Things Don't Always Go According To Plan

Hello, friends.  Happy September!  Last week, I harvested tomatoes, eggplant, lambs quarter, figs, the last of the cabbage, pawpaws, basil, chard, apples and pears.  Pawpaws were shared with a neighbor, and more pulp was frozen.  Another day, pawpaws and a large grocery bag of basil were shared with my massage therapist.  She was so excited to receive them, she posted a photo on her IG account.  A new eggplant curry recipe was tried, but it didn't make the cut.  Basil was turned into pesto, and frozen.  The GFI outlet in the kitchen went bad.  Thankfully, J had one on hand, and replaced it.  During a pottery shop sitting day, I wrapped soap during down time, and prepped lots of paper to wrap future soap, as well as the thank you notes I include in each order.  

Library books were finished early in the week, and I began reading a free Kindle book, until the next round of books was picked up.  A bouquet was gathered for the house.  I took the mattress pad and pillow cover off the bed, and washed them, along with the shower curtain and liner, and dried all laundry on the line.  Lately, pretty much every morning, I find a toad or two under a leaky chicken waterer, when I'm opening up the coop for the day.  They always make me smile.  I finished up a batch of cashew parmesan, when making pesto, and made another double batch.  The switch on my bedside table lamp went bad.  J ordered a new one, and fixed it.  I'm happy to have a handy hubby!  In a few weeks, I'll be doing my first show in many years, at an herbal conference.  I've started cutting out fabric for therapy pillows.  I like to use two coordinating fabrics, a cotton, and a flannel for softness against the body.

As any gardener knows, and Jeannie recently mentioned, things don't always go to plan.  The cucumbers I've babied for months had their first blooms last week, then were mistakenly mowed.  The one remaining tromboncino vine is dying, despite my efforts in squashing bugs.  So, the skimpy cucumbers and 3 or 4 summer squash are all we get from the garden this year.   No tromboncino at all.  It appears we won't get any peppers from the plants I started.  I did find a small butternut squash on a dead vine.  I didn't see any others, but am hoping there are some among the vines.  But, the tomatoes seem to be doing better.  It won't be a stellar year, but I'm hoping I'll be able to put some more quarts on the shelf.  The peas, green beans and lima beans seem to be growing well.  A couple of YouTube accounts I follow have spoken about resting their gardens for a year.  J and I have begun throwing that possibility around, possibly in conjunction with a year in which we'll plan to travel more in our skoolie.  No decisions yet, but we're going to keep the idea in the back of our minds.  I hope you've been having an enjoyable Labor Day holiday weekend.

Late August Skoolie Progress

Joseph has been working on the bus, but nothing is particularly photo-worthy.  He has installed the black and gray tanks under the bus, and hooked them up.  He's in the process of rerouting some air lines and wiring, so he can install the freshwater tank.  He cut an access door in the side of the bus for the black and gray drain handles.  So, progress continues.  I didn't want to go another week without a post, so thought I'd share a pillow I recently stitched up.  Now, I did not do the needlepoint.  I love the woodland theme, and found it in a thrift shop, with one end cut, and the inner missing.  I found a plain pillow that size in a thrift shop, so inserted it, and stitched it back up.  I believe this one will be for our bed.  Wishing you a happy Labor Day weekend!

August Homestead Happenings

Hello, friends.  We were blessed with cooler temperatures last week.  One morning, when I saw the forecast had lowered to a high of 75, I changed the days to do list, and ended up canning garbanzo beans and homegrown crowder peas.  We were out of crowder peas entirely, and pints of garbanzo beans, and I was waiting for a cool spell to can some up, so that worked out wonderfully.  It's been lovely having the windows open so much.  I found a misshapen watermelon in the pond garden, the only one that's made it this far, without rotting or being chewed on.  I cut it on Sunday, and found it was a yellow one.  Not the best tasting, but edible.  The chickens enjoyed the rind and scraps.

