Weekend Reading

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway is a look into a war-torn city from the viewpoints of 3 different people.  The premise of the book is that a cellist, in memory of 22 people killed while waiting in line for bread, will play a particular piece once every day for 22 days, 1 day for each person.   The cellist becomes a becon of light and hope to all within the city, even the sniper sent to assassinate him, and makes the city beautiful again, if only for a few moments.  It is a Canadian work of fiction, but one can get a glimpse of how corrupt and demoralizing a war can be on a people; a people once so proud of their city that has now be reduced to walking miles for water every few days just to survive, and not knowing if they are going to make it home alive; the internal struggle when someone sees someone shot down and debates himself on whether or not to help at the risk of becoming the next target.  Makes one wonder, what would you do in a similiar situation?
Photo courtesy of www.audioeditions.com.

Triticale Update

I promised a triticale update, oh, I dunno... ages ago.  I was waiting to see if I would get around to the final thing on my triticale-to-do list -- making bread from the flour -- but, that adventure is no where in sight.  I,  currently, am up to my eyeballs in turkey babies (hatching and selling), apple-collecting, tomato-harvesting, and the end-of-season garden clean up (well, only in some areas), as well as entertaining a little fuzz ball named "Beep" who insists she's human.  Or at the very least, a very intelligent parrot.

So, I could go on and on about all those other things, but instead will just give you a glimpse of what this whole triticale experience has meant for me.

It started off as ground cover, to shade weeds and hopefully inhibit their growth.

It did a pretty good job of that, seeing as we had probably about 66% less weeds than last year, and that's only from planting the triticale and the vetch.  Good thing #1.

I have spent several hours among the stalks, cutting off the seed heads and storing them in various containers.  I have to hide and secure the containers, or the turkeys will find them and Eat Them All.

 Which is not a huge bad thing as the grain is high in protein (turkeys need a higher protein than chickens, especially in the first 6-8 weeks), and cheap free.  Free is good! (Good thing #2)  AND I've recently discovered that triticale is NOT on the GMO list, so all the seed heads that have fallen to the ground should germinate in the spring. Yay!  Plus it's nice to know that I'm not feeding adulterated food to my birds.  (Good thing #3)

Good thing #4 - I could be using the straw part of the plant as bedding for the animals, but honestly, I'm too full of other things to do right now... but I could  use it for that.

And then, of course, Good Thing #5 - it apparently makes great bread.  I would love to get a chance to try that, but that remains to be seen.

Oh, and Good Thing #6, predators can't see the sheep as the triticale blocks their view.  I think we would plant it again for this point only.

So, there you have it.  The Update.  Whew.

Weekend Reading

This week: Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook.  I borrowed it from our library, but am thinking to purchase one for my own self, as I have to restrain myself from writing little notes all over it.  Because it goes by weeks, specifically, "x amount of weeks since the last frost", you need to do a little bit of figuring and pay attention to when that actually was.  So this book will work in all different zones, though those places with shorter growing seasons would have to condense the recommendations, and those with longer seasons could be a little more lax.  Me thinks that the first year of keeping this type of gardening journal will require the most work, in regards to recording when the last frost was and going from there.  Of course, every year, the date of the last frost will differ, but it "should" be within a couple of weeks.  My only beef about this book is that it should have a few extra pages for notes at the end of each section. It does have 1 page for notes per chapter, but a rambler like me would like a few more.  Insert smiley face here.

Happy Fall gardening, folks!

Here We Go 'Round the Elderberry Tree

Before last week, I'd never heard of Elderberries before.  At least, my conscious mind hadn't.  (Which isn't saying much.)  My very informed New Zealand-transplant friend Sue filled me in when she sent out an email letting us know that she had elderberries growing in her side yard.  Huh?  What?  What does one do with Elderberries I asks.

Well.

One makes Elderberry syrup of course.

Apparently elderberries are loaded with all kinds of anti-oxidants and, mixed with honey and a few spices (fresh ginger, cinnamon and cloves for example), makes for a decadent elixir that is a worthy soldier on the fight against colds and flu.  Plus you can drizzle on pancakes, yogurt, ice cream, and other delectables.  How could I say no?

So I collected a bag of these berries, by clipping off each cluster of berries and bringing them home to de-stem.  Ugh. THAT was a chore and a half.  But necessary, as the little stems are toxic and will make your syrup bitter.

Saying that, the syrup is SO yummy.  I'm almost looking forward to getting sick to see how well it works.  No, wait.  Did I just say that?  Maybe I'll stick to pancakes and ice cream.

Adventuring

We "took the day off" and went adventuring today.  We left home around 7:30 AM with all our layers of clothing (damn it's cold the the early morn!) and headed southward.  First stop was to say hello to some friends who were camped river-side at this cool little place we promised ourselves we'd visit again:

 They had all kinds of critters; even some we don't have :

Someone said she could have stayed all day:

Endless discussion ensued about the breeds of chickens this farm had, though I'm sure most of them, although very pretty and productive, were mixed breeds.  Our next stop was the Rock Creek Fall Fair!  We'd been meaning to visit this fair in the past, but just never got around to it.  It was very quaint, and very "down home".  Not as many livestock on display as we are used to at the IPE, but some different kind of fun:

"Cow Chip Bingo"

A view of the grounds, and the bandstand

Some of the food vendors get a really cool "store" front

There was the tantalizing smell of grease in the air that makes one just want to mow down on some fries, any fries!  We resisted though, and instead found this little gem:

A portable Wood-Fire Pizza oven!  Awesome.  We totally indulged, and for $15 it was totally worth it:

Almost all the ingredients were locally sourced, and it showed in the mouthwatering taste of it all.  It disappeared FAST.

