Gooseberries and Lettuce! Oh, My!

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I just noticed, all of my pictures are cut off on the right side. Must be the layout. When things slow down, Cyn, I am emailing you! LOL

If you saw my refrigerator, you'd gasp, then laugh. All you can see is bags of lettuce! A quick visit at my parent's home yesterday evening turned into two hours of harvesting and washing their lettuce crop. And if you'd seen my dad's puppy dog eyes, you'd have come home with all this as well. LOL





Dad wanted it washed up 'just so' as he always does. My dad's perfectionist tendencies used to annoy me. Now I just appreciate his attention to detail and that he cares enough to do everything he does in the best way possible. I like that as well, but I do my best to find balance. However, he was his house and his lettuce, so we washed a lot of lettuce in a particular way which took longer.

All that being so, we got home much later than anticipated, didn't get to the things we'd planned on, and I spent several hours attempting to dry lettuce and find a way to store it! This pile was 5 feet long and a foot high in the middle. On the way home we picked up some of those 'green bags' so it would not all go to waste.





So I was up til midnight last night, and still had to leave most of the lettuce out. I kid you not, I was BLOW DRYING LETTUCE! LOL

Today, while trying to do a day of rest, instead I find myself trying to figure out what to do with about 20 gallons of gooseberries.

But it has been so long since I've even had time to post that it has been bugging the heck out of me. So I quit working on 6 pies, turned off the audio book of Gulliver's Travels (Have you seen those cool Playaway pre-loaded digital audio books? We checked one out of the library.), and am coming to sit down and try to put in all the stuff we've been doing all week.

I'll try to get in the highlights in one post here...

Last Friday we had a different sort of get-together. Movie night!





Some even dressed the part. I loved this!





Of course we had to look at the garden first. This is what tired people who don't want to trudge up and down a hill do...





And a great movie, complete with popcorn and general silliness.





Last Saturday we did pretty well with resting. I am sure you can all imagine how hard it is to not do anything when it is this time of year! (Today a great example!)

I did walk around and document every crop we had going. This is the only journal I have at this point, so I am keeping track of what is planted and how it's doing by weekly photos. I won't bore you with them today. LOL

Except.... I am getting excited about trying fennel bulbs. I also think I may try to naturalize some of them. I hear they grow in the wild like crazy, so it would be nice to be able to harvest the bulbs without taking up garden space. 'Nother experiment to try.





Monday morning we finished picking cherries. Not enough left to warrant another trip. I decided to try Cherry Cafloutie - sort of. I changed up the recipe and threw it together in the blender. It ended up being rather custardy and needed more custard to the cherries, in ratio, but it was delicious!





More pruning and training the vineyard. It's looking pretty good! Stopped for a one-sided swallow tail butterfly.





And to see how that nest of eggs in the kiwi arbor is doing. Not sure what kind of bird this is. I wish I knew more bird species.





Then we decided to tackle the gooseberries.









We got two gallons off the first bush. They really produce well. They are only about 3' high and 3' across, and I give them no care. After this, we decided to let them mature just a little longer, as I felt they were still too unripe.





We got a grain mill in the mail when we came in! Michael could not wait to try it, so he got some rice out and gave it a spin! Our kitchen counters are too thick, so we tried it on the desk.









THANKS KELLE!

After a hard days work, we went ahead and swam, even though we have still not been successful at getting the filter system in and working. It still leaks after 4 attempts. I hope to get that fixed some time soon.









Ah, that water feels SO good! :)





Wednesday we had our first big basil harvest. I am going to be inundated by basil, I can see. I did not know how much to plant or really what to expect, so we have about 30 plants in a 4 by 4 foot area of the herb bed. We really LOVE weeding those plants, the aroma just fills the air. LOL This is how much we ended up with, after trimming the top third off the plants.





Still plenty left growing out there!





I bagged some up to give away to friends later that evening.





And set about to drying the rest.









