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The hawks have flown the nest. Oh they are still around now and then, but essentially they are gone. The squirrels wasted no time moving back in.
Now, I think I have mentioned we are growing popcorn in the garden this year instead of sweet corn. About a month ago Bookman asked, should we put nylon socks on the ears of corn? Nah, I said, the hawks have been keeping the squirrels away, nobody is going to bother the corn this year.
Except the hawks left at the same time the corn was ready to be picked. Want to guess who got the corn first?
One ear. One. That is all they left for us.
Yes, I am a stoopid hoomun.
Today I did manage to harvest quite a few things, however. Picked all the crabapples. Once they get cooked down I don’t know how much juice they will translate into, but there are a couple pounds of apples. We have cheesecloth now and are ready to go. Just need to carve out time to cut the apples open and stand over the stove stirring them while they cook down. We got half-pint jars too which will also come in handy for making zucchini relish.Also harvested some carrots. We didn’t get many but the ones that did sprout are really lovely. And purple. Cosmic purple. Dug up the rest of the potatoes too. There were quite a few, enough to encourage me to grow potatoes again next year. Picked several softball-sized lemon squash. They are called lemon squash not because they taste lemony but because they are round and lemon yellow. Makes it really easy to see them in the green leaves for picking.
We already have a few small pumpkins on the vines. The cantaloupe is growing like crazy this year too and if all goes well it looks like we will have quite a few. The variety we grow is called Minnesota Midget. It is a short growing season cantaloupe that is not quite as big as the huge ones you get at the market, but perfectly sized for two people. The flesh is a lovely orange and the flavor is sweet and juicy. Another week or two and they will be ready for eating. I can hardly wait!
I cut back the comfrey for the second time this season. It had gotten huge. I must try to
be more proactive about cutting it back because the big stems flop over and the huge leaves cover and smother everything they land on. I had two big armfuls of comfrey that I spread around the chicken garden to build soil. I had planted an experimental patch of buckwheat in the sand and it sprouted but the plants were little things with tiny leaves and tiny flowers. They are now buried under comfrey. The rest of the chicken garden is mulched in a thick layer of wood chips. The wood chips will keep the weeds from growing, because weeds don’t care if they grow in glorious loam or stingy sand, and they will decompose, creating soil as they go. Wood chips take a long time to do this but we will also be adding leaves and straw to the mix. And we have a compost bin set up in the area too.Regarding the chickens, Bookman called the city on Wednesday. We are not allowed to start building the coop until we get the permit process started. So the city is sending us a packet with all the information and forms and stuff. We should have it in a day or two. The city has taken its sweet time and not yet changed the rule about needing your neighbors’ permission, so we will have to get their signatures. We also have to submit a site plan for approval. I think once we get that done we can start building the coop. Hopefully it will be a long, mild autumn.
Biking
Have I mentioned lately how much I love my bike, Astrid? I thought I could still love my
city bike, Ninja, but after pulling it out for the first time this year to ride it over to the library —it has a basket, handy for carrying books and stuff — I realized for the first time what an uncomfortable bike it is. It is slightly too small for me, which explains why when we used to go on rides longer than to the library, I would get so frustrated. I never understood why. But Astrid and I fit really well and the difference is so obvious that I wonder why I never figured it out when I just had the Ninja. Well, I do know. It’s because I had never had a bike like Astrid that actually fit me before. It also makes me mad that the bike shop I got Ninja from let me out the door with it, that they didn’t bother to make sure it was the right size and all that. I have not been back to the shop I got the Ninja from since I bought it, and I will never go back to it or one of their many locations ever again.Anyway, Astrid. I love her dearly.
We had a really fantastic ride yesterday. It was the usual training route. The day was one of heat and tropical humidity. At 7 a.m. it was already 70F/21C with humidity somewhere around 70% or more. One of the great things about cycling is you generate your own breeze when you ride so even while I sweat a lot, as long as I keep moving I don’t feel how hot and humid it is. When I have to stop for a traffic light though, I am suddenly one big puddle. So I guess you could say the hot and humid weather encourages me to keep moving.
And move I did! Last week I was so thrilled to have finally averaged 15mph/24kph. When I began my ride I told myself it was okay if I couldn’t do it again because of the weather. But I felt good, really good. Maybe the intervals I began doing twice a week two weeks ago are starting to pay off already. Maybe it was the overnight oatmeal I ate for breakfast. Or the zucchini bread that was my cycling snack for the day. Or maybe it’s that I am getting really good at drinking small amounts of water while riding instead of stopping every 45-60 minutes to guzzle some down. It could be a combination of everything. Whatever it was, when I got home and looked at my ride stats I averaged 15.3mph/24.6kph and I beat my Queen of the Mountain time by four seconds. Not too shabby! It just might be by race time at the end of September I’ll be averaging 16mph/26kph. It could happen, right?I had a little splurge yesterday on some new cycling kit. I only have two jerseys, one pair of shorts and a skort. Team Estrogen is having a summer clearance sale so I thought I would take advantage. I ordered a new jersey, a jacket that will be great for spring and fall, bad kitty socks, and BOGO (by one get one free) shorts. I saved almost as much as I spent so I don’t feel too guilty about it. And now I won’t have to worry so much about when I need clean clothes for a ride and whether or not I’ve done the laundry. If you bike, tri, or run and haven’t visited Team Estrogen before, I recommend you stop by and take a look. They sell the good brands, have plus sizes, have frequent sales, and the whole site is geared toward active women and run by women too. Plus they have good customer service.
