Road Kill Cafe

We had noticed a couple of hummingbirds hanging around the back yard, so we decided to put up a feeder. The feeder was installed on the yard light pole, that is doing nothing other than standing there. So now it is a bird feeder.

We have noticed quite a few more hummingbirds. Hey they know a good thing when they see it. They are quite comical to watch. There is one bird that tries to shoo off all the others, but he is outnumbered about five to one. I had no idea that hummingbirds fed so often, they go through the sweet stuff in the feeder more rapidly that I would have thought.

Watching them gives me something to do when I am in the kitchen washing dishes. That is definitely a job that can do with a few distractions. The birds don’t seem to be bothered by the dogs, I guess that with the feeder up out of reach the birds don’t have a problem.

The tomatoes are beginning to ripen. Well at least a few of them are. I am sure that the rest will follow suit sooner or later. There are more of the Roma tomatoes than the Big Boys. I guess time will tell since both varieties are still blooming.

I harvested sweet corn yesterday. I figured that, as there was evidence of something helping itself to it, that we might as well have some ourselves.

So out to the garden we went with the trusty wheelbarrow. I found quite a bit of corn ready to be picked. There are still young ears maturing, so hopefully the mysterious night time garden raider won’t get them before we do. But I have a feeling that now that this bonanza has been discovered, the possibility of harvesting any more runs somewhere between slim and none.

After picking the corn I checked on the progress of the tomatoes. They seem much happier now that they have been liberated from most of the weeds. Both the Big Boys and the Romas are heavy with fruit. So with any luck at all I should get quite a few tomatoes.

I was surprised to find, after the carnage the other day in the pumpkin patch, that there are still two surviving pumpkin vines. They are both now blooming and one is putting out some pumpkins. If we can keep the evil weeds at bay, we might get a few more pumpkins. Time will tell on that one.

The corn has now been cleaned, processed, and is residing in the freezer. I am sure that it will bring much pleasure to the table in the coming winter months. There is just nothing, for me at least, that compares to having food that you have grown yourself.

Here is a pic of the sunflowers, with our old tractor for height reference…….

Yesterday morning I went out to my weed patch/garden to check on the progress of the pumpkins. The pasture had effectively reclaimed most of the garden space after recent rains. The weeds were enormous. They had cloaked the pumpkin patch and hidden it from view. Undeterred I went hunting for the pumpkins I knew were there. Sadly I found that the first I ran across were beautiful and orange on top, but rotting on the bottom. Not wanting to lose them all I knew that I would have to liberate them…….

Armed with a machete, I began hacking my way into the wilderness of the pumpkin patch. Soon I was rewarded with finding intact pumpkin. Jeff2 waited on the edge of the garden with a wheelbarrow, ready to transport out any live prisoners I ran across. I found many, some not really ready for harvest, but it was either get them out or lose them.

I must have really been a sight, slashing away at weeds that had shot up to over my height and searching for pumpkins concealed and held captive by weeds. These weeds were serious that they were not going to give up their hold on my garden space, but I convinced them otherwise. With every swing they fell and died, revealing the treasure they were attempting to conceal.

By the time I reached the other side I was dripping with sweat and dotted with bugs and weed goo. But I had liberated a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins, most of them orange and of decent size. We then rinsed them off and set them on the picnic table to dry and hopefully to finish ripening.

Jeff2 then took the tractor with the bush hog and put an end to the pumpkin patch. Along the way he discovered a few pumpkins I had missed, sadly some of them after they had been run over with the bush hog. Unfortunate casualties in the battle of the weeds.

We were going to go to an auction Friday evening. That is until we started hearing all the severe weather alerts and saw the radar. A fairly large group of thunderstorms was moving into the area. On the radar they looked substantial, colored in yellows and reds. So we decided that it would probably be better to stay home.

The thunderstorms just kind of pooped out before they got to us. We had thunder, lightning, a little wind and rain to be sure. But not the type of storm that we were expecting. Certainly not anything close to all the warnings that were spewing out of the weather radio. Ahh well, such is life.

Between Friday evening and Saturday morning we picked up an inch of rain. It seems that that is just what the sunflowers needed to start blooming. About half of them are blooming now and I am hoping that the rest follow suit soon. They do look so pretty with that brilliant yellow beaming away on top of those very tall stalks. With any luck at all we will have a bunch of seeds to dry by the end of summer.

and I am a flea market/estate sale/ auction junkie. There I have said it. I have no apologies, I love these things. I look forward to attending said functions. But I am still miserly enough that I do not over spend.

I love old things that have a history. Things that are still quite functional and possess the beauty of time. I have new things to be sure, but prefer the old. New things have no soul, you touch them and they speak to you of…..nothing. Older things tell you of days gone by. The heat of summers, the cold of winters long past. Of hardships and good times. They have a beauty of years of long and faithful service. Sometimes you have to see past the dust and cobwebs to the heart of the thing, proudly standing there covered in a cloak of time.

I have a dresser that a friend was going to chuck in the dumpster. It had been painted so many times and stored in a damp place that none of the drawers would open. Hopeless is what my friend called it. I took that dresser home and began stripping it down to its’ bones. Layer upon layer of paint covered this poor thing until it was only a shadow of itself. Carefully I peeled away those layers and found the beauty hiding underneath. What a thing of beauty it is……it has a leather inlaid top with hand tooled design. Once upon a time the design was highlighted in gold. It still had its’ original hardware…..also heavily painted over. And a pull out writing desk. I had sanded it down after stripping and given it a coat of stain, followed by three coats of a varnish. It was now, once again a thing of beauty.

