The O-Zone

For years, we’ve had a pair of Coopers Hawks nesting in the heavy woods which are immediately downhill from our house. This doesn’t please most of the other birds and small mammals who live on our property, but hawks gotta eat too.

They squeak and talk among themselves about the shade cloth.  See how they’re studying it, under their feet?

When the babies are out of the nest, it’s a riot. The adults bring the babies up to our house and park them, most recently on top of the greenhouse! The babies think running across the bouncy plastic is great fun. Of course, this isn’t particularly good for the plastic, or the shade cloth.

I went outside to get a better picture, not through a window, and two of the babies left, leaving this one wondering where the other two went.

Still, even if they are on top of the greenhouse, it’s fun seeing them out screwing around, and learning how to be deadly predators. The squirrels just have a fit, and anything that gets a red squirrel riled up can’t be bad!

Maybe something Western, like a bolo tie. Only with bling.

Went to my favorite bead store in Spokane, and found some Lapiz Lazuli beads to play with. I haven’t quite decided how I want the necklace to look but it will be highly entertaining to figure it out.  I love this stone, as it has my most favorite colors and it’s never boring.

Our new gas range got delivered today, and we unpacked it from the box and discarded all the bits of cardboard, strapping tape, styrofoam, and plastic.  Now it is sitting in the kitchen waiting for the guy who will convert it from natural gas to propane.  He comes on Friday.

So, until he gets here, the new range is sitting next to our wood cookstove.  It’s so interesting how the gas range manufacturer strives to make their new gas range cook as evenly and with as much versatility in temperatures as the original cookstove.  The gas range has a large center heating gas port designed to use with a griddle for making pancakes.

We’ll see.  So far, except for things like boiling water for canning, the cookstove actually does better than any range I’ve ever had.  The oven on the cookstove is tricky to use but I’ve baked many a thing with it.

The new range has a convection oven, which I’ve never used before.  Can’t wait to try it out.  My friend Rain sent me a recipe I want to make first thing 🙂

So much to do right now, it’s making time fly past very quickly.

Haven’t taken any pictures in the greenhouse lately. This year we planted the tomatoes on the south and west side of the greenhouse, and the pepper plants are in the middle beds. The north side has veronica, a couple of other peppers, and the corn plants.

The corn is really getting tall (it’s a short variety), and it’s starting to get tassles! Woo hoo! That means corn to eat.

The Veronica is a real space-age looking plant. This is a hybrid between cauliflower and broccoli and it doesn’t look like either one. The taste is milder than either of its parents, and it’s outrageously good raw, dipped in ranch dressing. Last year we planted these in the garden and the pack rats found them utterly irresistible, even the leaves, and so, therefore, we never got to try them. They never stood a chance. This year we have two of them 🙂

The herb garden on the east side of the greenhouse has gone nuts. I need to get after the plants with a pair of scissors and really cut them back, and then next year start harvesting the leaves BEFORE it flowers all over the place. I wonder if I’ll manage to do that, because this is exactly what I said to myself last year.

The shorter tomato plants are Monica, a type of roma tomatoes used for making sauce. The plants are absolutely covered with flowers and baby tomatoes, and so this is looking very promising for this year.

These types of roma will all pretty much get ripe at once, regardless of when the fruit is set, so about the end of August we’ll have to start pinching off the flowers so the plant will take care of ripening the fruits.

The larger tomato plants are two types of eating tomatoes. They can also be used to make sauce, but we love them for dinner, with a pinch of salt. We’re very much looking forward to these getting ripe, within the next couple of weeks.  The cages aren’t tall enough, evidently, and the upper branches have all fallen over, bending at the upper most ring of the cage.

This is one of our peppers which are just now starting to form. The plants are also covered with flowers and that bodes well for having an abundance of peppers for eating the cooking in a week or two.

We picked more fruit today, two large heaping bowls of pie cherries, one heaping bowl of josta berries, and I harvested most of chocolate mint that was ready to be picked. I have already put that away for drying. Hopefully the plants will get with the program and give me another good amount for harvesting in another month or so. Mint plants aren’t particularly freaked out by a frost, so the plants should have until sometime in October to grow more tall branches. It easy to dry. Simply cut notches in the sides of a brown paper bag, stand the branches up in the bottom of the bag and staple the top shut, and then put it somewhere to dry. The notches give lots of air circulation in the bag, and it stays dark for the leaves to retain their color. Once the leaves are dry, crumble them off the branches and put them in a plastic bag. This makes the best tea!

We really need to start harvesting swiss chard. The leaves are huge! But we will have at least this much cherries and josta berries again tomorow to clean and freeze.

