Summer's End

Very busy last days in Virginia.
John and Barb came to visit and we played golf, visited with cousins, and had a good time.
Canned a lot of things from the garden including tomatoes that Butch gave me! Also made grape jelly from his grapes this year as mine didn't do very well.

Walked with Max up the hill as normal and took pictures of the things that we see all the time.

 First is always the waterfall across the street! Wonderful sound that we hear everyday all year.

John, Barb and I watched this silage pit being built - Bill ran the tractor over and over it again and again. Someone else had already cut the corn, stalk and all, and shredded it all and then many, many, many trucks came past our house for three days bringing the shredded corn to the pit and then it was compacted with the tractor.  The next day, I noticed these racoon tracks - obviously a family who thought perhaps the corn silage was worth checking out.

waterfall

Silage Pit

racoon paw prints
 near silage pit

Touch-me-nots

The touch-me-nots are all along the road and they are supposed to be a way to get rid of poison ivy on your body.. not sure if just a wives tale.. not trying it out either.  

Then also along the road, are one of our neighbors' (who was once a logger) broken down equipment. People don't know what to do with things that no longer work, so you often see broken equipment, cars, trucks, etc. in people's yards.  

Logging equipment no longer working

 Also Harry Joe's cows were out in the fields. We hardly saw this cows at all this year, but were many out this day.

Also by the road, smartweed, field daisies, and asparagus ferns.

There are also lots of very dusty poison ivy plants plants along the road as well. We are careful to keep out of that!

Smartweed

Asparagus plant

Field Daisies

Then back to the house. Nelson bought a new car just the day before and he was on his way to figure out how it worked when we walked back up the hill to the house.  Little hummingbird at the feeder when we got to the porch.

Hyundai Santa Fe

bird at feeder

Cabbage

Last day before I left, harvested the ripe items from the garden -

winter squashes

cabbage, green beans, yellow beans, a few limas, delicata squash, yellow squash, butternut squash, tomatoes, a couple peppers, cucumbers, carrots,  potatoes, onions and packed them all up to bring home to Florida.

Of course loaded up most of what had been canned and frozen in Virginia too - a very full car load.

Am now home. Have eaten a lot of tomato sandwiches since home (yum).  Have made and frozen sauce from 10 lbs of the tomatoes, made a potato and yellow squash torte (a dinner), frozen both kinds of beans and lima beans, Still have a lot of yellow squash - may turn that into soup that can be frozen.  Right now have stuffed cabbage simmering and tomorrow hope to start some sauerkraut fermenting. Have some coleslaw made and in refrig for lunch tomorrow.   Still have to deal with the winter squashes!

August is ending

My first basket

Well almost time to wrap up another summer. Two weeks from today I will be back in FL.  But there is much to do before then. Has been a busy few weeks. Still getting my tennis in with a great group of men and women on Thursday nights.  I will miss them when I leave.

Took a basket weaving class and now have great plans (in my mind anyway).  Have already used this for bread at dinner with my in-laws.  Still trying out new recipes and they got to try the potato-yellow squash torte (was a big hit) and the watermelon-tomato-mozzarella salad along with an older recipe for peaches and cream (dessert- thank you Dorothy).  Have a lot of yellow squash still, so will make the torte again when John is here and probably take a lot of those home. Been "spiralizing" lots of squash this summer!

Hydarngea

Anemone

Flowers get sparser and sparser as August ends. But the fall anemones are always spectacular and I have one hydrangea (or at least I think that is what it is) bush that bloom in August and is also very pretty.

Still have a larkspur growing in the shade of the butterfly bush and one that just showed up among the not-yet-blooming wood asters in the garden by the cold-cellar. And the rose near there is again showing a few blooms.

Larkspur

Butterfly bush

Rosebud

Dollar plant seedpod

The dollar plants on the back wall of the house and down by the garage are setting their seedpods; always an interesting sight and why they are called dollar plants (sometime, silver dollar plants, though mine are more brown than silver)!

The Hostas outside the dining room continue to bloom and are pretty sight from the table. Grapes are starting to ripen. One of the vines that had a lot of grapes on it, and which hands to the ground has only stems as birds or other critters have eaten all the grapes from them. They don't seem to want to wait until fully ripe.. so we'll see how many I get this year; there are not as many out there as last year so we will see.

And my one zinnia plant continues to expand and put out beautiful flowers. Am hoping this one is a prolific self seeder!   Yes, most of the little plants around it are weeds.... sigh! Though fewer weeds around the zinnia than any other place in all the plantings around the yard!

Hostas

Grapes

Zinnia continue to expand

Busy with end of summer canning (and veggie eating of course) and have canned many tomatoes, salsa, relishes, some pickles, some applesauce and some asian pears (thanks to friends of Luci's who supplied her with more than she could use). I am planning more pickles today as the cucumbers finally seem to be taking off.  I've frozen yellow & green beans and yellow squash. Made a little zucchini bread - though the zucchini plants got diseased and I had to pull them out. I have many butternut squash and a few delicata squash ready to pick but will take most of those home and deal with them there.  I have more carrots and bunching onions still growing and also swiss chard so will take some of each of those home too. Picked one small cabbage last night and made cole slaw.  They are all small as they also got started so late due to being eaten on early this spring.  Will also have some beets to take home - not enough to can so leaving them in the ground until I leave too. I've only eaten one! Nelson doesn't like them. They freeze well but I have no more room here.  The peppers are just starting to produce too but not expecting to get anywhere near the number I got last year. Butch and Luci brought me some yellow peppers (not sure what kinds, mild but not shaped like sweet green peppers; will use some for some salsa I am going to make today too. They have also brought me many tomatoes as they are overflowing with them. I have some, but few as big or as yummy as theirs. Cathy and Doug are also gone for three week vacation and told me to go pick from their garden, so have gotten a few tomatoes, one zucchini (now oatmeal zucchini cookies) and some peppers and some dill that I dried for use over the winter. Picking her yellow squash but just so it keeps producing and she will have some.. I put some of here and some of mine out on the street with a for free sign, no sure if anyone took yet!

