Mower problems and second elderberry picking

Mower issues

Well, the spindles that I ordered for the cub cadet zero-turn mower didn't arrive until after we left the city house so I was stuck with what I had on the farm.

I managed to mow the historically "wet spots" (most of them anyway) on the property before the damaged spindle finally gave up the fight.  I needed to mow more of the farm though so I resurrected the MTD riding mower.  It just needed a battery change - I swapped battery out of Husqvarna and the MTD started right up.  While mowing with the MTD I noticed the cut was very uneven so I decided to take it back into the garage and level the deck.  I never made it!  The drive belt on the MTD gave out on the trip back up the front lawn.  So I had to tow the MTD in and do some work on the husqvarna.  The husqvarna was setup to vacuum up leaves in the fall, so I had to remove the vacuum equipment.  Then I had to fix the left rear tire.  Back a year or more ago I had attempted to put some "slime" in the tire to help protect from air leaks.  Well, while attempting to put in the slime I inadvertently broke the bead on the tire. So I had to re-seat the tire!  I used the old ether-explosion trick.  I had a terrible time because the wheel was still on the axle and the "poof" from the explosion would go around the sides of the tire since it wasn't centered on the wheel.  I did finally get it re-beaded and then found a hole in the tire!  So I plugged the hole and switched the battery back from the MTD.  Then I tried starting the Husqvarna up - it started right up!  I was shocked it started so easily since it seemed to be a problem child in the past.  I will note there that I didn't move the throttle to the choked position when starting - I kept it low!  Moving the throttle to full choke seems to create problems.

Anyway, I took the husqvarna out to mow.  I finished mowing the front lawn and the side of the orchard field (where there are no trees).  The grass was a bit wet due to t-storms and high humidity; the tires on the husqvarna really slip quite easily.   I started mowing the edge of the orchard, got to the top of the hill and backed into a turn to head back down when the damn thing overturned on me!  I was able to get it upright quickly and restart it.  I wasn't hurt too badly, in fact i didn't even bruise from it even though it didnt squish my left leg a bit.  The front of the mower got bent up a bit though.  I think it will be ok.  Just not a good weekend for mowing!  I didn't finish the orchard and that grass grows fast.  It's going to be a mess next weekend.

Picked more strawberries

Not much to say about this.  The ever-bearing berries did well this week.

Some nice berries in there!

Picked more of the Pristine Apples

I think this is the bulk of them now.  There may be about half this many left.  They should be ready next weekend.  These are nice and ripe though.  Delicious.  I hope I can get more of these trees.  If I can't I am considering grafting this variety onto some of the other apple trees.

I guess that about a peck of apples?  Maybe more.  I got about half this many last week and anticipate about a half next weekend, which means I will get about a half-bushel off of these 3 trees!

Second picking of elderberries!

After taking them off their stems we got about 4 gallons I estimate.  We processed these directly into juice since that's how we use it anyway!  No need to take up freezer space if canned into juice!

I figure that for every gallon of raw berries I get about 2.5 quarts of juice.

Since we were taking these right to juice we didn't feel it necessary to remove or clean the berries as well.  We still "float" washed them though - I don't want bug juice in there!

Total take for the weekend - 10 quarts of  elderberry juice ready to make wine or jelly out of!

Labor day! Literally - lol

Well, i loaded up my little SUV to the brim with my new wine making stuff and took off last Friday (Aug 29, 2014) for the farm.  It was a rainy kinda weekend - not a lot of rain - about .5 inches all told, but it was on and off making it hard to get out to do much.

More mower issues

When it dried off enough for me to mow, I took out the Huskee riding mower (the one I had just replaced the spindle on last weekend) and proceeded to mow the front lawn.  Mission accomplished.  That was Friday, between showers, if I recall,  I did some food processing Friday night while it rained a bit on and off.  When it dried off a bit Saturday morn I took the mower out and started mowing around the paw-paw trees.  Didn't get far though before I broke a mower deck belt!  That's the second mower deck belt i broke this year on the Huskee!  i hope that it was just because the belt took damage when the spindle went to hell.... So mowing was done that day!  I decided to do some harvesting and preserving work,  Eventually I got up to TSC in Everett and got a replacement belt (and some slime for the front tire that kept leaking air - I couldn't find a leak - but it was consistently going flat pretty fast!).  I replaced the belt and filled the tire with the slime during rains.  Eventually I got back out and finished the mowing.  The tire leak seems to be ok now.  We will see how it holds out over the week!

Dehydration Mania!

I got my zucchini sliced up and in the dehydrator the first night (Friday night).  They continued to dehydrate nicely the next morning while i went and picked more pumpkins, squash and tomatoes from the garden.    I got quite a haul of tomatoes - and I already had a bunch on the porch ripening from last week!  In the meantime I noticed that some of the pumpkins needed to be processed due to spoilage issues.  So first things first, I decided to make "pumpkin leather" from risky pumpkins first.  I followed the recipe, but I substituted splenda for the sweetener.    That turned out to be a bad idea.  The leather turned into "paper" or hard cardboard!  You could seriously cut your mouth trying to eat this stuff!  I pulled the pumpkin leather off the "silpat" dehydrator trays and loaded them up with tomato leather mix (recipe on the same page as the pumpkin leather above).  While the tomato leather was drying i loaded up the rest of the dehydrator with tomatoes!  

Dehydrated tomatoes on the right!

tomato leather - it grows on you!

tomatoes - some saved pumpkin seeds there too, on the paper towels

more tomatoes
and
some dill - i saved about 1 pint of dill seed.

Anyway, I re-did the pumpkin leather by powdering it and adding it to a new batch (which used the recipe above with honey!)    This time it turned out very nice!  I will be making more of this!  No pictures of it though - maybe next time.

