Mr Skunk Took Care of Our Yellow-jackets!

 I was surveying the property and came across the carnage the a skunk wreaked on those freaking yellow-jackets that stung me a couple weeks ago!  He really tore into the nest!  Look at these pictures!

Bits of the nest are strewn all over the place.  It was a pretty big nest.  There are still some bees floating around there, but most of that nest is gone!

Sawmill, tree-cutting, wood-chipping

I started by taking down a bunch of dangerous trees that were dead and threatening to fall on my buildings  or me on my trails.  One tree was in surprisingly good shape so the next day I popped it on the sawmill to see if I could get something out of it.  In fact, I got two nice long 2x4's (oak).  The rest I put through the chipper.  In fact, i put all the slabs and odd pieces I had collected in the barn through the chipper.  It made quite a pile - I figure about 3 cubic yards!

Two new 2x4's on top there

Wood slabs and end pieces from sawmill were put through the chipper.  I have more to go, but this was enough to mulch 10 trees!

I also chipped up some of the debris near the grass mulch pile near the big patch.

Here is where I put the mulch.  The brighter ones are new - 10 more trees mulched.  I think I have 6 to go.

I saved the peach trees till last since they seem to be in a good location - not terribly sensitive to frost or freezing there.

Just a random shot of some deer wandering through the pecan and butternut trees.  Quite a herd growing there.  There are 6 in that herd that I have seen.  I really need to get my trees protected - they will be rutting soon I bet!

The harvest

Decent broccoli harvest.  I keep being surprised about how much these things are yielding.  I blanched and froze this.

Tomato harvest is looking rough, but I was still able to use these.

I got 6 quarts of sauce from those tomatoes!

Cabbages - these are split so I harvested to make some Cole-slaw.  Also a decent yield of eggplant.  Katherine does the eggplant up into Parmesan and freezes it in individual portions.  Makes a nice fast dinner!

Post #200!! Fall is here. Orchard care and wood-chips

First off, last weeks preserving efforts

I finally tried the Mrs Wages Dilly Beans mix!  I used the best beans of the pick.  6 pints

I got 3 and a half quarts of tomato sauce.  If you look at the previous posting I had already made 10 pints of pasta sauce.  The remaining tomatoes were initially too green to use so i let them ripen and made them into plain sauce.

15 quarts of green beans!  I processed them an extra 10 mins to soften them up a bit more.

Blueberries

Well, i wanted to clean up the sawmill - there was a lot of debris, slabs, and sawdust cluttering the place up and its now cool enough that I could start milling some more.   So after I moved out a bunch of slabs and organized some pieces that I might feed through the chipper (I need more wood chips already!) I was able to get to the sawdust.  I shoveled out 3 front loader buckets full of sawdust and placed it on the blueberries - rather thick.

As a side note, I suspected that my sawmill base was out of level so i grabbed a carpenters level and checked it out after I had cleaned up,  The base was almost perfectly level side-to-side.  However, front to back it wasn't - and I think I initially set it up incorrectly!  I front-to-back is level from the top of the guide rail to the opposite bed flat - but i think its supposed to be leveled from one side flat to the other side flat!  I am going to have to check the manual to make sure.  

I have 22 plants and was able to get all but 10 of them dressed.   I will be running the mill more though soon so I will have plenty of sawdust in the future.

Wood-chips

I continued to place the wood-chips around the orchard trees.  I put a full front-loader bucket full around each tree.  I ran out of wood chips before i finished.  I am planing on chipping some of the mill ends next weekend.

I preferentially placed wood-chips around the plum trees since they are looking a bit harsh

Pumpkins are ripening!

I didn't have any decent pictures of these so I decided to take a few shots.  The "Cinderella" pumpkins are in the back nearest the house.

They are a striking orange.

A few spaghetti squash there.  Way more then I wanted.

I am trying to push these on people at work.  I have so much powdered pumpkin left from last year, I really really don't want any more!  Although i do plan on testing the new pumpkin type out and probably dehydrate and powder that.

Castor beans are ripening!

They are still growing too!  I need to put some sacks around the seed bunches otherwise they are going to exploded their seeds all over the place!  I want to have enough left for seeds for next year!  I have only managed to save 5 beans so far!

This guy is about 7-8 feet tall now (that post is over 6 feet tall).  Still shorter than the ones mom and dad grew - those would get 10 feet or more!

Harvest

I picked tomatoes, Kale, and broccoli before I left.  Sorry, I only got pics of the tomatoes.   I processed the broccoli (blanched and froze) and kale (braised it with sausage and onions - it was dinner) Sunday night and then sorted and processed some of the tomatoes Monday night.  I used the Mrs Wages chili mix again.  After reviewing how much tomato sauce I have in storage, i don't feel bad about making more chili base!

Before sorting.  I don't have all of them in there though.  I got the volunteers from the big patch and the front patch as well.

After sorting.  I am letting these ripen up before i process them into more chili base.

the chili base I made from the first sort of the tomatoes.  I was surprised at how much I had.  The mix is supposed to be used for 5 pints and I got 6.5.  I made chili with the left over .5 pint along with some of my old (2013) tomatoes.  It tastes great!

Finally, some real rain

Rainy day

It rained Saturday,  up at the farm.   I stayed inside and put the old canned goods on the oak shelves I made this spring.   I got them all on the shelves,  but with almost no room to spare.

The "clean" storage room where the canned goods used to be.  This became the storage location for the wine making supplies...

The wine making supplies used to be here in the guest room!  I may or may not move that dehydrator out.  

