Besotted with Tomatoes

It is a good day when your first heirloom tomato is ready.  Homegrown tomato season - here we come!

I dream of toasted tomato sandwiches, roasted tomato soup, BBQ'd tomatoes, Caprese salad, bacon and eggs with fresh tomato, bruschetta, marinara, pizza sauce...which to make first?!

Frightening Farm Hands

With Halloween looming in the not too distant future, our resident spooks are getting in some early scare practice.  I had a ghostly helper during CSA harvesting this morning.  He scared the bejesus out of me when I turned around to find him loitering in my shadow but after this, my little ghost farmer was most helpful.

We prepared beautiful vegetable baskets that included: Chinese cabbage, turnip, eggplant, green and banana peppers, beets, chard, red onions, parsley, zucchini fruit and stems, raspberries, kale, cherry tomatoes, basil, dill, thyme and nasturtium blossoms.

Unfortunately for me, the scary shenanigans continued throughout the day with visits from a horrendously ugly two-headed, four-armed pink people eater 

and an oh so terrifying red horned, fuzzy haired wildebeest.

And the scariest thing of all?  Processing four more ducks after the kids went to bed.  I have butchered poultry before but I had never actually plucked a duck.  Well, now I have.  The first one was a bit frightening but I got the hang of it by the second and did a stellar job.  

Halfway done.

Five ducks in the freezer, one in our bellies, and seven left to go.  At least we are now well prepared to feed all the ravenous ghouls currently in residence here on Gael Glen Farm!

World War Z

It seems that I am waging war on my zucchini, squash and cucumbers this year.  They are growing with abandon - which is good! - but their gigantic leaves are crowding each other out hindering pollination and making the hunt for fruit next to impossible.  And so, I bushwhacked my way into the patch for a second attempt at pruning and staking.  From these photos it looks like I am winning World War Zucchini but don't be fooled - I think they are plotting a counter attack.

New Skills

Today our boys practised some new skills.  Under the very capable tutelage of Uncle Shawn, Liam and Seamus learned to build and sand a bird house using "grown up" tools.  There is no doubt that Seamus is the budding carpenter of our family and he was in heaven.  He continued to refine his bird house with (less fancy) sand paper and his own kid hammer well into the afternoon.  Thank you Uncle Shawn for coordinating this incredible learning opportunity!

Meanwhile, Alistair is definitely not ready for power sanders yet but he practised using his own tool - a spoon - independently.  It was a messy endeavour but he gets the idea and tried hard to coordinate things so that the yogurt reached his mouth.  He was very hungry and really likes yogurt so he was very motivated to succeed.

Our trio of munchkins are growing up before our very eyes.

A Raspberry Bimble

When your trio of rambunctious ruffians are still wrecking havoc three hours past bedtime, the only thing left to do is admit defeat and escape to the garden.  As long as you can tune out the incessant bleating of the sheep insisting that they are about to experience a sordid and imminent demise due to tardy dinner delivery, an evening garden stroll can be a calming end to one of those days.

If you are feeling especially depleted and find yourself still not ready to face your sleepless ruffians quite yet, you can add a session of raspberry picking to your jaunt.

And if you manage to stretch out your evening bimble just long enough, you may in fact discover that, in your absence, said ruffians have put themselves to sleep and the house is finally and thankfully silent.

Trust Issues

The ongoing inaccuracy of my area's weather predictions is giving me trust issues.

The sky is cloudy, the wind is blowing, and my weather app promised rain but I think, once again, the storm is going to pass us by.  It looks like tomorrow morning will be spent watering the gardens.  Again.  Sigh.

I need a new weather app.  Pronto.

A Not So Lazy Summer Day

Some of us lazed the day away while others were very busy.

Our early morning harvest yielded fantastic results.  Everything from big, beautiful beets to oh so crunchy snap peas to vibrant chard stems with lush green leaves.  These harvests are what make the hassle of February seed starts, the lengthy and annoying hardening off process and the gross and much too frequent cucumber beetle squishing sessions worth it.

Today's CSA baskets were just as epic as Monday's.  It has been a good week to be a member of Gael Glen Farm's 2020 CSA program.

Today's harvesting did not stop with our CSA baskets.  Spring lettuce season is over so we pulled the remaining lettuce from the gardens and replaced it with carrot, beet, chard and bean seeds.  We did plant a few new rows of lettuce in shady spots but it tends not to produce well in the mid-summer heat.

The boys were also eager to see how our potatoes are getting along so I agreed that they could dig one plant up to check.  It was also blocking the gate into my garden so win-win.  They discovered two teeny, tiny potatoes but were thrilled nonetheless.  We baked them in the microwave (it took no time at all) and Liam and Seamus gobbled them up for lunch alongside the very first of our ripe banana peppers.

In addition to all this we went on a bike ride, climbed trees, milked goats, and cuddled turkeys.  No lazing around in a pool for us today - there was much too much to do!