Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Mini Horses]

Dinner sounds great -- without dessert!

Quiche is a good way to cook eggs...and milk. Provided by my own goats & chickens. I need to make one tomorrow! Thanks.

 

[Britesea]

Well, I'm back from visiting my kids and grandkids in the Big City (San Francisco and environs) and I am SO glad to get back to the country. I loved visiting with family, but the STRESS of the city was unbelievable to us. Everyone drives as if they can't wait to get to the afterlife... me, I'm willing to wait, lol. The only good thing about San Francisco was the amazing variety of truly wonderful food- even the food trucks are gourmet! I was noshing on filipino, japanese, pakistani... up here, if I want that, I have to cook it myself.

I was happy to see that the cold-hardy plants I've started for my over-winter greenhouse are looking wonderful, though I lost the last of my basil while we were gone... the greenhouse dipped down to 32 according to the max/min thermometer and the basil just couldn't handle that. I may need to hook up the greenhouse heater later since it looks like it will be a really cold winter here. I need to repot the seedlings of frisee, sugarloaf chicory, kale, and buckthorn plantain already, and then start some mache seedlings. I might retry the italian dandelion since it didn't sprout at all. The carrots all sprouted and are looking very good though. I put them into a couple of 6" deep window box type planters and I'm hoping that's deep enough.

DH's foot is finally healing up. He stepped on the stub of a rose cane that had been cut back in July and it went right through his Croc and into the plantar region. It was really deep; we managed to keep infection at bay with my herbals, but it wasn't healing. I got him to finally go to the doctor, who sent him to a podiatrist, who told him to keep it dry (which means no herbal salves) and use iodine on it and stay off the foot. Fat chance when we were going to see the kids! But I rode herd on him relentlessly, did all the driving, and acted like a border collie, lol.
Then, when he came home, he was sharpening one of my kitchen knives and it slipped and sliced into his forefinger. Fairly deep-- I suspect the doctor would have wanted a stitch or two in it... but DH doesn't have any medical ins. so he didn't want to go to emergency. He feels that since the knife was clean, his hands were clean, and it was bleeding freely there's not too much chance of infection. When we redid the bandage last night, it opened the wound a bit and started bleeding again; I got a smear of iodine in there before we bandaged it up again. It looked clean still, so we've decided not to change the bandage for a couple of days now, to give it a chance to close up better.

So between his foot and his finger, we can't butcher the turkeys yet. Hopefully it will happen before Thanksgiving since the hen is slated for a starring role and I want to can the tom (other than the wings and a couple of breast roasts that I'll freeze).

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Glad you got a visit in with the family in spite of DH's injuries! Poor fella...

 

[sumi]

Oh man, sorry to hear about DH's misfortune. Superglue works well on wounds, in a pinch, or when you don't want to or can't have stitches.

That trip sounds awesome! Apart from the traffic...

 

[Britesea]

I've been reading everyone else's posts and not writing in my own journal, lol...

Quiet winter- we've had a couple of storms, but until the most recent one on Wednesday we haven't had much snow dumped.

I just found out a week ago that my daughter will be able to come up and visit us with her husband and son. This will be the first time either of the older kids have visited in 16 years, so I'm very excited. All of a sudden I'm looking around and seeing that more could be done to make the place look good. I'll have to be careful not to go crazy and spend money that we shouldn't.

I started having some pain in my jaw and went to the dentist. I was expecting to be told it was TMJ, but surprise, surprise: I had a cracked molar on one side of my jaw, with a fair amount of infection around the gum from it and a cavity on the neighboring tooth, but he also found an absessed molar on the other side of the jaw as well. We just finished the second molar on Tuesday and I'm still feeling some pain and swelling. Woke up on Wednesday morning to a VERY dark house; the power was out in most of our town apparently. Not knowing how bad things might be, I couldn't help wondering if this was going to be the Big One-- SHTF. The first thought that went through my mind was "Thank God I just finished all that dental work!" Lol.

