Busy, busy, busy is all I can say about this summer. It's screaming by so incredibly fast I'm scared to blink. Summer weather finally has arrived and I don't think we've had rain in a month now. I LOVE IT!!!! So does the garden. Chickens are eating and producing. A little too much on both ends but that's okay. Soon we'll be down more with some going in the freezer and some going to Abbot Tryphon and the monks at All-Merciful Savior Monastery on Vashon Island. They'll be well cared for and loved. And they'll be very pleased to know they won't end up as dinner. :) Here are some pictures of the garden now that it has finally had an opportunity to grow.
We did not have "knee high by the fourth of July" but it is doing well. This year I am trying my hand at growing popcorn! Yes, popcorn. It's called "pink early" and should do well since it requires a shorter growing season. And what fun it will be to pop.
This is Mr. Ferrenbergs hop plant growing nicely along the fence. Those little fuzzy things are the "flower". It's pretty.
Beet leaves are so pretty!
This is a leaf lettuce but I can't think of the name right off hand. But it is SO pretty! And tasty!
We are trying bush beans this year for freezing. And look a bean already!
This is Kelsey's amazing pumpkin plant! Sugar pumpkin for eating. It's is huge and taking over this part of the garden! Beautiful!
Have you ever heard those silly little rumors about how it always rains in Seattle? For the first 16 years that I have lived here I always laughed when people talked about those silly little rumors. I never felt that “it always rained” and thought that maybe those rumors were started just to keep people away.
Until now! This is the year that all of those rumors are definitely true! In a 26 day period from mid-May to mid-June (May-September is considered the “dry season”) it rained 24 days. We had our latest EVER first 75 degree day which I think MAYBE happened on June 12th. I actually didn't hear the official word on that one, so maybe it didn't happen. I just asked James to look into that for me and NO...we have not hit 75 degrees yet. The record we broke was June 9th and here it is June 15th and no 75 degrees yet.
On top of that we are several inches ahead of normal rain fall since October 1st. At the airport (the official stats) we've had 38.87 inches of rain since October first, normal? 32.89!!! Here on St. Brigid Farm we've been keeping track of our rain gauge for school and I just added the numbers up. We've had 47.7 inches of rain since September 1st. Ours is a month longer but I can tell you that in September we only got about an inch and a half of rain. Wow!
I don't mean to complain but this has been one doozy of a year for me with regards to weather. It has been miserable. I'm cold! It's June 15th and only 48 degrees outside at 10AM.. I'm tempted to start a fire! The tomatoes are molding. I think I'll have to start over with them. I'm also going to replant the cucumber because when it first came up the slugs attacked it and now there are only a few left.
These beets coming up just look so pretty against the dark soil.
The strawberries are doing alright but I realized today that the slugs are getting the one or two that have ripened. The blueberries look so pretty and the echinacea is growing well. The days that the sun has come out has really boosted their growth.
In animal news we have moved the ducks from their little space in the garden to down by the pond where they get to roam free all day and sometimes all night long. They often don't want to come in at night. But I just hope their stupidity won't come back to bite them in the butt. (Pun intended)
One of the benefits of their roaming free and getting to eat TONS of greens and tons of slugs is the incredible color of their eggs! I just cracked one open yesterday and about fell over!! The picture says it all. The duck egg is the top one, chicken egg below.
BTW...the reason I'm not blogging much anymore is because I don't have internet at home any longer. I can check email on my phone, which keeps me connected, but I do nothing else at home. We go to the library for other internet needs and my time is limited. This was our choice and I was a little nervous at first but have decided that I really do like it a lot!!
I hope your summer is going well and from what I've heard everybody else is actually having a summer. Enjoy!
On Saturday we butchered 7 hens and a rooster. These 7 hens are from our old flock and they range in age from 3 1/2 years to 1 1/2 years. It had been awhile since we butchered and even though I had don it before I needed to reacquaint myself with the procedure. By the last couple birds I think I was completing the process in under 30 minutes. We still have nearly 30 to do and I am hoping the next Saturday I'll be able to double the number we process. It feels good to be able to put meat in the freezer like that. Sorry I didn't take pictures. My hands were too messy.
I haven't read any Wendall Berry except a tid bit now and again. James has read a lot, but I just haven't had time, nor the interest to create the time. But Wendall Berry had a new book come out just last year titled, "Bringing It To The Table". It peaked my interest and so I checked it out at the library. If you aren't familiar with Wendall Berry his books are compilations of essays that he has written over the years and all fit under the heading of what becomes the title of the book. Some of the essays in this book are from the 70's, some from early 2000's. There is one that I found very interesting and wanted to share. Sorry for it's length, I'll try not to tye out the whole thing.