The hummingbirds are way down in number; and they appear to be leaving several weeks earlier than usual. We wonder if that means we’re in for an early frost – so hoping that does not happen!!! The yellow wax beans are just now getting ready to bloom, and Dan thinned the carrots and beets today. They are both growing really well this year. And finally the cucumber plants are starting to take off. An early frost will not be kind to any of those plants.

The choke cherries are getting ripe all along the river, and the bears are tearing the plants up.  They really rip/tear/shred the bushes, without regard for how the bushes might be feeling.   The choke cherries get ripe at the lower elevations first, and as the fruit ripens farther up the mountain, the bears will follow the harvest. The choke cherries aren’t as plentiful up here as they are down by the river, but we do have some bushes right next to our bedroom, so I expect we’ll get awakened one of these days by a bear having a midnight feast.  That’s always exciting.

Finally, at long last the painting is done!!  We still have to get the mason guy to come and fix the chimney which needs to be regrouted, and flashing installed around the bottom to protect the new roofing from water, and also to regrout the original rock foundation in places where it is rock, and not masonry blocks.

We removed the lilac bush that was 30 feet tall, making it more like a tree instead of a bush.  We’ll work on eradicating the roots and next year we’ll plant something a little more manageable, like a couple of rhododendron, and some more bulbs for spring color.

Dan piled the lilac tree/bush branches in a pile next to the driveway, and the deer said, “For me?!?!” I took this picture out of the front door window, so it looks a little strange. I didn’t want to interrupt her snack.   Her fawn was snacking on the branches a bit earlier, and the little tail was whipping around, the snacking was so good!!

The grass on the hillside in front of the sunroom is all golden and mature, with nice seed heads that the birds who like that sort of thing will appreciate, soon.

The view of the back of the house, heading down to the garden.  The grass is really tall back here, too.  We need some sheep, or maybe some cashmere goats (my preference).  I’m sure the mountain lions and coyotes and bears and wolves would like if it we did that for them.  But the grass would get shorter… for a while.

We’ve pick most of the cherries on the tree, but there are still at least several gallons left to pick.  I guess we’ll pick those tomorrow.  Not sure where I’m going to put them.

The black raspberries are almost all picked, just a few left after today.

We are just now starting to pick josta berries.  After today,  I have a gallon of these frozen and that’s basically off of one bush, which is still heavily loaded with fruit.  And we have three other bushes we haven’t really touched yet.  Next week we’re getting a new range for the kitchen, as our current range appears to be dying, and I no longer have enough burners to make jam.  So all I’m doing is freezing fruit.

The tiger lilies are just starting to bloom.  A bright splash of color!

These low bush blueberry plants have quite a bit of fruit this year, but they don’t have as much flavor as we thought they would.  It could be the ground isn’t as acid as they would like.  So we’ll have to see if we can’t improve things for them next year.  I’m not even going to bother picking these, this year.  I have several gallon freezer bags of wild blueberries I got at our favorite fruit stand, and we’ll just make pancakes with those all winter.

Our apple trees are both pretty well loaded with fruit this year, and this poor tree has so many it’s falling over.  We tied it off to the fence and need to put in a crutch for the branches to keep the weight from breaking them.

The harvest today was red raspberries, which are finally starting to slow down a bit, black raspberries, enough strawberries for a lunch, and josta berries.

Tomorrow we’ll pick more josta berries, and cherries, and should pick gooseberries.  Kind of hard keeping up, but it doesn’t feel quite as frantic as it did in early July when everything got ripe at once.

The greenhouse is doing really well.  We are getting lots of tomatoes and peppers setting, and the Veronica is getting big, and the corn plants are taller than me!  Of course, the fact they in raised beds might have something to do with that.  And I seriously need to start freezing swiss chard as those plants are getting carried away with themselves.

Sitting here minding our own business, and a flash and immediate very loud kaboom announced a lightning strike close to the house.  It was close enough that it sounded like something large landed on the house.  A few minutes later we had another one, louder and longer thunder, and then it got quiet.  Mostly.  More thunder while I was writing.

Until Dan noticed smoke on the hill directly across from us, like just a couple of minutes after the thunder.   So we got in the car and went to look and sure enough, a lightning strike caused a fire.

As the crow flies this is less than a mile from our house, but fires like this will burn up the hill first.  Fortunately that isn’t the hill we’re on, but it would come this way very quickly if the wind comes up.

We called 9-1-1 and reported it, and hopefully soon DNR will show up and put it out.  It’s still growing.  It’s really dry over there, a lot of open grass so it will go fast if they don’t get a move on.

Just when we thought we weren’t going to have to worry about fires this year.  Bleah.

Sunday I made Gooseberry Jelly, and learned something in the process.  The jelly turns out clearer if you strain the fruit while it is hot, instead of waiting for it to be cool so you don’t burn your hands.  Boo.

It’s a bit cloudy, but still a pretty pink color.

