Larry the cucumber part 2

Larry has gotten really big. you see, in the world of blog time there is a time vortex so what actually happens is quite different than real time. how ever pitts time is totally different. and when a pitts messes with the time vortex of blogworld and has to stop and check her spelling and grammar? terrible time crunches occur. I try to do as little of that as possibly and when rereading my blog i find the most horrific errors. (sometimes i even click the edit button.)

Back to Larry! here he is on the vine.


I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
The Importance of Being Ernast

Do you prefer a cage or a pole?

Tomatos have not done well this summer. It's the weather. its not sunny enough, or hot this further cripples plants that are not in full sun. I learned how to prune tomatoes earlier at work. Cutting off the leafy parts that are not going to produce fruit. This is so that the energy does not go to useless leaves, rather to help the fruit grow.

I bought the bamboo poles for an exorbant price and i actually with the help of a coecerced sibling (whatelse is new?) managed to uncage the tomatoes, and tie them to the poles. It is a job well done. I'm not a fan of tomato cages, the tomatoes get taller and i find the cage does not support the tomato plant as well as being tied to a pole. tomatoes are one of those plants that can be trelissed and this saves space and prevents other plants from being shaded out.


This is shot from behind the pea trellis and if you look closely you can see a chicken.

Growing Larry

The cucumbers are growing! The cucumbers are growing!
I am the proud cultivator of the asian variety of cucs which are spiky-ish, I prefer English variety which are the common ones. Common to costco anyway. However at this point I am just greatful something decided to grow, and that I got it trellised, and watered, and I haven’t killed it yet. The super small bud, which I have named Larry the cucumber.

Then there were eleven

This past week the chickens were taken to a butchering outfit. My brother and sister who are 13 and 9 accompanied the truck down to the butchering place. All 15 broilers were taken away. Soon we will have the most expensive chicken we have ever eaten. Several weeks ago I asked my sister about the broilers meeting their end, to make sure she knew it was coming (even though we talked about butchering them at least four dinners a week) “so you realize they’re going to die?”
“yes. They’re broilers, not layers.” Thank you Elizabeth, you are a true chicken farmer at age 9.

After they got back from The Meat Shop I was running errends with the kids and I asked them what they thought, “It was SO SAD. We took them away to be murdered! They had no idea, and we hauled them off to be killed.” Adam is a little more sensitive then his counterpart the nine year old, who said “It was pretty cool. They had pens for cows, they just don’t kill chickens. And they kill a lot of people’s chickens.” Rest in peace Tasty White Meat. Until I see you again on the end of my fork!


yeah he's pissed

Chicken Run

Another day, another drama. This time it was the mystery of the missing chicken. Was it perhaps fowl play? One of our layers went, or rather was, missing when the cluckers were rounded up to be put into the chicken coup for the night. everyone else went to bed, but not our hero.

Elizabeth, the hero is a Good Chicken Farmer reminiscent of the Good Sheppard. She left the ten layers in search of the lost one. In the dark at 10pm with out a flashlight (she nearly caused a disturbance in the force by trying to find a flashlight in a bedroom of those already asleep) she did not give up. She searched the yard until she found it. The hen in question happened to be lost in a tree. Saved at last! Elizabeth brought her into the house to celebrate her accomplishment where I snapped this picture.


Of course it would be reepicheep. The hen named for the mouse in the Chronicles of Narnia, the one that sets off in a boat to fall over the edge of the world. If our reepicheep was going on such an adventure Aslan (our Good Chicken Farmer) found her and brought her back.

--I do not know how Elizabeth picks her up. look at the talons, maybe its an eagle chicken hybrid. those are some witchy toenails.

Farmer vs Gardener

I became a true farmer yesterday. Not a gardener. A gardener gardens they pick flowers and trim hedges. A farmer harvests crops and is serious about it. So I harvested. Well actually I made my brother and his friend help me as per usual I threatened to get his tv privileges yanked if he didn’t hop to. We (his friend) harvested beans, peas, zucchinis, and turnips. Not bad. We got some good stuff. I am successful! YES! The nice part about peas and beans is that the vegetable comes off the plant but the plant stays there. It doesn’t leave holes or dirt patches in my garden. Look at that nice bean plant. so nice. so fru--vegetableful.

I planted the peas and beans and turnips and I harvested them (the zucchini was a volunteer plant, meaning that it seeded its self and had nothing to do with me).
We ended up eating the beans and zucchinis for dinner today, along with applesauce we made on Saturday. So we were doubly successful and didn’t let the produce rot in the fridge. Look at us and being all sustainable and green. Its like we planned it.

In the aftermath I was informed that I picked the zucchini too small and needed to let them get bigger next time. Harvesting apparently is both science and art. Some things cant be allowed to get too big such as snap peas because they become woody and tough to eat, but small zucchini is bitter, while big zucchini doesn't taste good either. However before this time my experience has been bigger is better.
see this man? he is proud of his potato and it got him internet fame. There are no contests for small vegetables. but there are for 1000 lb pumpkins and tomatoes the size of cantaloupes, and cantaloupes the size of large watermelon, and on it goes, every plant trying to one up the bigger vegetable growing in the next row over. so much to know about growing things. no wonder some farmers only stick to one crop.

Crash Course in Canning

I got a text this morning, “Mom wants you to come straight home from practice, she says we’re doing an urban farming project and you can blog about it.” Gah! They have found my weakness! So of course I came home and discovered that we were making applesauce! Apparently applesauce does not come from cans. It comes from jars. And a lot of time intensive work. Little House on The Prairie and every other book that exists and mentions canning makes it sound like a horrendous process. It probably is. Out here on the urban farm we have stoves, running water, and fans which make our job a little easier.

.
First we gathered all of the apples from our neighbor’s tree. (She said we could have them.) then Mom, Donna, and Billy cut them up, and cut out the bad parts so that there would be no protien (worms) in our product Billy was obviously hard at work. Thankfully ownership leads to responsibility.

Then we boil the apples down so that they are soft. And mushable.

After that I turn them in the food mill. Until only the skins remain. the skins are in the bowl to the left. They can be used for Apple Cake. Here on the farm we use the whole buffalo, ...or apple.
I then funnel the applesauce into jars. This whole process is repeated until you run out of apples or jars. Then the jars are given a bath in boiling water for 20 minutes which according to our canning expert causes the contense to boil sanatizing it, and then as they cool the air is sucked out and the lids seal.

So we weren’t doing it ingle wilder style over a fire with a cauldron (just a big pot on a stove), but in the end three hours of work for 14 jars. Probably cheaper to buy it, but during the apocalypse we’ll be happy we know how. And we spent time together as a family. Awwww.