Porch repair (reposition), honey,wine, tomato leather

Porch reposition

The kitchen porch had been pulling away and tilting away from the house ever since we bought the place.  I decided it was time to change that.  I bought a couple of 20 ton hydraulic jacks at TSC (they were on sale) and used them to push the porch back where it should be.  I got rid of the huge gap between the porch and the house and also releveled it (I left a little slope to shed water though).

There used to be over an inch gap here at the top.

Finally bought some local honey

I stopped at the place with all the hives (supers actually) showing from along the road (great cove, I think - 522?) going into McConnellsburg.   The honey is mostly Basswood.  The comb is from area local to the sales location, but the liquid honey if from further down the valley.  Tastes awesome.

Wine continues to develop

I raked the wine again (or the first time really, since I separated the skins).  I gave it a taste.  HORRIBLE!  LOL  - Ah well.  I will let it develop.  Who knows. I can always mull it or water it down or something.

I tasted a bit - this is the bit that was in the dregs.  Probably not the best part to taste...

Last of the tomatoes? Trying to make tomato leather

I don't know why, but I wanted to try to make tomato leather.  I did what is probably the final harvest of the tomatoes and saw that I had enough to warrant an attempt.  

I just cleaned and pureed the tomatoes in the vitamix, then I boiled them down for about 4-8 hours

Then I spread the mix onto parchment paper and put it in the dehydrator

After drying.  It worked!  You can actually eat  this stuff, but its really just another way of preserving tomatoes.  We have used it to thicken canned tomato sauce - it works surprisingly well.  Just throw a couple pieces into cooking sauce and it really thickens it.

The stuff is brittle and tends to break easily.  Nothing was added to it - it's just tomatoes.

More summer squash

Picked a few more.  Still seem to be coming on.  More to come?

Fall cleanup and trimming around the Osage and Gingko

Cleaned up around the osage and gingko - trimmed the trees a bit to fit into the cages better.    Replaced all of the little cages around the osage with big cages and put the little cages around the gingko. 

Trimmed around the Blackberries too

Going to have to put cages around these little cherry trees too

Gingko (row on the left) and osage (on the right) with new cages and cleaned up

Mulching the fruit trees - making sure everyone has tree cages

But first - wine update!

I pressed the residual juice from the grapes and continued the fermentation process with my wine!

It's fermenting!  The cloudiness is from the pectin.  Now I am thinking that I didn't add pectinase!  Oh well, It will be ok.

Fruit tree care

I finally got some time to put some of the mulch around the fruit trees!  It took a lot, but I still have some left!

The mulch pile is a lot smaller now!

Wood chips, and first picking of the strawberries this year!

Wood chips

I finally got around to using the woodchipper again - first time since I "refurbished" it.  It works much nicer now!

I made about 2 cubic yards of chips.  I used them on the strawberries and blueberries.

Mulched the new blueberries

They are blooming!

Mulched the new strawberries

Strawberry Progress

The old strawberries are getting closer to ripe!  There are lots of them on the plants, but there are lots of them being eaten by critters too.

These plants are taking over the world with those runners!

First picking of the berries!

Smoe are still a bit green here, but they would be gone if I waited until next weekend!

Tree damages

Well, some kind of critter, probably a ground hog, (maybe a rabbit?), has been gnawing on the base of some of my trees!

I put chicken mesh wire around the base of these tree cages to stop whatever is doing this damage.

Weird

Also, something is snipping OFF some of my new trees!  At least 3 of the osage orange have been cut off about 3-4 inches from the ground!   I am betting on rabbits.  I have seen rabbits near these trees.  I made chicken wire cages for all of the osage orange.  Fingers crossed they don't go after the ginko trees nearby!

Trixie is back!

Our three-legged deer is back!  She looks pregnant!  We hadn't seen her for quite sometime and thought she didn't survive the winter, but she showed up one day all of the sudden!  

Shes hard to see in these photos, but she is there!

Cherries are ripening!

They are small, but I am lucky to have any at all.  The deer seem to go freaking crazy over these things and tear down the lower limbs to get them!

I picked a few and froze them (and ate some).  These are the sour cherries.  The sweet cherries had some on too, but far fewer.