Fellowship of the Suffering
Thank God other farms are struggling, too. Ok, I know that sounds awful, but isn’t it such an encouraging feeling when you discover that you’re not alone in your failure, suffering or embarrassment? I happened upon this article in the Oregonian today, and it definitely helped dissipate some of my frustration regarding the garden. Weaving through the garden today, I realized that while I won’t have enough produce to sell this year, I at least have enough for my own family. That’s pretty cool.
Most of dinner tonight was made from produce that we grew here. I didn’t exactly make the couscous from scratch – and I certainly did NOT slaughter the chickens (I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of doing that). I tried a new take on my usual tomato soup, and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Corn, broccoli, carrots, jalepenos – we are finally harvesting enough to use in recipes. Like I said, it’s not going to feed a nation, but it’ll feed my pack!
The cucumber plants are finally climbing, still not enough pickling cucumbers to make pickles, though.
Quince - we have only a few...but you'd better believe I'm making vodka with them! It's my absolute favorite!
tomatillos
Realistically, I could probably make enough green salsa from the thousands and thousands of tomatillos volunteers to give a jar to everyone in the city of Wilsonville. (I didn’t plant any in my garden this year, they came up from last year’s seeds – but they’re EVERYWHERE). I love tomatillos for their unique flavor, texture and cool as all heck packaging! What I didn’t like today was when I went to grab a nicely-ready-to-be-picked tomatillo only to discover the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in any garden. I think I must have jumped ten feet. Lordy, Lordy. It was IMPRESSIVE.
So, I'm pretty sure this is a "Writing Spider" or Argiope
To put his size in perspective... that's a fully ripened tomatillo in the bottom right corner!
Back in August I found this spider web in my Strawberries, and if my research is correct, this web is from another Writing Spider...so I guess there's more than one of these guys
Yes, they bite, but they aren’t considered “dangerous.’ Still, I don’t want that thing anywhere NEAR me! The grasshopper I’m ok with, but not that damn spider!
Jeffrey had a bit of a rough day – starting at 7:30 this morning…one of the joys of data center ownership is having to deal with figuring out why hardware has failed. When I first started dating him, he was the ONLY guy, so 3 am calls that a server was down were pretty darn frequent. There were a few nights that I remember when he would fix one client’s issues, only to be called by another. Then have to go in to the office at JDate at 9 am. Thank GOD, those days are over. Today was a 6 hour ordeal, and pretty much ruined his Saturday, but that hasn’t happened in a while, so I guess we should count our blessings! To help keep the house quiet, Ellie and I headed out, running errands, and hanging with the horses.
Tomorrow the horses leave. I’m not going to say more than that. It’s too hard.
EG and I spent lots of time in the garden, and took a long drive around the property on the tractor. She makes me laugh so much most of the time! Of course, when she was refusing to take a nap, and then melting down because she was tired, I didn’t laugh so hard! Oh the joys of toddlerhood!
No Baby Bjorn? NO problem!
"BOOTSIE! GET OUT! NOW!"
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