If you are looking for a little cycling motivation, or just enjoy the Tour de France, Bookman and I watched the movie Chasing Legends the other night. It is a documentary that follows team Columbia-HTC on the 2009 Tour. They were a new team that year and I believe it was Mark Canvendish’s first Tour. He made the most of it too by winning eight stages, the most any British rider had ever won. It’s a good film, exciting, funny, harrowing. The cinematography is fantastic. Plus it gives a bit of the history of the race during which at least one rider has died from exhaustion in the mountains. I was feeling pretty good about my average speed, these guys average 24mph/40kph over a day’s ride of 125-186 miles/200-300km!
Astrid and I won’t be riding in the Tour any time soon, or ever, but it might be a fun challenge some July to ride as many miles as the Tour over the course of a month instead of 21 days. I might be crazy but I am not that crazy! Ok so even a month would be kind of crazy since the Tour is 2,200miles/3,500km, which over the course of 31 days comes out to 71 miles/114km a day. Whoa. I’d have to save up my vacation time and take the entire month off! Might have to rethink that challenge a bit.
Sorry about the squirrels getting your corn!!! Love the gardening recap.
So happy Astrid fits you & you understand the importance. My bike (Skyler!) fits really well. I just love it & can bike for miles & miles!
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Helen, thanks but it’s my own fault for getting overconfident! Yay for Astrid and Skyler! Maybe they will get to ride together one day 🙂
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Love your garden….through I am sorry about the corn. These squirrels …so cute and cuddly and so very DESTRUCTIVE!!
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cirtnecce, all things considered I’ve been pretty lucky and haven’t had many critter problems this year. Too bad the hawks didn’t keep slugs away too, then it would have a been a phenomenal summer!
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The squash and flowers are lovely. Two days with golf ball sized hail absolutely decimated my flowers and garden. Only the tomatoes which are in pots by the house fared okay. Now it’s just us against the crows. 🙂
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roughghosts, thanks! Sorry to hear about your hail! There really is no protection against that. At least the tomatoes survived! Good luck against the crows, they can be as wily as the squirrels!
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I’ve never heard of lemon squash, but oh, is it cute! I so admire your gardening ability. What a gift you have. I truly enjoy it but I’m more of a dabbler and tend to run towards flowers (perennials mostly) that require less effort! But I love reading about your exploits.
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Laila, it is an heirloom variety. I got the seed packet free with my order from Baker Creek. I do like those free packets, they often give me a chance to try something I otherwise never would have. I am glad you enjoy reading about my garden. I really could be a full time job if I didn’t have to actually work for a paycheck.
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Welp, I didn’t even know that sweet corn and popcorn were two different things so who’s the stoopid one now! :p
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Jenny, indeed, the sweet variety is bred to be sweet and juicy and popcorn is bred to have a lower water content, dried and popped. Not that you couldn’t dry an ear of sweet corn and pop it but the results would probably not be satisfactory. Don’t feel bad about not knowing this, I probably would not have except seed catalogs have them listed separately.
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I remember the corn/squirrel debacle from last summer–sheesh, was that a whole year ago already? My how time flies. I can’t believe they have once again deprived you of all that corn! Do you think the culprits are the same, or did the parents teach the children?! And I had no idea that there was a difference between eating corn and popping corn–show’s you how much I know! Have you ever thought of using a scarecrow, or would the squirrels just laugh? I guess they are for the birds really….? Anyway, I love hearing about your gardening adventures–at least you get a good sampling of veggies it seems. I saw little ‘fingerling’ potatoes at the farmers market this weekend and had it not been for going out of town later this week I would have bought some–they looked so cute (and I am sure they are yummy, too). Isn’t it funny (well not at all really) how when you are moving fast the heat doesn’t feel so horrible with a little breeze action, but the moment you stop (and think, hey, time to rest and cool down) you actually feel sweatier? Hopefully better weather for cycling is coming!
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Danielle, the nylon socks saved the corn last summer, but the summer before that the squirrels got everything. The squirrels are so bold they don’t even run out of the garden unless I chase them all the way out so a scarecrow or CDs on strings or any other things meant to keep the critters away are a waste of time. Fresh potatoes are so good and I really liked the variety we grew–Irish cobbler. I’ll try them again next year and see if I can keep the slugs away! The weather has cooled off dramatically here but of course it will hot and humid again just in time for my long bike ride on Saturday!
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This gardening business is a lot of trial and error, eh? How many cantaloupe do you expect to have? Will you have more than you can eat fresh? And if so, can you do things to preserve them, or can they last quite a while uncut? I eat cantaloupe (or what we tend to call Rock Melon) and can enjoy a nice juicy one, but they are not my favourite fruit so I haven’t invested much time in thinking about them.
Do you watch the Tour?
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whisperinggums, lots of trial and error, sometimes more error than success! I haven’t counted them up lately but I think there are at least five cantaloupe. They will keep for a little while and I think you can cut them up and freeze them if all else fails. But fresh is always best in my book so we are looking forward to a little binge which if ok because we never buy the melons at the store since we grow them and we only eat them in season. So after the binge, no more until next year 🙂
As for the Tour, I am generally a casual follower, will look for news bit and sometimes watch highlights from the day. But after watching the movie I might be a bit more interested in following it next July!
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A binge on about 5 sounds good. I imagine freezing would change their texture a little? Eating in season is the best really isn’t it.
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I just found a recipe for seared cantaloupe and caraway seeds. Apparently, searing the melon caramelizes the sugars in it and makes it ever so tasty. Looking forward to giving it a try!
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And I look forward to hearing about when you do.
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