Orchard care

I finally got the spiral tubes that I had ordered and brought them with me this weekend.  I placed them on the fruit trees.    Well, most of the fruit trees.  Some of the cherry trees were too small.  I will have to trim the tubes to fit.  Hopefully I will get to that next time....

The orchard trees have white spiral protectors on now.  Hopefully these will dissuade the deer and rabbits from damaging the bark

I cut off the two dead dwarf apple trees that died this summer - if you are wondering why the trees aren't planted all the way tot the top of the orchard hill (below).    There are two crabapple trees (which you can kind of see in the pic below - they don't have spiral tubes on them - 3rd row from the left) that are looking rough.  I think I will replace them with new trees next spring.  They not only have bad bark damage but are infested with white aphids.

I put a full front loader bucket of wood chips around the newest apple trees (those that survived the summer anyways)  I want to put this much wood chips around all the trees to help keep insect damage down, keep soil temperatures under control and help maintain moisture.

Most for the cherry trees have spiral tubes now.

These little ones need a special fitting.  I also need to put wood chips on all of these.  I hope they survive the winter!  Wood chips should help I think.

Sweet pickled Jalapenos

Before I left the city I picked the jalapenos peppers.  I didn't grow as many as I did last year, so I only had enough for these three pints (I may have more - they aren't ripe yet - not sure I will bother though as I have so many canned from last year...).

So pretty!

These should be good on sandwiches.

More tomatoes for pasta sauce

I picked the tomatoes again - this may be the last time (I keep thinking that though - so we will see!). I got quite a few from the volunteer tomatoes in the front patch.  Almost a third of the juice that I made into pasta sauce came from the volunteer tomatoes!  I didn't get pics of the tomatoes that I processed into the sauce - they looked like the other tomatoes I have shown already!  I did sort the tomatoes though.  Some of these weren't quite ripe yet so I saved them to make sauce with later when they do ripen.

After the sort.  These will be made into sauce later when they ripen a bit more.

10 more pints of pasta sauce!  I used the Mrs. Wages mix like before.  Looking at about $7 worth of mix (I got the mix at Southern States on the way back from, they are a bit pricey)

Last of the Green Beans!

I went down to the beans patch to pick a few beans for dinner and after I saw how many (and how ripe they were) I decided to just pull and pick them all!

I started out just planning on picking a small bag full.

Then i got serious!  I ended up with two full grey trays of green beans!  I would not be surprised if they canned out to 12 or more quarts!

Other things

I harvested the last of the cucumbers.  Those plants are dead for sure now... or if not dead then at least not producing more fruit!

I also harvested more eggplant.  They were a bit on the small side.  The weather has turned cold (in the 50-60's this weekend) and things aren't getting big anymore.  Well, except for the brussel sprouts - they are looking good!  I got a little bit more broccoli - which I processed and froze,  I could have got more kale - but frankly I am tired of eating it and we have so much left in the freezer from last year!  I picked a few bell peppers to take back.  We really dn't need them though.  We already have 21 pints of sweet bell pepper pickles.

I was looking over the castor beans and noticed that a bunch of the seed pods were missing.  I at first assumed that the animals had got them.  I did find one pod intact and shoved it in my pocket so I could save some seed.  Well, as i was driving along to moms place I felt a "pop" in my pocket - starlted the heck out of me!  Felt like a little party popper novelty going off.  The castor bean seed pods acutally explode to distribute the seeds!  I did not know that! Very neat.  But i will have to put a bag or something over the remaining seed pods so that I can collect the seeds for planting next year.

Lots of mowing and some harvest

Flail mowing and regular

I mowed all of the fields down to get rid of the tree-lings and weeds.  This will help the fields stay clear and help keep out the weed seeds that get in my gardens too!  Sorry, no pictures of the fields.    

Trimmed trees along paths and fields

I was tired of catching the tractor and UTV on the low hanging tree limbs so I finally got the chainsaw and fixed that issue!  While trimming up I happened to see these neat fruits in the pictures below.

They are fruit of the Sassafras tree!  I didn't taste them, but the web says they taste bitter and acrid.  Eat the leaves, but not the fruit!

Shell beans ready for the freezer

Finally bagged up and ready for the freezer!  Not much, I know - but I didn't have many seeds this year. Now, with these, I have enough to plant a sizable amount next year!  My biggest concern right now is if a big harvest comes in, how do I shell them!  Even these few took me about a week to shell!

"Accelerate" on top, "Velour" on the bottom

Into the deep freeze next to make sure there are no living worms and things!

Weekend harvest

Not a big harvest, but not as bad as it could have been since we did get a little rain this week.  The broccoli was good, but there was lots of worms!  I dusted with sevin after I harvest this time.  I also got a nice load of kale that I eventually braised like I did it last weekend.  Delicious.

Nice amount of brocolli.  Froze this - got a little less than 1 quart.  Lots of worms I had to remove though.

Tomatoes were good.  Not as many as I would have liked, but good none-the-less.

A nice load of tomatoes

Processed the above tomatoes into 8 and a half quarts of simple sauce.  Not bad.

I also picked the squash and eggplant.  This is pretty much it for the squash.  The squash plants are about gone now due to mildew and SVBs.  So many SVBs its ridiculous!   I might not grow any squash or pumpkins next year just to let these bugs die off a bit!  Fortunately, the eggplants are doing really well this year.  Besides what I picked below, there are many more on the plants getting bigger.  The plants still look nice.

Squash and eggplant harvest