Cleaning & Curing Walnuts

(Photo credit)

I like nuts. Of course, I'm from a long line of nuts, so it figures I would like some of them. But I'm not talking about those nuts, I'm talking English Walnuts.

English walnuts are high in omega 3's, vitamin E, and minerals such as; manganese, copper, iron, and selenium. They have been shown to help lower LDL levels of cholesterol, are high in protein, and are a rich source of anti-oxidants.

But that's not why I like them.

They're just delicious. Besides adding walnuts to baked goods (especially chocolate chips cookies!), I like to substitute them for pine nuts in pesto, toast and add them to sauteed veggies, and sprinkle on top of ice cream. For the holidays, my family likes walnuts that have been dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with coarse sea salt for a treat.

Last week, we had the opportunity to pick walnuts with some family members. I was so excited about picking the nuts that I forgot my camera, but don't worry, I'll create a visual for you...

Imagine 6 adults, bent over in a cow field, chucking nuts into 5 gallon buckets, for 2 hours straight.

No pictures needed. You're welcome.☺

When picking walnuts, it's important to wear gloves. Since we were in a cow field (complete with very large Holsteins that looked like they had been zapped by growth hormones), we also wore boots. Depending on the weather, the walnuts start to ripen and fall from the trees in October and November. Most of the nuts that fall still have some of the husk (that has turned black) on them.

(Photo credit)

Once on the ground, the husk gets a little slimy. Apparently, this is completely normal and probably the real reason for the gloves.☺ We came home with approximately 80+ pounds of nuts.

Before the nuts can be cured, they first must be washed.

The nuts are then dried with a leaf blower, because that's how my father-in-love rolls...

 



before being picked through to look for any that are open. Those are discarded because:

 

1. They were in a cow field. With cows. And poop. 

 

2. They make great condo's for insects looking to get out of the weather. Extra protein, yes. Appetizing? Not at all.

 

To cure the walnuts, we spread them out on old window screens that were placed near the woodstove.

 

And to detract dogs and kids, we put those screens up on drying racks.

 

The walnuts should be ready in 3-7 days, after which they'll be stored in gunny sacks until needed.

 

 

Until then, I'll be practicing patience. It is a virtue, you know.☺

 

 This post is linked to The Homestead Barn Hop.



A Garden Update

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Not here.

Yet.

Today, I planted my second crop of lettuce. Funny thing is, I don't remember harvesting the first. Between the slightly disappointing summer weather, the attack of the killer slugs, and my mediocre watering skills, the garden has gotten off to a pretty rocky start. 

Something's been eating well.

I'm happy to say, we're finally winning the war against the slugs. And let me tell you, it has been a war of epic proportions. Besides the pepper plants, the slugs have decimated the lettuce, spinach (I even questioned whether we had remembered to plant the spinach!), the Swiss chard, and the cucumbers. They had just discovered the squash plants when we declared war.

New growth, thanks to some strategically placed copper tape!

As far as the slugs are concerned, I think we can finally claim victory.

See the little peppers?

Now if we could only get the sunshine to cooperate.

Some of our crops are doing well with the cooler weather though.

The beans love this weather. The corn? Not so much.

We'll add some fish fertilizer this week and hope that encourages the corn to reach for the sky. Right now they're not even reaching my knees. And that's not too much of a stretch.

We made our first trip out to "The Island" and picked marion and raspberries for the freezer a few days ago. I didn't think we were going to get any from our own vines.

Madison thinks the "wazzbewwies" are liking the cooler temps too.

Now that the granddaughters have discovered the berry patch, I guess we'll be visiting "The Island" again...soon.

And finally, it seems our strawberry plants have decided to participate in this year's harvest. For 3 days I watched and waited for the first red juicy berry to ripen. 

Apparently, someone else was too.

All that remains of our first berry.

Good thing I was smart enough to provide a decoy...

this is the one I really wanted.☺

**You still have time to enter to win "Ball's Blue Book of Food Preserving!" The giveaway ends Monday night and a winner will be drawn and announced on Tuesday. 

Will it be you?

The Farmgirl vs. The Slugs

In the life of a real farmgirl, nothing goes according to plan. Regardless of the amount of time spent building a fence, there's always that one animal that will tear through it in a matter of seconds. There will always be an unexpected trip to the feed store, and the garden that looked so nice the night before, can become a distant memory before dawn.

But, these are the challenges that make me want to keep striving toward the goal. The goal of self-sufficiency, the dream of less trips to town, and the hope that one day I'll get it right.