My last planting of green beans is just now flowering and the limas have pods but takes a few weeks for the bean to fill them out, so probably am not going to get much if any of either before I leave, but that's the way it goes this year. We got very little corn, something (deer or racoon) got in there and ate a bunch before it was ready.. We've gotten a couple dozen ears but they have been pretty small. Nelson is still eating them though. There are a few more out on the plants that aren't mature yet, so maybe he'll get a few more. Butch's were very full and he shared some with us - they were really good! Thinking next year, I'll just help butch week his garden and give up on our! Though we've have done better with squash and cucumbers than he did this year, so maybe not!

Well lots to do and Max wants a walk so time to get this morning in gear! John and Barb will be here in 7 days, and lots to do so I don't have to do much when they are here.

It's August

Why shouldn’t you tell secrets on the farm? Because the corn has ears, the potatoes have eyes and the beanstalks.   Har-har-har!!!!!!

Lots of weeds, some prettier than others. Really like the moth Mullein and the Jewel-weed and wish there were more of them and less of the non-flowering weeds around!

Moth Mullein

Jewelweed

 Have a another hydrangea (I think) just starting to flower, another kind of lily, several Rose of Sharon are overblooming (you would never know I cut these back severely earlier this summer and one Zinnia

Rose of Sharon

Lily

Zinnia

Hydrangea I think

There are so many weeds everywhere. They don't seem to mind the dry weather - rainy weather - dry weather cycle.


The garden is performing okay. Some things are still way behind due to early leaves being eaten by the local critters, but things are starting to look like they might produce something. The race will be to see if I go home before they do - sigh

But I have lots and lots of squash (yellow, zucchini, delicata, and butternut), some cucumbers, some yellow wax beans, some green beans, some banana peppers and jalepenos, and best of all the tomatoes are starting to ripen. There are a few sweet peppers starting to form - they are supposed to be multi-colored but takes a lot longer to wait for them to go from green to a color, so we will see.

Have made squash casseroles, have "spiralized" squash and had as main or side dish several times, zucchini bread, muffins, cookies. Have eaten wax and green beans and now having tomatoes everyday- sometimes at every meal.

First 2 tomatoes

canned yellow and green beans

Yellow squash relish and
cucumber-dill relish

Zucchini muffins

zucchini oatmeal raisin cookies

Left handed Day

Left Hander's certainly earned the right to have a day dedicated to them. August 13th is that day. Take a minute to appreciate your left handed friend (me). Remember today and every day: "Lefties have rights!"  

I could swear that posted something earlier this month, but it's not showing up anywhere so must have imagined it! 

It's been nice here, especially at night but even during the day out on the porches.  There has been rain off and on which the garden seems to love!  Onions are all picked and hanging up nicely. Got some extras from Harry Joe and from Butch (I helped him dig his, but they aren't Luci's faves, so I got most of them).  Everything else is doing much better since we put up the fences via plastic netting.  Even with that, of course Butch;s garden is way further along than mine. Since my cabbage was being eaten, it's just now looking like it might form heads. Butch gave me one of his small ones and I made Cole Slaw. Used onions, radishes, the only carrot I have pulled up yet, and one banana pepper - all from my garden. 

Cole Slaw

Radish, carrot, pepper

Been regularly getting lettuce and just few radishes - my own fault for not thinning them appropriately.  Have also had some swiss chard, yellow squash, and wax beans to eat out of our garden. Found lots of small, wild black raspberries this year and made a dessert, some jam, and have some frozen that I will make a mixed berry jelly with one of these days. They are about done, but the wild blackberries are just starting to turn purple.

First of the wild blackberries

Swiss Chard

Yellow Wax Beans

Before heater

Heater cover/bookcase

Raspberry Jam

 There is an ugly heater in the kitchen that has annoyed me for years. I put a small table in front of it which gave me a little more room to put things and sort of covered it up. But have been thinking of covering it up for years. After all we don't use any heat - especially in the summer. So finally I went and bought 2 pieces of wood, one 1 foot wide and one 6 inches wide, and built a bookcase around it. The sides and top are from the 1 ft wide board, and the other shelves from the 6 inch wide board. After much nailing and re-nailing and borrowing a level from my neighbor, it's done. Won't show you the close up as it's pretty crude, but does the trick and with stuff on it, you really can't tell much difference. Some day maybe I will paint it and it will look even better. Its' removable, so it heat is needed, it can be moved elsewhere.

On the flower front, it is larkspur month and there are still many of those around! I plan to drop more seeds next year. Actually some must have blown from the side garden over to the butterfly bush (or birds dropped them, as I have many growing there unexpectedly, though you  can't see them very well in this picture. The butterfly bush just started to bloom this week. The magnolias have been blooming a few at a time all month. The orange daylilies are just about done, but the yellow ones are looking good.   The hostas are just starting to bloom and I have 2 different varieties.  The first of the Rose of Sharon trees are blooming, just as the last of the Queen of Prairie blooms are ending. Still lots of the same weeds also still in bloom. That's about it for today.

Butterfly Bush

Magnolia Bloom

Queen of the Prairie

Daylilies

Rose of Sharon