Never has it been more important to take each and every failure or problem and learn a lesson from it, thereby turning lemons into lemonade. Yesterday I did something seemingly terrible. I finished pulling out almost half our garden and throwing it away. It wasn’t even fit to be composted.
After three weeks of rain, with only an occasional ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds, our temperatures have remained in the mid 70°s with overnight temps dropping down to the low/mid 60°s. The result was nearly half our tomatoes went bad right on the vine. Worse, the melons turned moldy on the bottoms and the broccoli and cauliflower were standing mush. Nothing could dry out. Continue reading Today’s Lessons Are the Gold→
Busy, busy, busy is an understatement, but with all that can be accomplished during the short growing season between late May and early September it’s hard to slow down. With the abundance of wildlife, flowers, food and herbs, both medicinal and culinary, there is a constant barrage of things to pick, dry, can, shoo, photograph, repair, water, and feed. I plan to post a canning update soon for anyone needing a fix, complete with recipes.
The animals here are wonderful companions and always add personality to the homestead. This year there is a group of six crows that come and go. I know they are the same crows each time because one of them never learned to “caw-caw” like the other crows and instead quacks like a duck. That still makes me smile every time. :-) Continue reading Peak Summertime at Chez Cog→
So there I was, caught in a bramble of sharp blackberry thorns coming from every direction. I’d been snagged first by the swooping thorn from high up that caught my hair, then by two more barbed branches that grabbed my pants and arm as I tried to retreat. Having left the house in an overconfident manner, thinking it was like any other day, I had no urgency to remember my phone, a sidearm or my small pruning shears to cut my way out. Cog was at work and there was no one for miles to hear me scream should the black bear come by for a late blackberry lunch.