Because we live in the Pacific Northwest, we get a lot of rain. And by a lot, I mean we usually beat our previous year's record rainfall. Every month. Most of us have webbed feet, and wonder if our efforts would be better served building an ark rather than tackle another wet and unproductive gardening year. When the sun does eventually come out, our growing season is considerably shorter than the rest of the country, and not without it's own set of challenges.

I'm talking about slugs. Slimy creatures whose entire life's purpose is to challenge gardeners. I'm already working on a set of questions for God when I enter those pearly gates. First and foremost, (well, after I'm done answering questions anyway) we're going to talk about slugs. And flies. And mosquitoes. (I'm sure He has a purpose for them, I would just like to know what that purpose is.)  

There was a time when my aversion to slugs was non-existent. In fact, there was a time when I thought slugs appeared to be quite tasty. At the ripe old age of 2, I decided to test that theory. I don't recall being rushed to the hospital by my frantic young mother, but I do know that these days, whenever I see a slug, or even the slime of the slug trail, my gag reflex goes into overdrive. To say that I hate the slimy little creatures would be a gross understatement to how I really feel.

And they know it.

The "remains" of a jalapeno plant.

Maybe it's retribution for what they feel I did to their ancestors. Maybe they hold me personally responsible for all of the Morton's salt that has been spilled. Or maybe the scream heard 'round the world, caused their fight or flight mode to kick into overdrive. 

They should've run when they had the chance.

The pepper cemetery

See, slugs don't know everything. Sure, they know how to sneak out under the cover of darkness, and annihilate my plants. But they don't know about Google or Facebook. After posing the question of what natural slug deterrents other people use, I was gifted with many options. Some of which were; sprinkling diatomaceous earth around the plants, providing beer for the slugs drinking pleasure, the old salt trick, spreading fine hemlock bark dust in the beds, adding crushed egg shells in order to cut the underside of the slugs, and copper, because slugs don't appreciate it as much as gourmet chefs do. My original weapon of choice was beer. But then the dogs found it. I do not want to live with the guilt of turning my dogs into lushes. So I turned to choice number 2; copper.

Don't use wire cutters~tin snips are the only way to go!

Copper tape, to be exact. It is found in the pipe section of home improvement stores. (Back of the store, on the right~Thank you Kim!)

For around $2.50/10 ft. roll, I was able to wrap copper tape around all 10 of my pepper plants, and the remaining cucumber and zucchini plants. A second roll will be enough to tape off the entire lettuce bed.

Which is where the slugs moved after The Great Pepper Party of 2012.

I only have 2 words now.

Game. On.

This post is linked to The Morristribe's Homesteader Carnival 
and
The Homestead Barn Hop.

Oh, how that BUMP made us JUMP!

A few weeks ago, the Pacific Northwest experienced an early heat wave. I realize that most of the country is harvesting green beans and secretly leaving their unwanted zucchini in unlocked cars, but for us, the gardening season didn't begin then. Even though we had record-breaking temperatures at the time, I knew that the chances of a late frost were still a very real possibility.

That, and I was procrastinating again. (But I was right. We did have a late frost. So my procrastination turned into intuition. I'm makin' lemonade here...☺)

Other than some beets, spinach, lettuce, and onion sets, the garden was pretty bare. So today we decided to git 'er done. When in git 'er done mode, a few bumps along the way are to be expected. Some of them are minor. Some however, can be real game-changers and you never know how the day is going to end. You just pray that it ends as quickly and painlessly as possible.

The new garden area

In April, my Mister and I plowed a new garden area for corn, potatoes, and sunflowers. The boys then put up a temporary electric fence to persuade the cows to keep off the freshly tilled ground. A few days ago, they put up the permanent field fencing and electric tape while I was running errands in town. Today I realized the problem. Look closely at the above picture. See it? Look closer. Try looking at all 4 sides of the fencing. See it yet? No?

There is no gate. None. Nada. Bump #1~In order for me to plant the garden, I would need to climb over the wooden fence and try not to get hung up on the electric wire on the other side. And to get out? Here's the thing. Oompa-loompa's don't climb. I would have better luck trying to dig under the fence than trying to scale it.

So I fixed it.

Actually, I had my son fix it...with a chainsaw.

Or so we thought.

The electric wire? It has to stay. Which doesn't leave much room for rolling a wheelbarrow into the garden. I also understand the term "got clotheslined." We'll call this Bump #2. So for now, the corn, potatoes, and sunflowers are still in seed form.

On my counter.

The kids and I decided to let the responsible party fix the wire first, so we opted to plant the main garden instead. Since we had covered the raised beds that were built last year, there would be no weeds to pull, dirt to fluff, or fences to chainsaw through.

Meet Bump #3.

Bump #3 made us jump.

