Green and red romaine lettuce plants taking well

Here are a few pics of the green and red romaine lettuce starts I transplanted the other week.  I have them spread out among three boxes, as at the time the neighbors' pet deer was still pillaging gardens.  (I still have not seen her recently ... I had nothing to do with that, either!)  I figure next week we can probably start eating a salad or two.

green and red romaine lettuce, with a few volunteer pepper plants, likely datil

green and red romaine lettuce in with basil and last year's green onions

last year's salad box, with the last few red romaine lettuce plants

In this last box, you can see a little bit of our composting-in-place going on.  Kitchen waste like coffee grounds, filters, egg shells, and vegetable scraps get put into future beds or existing beds that need a little boost.  Meat scraps go to either the dog or the chickens.  Dead leaves and grass clippings round that out.

No parsley seeds for me

As I was walking around and looking at my various garden boxes ... I notice my two curled leaf parsley plants which were bolting nicely will not be giving me seeds.  The swallowtail caterpillars have found them, and hubby and I counted fifteen caterpillars on the two plants!  Hubby had to come out and see this.  I must admit, it is impressive in a flower-stripping way.

there are fifteen swallowtail caterpillars stripping my curled parsley bolts

close up of the biggest swallowtail caterpillars

 Hubby commented it is good for the caterpillars that we now know what they are ... meanwhile I was thinking how lucky they are I know the chickens don't like the taste of them.  I had wanted seeds from these parsley plants!  They have been healthy and contributing fresh parsley leaves to our meals for almost two years now. *Sigh.*

Homemade pasta sauce and from-scratch pancakes

Hope you are not viewing this on an empty stomach ... first, the red pasta sauce simmering in my small crockpot.

my homemade red pasta sauce after mixing, before the hours of simmering

I don't use measurements on this, just toss into the crockpot and then dip a finger in to taste if it needs more of something.  Start with tomato sauce, then put in white sugar, garlic, salt, dried onion/powder, basil, oregano, and just a twist of black pepper.  Then let it sit in the crockpot uncovered for four to eight hours, stirring occasionally to keep the sauce on the bottom from scorching.  I usually put it on high for the first hour, then down to low.

Now, I related snippets of my dreams last night to hubby over coffee, and one snippet I remember is we were debating about what to make for breakfast.  Hubby asked what the options were, and I said, "I'm not sure, but the final verdict was pancakes."  Well, that pretty much decided it: second breakfast today was pancakes.  I gave up on pancake mixes over a year ago, and found a really kick-(*donkey*) recipe on the allrecipes.com site called buttermilk oatmeal pancakes.  I hope the link works, because these are hearty, stick-to-your-ribs pancakes!  The recipe says 4 servings, but it didn't mention those four would be all teenage boys on the football team, or farm/ranch hands.

leftover pancakes this morning, to be reheated in the toaster oven

There is one big downside to eating real food again (well, two if you count the mosquitoes loving you all the more!) and that is most restaurant food just does not compare.  For that matter, grocery produce and eggs don't compare to what we are capable of raising here.  I do hope the hens get over their molt soon!  I am tired of *shattering* the egg shells because I am used to tougher shells.  I am also tired of picking out the shell bits after shattering a store bought egg ... I have learned to crack them into a small bowl and not over the main bowl I am mixing stuff in.

Chicken additions and subtractions

Several updates to our chicken status:
1) All three of the original "golden girls" I bought last spring have now died (the 4th, another cockerel, was purchased by our neighbor).  No apparent cause of death; they simply looked "blah" and died shortly after.  Oh, one of the "golden girls" we had named Sandy ... and was a rooster.  Hubby talked me out of turning him into dumplins last year because he thought Sandy's antic were entertaining and he looked cool.  One thing I had noticed about the two white hens is that their legs were white instead of yellow, like the third white hen's legs.

2) Until just this afternoon, we had not gotten an egg since the end of August due to molt.  Pretty much everyone went into molt at the same time.  Egg laying stopped (so I took the opportunity to deworm everyone), chicken got fussy and cranky, and it truly looks like they have been having a pillow fight out there.  What is truly amusing is Feyd, the gold-laced Wyandotte rooster, who lost his last sickle feathers a couple days ago and about half his hackle feathers, strutting around and preening this morning when I attempted to get a picture of him.

Feyd the gold-laced Wyandotte rooster

Feyd, "such a beautiful boy!"

 3) Additions I bought this morning at the Barberville farm market: all four are pullets, with the Speckled Sussex being older than the other three, two of which are certainly Easter Eggers with the slate-colored legs.  No names for any of them just yet.

new girls: one speckled sussex, two easter eggers, one possible welsummer

another look at the new girls

Green and red romaine lettuce transplanted

Just a quick note that I transplanted green and red romaine lettuce starts in three different boxes.  Right now, our biggest garden pest is the neighbors' pet deer who had twin fawns this year.  She stripped their gardens first, then came over to ours (along with getting quite a few pears off the trees too).  So, I am trying to spread things out in hope that she does not eat it all.

Seeds in freezer for later planting, too.

Our no-AC summer

Last year was our first summer living here, and we had finally broken down and turned our air conditioner on in mid-July.  This summer has been milder than last, thanks to almost-daily afternoon storms and showers ... so we have still not turned on our AC.  Yes, seriously.  Yesterday was the hottest it has been so far this summer, with an official temp reading of 99F in the town nearest to us.  There has actually been only a handful of days when the temp has gone above 95F.

So, why would we leave our AC off, when it is still functional?!?  Well, this is an older house, built around an old mobile home even (the title to it says it was made in 1960) and not exactly weatherproofed.  Instead of turning on the AC, we bought a couple more box fans and two window screens.  I personally like to hear the sounds of the outdoors while indoors.  Our Ac is an old window unit, and along with being noisy and probably inefficient, it spins the electric meter something fierce.  But, that still is not the primary reason.

Last month we woke up to no power after an overnight storm.  Other than noticing just how loud our roosters really are without the background hum of the ceiling and box fans, our only other concern was warming up coffee.  That is all.  No huge concern about falling out with heat stroke, or even discomfort because we are acclimated to the heat already.  Being acclimated makes it easier to go outside, even in the middle of the afternoon to check the chickens' water.

Of course, there is one big downside to being acclimated to the summer heat ... we FREEZE in quite a few stores and restaurants!  Last summer I even crocheted up a jacket/cardigan to wear into the AC.  This summer I knitted up a tee-shirt to wear in the AC (and outside as well), and good thing too as I had a month-long series on hour-and-half appointments at the VA last month.

So, here we are, near the end of August, and we are still surviving without turning on the AC.

Homemade ketchup

So, apparently making my own ketchup is considered ambitious.  I still say it is surprisingly easy.  Take tomato sauce, a bit of tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, water, and some spices mixed up in a small crock pot/slow cooker and leave it simmer uncovered most of the day.  Once it's cooled completely, taste and add a few more spices if necessary.  Then, bottle it up.

homemade ketchup bottled up and ready to use

Seriously, that's all it took ... the big element is the time it simmers.  Just remember to stir it a couple times an hour, or you'll end up with the bottom corners carbonized.  While I did start with a recipe ... I actually only measured the sugar and vinegar, while guesstimating the tomato sauce and paste and just winging it on the spices.  I also used pomegranate vinegar instead of distilled white, and that adds a bit of zip.

Hubby's verdict is: this is good.  No need to buy any more at the store.