Stupidity in Concentration (2002) I. Confinement, Concentration, Separation My task here is to show the great stupidity of industrial animal production. Factory farms, like this essay, have the aim of cramming as much as possible into as small a space as possible. To understand these animal factories, we need to keep in mind three principles: confinement, concentration, and separation. The principle of confinement in so called animal science is derived from the industrial version of efficiency. The designers of animal factories appear to have had in mind the example of concentration camps or prisons, the aim of which is to house and feed the greatest number in the smallest space at the least expense of money, labor, and attention. To subject innocent creatures to such treatment has long been recognized as heartless. Animal factories make an economic virtue of heartlessness toward domestic animals, to which humans owe instead a large debt of respect and gratitude. The defenders of animal factores typically assume, or wish others to assume, that these facilities concentrate animals only. But that is not so. They also concentrate the excrement of the animals--to which, when properly dispersed, is a valuable source of fertility, but, when concentrated, is at best a waste, at worst a poison. Perhaps even more dangerous is the inevitability that large concentrations of animals will invite concentrations of disease organisms, which in turn require concentrated and continuous use of antibiotics. And here the issue enlarges beyond the ecological problem to what some scientists think of as an evolutionary problem: The animal factory becomes a breeding ground for treatment-resistant pathogens, exactly as large field monoculture become breeding grounds for pesticide-resistant pests. I won't write more. It's too long but you get a glimpse. The essay is truly well written and the book GREAT. I highly recommend it.
I have one more bed that has space and I'm trying to decide exactly what I want in it. I also am waiting to get the tomatoes and peppers in. Yes, I want to try again. They are such a longed for garden fruit that I cannot give up. If you've ever grown tomatoes with any success, you know what I mean. I'm going to buy starts in a week or so from the farmer's market and plant them under little tents.
Here is what I've got in:
radishes
snow peas
spinach
leaf lettuce
kale
onion
broccoli
carrots
bush beans
pole beans
slicing cucumber
pickling cucumber
lemon cucumber
cabbage
beets
celery
leeks
cilantro
dill
thyme
Each of the 3 older children have their own little plot. Joseph just wanted to help me with all of mine.
Now if I can just get them to grow. For some reason I really struggle with getting greens to grow. I don't know what I could be doing wrong. I've heard this is the best climate for growing these things and we use them ALL the time. I sure would like to be able to grow my own spinach and lettuce! I've just started to saute greens with onion and mushrooms on a regular basis and would love to start growing such things as kale, arugula and collard greens. But I'm not having much luck. Argh! I planted spinach, lettuce and kale at the end of March and I should be picking it now I would think but it just hasn't done much. It's up but oh so small yet. Any advice! I really want to grow my own salads, and year round would be nice!
It is May 4th and we woke up to frost! Yuck! But thankfully all is well in the garden. Over the last week I've worked really hard getting the beds all ready. I doubled the size of my garden beds this year from 6 to 12! I'm really excited. I have greens coming up now, plus peas and radishes. I hope this cold spell (to last a couple nights) won't slow things down too much.Here are the blueberries blooming!
And my one lone chive plant. I love spring but am really looking forward to summer!!!
Our big dog Killick, has had a chicken fetish for the last couple years. He's been pretty innocent in his endeavors, until now. One of our friends put it this way: "He's border patrol." The chicken gets out, Killick takes care of it. Our new flock was getting out all the time. I've never had a flock of chickens "FLY the coop" as much as this one. In fact, I've never had chickens fly over the fence at all until this new flock. I knew Killick was getting them when they got over, but I never wanted to know how many I lost, until now. Last Saturday we were gone ALL day. It was dark when we got home and I went to lock the coops up. I walked into the barn (the coop for the larger, newer flock) and found a big pile of feathers, a mass of feathers, some with flesh still attached. This was not an ordinary thing. I looked around for a carcass thinking maybe a chicken just died and the others had lunch (they actually do do this). But no carcass was found and if that had happened, there would have been a carcass. I looked around outside in their run for one as well, but didn't find one. Instead I found a broken fence, as in something literally climbed the fence!!! It was broken at the top and the bottom half was sagging tremendously! I have no doubt in my mind that our dog, Killick, got into the coop! Killick has not been on my "friends" list in a VERY LONG time. It is no secret that I do not like this dog and do not consider him my dog at all. But now! Words cannot explain how I feel about this dog now. I SHOULD have approximately 81 hens in that barn. I've sold some, a couple have died and therefore I SHOULD have approximately 81. On Saturday I decided I just needed to know what he's done. I waited for them to roost for the night and went to count.
I am not pleased to say that I THINK I MIGHT have sixty hens left. Maybe, if I'm lucky. I'm not saying he got 20 hens in that one day, I know that the numbers have trickled down slowly but I know he got more than one. The last 2 days my egg count has been down by about 10-12 eggs, give or take.
Killick is now on a trolley lead in the yard. He is NEVER to roam free again, except at night. Once the chickens are locked up for the night I let him go run and chase other predators. (notice I say "other" ) He has a doghouse (he doesn't know how to use) and he is not welcome in my house any longer. (I might lose the battle on that one when winter roles around again, though.) Let me be very clear...this was NOT my decision because he is NOT my dog. You know what they would have done on the old farmstead?
We did not have "knee high by the fourth of July" but it is doing well. This year I am trying my hand at growing popcorn! Yes, popcorn. It's called "pink early" and should do well since it requires a shorter growing season. And what fun it will be to pop.
This is Mr. Ferrenbergs hop plant growing nicely along the fence. Those little fuzzy things are the "flower". It's pretty. 
Beet leaves are so pretty!
This is a leaf lettuce but I can't think of the name right off hand. But it is SO pretty! And tasty!
We are trying bush beans this year for freezing. And look a bean already!
This is Kelsey's amazing pumpkin plant! Sugar pumpkin for eating. It's is huge and taking over this part of the garden! Beautiful!