When my friend saw it after its’ restoration, she couldn’t believe that it was the same dresser that she was going to chuck in the dumpster. The wood gleamed, the hardware shined and the leather inlay glowed. Sadly the gold trim on the hand tooling was gone, but I had no idea that the marvelous leather top was even there when I began stripping it. There were so many layers of paint on it that it looked like a solid surface.

I now use it as my dresser. It will be with me until I die. I hope that after I am gone someone will love it and care for it as much as I do.

I spent part of the day yesterday picking, cleaning and processing green beans. I have had a nice harvest, and the plants are still blooming. There were plenty of tiny green beans still forming as well.

My tomato plants have many tomatoes forming as well. I have both regular tomatoes and Roma tomatoes. I had my doubts for a while that I would see any fruit, but they are getting loaded now.

I also searched among the weeds for my pumpkin. I found that the plants had grown huge vines, lots of flowers, and many pumpkins. I did not search all of the pumpkin patch but I have already found eleven good sized pumpkins. I am sure that there are many more yet to be discovered.

The sunflowers are enormous! Most of them are at least ten feet tall, and are beginning to form flowers. I am guessing that with as tall as the stalks are that the flowers should be huge. They will look so pretty when they do flower out.

In spite of all the weeds the garden is producing well. We have formulated a plan so that next years garden will be much more weed free. The pasture at this point seems unwilling to let go of the garden area it had reclaimed. We will just have to convince it otherwise.

We, as are a lot of people, in the grips of a heat wave. Heat mixed liberally with humidity, almost non-existent breeze and lots of sunshine. This is a mix designed to have you pouring sweat in no time, dissolving you into a puddle of salty fluid. You dream of shady swimming holes filled with cool water. Or you find yourself a piece of shady grassy ground, lay down and close your eyes, find yourself or maybe even lose yourself while your free spirit flies and you become one with your daydreams.

Here and there in the fields and along the roadsides, the first goldenrod begin to appear, splashes of deep yellow which hint at the blaze of color that will follow in the coming months. Queen Anne’s lace, like bits of a tattered wedding gown, cover the fields with delicate white, and the feathery fluffs of milkweed seeds burst from their pods to await the breeze.
In the evenings the mist from the humidity of the day settles down onto the hay-fields and pastures. As the darkness creeps in the fireflies light up performing a quiet dance of love. The stars lend their twinkling light as the crickets sing and the heavy dew forms on everything.

Everyone has gone home. The house is quiet once again. Emptier somehow than it was before. Nothing adds life to a home more than children, or joy to a grandmas heart. I am feeling the distance that lies between my family. It would be so nice if they were closer.

I had a good time cooking for everyone. The kitchen was a very busy place and I loved every minute of it. I gave the youngest grandson his first pancakes, he really seemed to enjoy them. However not quite as much as he enjoyed the corn on the cob and a meaty rib. He was quiet for a long time, covered in butter and sauce. And yes I have pictures to remind me of that happy sauce coated boy.

Both of the grandsons loved riding on the tractor with grandpa. Their faces would light up when they were riding on grandpas lap, and sad when it would come to an end. They also had a fun on the “wonder horse” that we found at an auction. It now sits quietly on the back porch, silently waiting.

So now we get back to the regular things that make up our lives, with some warm and rich memories to sustain us. And the anticipation of future visits. I truly love having my children and grandchildren around………I wonder who will be able to show up for Thanksgiving………Christmas……….

I have learned a lot about gardening here at the gulch this year. The climate was semi new to me. The soil was an unknown. The garden area had not been used in over 12 years. I had not had a garden in over ten years. The last one was when we lived in Alaska, where the growing conditions are a mite different.

Taking all this into consideration, I am not wholly displeased with the results of the garden this year.  It was frustrating that I could not stay ahead of the weeds. They had more than a decades foothold and have fought back against my efforts. Do they ever have a will to survive!

Even with all the weeds I have gotten a fair amount of produce. Not everything I planted bore fruit, but what did gave me a taste of what that garden can be. I had a bumper crop of radishes. They were huge, with a wonderful flavor. None, despite their size were woody. I have had many heads of lettuce, lots of carrots and peas.

I dug the potatoes the other day when I noticed the vines withering and dying. There were not as many as I had hoped for, but most were of good size. I used some for dinner the night before last and they were very good.

The corn hasn’t grown as well as I had hoped, but it has tasseled and is working on making ears. Time will tell on how well it turns out. The pumpkin vines are enormous with many flowers on each vine. If that is any indication of the fruit yet to come I will have more pumpkin than I will know what to do with. The sunflowers are over eight feet tall, with huge stalks. Other than the weeds they are the biggest thing in the garden.

I am formulating a different plan for next years garden. With my previous knowledge and what I have learned about this area form this years efforts, I am hoping that next years garden will be better. And have far less weeds!

My kitchen faucet started to drip the other day. Not really something major. Seems so simple to replace. Then came the inevitable domino effect…………

We are going to replace the faucet when we install a new and deeper kitchen sink. Before we can do that we have to move the pump and pressure tank for the cistern, currently located beneath said kitchen sink. Before we can do that, we need to build a new cabinet to house the pump and pressure tank. Before we can do that we need to replace the hot water heater so we have room to build the cabinet to house the pump and pressure tank. When we build the cabinet, we need to replace the current counter tops in the kitchen.
We want/need to install a tank-less water heater to 1. Reduce the cost of keeping the water hot. 2. The added benefit of having on demand hot water that isn’t restricted by the capacity of a tank.

So, for now we are playing with the faucet, finding just the right place to have the valve turned on so it doesn’t leak.