This bump was ominous. And it was in the garden. It was loud. And it was angry. It also decided to use some intimidation tactics by swarming around our heads~the equivalent of an almost drive-by shooting in bee behavior.

Same swarm, different branch

 
Since I was sporting my trusty tie-dyed skirt and didn't fancy a stinger in my nether region, I called in the big guns.

My beekeeping Mister and his beekeeping brother

Hive #3~secured.

Planting a garden is exhausting. I'm not sure what I've done today, but I am sure I've done all I can. 

Except for planting the garden.

That will have to wait for another day.☺

ain't nothin' but strong...

 After starting last week with a little snow and ending with a lot of rain, the sun finally came out to lift our winter blues a bit. And I mean just a bit. We had exactly 2 hours of shining sun, but I took full advantage...

Perfect for growing herbs on my back porch!

See that yellow strip in the corner that says "Easy Assembly?"

They lied.

In the box was a million different pieces for my Easy Assembly greenhouse, and no written directions on how to build it. Just a ripped in half drawing with only some of the parts labeled. 

After a quick pep-talk that went a little like this: "You is kind. You is smart. You is important," I dug in.

Then I called for reinforcements. Because I'm a teacher and this is what us home school Mommas like to refer to as a "teachable moment."

Ya, that was the reason.

Tanner putting the right brackets on...after removing the wrong brackets someone else had installed.

Then we called in the big guns. He's college educated, which worked to my advantage.

Kody is not only smart, he's tall. Which translates to "able to put plastic cover on top of frame."

Guess what I'll be doing this week?

The worm farm seems to be enjoying the new greenhouse.

*~*~*~*~*~*

 A few days ago, I informed my Mister that we were out of dog food and I would be making a trip into town to get some more. Here's how the conversation went down...

"Are you just picking up dog food or do you have an ulterior motive?"

"Just dog food, and what do you mean by ulterior motive?" (I may have batted my baby green's at him.)

(Laughing) "Because the dog food is at the farm store and you NEVER come home with just dog food."

(Appalled) "Well, you don't know me very well, do you?"

(Very seriously) "Just in case the chicks are in, can you just be strong? Just this once?"

Looking my Mister in the eye, I said, "Ha! Strong is all I know how to be!"

Meet the new kids on the block. I'm calling them The Dirty Dozen.

She's calling them all Fluffy.

And she gets to break the news to Poppa.☺

This post is linked to The Homestead Barn Hop #52 
                                   The Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop

Got Worms?

Last week, we took a field trip to the Portland Home & Garden Show. We said it was for the kids, but really, it was for us. The Mister and I were hungry for a little eye candy. You know, the kind that looks nice, but no one can actually afford?

This would be some of the candy that I'm talkin' about...

My dream pond~very relaxing.

Concrete art

A waterfall fireplace~how's that for an oxymoron?

There were other pictures, but as they say, too much of a good thing is never a good thing.

Okay, since I don't know who they are, here's one more...

Ahhh...My other dream pond.

Yep, I feel better.

Since the cost to put in our own "serenity now" oasis is more than the total cost of our home, we went for the next best thing.

Worms! One pound of Red Wigglers to be exact. That's approximately 1,000 worms. The above picture looks pretty gnarly, but I can assure you, no worms were hurt in the production of our farm. In fact, these worms are like itty-bitty kings & queens. And they have their very own castle to prove it.

The spigot is for the "tea" fertilizer we'll use to feed our houseplants with.

 
Since worms have both male and female reproductive organs, we named 500 of them HErman, and the other 500, SHErman.

Don't want to cause any mix-ups when they start dating.

Pumice and backyard soil

Mixing it up

We mixed the pumice/soil with a peat moss-type material and shredded newspaper.

Old lettuce, mushrooms, eggshells, and coffee grounds were placed in a back corner before we added the HErmans and SHErmans.

We covered the worm bed with shredded junk mail and squirted the whole thing with a little water.

Madison was reassuring the HErmans and SHErmans that "everything will be alwight."

She didn't think the worms would like the total darkness though.

Finally~a locally made product!

We'll add more food waste (minus meat, dairy, and citrus foods) until the tray is full~a little at a time. When tray #1 is filled, we'll start adding compost to tray #2 so the worms can begin working their way up as they run out of food. (Four trays came with the kit we purchased, but we bought 3 more to maximize our composted gold.) A fellow blogger, Clint, over at The Redeemed Gardener,  just posted some great info about red worms~check it out if you want to know more!

And while I wait for my beautiful worm casings to be ready (first tray will be ready in 2-3 months), I'll be busy dreaming about our own little garden oasis.

Even if we can't afford the pond to go with it.☺

This post is linked to The Homestead Barn Hop.