The hornworms and various other tomato worms have made a resurgence.  Curious about this hornworm having darker coloration, I researched it, and learned this is a tobacco hornworm, which has a red horn and black lines.  Apparently, the tobacco hornworm also eats tomato plants, and tomato hornworms also eat tobacco.  Though not exactly pretty, they're definitely interesting looking critters.  On a positive note, the rotting tomatoes have abated.  Interestingly, at a dental appointment close to an hour and a half away, I learned my dentist experienced the same thing in his garden, which was unusual for him as well.  Using my sister's link, I'm giving Fetch a try, and have scanned a number of receipts already.  

Joseph planted four o'clock seeds in the spring, and there are two plants in bloom now.  I've never grown them, and it seems they bloom early morning, as well as around four o'clock.  On another cool day, I gave the pups baths in the outdoor shower, and cleaned the chicken coop.  Mint was pulled, to add to the nest boxes and floor.  Saturday was a workday at a pottery, and I brought some paperwork to work on, as well as reading material.  I'm watering the house plants, mostly orchids, and looking after the chickens while I'm there, in addition to shop sitting.  She told me to take any eggs I gathered, and as we're averaging one a day, I took her up on that.  I hope you've been managing to keep your peace, in this tumultuous world.  Keep sharing your light.  The world so needs it.  

A Small Harvest & A Canning Fail

Hello, friends.  Last week, I foraged chanterelles and lamb's quarter.  Though the chanterelles were small, I was able to gather some most days, and dried them.  Chard, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, apples, pawpaws, figs and pears were harvested.  There's one apple tree that the squirrels have mostly left alone, and now something else is chewing holes in many of them.  It always seems to be something!  I've been chopping up many of these for the pups.

Pineapples were on sale for $1.79 ea.  I bought two, and tried canning it for the first time, as I've read it tastes much closer to fresh than store bought.  J picked up organic fresh pressed pineapple juice, to use as the liquid, which should be yummy.  However, it didn't go exactly as planned.  Knowing pineapple can react with metal, I thought it would be the perfect time to use Tattler lids.  I had not used them yet this year, and somehow got on auto pilot, instead of using the specific procedure needed with these lids.  I realized it, when none sealed.  I recanned it the next day, and only two sealed, after using the correct procedure.  It may have something to do with the fact that I used the steam canner, which requires that you wait five minutes to lift the lid after processing, before I could do their final tightening.  For the third try, with the remaining four jars, three sealed with metal lids, and we'll use the other jar in a fruit salad.  So much for fresher tasting.  Ah well, that's why I like to try new things, and learn.  

It's a skimpy garden year, but I'm thankful for what's trickling in.  My sister had taken the week off as vacation, but due to a family issue, ended up staying at home.  We took advantage of her time off, and had a thrifting day.  I found a canister to turn into a compost crock, a large glass garden cloche, a few kitchen items and frame for the bus, and work clothes for J.  I realized I didn't have any appropriate summer dresses for a funeral, and found one, to have on hand when the need arises.  Our eggplant, tomatoes, onions, garlic and basil were used in pasta sauce.  Onions, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and broth were used in a curry.  All the onions were finally braided, and are in storage.  I had a work day at a local pottery on Saturday, and brought some things to work on, between customers, including sewing.  That's been my week.  I hope yours was a good one.  

Cargo Deck Railing

 

This week, I powder coated the uprights, which Joseph calls standards, for the cargo rack/deck on top.  He used the same cypress used on the decking for the rails, after cutting them in two, and got it all mounted.  My sister and I went thrift shopping yesterday, and I found a few kitchen utensils for the skoolie, and a frame for a canvas our granddaughter painted for us, which we'll hang here.

The stained glass in the bathroom window is in front of a working RV window, which we want to be able to open.  He attached a handle I found to the frame, and mounted a cup hook on the ceiling.  I'm planning to macrame a short cord to go between them, which will hold the stained glass window open as needed.  I have several different hemp twines, used in my soap business, one of which I will choose to use.  I've not ever done macrame before, but am sure I can find tutorials online.  If you're aware of any good ones, I'd appreciate if you'd pass them along. 