I've been trying to keep up on food preservation this winter. I freeze-dried a 50 lb sack of onions earlier. I found a sale on salmon and canned up a dozen half-pints. And I just finished making a half-dozen pints of preserved lemons. Most recipes just have you keep the lemons in the refrigerator for a year, but I found one that ran the jars through a boiling water bath so they can be shelf-stable. I hope it works!

I've got my seeds ready to go for spring, and I ordered a couple of Brown Turkey fig trees, which supposedly set fruit on first year branches so they should work in our climate, since they can come back from a freeze. I'm trying to decide where to plant them, since fig trees are very invasive and I have the well on one side of the property and the septic on the other, and I don't want roots in either. I'll probably just put them into some big pots instead.

Putting up the fence last summer finally spelled the final death for our struggling filberts *sigh* I'm going to wait and try to come up with a better place for them, as they were right in our dog's patrol pattern and she just kept knocking them over. Putting barriers around them might work if I can come up with a strong design that can resist 140lbs of LGD on a mission, lol.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Those 100+ pound dogs do make a dent in the landscape with their "routes"

Our German Shepherd has removed a shrub that was in his way. My poor lilac bush has been broken back during his quest to retrieve his ball.

 

[sumi]

I just found out a week ago that my daughter will be able to come up and visit us with her husband and son. This will be the first time either of the older kids have visited in 16 years, so I'm very excited.

How wonderful for you! When are they coming?

 

[Britesea]

@sumi she said they are coming sometime in July. Perfect, as August is usually our hot month as well as thunderstorm month.
I don't have exact dates yet, because she's coordinating with her MIL, who babysits for her. MIL is wanting to visit old school friend at the same time so she won't have to get someone else for babysitting.

 

[Mini Horses]

Wonderful to get a visit! Have you not seen her/them in all these years or just that they haven't been to you?

Sounds like you have a similar concern for the figs as I. A friend, who give me her figs, covered 3 nice limbs to root out and will be cut off for me. These are smaller figs but so, so good when dehydrated. Now, I need to select a site where they will NOT be available to my goat herd. While I would love them in a spot near the house, it is not appropriately fenced and I don't really want a fence around them in that area. Back to square one..or 3, as I ponder locations and/or more fence.

Would love a greenhouse. Not in current budget.

 

[Britesea]

Busy couple of days finally in the garden... we topped up and planted 7 beds-- peas, favas, cicerchia beans, cabbage, kale, broccoli, spinach, lettuce and celery. I moved my compost bins out of the corner of the garden and out by the gate, leaving me enough room to build 3 more beds instead of just 2. I was thrilled to find that our local hardware store had redwood 2x12's available (first time I've seen them here in Oregon in 15 years) and they ended up costing only $2 more than the same size of treated wood, lol. We also bought a cubic yard of 50/50 mix (topsoil plus compost) to give the new beds a good start. My bell pepper seeds weren't sprouting, so I started another bunch... and ALL of them sprouted at the same time. I guess they needed a bit more warmth than they were getting at first. So now I have almost twice as many as I have room for. I've got several friends who've told me they would be happy to take some of them off my hands, if all of them survive.

We are still going down to freezing at night, but I'm hoping the seedling will make it if I cover them with some frost cloth. I still need to plant some radishes and a few plants of mache, arugula, and endive tomorrow and then we start building the other 3 beds.

One of our RIR chickens may be starting a nest in the daffodils by the front door-- I hope she hatches some chicks! The turkeys have been happily discovering their new world since we let them out of the brooder house. It was hilarious to watch them as they finally realized after nearly a week that THEY CAN DRINK WATER OUT OF OTHER CONTAINERS BESIDES THE ONE IN THE COOP! They were running from one bucket or trough to another (we have 2 drinking troughs and a couple of dead wading pools that hold water- leftovers from duck days). They would take a couple of sips, and talk softly to each other about it, then run off to the next one... for all the world like a carload of tourists in Napa Valley visiting the different wineries.

I'm exhausted, so dinner is going to be leftovers... got your choice of a chicken/broccoli/cheese casserole, or sausage and cabbage, or leftover thai food.