Ok, let's talk about something nicer. About corn.

Last year I grew several varieties of corn, and the ones that gave any sort of yield were Gaspe (flint) and Magic Mana / Magic Mana starburst (flour). The latter was pretty late-yielding but I suspect the seeds will sprout ok?

Lavender mandan parching corn did not do well. Cascade Ruby-Gold did not do ( Read more... )

Brought the squashes in over the last few days. They didn't cure on the vine, the leaves of the vines were killed by frost but the vines themselves were still green, they hadn't dried up.

North Georgia Candy Roaster was the most prolific.

Red kuri and sundream were pretty good, sundream maybe a touch earlier?

Burgess buttercup had nice large squash ( Read more... )

Our third first frost scare is coming up in half a week or so. One of these is going to be The One. I didn't do much for the previous two but I'm giving serious thought to pulling all the green tomatoes for this weekend.

Given the size of the trial it hasn't been very productive but that is kind of the point: the entire harvest came from fewer than ( Read more... )

Now for something actually super great.

The guy came and killed/skinned/gutted 5 pigs last Saturday. I tossed a bunch of primals in the bathtub in ice to get the heat out, put some in the freezers (meat is insulative, so you can't pack too much in a freezer), and got to work. There are still maybe a dozen primals in the freezer -- mostly hams -- and ( Read more... )

Yesterday we pretty much finished rendering the soap lard, and I have a 5 gallon bucket full of it. It's a good thing I love making soap; also what an amazing object to have! Overnight last night/tonight the cooking lard from leaf fat is rendering.

21 500ml and 8 750ml jars of stock are done and in the pantry.

Cheryl has been given her meat for the ( Read more... )

Harvested the first of the grain.

Hordeum nigrinudum barley from PR seeds was ripest and I couldn't dent it at all and which the voles left alone, but all 5 were well into the hard dough stage: faust from Ellen, previously via Salt Spring Seeds and which voles liked; Excelsior from Salt Spring Seeds and which the voles absolutely devastated and ( Read more... )

Seems like it's easier to write daily during the week, and when I'm at work. Makes sense. I'm lucky to have that spaciousness at work. It does mean I'm not going to the field, but my excuse is that a little fire showed up on the wildfire map across the road I was going to take into the bush today. We've had some rain, but fires have been moving ( Read more... )

Yesterday was another appointment with the trauma therapist provided through work. The previous time I'd spoken with her it was pretty useful but this time was, if I'm honest, a bit of a shit-show.

I used the term partner. She talked about my "husband".

She lectured extensively about how women "like us" think about many eventualities at once, whereas ( Read more... )

Today I got five new first fruits from the tomato trial: those green cherry tomatoes with seed saved from the grocery store, cole from annapolis seeds, the silvery fir tree from annapolis, sweet apertif from Casey's, the wild cherry thing I got from Corrie which is maybe from salt spring seeds, and a Brad which had ripened still in a transplant pot ( Read more... )

My old boss somewhat insistently invited me over to his place tomorrow morning along with another friend/ex-coworker. I've been over there once since winter, it was lovely, and I sorta ghosted him after that with a "not doing great" message.

Curious whether this is:

A social call
An intervention
Or a job offer

Especially based on the other person who ( Read more... )