Summer's Bounty

Hello, friends.  I hope this finds you well.  Last week, several bananas were getting very ripe, so they were frozen for smoothies.  Tropical Storm Debby brought us 4" of rain, which ushered in oodles of mushrooms.  Mushroom gravy and rice was made, using foraged chanterelles.  Elderberries and chanterelle mushrooms foraged the rest of the week were dehydrated.  A reishi mushroom was also foraged, which will be dried.  I canned tomatoes, including cherry tomatoes, and got five quarts.  One jar didn't seal, so the contents went into the freezer for the next round of canning.  Tomato skins were dried for bird suet or tomato powder.

reishi with a McNibs photobomb

Last week's harvest included apples, pawpaws, cucumbers, eggplant, figs, tomatoes, beets, parsley, as well as the elderberries and chanterelles.  The replanted green beans and butternut squash are coming up nicely, and the fall pea harvest is as well.  Many of the green beans are already crawling up the trellis.  Our garden produce was used in sauteed cabbage and onions, spicy cucumber chips, apple beet salad and pesto.  Hummingbird food and golden paste for the pups were made.  I wanted to give an update on one of the garden experiments, where I cut the broccoli back to the bottom 4 leaves when harvesting, to supposedly regrow larger shoots.  Most of the plants ended up dying, and the two or three that remain don't look like they'll be producing anything.  I'm thinking there wasn't enough energy left in the plant to produce more, so I'll go back to cutting it higher up, and at least getting small shoots.  Same with the cabbage.  There aren't any small heads forming, just random leaves.  I believe there are varieties of both plants that may be more likely to do better with regrowth, but for what I'm growing, it didn't work.

I spotted this butterfly on the dwarf Joe Pye weed, down at the pond.  It appeared something had munched on a large portion of it's middle, but it was still carrying on.  Perhaps there's a good lesson there.  At the grocery store, our dog food, and the blueberries used in my smoothies were on sale, so I stocked up on those.  I've been shopping more at Aldi, when I can, as their organic celery is only $2.19, compared to $3.59 for the same thing at Food Lion..  Considering I use 14-15 a week for juicing, that adds up.  They also have better prices on organic bananas and cilantro, which I use daily in the smoothie.  There was a frugal fail last week.  I was especially concerned about remembering to bring a cooler, when heading to a co-op and other errands 45 mins. away.  Well, I remembered it, and my phone, water and snacks, but when I got there, realized I had left my wallet at home.  The trip wasn't an entire waste, as I was able to pick up items J had ordered online at Tractor Supply, on the way home, but that was awfully silly of me.  

We did savor the lone peach I spoke about last week.  Too bad there weren't lots more.  There were many tiny apples, probably 25 or so, and I wanted to do something fairly easy with them.  I researched suggestions, and decided on apple butter.  I cored them, and cut out any bad spots, but left them unpeeled.  After steaming, I ran them through a food mill, then they went into a slow cooker with sugar and spices, which is cooking as I'm typing.  I think I'll can some up for presents.  Though I'm not taking part in the Everything Counts challenge, I'm happy with the cooking and preserving that's happened this past week.  Are you finding good ways to use summer's bounty?

Hooks, Solar Meters & A Visor

 

This week, Joseph hung our bathroom hooks.  The one above is for our comfy home clothes.

This one will be for our bath towels.

As in our home, he's hooked up a bidet on the bus.  I'm a little concerned about the water usage, but he really wants one on the bus too, so we'll see how it goes.  

The solar meters were hooked up, which tell us how much solar power is being generated.

He fabricated a visor and banner board for the front of the bus.  I got on top of the bus to help him place it.  In his years of driving semis, he found a visor helpful to keep rain off the windshield when still, decrease frost, and keep more sun and glare out of his eyes.

This week, I made a punch list.  It's possible there are things we forgot, but I'm excited we're far along enough to have one.  Onward!