The benefit to making jelly is I don’t have to do as much preparation work on the berries, but the overall quantity is about half of what I get when making jam.  Still it’s kind of fun making at least some jelly.  The red currant jelly should be beautiful now that I’ve learned the trick about straining it when it’s hot.  I’ll just have to figure out a way to keep my hands from bring burned.

Trim color is being changed from pink to yellow.

The upper story needs to be repainted with the brown paint, still, but it’s a relatively small area.  And the sunroom also needs to be repainted brown.  So nice to see the trim color being changed, and it is starting to look all final colors.  Exciting!!  Such a long time getting to this point.

We have more semi-major improvements we’re discussing for this summer, expanding our solar panel array which means some electrical work, a new controller, and wiring.  And we’re discussing putting in a pressure tank instead of using a cistern and gravity feed for the water for the house.  That is one of those things where we have three different options on where to install the pressure tank, and in order to accomplish any one of those final options, we’ll need to do a bunch of other things to make it possible.  Fortunately Dan gets to figure that stuff out 🙂

Today was a perfect temperature for playing in the garden, picking fruit.  It’s 65 degrees at noon, and with partly sunny skies, it was just so comfortable working with the fruit plants.

Strawberries, raspberries, red currants and black raspberries.

The first batch of black raspberries was ready for harvesting, and we got four cups, enough for a small batch of jam.  The June bearer strawberries are still producing and we picked five cups of those today, which we’re going to eat fresh instead of freezing.  The red currants have all been picked except for some stray berries (there are lots of those), still on the plants.  All in all we got four gallons of red currants!  Ye gads.

The raspberries are producing very heavily this year, surprising since almost half of the plants aren’t producing at all.  We cut half the canes to the ground in the fall, and they are supposed to produce on first year canes.  But they aren’t producing, so next year is going to be insane as far as how many raspberries we will potentially harvest.  This picking is fourteen cups worth.

There are still lots of gooseberries on the plants.  A daunting amount, in point of fact.

And the josta berries are getting ready to hit their stride.

Fun!

Struggling to keep up with the harvest of fruit this year. It is all getting ripe at once.

From left to right, top to bottom, red currants, gooseberries, cherries, raspberries, more cherries, and strawberries.

So far we’ve harvested and frozen 3 gallons of gooseberries, 3 gallons of red currants, a couple of gallons of pie cherries, one and half gallons each of red raspberries and strawberries.    The red currants are almost all picked.  The gooseberries have hardly been touched – yikes!.  We’ve picked about a quarter of the pie cherry tree.  The June bearer strawberries are about done, and the red raspberries are just hitting their stride.

Soon the black raspeberries, blueberries, and josta berries will want attention.

I’ll worry about making jam later 🙂

Almost all the fruit seems to have decided to get ripe at once. The blackberries and black raspberries are the only types of fruit which seems to be keeping with their normal ripening schedule. Everything else is a bit early, and all at once.

Strawberries, raspberries, and red currants.

This is the third picking of strawberries and raspberries, with lots more of each type still yet to get ripe.  The red currants are just now ready for picking, and this bowl is just from one plant (we have six of them).  This is all the red currants I got last year, so we’re delighted!  I think I’ll make red currant jelly instead of red currant jam this time around.  For now I’ll be freezing these fruits and deal with them later.

The pie cherry tree is so heavy with fruit the branches are bending over.  In another day or two at most, those will need to be picked, pitted, and then frozen.  Yikes.  Last year we harvested 30 pounds of pie cherries.  This year looks like it will be easily way more than that, but I don’t want to hazard a guess.  It’s too scary.

The gooseberries are ready to be picked, too.  Combat berry picking, here we come 🙂

Josta berries are also ready to be picked.  At least those don’t have thorns and won’t fight back.  This year we will have many pounds of those to deal with.  Pretty easy, I’ll just freeze them as we pick them.

The finish color is finally being applied to the exterior of the house, starting with the upstairs.  The trim around the windows and eaves upstairs is still pink, but it’s better than it all being pink.  Maybe by the end of next week this will be done.  Woo hoo!

I have apricots to make apricot butter, and need to go pick up two gallons of wild blueberries which are waiting for us at our favorite fruit stand.  That made the most wonderful jam.

I may have more fruit than I know what to do with.

Painting is making progress; most of the primer has been applied. The south and west sides of the house are ready for their final coat of paint; part of the north side has been primed, and the east is yet to be done.

There is a House Wren who built her nest behind a board near the front door, and it’s a pain keeping the nest protected from painting, but evidently the family is still doing fine as we saw her feeding the babies after the painting on this side was completed.  The trick is going to be preventing her from making a second batch!

The sunroom is painted with the final color, and the rest of the house will all be that same color.  Can’t really wait.  Pepto Pink isn’t our favorite!