Hi everyone. I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open this morning. We had an inch and a half of torrential downpour during night with some thunder and lightning. I got up to close the windows and then didn't fall back to sleep until it had pretty much stopped. That rain on top of the more than inch and a half on Saturday, and now we're quite soaked. I always worry that trees will start uprooting when it gets really wet, and they're heavy with leaves. Last week one fell somewhere on the power lines, knocking out the electricity for several hours. Surprisingly that's rare around here. Our rural electric cooperative has turned out to be quite efficient, once we were able to negotiate bringing power into our place (which took 2 years of discussion!). And they keep lowering the rates!

All this rain is sure to do in much of my garden. The tomatoes have bad blight and just don't need more rain. The second crop of green beans is being eaten by grasshoppers who also did serious damage to my fall broccoli and cabbage. I put row covers over them, and I hope it wasn't too late. I planted Small Sugar pumpkins this year, and the vines climbed the sunflowers planted along the fence and a small apple tree in the garden. Now the sunflowers and the apple tree are sporting little orange pumpkins! They're about 8 inches in diameter and are supposed to be THE pie pumpkin. They're sure cute at any rate!

I look forward to reading of everyone's activities. Someone else, please start this off next week. I will be far from a computer then, but I can do it the rest of the month after that. Happy homesteading!

-- Katherine in KY (KyKatherine@Yahoo.com), September 09, 2001

Answers

Hi Katherine. Sorry to hear about your poor garden. The pumpkins sure sound great though. Mine are small and green. Oh well, if worse comes to worse the pigs will eat them later. Speaking of pigs, we had a pig adventure the other night. I had finally gotten another hose to enable the moving of the pig pen without having to cart water in buckets. The spot they were in was terribly dirty by then and no amount of hay added could make it better. I hooked the tow cable up around the side if the pen as I have done before, hooked it up to my trailer hitch and gave it some gas. Apparently too much because the side of the pig pen openned up like a barn door! I got the tow cable unhooked and was trying to heave the side of the pen back in place when the made a run for it causing my country born and bred neighbor and best friend running screaming. (some country girl! and she always likes to rub country stuff in us city folks faces!! HA!!!) As she gibbered and we watched the pigs run around squealing and frisking with the dog (it was actually really cute to watch) I told her to shut up and go call our other neighbor. She ran for the phone while I made my way out front to the 2 buckets of apples I had gotten from Terri that afternoon. By the time Edith got back from the phone I had the pigs back in the pen and the side pushed most of the way into place and was watching Pig 1 and Pig2 eat their green apples and some older sweet corn grunting happily after their bit of exercise. Stubby came with his wonderful wife and kids in tow and we patched up the pen to keep the pigs in. Next day my husband (who wasn't home for the adventure) figured he could use leverage and move the pen by hand. Why couldn't he have thought of that 2 months ago when we first started moving them around to clean ground?? Alls well that ends well I guess. :o) We harvested all the greeen tomatoes because its been threatening frost and what happens? Heat!! I'm terrible for remembering to cover things at night so I thought I should get them in. The pole beans are getting yellow so they will soon be harvested for drying. I should get a good pile for next years crop. The garlic did pretty good and I will plant that variety again for sure! It was Dascha Barinka spring garlic that I got from Pumpkin Ecological Farm. Hubby is planning on getting busy with the barn this week. Found out we were laying the floor boards wrong so every second one needs lifting and shifting. After all the favorable opinions about Dexter cows I checked them out and we are actually discussing one for next year. Pretty exciting! Worming time is coming up and after that breeding time for the 2 older ewes out in the paddocks. More adventures loom!!LOL

-- Alison in N.S. (aproteau@istar.ca), September 09, 2001.

The garden here is winding down as well. Dug my other bed of potatoes this morning. They are a bit farther away from the butternut trees and were not as affected by the trees as much. I got about the same # of potatoes as the first bed but bigger. Still have lots of green tomatoes and frost will be here soon. We are going to try and cover them with plastic sheeting this year when it gets cool. They have a frame over them that should hold the plastic up. I will probably end up picking our peppers. They refuse to get red.

Alison, have you ever tried fried green tomatoes? If you'd like the recipe let me know. They are yummy!

-- Cindy in NY (cjpopeck@worldnet.att.net), September 09, 2001.

Hi folks here in se,ks. we had a storm fri. nite cost me two trees. but got 1 1/2 inches of rain sure did need it. Been awful good week here. got my summer kitchen framed up should be weathered in this week then my work starts im going to finish it on inside my self will need lots ideas. but the best part i got to see my 90 day old great grandaughter again she lives in mo. so ill be going there a lot. mowed the garden today just left the maters and okra. you all have a great week and hug your grand kids. Bob se,ks.

-- Bobco (bobco@kans.com), September 09, 2001.

It has finally cooled off here in central Illinois. We did get some rain on Sunday, but there are still huige cracks in the ground. My garden is winding down too. I have some tomatoes but, I'm not sure of how big they will get or if they will ripen before the frost. I usually just hang them in the root cellar and they ripen down there anyway. I am still putting away green peppers and the zuchini are still producing like crazy. We have all the wood cut and stacked, I am a hunting widow so that always gets done first. It has been a great summer but I am really ready for the slower pace of fall and winter. I hope everyone has a great week!

-- Barb in wc Il (Barb43@countrylife.net), September 10, 2001.