Farm Fresh: Sprouted Barley for All

Last week hubby added the base boards and side strips to the high tunnel. Unfortunately, leveling (or trying to level) the baseboards made it clear how uneven the ground was. There was a giant crater where the old stump was and many other smaller dip and holes.  I generally would say tilling is bad for the soil.  However, in this case I think it was a necessary evil to get a level start and fill in the areas where there were gaps under the baseboards. 

  This week we borrowed a neighbor's tiller and hubby was able to get most of it smoothed out --with the ducks following along at sometimes suicidal closeness in their effort to snatch all the tasty worms and grubs that suddenly appeared near the surface of the soil.  Lots of compost and rabbit manure still needs to be added this winter.  I will probably try closing the chickens in there as well to let them till everything in and spread their manure. 

  We are still harvesting a lot of delicious things from the garden. Watermelon has been a huge success this year. Despite the dryness, only about half an inch of rain fell in September, the warmth and sunshine has them ripening long past their usual peak. I think we have harvested 7 so far with another 10 or more that we are impatiently waiting and debating on ripeness.   Plenty of tomatoes are coming in for salads and sandwiches with some extra to share with friends. Spinach, swiss chard, tomatoes and peppers made a lovely giant salad for our dinner last night (with olives and celery from the store).  The "cornito" and "lunchbox" varieties of peppers continue to ripen and produce abundantly despite the wild forest of sweet potato and watermelon vines that have taken over their half of the garden.  I am sort of looking forward to first frost so that I can get everything cleaned up on that side.

We have been feeding our livestock sprouted barley every other day.  They seem to really enjoy it.

Contrary to what the internet said, the poultry seem to also enjoy the sprouted grain -- from the youngest pullets on up.  I am guessing that they focus on the grains and I know the rabbits mostly eat the grass on top.

 We have more than 100 birds now ( 20 growing turkeys, 40 young roosters, 20 ducks, 15 guineas, and about 40 hens). Being able to give them an inexpensive alternative feed every other day has cut down on feed costs significantly.  Most of them will be sold by the end of the year, but I think feeding sprouts to the rest will help carry us through the winter.

 The chickens scratch it up before they eat it and the ducks chew on it.

Summer Reading List - the family read alouds

As my kiddos are getting to be more avid readers the summer reading list could get prodigiously long. I decided that it only makes sense to list the read alouds that we read together or mostly together this summer.  I tried to organize them a little for easy future reference.

And finally, one that I don't recommend for kids, but that was a real eye opener for me: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.   I have always been interested in Appalachia, the health care system, their old-time herbal remedies, the effect of coal mining on their ecology (for the cheap electrical energy we so blithely waste), and especially the fact that we perceive the USA as so wealthy and "developed" when there are corners like rural Appalachia that deserve development aid as much as some of the "third world" countries that I used to work in. This book is set in the 1930s and has a wealth of historical details. If you want to read about the coal mining and ecology, another book we read this summer, Brave Companions by David McCullough, had a great section on the work of Harry Caudill. 

What happens in our spare time?

 I was working on a lesson for co-op school (kingdoms and classifications curriculum) when brother S and miss L hijacked the cups for their own designs. Very creative.

  I find a lot of pictures like this on my ipad. These are two of our W family buddies.  My kids love to Skype with them.  They can talk for hours though!

 And since the weather has continued to be much more dry than usual, I have been tackling sealing the trellises and high parts of the deck. I know that we are supposed to apply another coat of stain every 3-5 years, but we have only been in our house for 3 years... I have to just guess based on how light they are getting that they need another coat. They are a pain to do so I can totally understand how the previous owner might not have done them for awhile. Here is one before and after shot. I have been doing it in small sections. First, scrub a section with krud kutter, then wait a day for it to dry and then seal that section. Working my way around the deck - left to right.  At least I have the satisfaction of seeing that it makes a big improvement.

 And the outer railings etc. seem like they have not been done for a LONG time either. Again, it makes sense since they are up high and require the effort of using a ladder. Just one more of those annoying routine maintenance tasks that have to be done to keep things in good shape longterm.

 Cub Scouts started again this week. One of the games that they played at pack meeting was who could stand on one foot the longest. Both big sister A and brother M were among the finalists.  Here are the last two standing. I am thinking that ice skating practices may have improved my kids' abilities to stand on one leg. A even looks like she is skating almost.

Field Trip: Philadelphia

Since the temple in Washington DC is closed long term, we went to Philadelphia temple and did some sight-seeing while we were there. We went to the Academy of Natural Sciences. 

 They had a lot of great hands-on activities. Giant clam shell for touching and brother M petting a legless lizard.

 They had an exhibit called "Outdoors In" full of animals in aquariums and terrariums.

 They had some very lifelike dioramas.

They had a big dinosaur fossil digging area. 

 The most amazing part of the museum was this tiny dusty store room type place.  Inside you could watch workers opening plaster casts used to ship a dinosaur skeleton from Montana. It is still half buried in dirt. They have to dig the pieces out carefully and then assess it.  Here is an article about it: Fossils Arrive in Philly

The kids favorite thing was this "Moving with the Dinosaurs" animation area.  