Michael wanted to try grinding the leaves in the grain mill, but he discovered that the morter and pestle work much better.









And we ended up with a cup of dried basil.





The question remains... what will we do with the next 20 weeks of harvest???

Back to what really prevented me from posting much this week... When we came in for rests, we sat down and did things like clean gooseberries! It took hours to de-stem and de-blossom the 2 gallons from that first bush.





It was done, but we are not doing that to the rest!





The current progress on the shady lettuce bed.





YAY! We are getting cukes!









Broom corn and peanuts are growing.





A good day's work weeding.





And here are the rest of the gooseberries we picked on Thursday! Help me! I still have 11 gallons of frozen ones from last year. I am going to do something with them, just not sure what yet.





Finally getting the pumpkins and winter squash scarified and soaking for planting on Friday.





And we spent several hours collecting scrap wood from the hill and cutting boards to finish up the potato boxes.

It was the first time I'd used the saw since my accident last year. I have to admit that I felt a twist of nerves thinking about turning it on. So I grabbed it and chased them away. I did fine until I had to rip a very long board, which was how I ended up cutting through my fingers, and I didn't like doing that. But it was a perfect chance to chase away the rest of the ghosts, so it was done.





Charging up the fence battery, it's monthly thing.





While picking up the battery from down below, we checked the chickens. Our rooster, the one that had been attacked by the hawk, was dead in the house. I don't know why. His skin was blue-green. A few days after the attack we noticed a blue-green spot on his skin. I wonder if it was gangrene? We may have a rooster to replace him, but I'm not sure. I miss his crowing, and he was very beautiful. :(


Oh, we had some really nice compliments last week. We were cleaning the dental office when the owner came by. I went out to chat with him and also asked if he was pleased with our work, or had he noticed anything he would like us to do better.

He not only said he was very pleased, but told me that they'd had a staff meeting the week before and he had asked the staff what they thought. They all were pleased. As a matter of fact, one had set a 'trap' to see if we'd get it. She said the whole time the other cleaning lady had been there, she'd never gotten it, but we did the very first time. (I wish I knew what trap she'd set. LOL)

Well, those are some highlights of the last week. I am undertaking canning.

Wishing I had a canning mentor...

Faith

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Don't You Just Love Spring Skies?

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Because yesterday was a little frustrating, I'm starting off the entry with a happy picture. Give me blue skies with puffy clouds and I am a happy camper!





When I crossed off yesterday's first list item, I crossed too soon. We did not get the fixtures in as planned.

Well, we did get them in, twice, and had to take the skimmer out again. We are having the toughest time getting it to seal, and it leaks terribly.

Here are the holes for the skimmer intake and the filtered output.





Cutting them out with a razor blade.









And screwing in the plate as we hopefully anticipate a tight seal.





After two failed efforts and an hour of showers, we lost motivation to go (maybe it was only me) back outside and do it a third time. It's one thing if you know what it wrong. It's quite another to go and redo something when you have absolutely NO idea what you did wrong the other two times, therefore fully anticipate a third failure.

We did get to some weeding in the garden, always good to keep up on that. I got eight large beds done. And right before dark we put in some of the herbs we'd been starting on the back porch. Had to get them out, as something was eating them all!

While chatting with my friend last night, she confirmed that the biggest sign of being stupid is to repeat your actions, expecting a different result each time. LOL

I tried calling a couple of people for help, but had no luck. So I called the pool supply place this morning and was told that I not only needed the rubber gasket, but also two additional gaskets.

OK, sounds fine, except that the pool was fine without the two additional gaskets before! Hmmmmmmmmm.

Here is that filter I worked on the other day to change out the sand.





The whole top of it had to come off the round sand container.





It looks nice and blue and sparkly, but if we don't get the system going soon, it will be nice and green and swampish!





I'm going to use the sand that came out as root starting medium.





The pile we've got to get out of here soon. But I don't think we'll have time until next week.