Onions Cured!

I checked the onions out in the red-barn., they are cured! So I trimmed the stems and put them in my new plastic crates.

Yellow seem in great shape.

the red seem ok - but the white may have issues.  Mom warned me about that earlier this year.  The white ones don't keep well - they will be used first.

More Tomato Processing

Well, with Katherine busy making cucumber relish this weekend down in the "city" house, I decided I would try using the vitamix to process some of these tomatoes.  The plan was to simply clean and then puree the tomatoes in the vitamix, then boil the puree/sauce and can like regular tomato sauce.  Well, it worked like a charm!  My only concern is the taste and if it gets bitter due to the seeds being ground up.    I did 2 loads of 7 quarts and then 4 pints.

Oh, and i made some more Mrs Wages salsa mix salsa - just did 6 pints (canned 5 - ate one!)

Potatoes - finally all picked!

Was hot as hell and barely got it done because of rain - but I did it!

Letting them dry and cure - then I will sort and process the rough ones.  Then i need to get moving on that root cellar!

Took back alot of tomatoes, some cabbages and pumpkins.  Whew

Rasided bed status and produce. Cabbage patch mulched. Mowers broken

This is a fast update - mostly captions on pics!

I thought I should do an update on the raised beds in MD since they are the main producers right now...

I harvested some collard greens and cooked them with homemade chicken stock.  I took some of the old chicken bones from the freezer and added a leg quarter and pressure cooked with some celery and onions (and a bay leaf and salt).  I canned 8 pints of the chicken stock in the PC!  First time that I have canned chicken stock!  Anyway, the good news is that I like collard greens!

Collard greens from the MD raised beds!  Cooked in homemade chicken stock.  

The cucs and the sunflowers looking good! Smokey approved!

Peppers (middle bed) are doing ok.  They need staking.

Another pic of the sunflowers and cuc's

It was a hard weekend on equipment.  Broke 2 mower blades on the husq and 1 on the Huskee.  When replacing the blade on the Huskee I stripped the spindle! ARGGG - NEVER use an impact wrench to tighten ANYTHING!!  I went to TSC and ordered spindle and picked up a spare deck belt for the husq. - the grinding up of the straw really burned out the old belt - which was already pretty old and worn.  Total list of problems is unavailable since I was overwhelmed!   husq deck weldment repair failed (fixed now), blades broken an replaced, spindle stripped, belt broken (good thing I picked up spare at TSC!), rear tire of Huskee leaked then flat and bead broken.

Finally got to mulch in the cabbages and Kale.  I was scrounging for mulch - even used some freshly gathered from mowing.  

MULCHED!  Weeds and grass subdued giving the cabbages a chance (I hope)  I also sprayed Sevin on the brassicas since many were almost completely stripped by cabbage worms!

Some cabbages are already dead I am afraid.  Even a couple of the big ones in the front of this picture are so water logged they are likely not to make it.

Kale

I got 3 solar powered lawn ornaments for kicks.  I like them!

A weekend of nothing but mowing!

I was able to get up to the farm last Friday and try to catch up on the mowing before the lawn was totally untamable!  There had been another heavy rain like a day before I got there (maybe that morning even).  The grass, however, was dry enough to mow at least some of the areas.

The gardens were showing some damage from the heavy rains - washouts and standing water on both of the freshly planted gardens.  Some of the corn and beans were coming up in the big patch - and I think I saw a cucumber coming through the soil!  Its too early to tell how bad the rain affected things until more plants are up.  I didn't take any pictures of the gardens this past weekend - I don't know wy I overlooked it.

Fruit sighted!

I did, however, get some pictures of the fruit on the fruit trees! I read in the online forums that you should take these fruits off the first 2-3 years to make sure the trees puts all of its energies into growing strong limbs - ARG!  Maybe I will leave one or two on.

A little peach!

Asian Pears!

Pears again

more pears - they are hardy and robust trees!

Peach?

See the little apples?

more apples

There are little cherries and blueberries on those trees and bushes as well.  The cherries are actually getting pretty big - a bit surprising.  Also surprised to see the blueberries - quite a few for plants that were just transplanted a month ago!

Waterfall

As I said, there was plenty of water running off the mountain yet when I got there Friday.  I did find a neat little waterfall on the upper end of "Lake Walipini" (the hole I am digging for the underground greenhouse).  Here are some vids:

Grease fitting and loader pin - found!

Oh, and good news!  I found the grease fitting/front loader bucket pin that I lost over 3 weeks ago!  I was out mowing near the sheep pasture and it was uncovered by a previous pass by the mower - laying there in the weeds!  I was able to re-install it after I went to the local hardware store to get a new snap-ring for it.  Also, while re-installing it I found out why it came off - the ring slot in the pin is too close to the sleeve the pin sits in and it doesn't let the snap-ring seat correctly in its notch.  Once I get my lathe up and running I may be able to make the notch wider and fix that problem!

Grease fitting pin for tractor front loader - found!

Those are the highlights for the weekend.  Mostly.  I did fix the Huskee mower (installed the blade deck belt), repaired and re-broke the Husqvarna (I broke a bushing mount of one of the blades  - I need to get another one - Kubota or TSC might carry these?).  Oh, and while moving some old brush with the tractor I inadvertently backed up and jammed a limb into the cooling fan (and radiator?)  After that I noticed the smell of antifreeze and small amount of steam from the front of the tractor.  Sigh.

I removed some more of the barbed wire fence above the orchard and below the garden and mowed the brush down in those areas.   Accidentally mowed over a snake.  I have no idea what kind.  Mower chopped him up pretty quick.  Not pretty.  I did lots of trimming around using the push mower.  I did as much of the elderberries as I could but it was so wet there; the water was deeper than the mower blades!