 We also enjoyed this sign:

 They had animated dinosaurs outside the museum that scared them a bit at first and then they had fun with it.

 Then we headed into the famous Reading Terminal Market. It was huge!

 Tons of confectionary delights. 

 They had a creperie that looked pretty authentic. And this fun bakery with made to order canollis.

 There was one herbalist shop that I spent some time in.

 We tried several of the testers. I was curious about the smell of patchouli lotion since I am growing some for that purpose.  It is supposed to be good for eczema.

 Some notes on the map of places to eat next time.

Farm Fresh: Cotton Candy and Cousins

This week the cousins came over to play and we (I mean Hubby) really got the hang of using the cotton candy maker. 

 Grandmama shared her building skills:

 I made some potent elderberry thyme syrup to keep us healthy as we head into the cold season. Aside from elderberries and thyme (grown right here!) it also contains honey, ginger, and apple cider vinegar. Mmm it has a nice kick to it. It is supposed to last 4 months in the fridge.  I bet it will last less than 2 months with all these "tasters" who might have a little cough. Luckily we have plenty more thyme and elderberries.

 The turkey-lings are growing up nicely.

 And the canning goes on.  More minestrone (This is probably the last batch since the green beans have finally surrendered to the bean beetles and the carrots are all used up). And I opened one jar, as a tester, of this new cajun black eyed pea soup. It was immediately gobbled down with corn bread and pleas to open another jar.  More batches of this to come I think.... just as soon as I buy more black eyed peas. It was a good southern dinner.

Laboring for Labor Day Weekend

We worked pretty hard Labor Day weekend (and the week leading up to it). Grandpa J was visiting and helped us check off a bunch of projects from our list.

I know hose spigots are not very exciting for most people.  But boy was I excited to discover this spigot behind the bushes in front of our house.  Too bad it was not working.  Grandpa J fixed it though.  He got the front hose spigot working and two old hoses repaired. Yes! Now I have a spigot that is less than 300ft from the orchard, and enough hose to reach my trees.

He also helped me figure out how to get the soaker hoses set-up. We have not needed to water much in the past, but this year the rain has been more sparse, with showers every 7-10 days or so.  It was time to get something more permanent in place. Fall veggies in the photo: Broccoli, cauliflower, beets, parsnips, and daikons are in this row. Brother M did all the planting himself while I dug out the last of the carrots.

Our boxwood bushes have slowly been dying off. The nursery I spoke with said that they have seen a lot of boxwood blight recently and that may be it.  Grandpa J got 4 big old bushes chopped down and dug out most of the roots. Now the hydrangeas will have the space they deserve (and be free to expand). 

And now I have a new sunny spot for more edible bushes! Smokey Saskatoon berry bush soon to move in here.

There was an old bird feeder falling apart on a post in the back yard.  I love wild birds, but I hesitate to invite them into our yard with 7 cats roaming the premises.  Grandpa J removed the old feeder and installed this mason bee house instead. He even made a hook so that it can be taken down and brought in over the winter.

And so many smaller projects! The lights in root cellar were not working. He fixed them.  He pried the lids off some ancient 5 gallon buckets of wheat someone gave me. And he installed a new toilet seat in the kids bathroom. 

Meanwhile, Hubby labored on the high tunnel and got all the cross beams installed. Now for the wooden support boards.

I mostly worked on planting out more comfrey patches in the orchard. I planted three comfrey plants on either side of each bush/tree in the row closest to the road (33 plants).  Digging holes here any deeper than a few inches means a lot of hacking with a pick axe. It took me several days to dig all these holes.  I filled them with rabbit manure mixed into the natural soil (minus the shale).  The comfrey should be well-fed for years to come. I hope to eventually fill this outer row in enough so the road is not so noticeable and the orchard can be a nice place to stroll in. Long term dreams, I know.

I also managed to do some canning: Stewed tomatoes of various flavors, ginger carrots, more minestrone soup, and some bean soup.

The kids helped me start marking all my perennials so that I don't accidentally forget where they are in the spring. I will have a landscape map too, but this is more exact. I have tried both wooden and plastic tags with zero success, but the internet tells me that these metal ones will last for years.

I set-up my barley sprouting system for feeding rabbits and ducks. It is supposed to reduce feed costs by 75 percent... we'll see how that goes. The grain is best fed to rabbits and ducks on day 8.  That is too mature for the chickens.  They say it's best to only sprout for 3 days for chicken fodder. Again, we shall see. I still have several kinks to work out. The biggest thing is trying to keep things moist, but not too moist. An indoor set-up is nice because I can sprout grain year round. (The temperature should be about 70 degrees ideally for sprouting.)  But being indoors also means that I need to keep the water contained so I don't ruin the floor etc. I am hoping to have things in good working order before winter so that I can keep feed costs down. 

And finally, years after she gave them to me, I replaced the funky Christmas lights in the gazebo with some from my friend Alissa.