The night before last I woke up suddenly, long after midnight, with that strange, scratchy, dizzy feeling I get when the first grip of illness comes into my awareness. So I was not just tired, I was also sick. We’ve had so few illnesses this spring compared to last year when Rose was attending pre-school…
In the Garden: Hello Summer!
My silence here this week is not only because of melancholy and exhaustion, also our computer has not been behaving itself. There’s always something broken around here. It keeps things interesting. Ethan and I almost killed ourselves trying to get the summer garden built. We’re mostly better, but I’m still bone-dead exhausted, and Ethan’s back…
In the Garden: Welcoming Summer
The winter garden is at the point of maturing and declining. I could re-plant things, but I am happy to let what we have still be enough. This way, all our attention is on laying the foundations of our summer garden. In the very warm weather, the brassicas have burst into bloom, broccoli going to…
Yarn Along: Redneck Doormat
I probably shouldn’t even tell anyone about this project….if you were expecting to see pictures of a nearly completed, beautifully knitted Scandinavian-style colorwork sweater (like the one I put up for the last Yarn Along), SORRY. That project isn’t going so well – the colorwork, it turns out, changes the gauge ever so slightly, and…
Nature Finds: Spring
Spring is really here – a little late this year (for Florida). Many of the plums have finished blooming in town, but the Chickasaw plum in the garden just burst into flower. Even the shy dogwoods are white in the woods. The late-blooming blueberries are now covered in flowers. The bushes are so tall now…
Work is Love
Worked slavishly in the garden over the weekend. Three beds were built on Friday – some in driving rain. Two and a half on Saturday. I couldn’t move Sunday, just flopped around on a blanket in the shade with Clothilde while Ethan took over and built another three and a half. Something about heaving the…
In the Garden: Beets!
It was such a surprise to pull these beautiful beets out of the garden this week! Despite my dad’s claims that growing beets is “easy” (I have never seen him grow a beet as long as I’ve been alive), I have not had any luck with them until this year. They really don’t like Florida’s…
In the Garden: Beautiful Veggies
All my focus has lately been on building the summer garden beds. March snuck up on me this year! I was supposed to be finished with most of it by now! Every evening after I finish milking Matilda and the goats I hurry to fork up some of the cow’s spilled hay and manure to…
Milking Matilda
Matilda’s milk supply has been extremely variable lately. Sometimes there’s only a quart, sometimes three quarts, sometimes more than a gallon, and we have to quickly drink the extra if we haven’t brought enough jars. I didn’t used to like the warm milk, but I do now. Something about chilling the milk changes it forever….
In the Garden: Planting Potatoes and Hidden Gold
This week we finally got around to planting 15 lbs of potatoes. A little late this year, but we did eventually get it done. We got three varieties this year – Pontiac, Kennebec, and La Soda. We didn’t till the soil this year (tiller has a flat tire, among other problems), but ran the chickens…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 