Planted most of this 3 by 8 foot box in cutting lettuce again. The wire is to keep the cat out of what she believes is her own giant litter box. It's in the shade so I hope we'll be able to grow through the summer.





Michael's Sea Monkey is over an inch long now. It's in one of the gallon pickle jars.





We lost a day of work yesterday messing with the pool. Today is not available due to rain this morning and now getting ready for office cleaning. Tomorrow is our day of rest. Sunday is, well Sunday. Almost always busy.

Sometimes, don't you wish you could just snap your fingers......

Faith

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Pool Is Nearly Ready!

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Do you think we were ready for a new liner?





Our work on the pool lasted until about 12:30 yesterday. Some dear friends of ours came over to help. I miss having a big work crew. All the extra boys cut the work down to about 2 hours.

I have two regrets about yesterday.

We were so busy that I did not document how to do this project. That was one thing I wanted to do with this blog; make sure that each thing we did I photographed and shared so that others could learn from us. Whether it was what worked or what didn't work.

So I not only did not photograph it all, but I also am getting tired of how I take pictures of people.

It is my nature to not be demanding of people's attention. So I love to take pictures of people, but rarely do I call them to look up. I most often just take shots of what they are doing. But I miss seeing their smiles and their eyes, as well as showing the joyful sides after the events, of everyone taking a moment to stop and smile for one another at the camera.

I want to improve this in my photos.

Anyhow, we had started siphoning the pool Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning it was mostly empty. Michael was still working on that while I began taking the pool filter apart to change out the sand. It was then that our friends came by to help.

My dear friend brought her younger three boys over and they quickly began bailing out what was left.





Slicing the old liner up and tossing it out, the new liner was put in. The idea is to drape the liner, dangling above the ground along the top of the pool, holding the vinyl with clamps. You add a little water and the vinyl stretches down, wrinkle-free, and settles into the pool wall.

However, and I wish I had a picture of this, the pool wall is nearly completely rusted through. I can't afford to replace it, so we are just keeping our fingers crossed we can get a couple more years out of it. It actually has duct-taped holes.

So the pool wall was not going to be able to support any weight. The goal then was very simple. Get the liner in A) with as few wrinkles as possible B) without putting holes into it and C) without the wall collapsing.

Piece of cake!





I felt confident the boys could handle this and I worked on the filter the whole time, but for a short break to share my garden happenings with my friend. The filter was kind of a pain, as I was figuring it out as I went along. There are no instructions on how to change the sand. After a couple of phone calls which took about 1/2 and hour total, I found that you need to have water in the sand ---- water I'd taken out in January ---- so that you can move the innards around and dig the sand out with a little scoop. I used my one cup measure from the kitchen.

So, once that was done I began scooping. Jeremy, asked if we had a wet/dry vac, and since that was one of the recommended ways to remove the sand, he went and got the one we had attached to the studio as a filtration system for the eggshell carving I used to do. It was rather small, so it took a while. But the job was done!

Smoothing out wrinkles...





And while the pool was filling later, Michael went for a "swim".





The rest of the day we picked peas, cherries, and strawberries. A little fertilizing. Did a lot of watering, as it was getting a bit dry, and also in preparation of the weeding we are going to do today.

We left to go to our home group last night, and realized while we were in town that we'd left the water on to the pool and to the garden. So we had to come all the way back home and miss our friends.

I really thrashed my knee yesterday, hauling 5 gallon buckets of sand. I could hardly walk last night. I'm a little better this morning, but still limping a lot. I need to stay off it, but there is too much to be done.

DONE - Cut vinyl and install the filtering attachments back in
- Finish filling pool
- Replace deck board
- Weed and mulch garden beds
- Cut out fireblight I spotted on the gooseberries, cranberries, and cherries
- Bag up the vinyl liner for the landfill
- Spray back pasture fence line and garden fence line
- Move rain gauge to new location

Glad for a slight drop in temperatures today!

Faith

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