Monday, August 26, 2013

Take Me to the Woodshed

I spent yesterday cleaning the last section of the building that has been called the chicken house, Grandmas garage, and now the woodshed.

This is a project started long ago but it's often interrupted by more time sensitive tasks like gardening, mowing, or harvesting.  In fact, yesterday I had to can five more quarts of tomatoes before I would allow myself to get back to this project.


As you can see, I now have a nice clean space to set up my wood shop.  As you look at this picture the space is 15 feet across the back, and it comes out 10 feet On the right side where there's a divider from the rest of the building.  On the left side the wall runs 20 feet out to the garage door opening.

I then diagramed where I would put all of my machinery and it should turn into be a nice open space.   Plenty of storage and a nice area at the front where guests can come sit and visit.  

Of course, while cleaning I found some treasures; old milk cans, a scarecrow, and even a small little bench.  

I'm pretty excited to get my stuff moved over there and be able to resume some projects that have been sitting for way too long.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Harvesting and Preserving

So far I've canned 12 quarts of tomatoes.  The Roma's ripened much earlier than the big boys. So now we are getting to enjoy the big boys while we continue to can the Roma's.  there are still a kit if tomatoes ripening so I would bet I can double the amount of tomatoes we have.

We have four pints of pickles and that is probably all we will get.  I've yet to dig into a potato mound to see how many of those we will be putting up.

We may have to go get green beans from a friend this year.  Mine are still growing but I'm not sure how much they will produce.

I did find some bell peppers finally beginning to grow so I think salsa is an option here in a couple of weeks.

It was certainly a different summer in the garden this year, but we still are able to put up quite a bit of food.  I'm pretty happy seeing as we spent a lot more time this summer on other parts of the east half of the southwest quarter.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Harvest Time

On Tuesday I picked these tomatoes.
Sunday I used some in a tomato mozzarella salad and canned the rest.  I started with five quarts, but when I opened the pressure cooker, the bottom of one jar had blown off.  Never seen that before. 
I also made three pints of pickles from Grace's garden.

Even with the low temperatures this summer and a losing battle with the weeds, we are eating off the land.

We still have red potatoes, corn, green beans, and plenty more tomatoes to harvest.  Plus it will soon be puffball mushroom time and then deer season shortly after that.

The seasons change, but there is always work to do and food to be harvested here on the east half of the southwest quarter.