| Happy Holidays 2017 |
Redundantly once again, 2017 has been a copy and paste of 2015 and 2016, same place, another great garden, tasty produce and vivid flowers galore, and no travels. The solar eclipse even passed overhead and totality was just a few miles north. I enjoyed the eclipse at a favorite trout fishing hole. Seeing totality was an incredible experience, a sense of awe overwhelmed me the instant I was able to remove my eclipse glasses. Click images for larger views. With grown-up kittens living in the garden shed, I moved the vegetable starts into the solarium. Turning tiny seeds into giant sunflowers or baskets of food is fascinating no matter how many times you've done it before.
Spring flowers draw me outside. Past year bulb and perrenial plantings added to the color show. By the time the first daffodils are blooming I'm in need of the exercise yard care and gardening provide. Again this year I've planted more bulbs and enhanced and added new flower beds. Next year the flower show weill be even better as the plantings propagate and thrive.
The strawberry crop was fantastic with 50 pints in the freezer. A lot of the credit goes to the cats guarding against the thieves who raided the patch at will in past years. Achilles, Bushi (pictured), and Cochise are also my outdoor companions. They are even trained to go on long walks with me. They've grown up to be great cats. They even catch moles, and the entire garden benefits from their vigilence.
Firewood season starts as soon as weather permits, and that is when my real exercise season starts. I get out in the woods early to beat the heat and work in the shade. By mid-morning I'm back with a van load of unsplit bolts. This year Sara's grandson Jonah did a lot of the splitting. Neighbor Todd provided the trees, really great quality firewood. When Todd was hospitalized last winter, I made sure his pipes didn't freeze.
Shitake growing experiments continue to be a hobby after intitial success with my first shitake stack. We have the perfect climate here and readily available wood. This year I'm trying more wood species. Last year's stack was all alder, and this year i added cherry, filbert, maple, and chitum. I also increased the bolt size. Next Spring, last year's alder bolts (below, right) begin production. They produced several mushrooms this year. I share this project in a public Facebook photo gallery.
The shitake fruiting area is inside the garden shed. The controlled environment results in pristine mushrooms free of predator bugs and slugs. We enjoyed heavy fruitings in spring and fall with a dormant season during the hottest months. Neighbors and Sara's family enjoy the surplus, plus a lot of them are in the freezer for winter treats, cooked in tomato sauce.
This summer I completed siding and trim on the garden shed before Sara gave it a paint job, a great improvement of the viewscape from the schoolhouse. Right now, the eave facing the house is hung with icicle holiday lighting.
This year I planted more corn and peas to increase the freezer stash. It was a poor year for tomatoes, but we had all the fresh ones we could eat and some are frozen. There was no shortage of fresh, organic produce all summer and the freezer is full.
I tried juicing zucchini for the first time while making cider. I planted more carrots too this year, and enjoyed fresh carrot juice, a real treat. Rows of fresh carrots are still in the ground, buried under extra dirt to prevent freezing. They are sweeter in the winter, after the ground gets cold. I juiced a tree full of black plums this year, which readily separates into pure juice and pulp. The pulp makes a great baking additive, adding lots of flavor and sweetner. I pull them out of the freezer to make muffins.
Finally, I'm well, enjoying good health, and a few pounds over optimum weight. I had a couple of basal cell carcinomas removed this year and see the dermatologist twice a year. I should exercise more and sit at the computer less. My archaeology research has been very captivating and productive. My research news can be found in the ArchaeoBlog. Well, that's highlights from 2017.
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