On our way home, we stopped in at the brand-new ice cream shop in Beaverdell, Marley's, right off the highway.

 We ordered 3 chocolate/vanilla combo cones and enjoyed every last drop while we chatted with the owner, Mark, who used to build wood fire ovens, remarkably like the one on our deck at home.... Hmmm.  Coincidence?  Nah.  We love supporting people who are living their dream instead of working for "the man."
If you're in the area, stop in and say hey to Mark:

His next thing is to build a pizza place adjacent to the ice cream shop.  I'm sure we haven't seen the last of "Marley's"!

How was YOUR weekend?

Absent...

My weekend reading post will be absent again.  I've had some trouble getting into a good book lately for a variety of reasons.  It's September.  (In case you were unaware.)  Septemberrrrrrr. We've actually been hitting near-frost temperatures around here the past several nights.  And with warm afternoons and chilly overnights, I've got my hands full.  We've been outside as much as possible, enjoying the afternoon warmth that may or may not be with us much longer.  And our early evenings are spent making sure the garden is well-tucked in -- and harvesting as much as possible --

-- and the littles are warm.  Mama turkey Violet still has her 2 (we sold the other 8), and the 4 chicks that are now 5 weeks old still need a bit of heat overnight, though they are spending their days outdoors.  Then there's Beep, who still seems happy in the incubator, between bouts of being toted around in some kind of kid-made contraption.  Beep will stay in there (I can gradually lower the temperature) until she really starts to feather-out, then weather-pending, she'll start spending days outside.  I think I will put together a little chicken tractor for the garden as things are finishing up, for the 4 older chicks and Beep to do their chicken thing.  Oh, and there's next week, when Tasha's littles are due to hatch. And she's sitting on 20 eggs.  Oh, my.

Then, the fact that it's September.  It kind of sneaked up on me.  I wasn't ready to go back to schedules, even though we are homeschooling this year, and more "unschooling" than anything.  We are at the dance studio 3 times/week, plus soccer practice and games, 4H every second week, and music for the little man.  I will breathe a little deeper once October is here and soccer is done and most of the harvesting is also done.  Most because I plan to grow stuff as long as possible, whether with cloches, under plastic, or with straw bales and old windows.  

Oh, and my little reading light died on me, which is where I do most of my reading, in bed, just before the heaviness of my eye lids overcomes me.  So, stay tuned; I have a mess of books on my nightstand and I will get back to those weekly reading posts.  Soon.

Beep.

Hi. Meet "Beep".  We're calling her that as that's the noise she seems to make.  (We're also calling it "she" because that's what we hope it is!  Call it wishful thinking.)  Beep was incubated under Violet the Turkey mama with her other 10 babes, but when Violet abandoned her nest after her 10 babes had hatched, this little one still had 2 days to go.  So I stuck her egg in my shirt for 2 days to see if it would hatch.  I actually thought it was dead, as I did a "float test" and came up with nothing.  Why I stuck her back in my shirt after a dud test, I'll never know.  Call it mother's intuition.  Beep is living in the incubator for a few more days until she has enough feathers to go out with the other chicks, who are now 4 weeks old.  Or she might just live in the house for a while.  She's a chatty little thing, loves being part of the action.  We often bring her out for cuddles, and she seems to love listening to bedtime stories and chatters along with the reader.

Welcome Beep!

 

Newly hatched

So these are the newest littles around here.  Violet hatched out 10 babes yesterday!  Wow.  So cute and So. Little.  We let her do her thing and wander around the yard yesterday and she successfully overnighted all 10.  But when a chilly wind struck up this afternoon, we decided we needed to step in.  As the 5 babies that were in the old dog run are now free ranging and perching at night where-ever they please, we set up the heat lamp again and some fresh straw, food and water (with ACV and molasses for an extra boost) and caught up Violet and all the babies and settled them in.  Surprisingly, Violet seemed Very Happy with the new digs.  Like she knew she could relax a little and her babies would be safe.

Now a side story to this is that we also had 2 chicken eggs underneath Violet which were due to hatch Thursday (tomorrow).  So when Violet left her nest with her hatchlings YESTERDAY with 2 days left to go on the chicken eggs, we started to fret, especially since 1 egg already had a crack in it.  What's a good farm mom to do?  Well, pop it into my bra, that's what.  Oh dear.  Through the crack in the shell, I could tell it was still alive, so I figured that as long as it's still alive, I'll do my best for it.  So I've kept it in my shirt since yesterday morning.  This morning, dear daughter bumped me with a chair and TOTALLY cracked the shell. I figured it was done for.  But no, still kicking.  So I wetted a wool coffee sleeve that I had knitted a while back, warmed up a heat pad and have continued to tote this little package around.  And now?  Now it's CHEEPING.