onions, limas, sunflowers, gladioli, zinnias, cosmos, sweet peas, kale, broccoli, basil, various ornamental thingies.

Harvest something: Lettuce, chives, sorrel, bok choy, nettles, raspberry leaves, kale, beet greens, asparagus, rhubarb, milk, eggs.

Preserve something: Some rhubarb jam and some raspberry leaves.

Waste Not: Fully sorted out the kids winter clothes, gave away tons to goodwill and friends with younger children, also our winter wardrobes.  The usual, otherwise.

Want Not: Set aside some of the nicer ratty clothes for quilt making, made a bunch of new rags, patched sheets, ordered oatmeal.

Eat the Food: Asparagus and pesto risotto.

Build community food systems – donated some plant starts to a local plant sale.

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Sharon April 27th, 2010

We’re expecting 3 inches of snow tonight.  This does not please me.  It does, however, make me feel a little less guilty about the things I haven’t gotten into the ground yet .  We had guests, then I  had a cold, then it was raining, and I’m going to be away this weekends, so things are slower than I’d like them to be.  But hey, if it snows, I’ll be vindicated!  Annoyed, cranky, cold, but vindicated.

At least it is precipitating – we have had two weeks of bone dry weather, and the soil was really too dry to plant outside the reaches of our hose – given our climate here, most of my garden is unreachable by any water other than rain, and we’ve never had a problem.  But it does mean occasionally waiting out a dry spell with delicate transplants.  But it is pouring now, at least.

It has been a quiet week here, with guests galore (my sister and her family, Stoneleigh) and not nearly as much work as I’d like.  The new raised beds are coming along slowly, and so is everything else.  

Asparagus and rhubarb are coming in – my first asparagus is just about tall enough to harvest, and down the hill in the valley, they’ve really got it in.  Love, love, love asparagus and rhubarb!

Plant something: lettuce, chard, beets, zinnias, clover, onions, rhubarb, pansies, hollyhocks, carrots, kale, marshmallow

Harvest something: Nettle, raspberry leaves, dandelions, sorrel, chives, rhusbarb, asparagus, eggs, milk.

Preserve something – dried some raspberry leaves

Waste Not: Dandelions galore going for rabbit food, the usual composting and feeding of things to other things.

Want Not: Ordered bulk pasta when I suddenly discovered I had only orzo and lasagna noodles in the house, but nothing in that critical medium size .

Eat the food: Asparagus wraps (fresh rice paper wraps with asparagus and fresh herbs with dipping sauce), rhubarb compote, stir friend asparagus and tofu .  Yum!

Build community food systems: Really cool new project in the workings, more on this soon!

How about you?

Sharon

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Sharon April 13th, 2010

I’m restraining myself with great difficulty from planting too much out.  I know what April in upstate New York is usually like, and I’ve learned over the years that things planted too early often do no better than the things planted a bit later, but it is hard.  Once all the onions, peas and greens are in, I wanna plant, dammit!

It is very hard to get to the computer these days – first there was spring break for Eli last week, which meant more activities planned than usual, now it is catch up time, and the garden calls to us each morning.  

It feels like not much has happened lately – little increments of barn cleaning and bed building, transplanting and seed starting, pruning and seeing what survived (worst tree girdling winter I’ve ever seen!).  Good stuff, but I’m longing for a day when I go out into the garden after breakfast and don’t come back in until dark.

We lost the baby rabbits, all three of them – Rosemary just wasn’t much of a Mom.  I’ve been told to let her have one more chance, and if not, she’ll be culled.  We’ll re-breed in a week or so.

Eric is bringing the eggs to SUNY to sell now and a good thing too, since we’re getting 3+ dozen a day!

Ok, reporting in:

Plant something: Peas, sweet peas, carrots, onions, potatoes, chives, garlic chives, hollyhocks, johnny jump ups, pansies, bok choy, kailaan, raab, lettuce, kale, mache.

Harvest something: Eggs, milk, sorrel, good king henry, nettle shoots, dandelion, chives

Preserve something: Nothing

Waste Not: Building raised beds out of barn cleanings, gave blown duck eggs to a neighbor to paint the shells, mulched ground with a winter’s worth of paper feed sacks.

Want Not: Added some bread flour and lentils to my storage.  Got new glasses, badly needed.

Eat the Food: Lots of stir frying of greens and making them into salads.  Have had chives in everything.  Not sure why we don’t eat chives more.

Build Community Food Systems: Various interviews, helped out with a local school garden project.

How about you?

Sharon

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Sharon January 19th, 2010

So the big event around here was the arrival of our Great Pyrenees puppy, Maccabeus.  He arrived along with six inches of snow the same color as he is yesterday.  He’s a very sweet dog – he already loves the kids and wants to be with them.  He’s very nervous, and a little sad because despite being six months old, he’s only just been taken away from his Mom.  He’s clearly looking for her everywhere he goes.  He is beautiful, affectionate and while a little nervous about the unfamiliar surroundings, astonishingly relaxed around people and animals.

The fly in the ointment has been Mistress Quickly, who has always been fairly mellow about other dogs, but is officially NOT PLEASED about Mac’s arrival.  He is already twice her size, so he mostly ignores her growling and snapping, but she’s convinced he’s a threat – every time one of us goes to pet him, she puts her body between him and us.  We’re working on reinforcing her positive behavior, and on softening her attitude towards him (there was a temporary truce when we did a little joint training, in which both dogs realized they had common ground – they both like cheese .)

So between Mac the Marshmallow whimpering at night without his Mommy (I finally slept downstairs with him, and he wedged himself between the sofa and me to get a Mommy substitute) and Mistress Quickly asserting herself as boss, things have been a little hectic and dog-centered around here.  We’re still figuring out how things are going to work, but it is, at least, exciting. 

I’ve also got a line on a couple of possible bucks for our girls, which is really exciting to me.  We have to work out timing and details, but it looks like our goat situation may be set to expand fairly soon, and, yay! no more “drive thru goat sex!”

Not too much else going on her, except that Mom was visiting and we were able to borrow her BJ’s card to actually get a couple of things that we can’t get as cheaply anywhere else.  I don’t think it is normally worthwhile to pay for a warehouse membership for us – we get most of our bulk materials elsewhere – but there are a few things that are a better price, most notably the pull-ups Eli has to wear to school and the dog food that Mac has been eating (we’ll shift him gradually over to our food, but we do *not* want a giant dog with an upset stomach!) .  So we did a little stocking up.

It took me a few days to really recover from last week’s workshop, and I’ve been focusing on the book as much as anything else.  I still haven’t finished my seed orders, which are one of the pressing issues for this week – since I want to do a lot of stratified things this year, and am planning on going to market with my plants, I need to get organized ASAP.  Otherwise, not so much going on here.

Plant something: Not this week

Harvest something: A few leaves of kale out from the snow during our thaw last week, as well as milk and eggs.  Got 5 eggs today (we don’t light) as well as finding a broody cochin hen, so spring will actually come!

Preserve something: I made some applesauce out of apples that were failing.

Waste Not: Nothing new

Want Not: Added more pull-ups and dog food to our reserves as well as a few other odds and ends (worcestershire sauce, old bay seasoning, nutella for the husband ).  Also picked up more cat food earlier in the week.

Eat the Food: Roasted vegetables wraps, stir fried kim chi and lamb in garlic sauce were highlights. 

Build Community Food Systems: A possible new project came my way, but has to be tabled until after the book.  Otherwise, nothing new.

How about you?

Sharon

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