Kolsch and Kitchen

Things have been pretty crazy. Titus and Jane are painting our kitchen, so the house has been really disrupted. All the cupboard doors and drawers are off, and everything is covered in plastic. We're going into the fourth week of this. It wouldn't have been so bad if we could have done it before I started this big book project.

Here it is with primer and some wall color up. Titus and Jane took the plastic down for the weekend, so it wouldn't be quite so awful.

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Weather Note
At least the weather is cooperating. It's been in the 80s in the day, and down to a chilly 59 at night. We only had to sleep outside one night, and it was pleasant, with a full moon.
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Fortunately, we can escape to the farm. We finished chicken tractoring where the peas had been, and here Ricky C. gives it a good tilling. I added soil sulphur, and put bean innoculant right in the rows before planting lots more filet beans.

Rick and Buddy work on the door to the laundry room.

The pumpkins are sprouting in the back bed. This was taken last Monday, and they're three times as big now.

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What We're Eating
It's eating time! We've been having some wonderful dishes with our fresh produce. We pulled up the first hill of potatoes, and Ricky C. made potato salad out of it. It had homegrown potatoes, onions, and garlic, and his homemade pickles from his homegrown cukes. That's pretty homemade! I told him next time, I'd make an aioli with our homegrown eggs and locally grown olive oil.

Rick also brought a jar of pickles--wonderful tiny crunchy pickles--and the first dilly beans of the season.

Let's take a moment to honor Katinka's mom, who made the best dilly beans! We aspire to someday reach her level of greatness.
At our house, I can't really cook with no kitchen, so this is the best I could come up with for a meal. There actually is a little lettuce under all that stuff, which includes our homegrown red onions, and Paul's homemade yogurt.

And... it just doesn't get any fresher than this:

What else are we eating? Lots and lots of pizza! Pizza with Karen and Glen, pizza at the pub. Meanwhile, we dream of pizza from our oven as we work on plinth designs.
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On Thursday, Karen and Glen came over for Kolsch drinking. We got tiny plastic cups, and put lots of bottles of Kolsch in an ice chest, just covered in ice. It was icy cold and really delicious!

We also had a great spread with cheese and crackers, dilly beans and pickles, and fresh homegrown salsa (with last year's peppers).

And if we stay up late enough, we can see this guy bloom. It's a datura, so it's poisonous and really shouldn't be in the veggie garden, but it's pretty.

Wining and Signing

Delina came over on Tuesday to pick some plums.

They are still ripening, but there are lots to be had. She looks triumphant.

She plans to make wine from them, so she brought a bottle of her homemade backyard wine to share. I have to get her together with Karen and Glen!

And speaking of wine, our grapes are growing like crazy. This is the huge old grape on the back fence. This portion is under the sink roof, so it doesn't have as much foliage.

This is by the gate.

And outside. It's going to be a good crop this year, and we'll have to make some wine!

Buddy harvested a bunch of the onions. I got some mesh bags from S&S and Rick hung nails in the basement, so we've got the first harvest of red onions stored there. These are a mix but mostly white and yellow. One yellow onion was ginormous! They are curing on the big screen right now.

Yesterday we decided to pull the first of the potato patches. The Ricks strain to pull up the chicken wire. I don't know who told them to wear matching outfits, but it sure is cute!

Look at all those potatoes!

We've had people parking right in front of the gate, so I decided it was time to paint the sign. It's not the greatest, but it was all freehand so I did my best.

Does it work? Well... no. The very next day some guy parked his oversize pickup right in front of it.

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Weather Note
Much nicer! We're getting the early summer weather we were gypped out of. It's been in the 80s and 90s with cool nights (as low as mid 50s). I can totally take this sort of weather. I'm actually sitting outside as I type this, because Titus is painting in my kitchen and ... I need to be out of the way!
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A while ago, one of Catherine's garden porn mags had a bit about making a bee home. So we decided to do it! We just drilled and screwed together some scrap wood. It fits right in! Farm grade!

Yesterday, Buddy had the sprinkler going in the glen, and a whole flock of tiny gray-and-buff birds (peewees or titmice of some sort) came to bathe and play in the water. I had a hard time taking a picture of a bird until Buddy helped me out.

Screen Making

We went to Delina's party for 4th of July. It was fun as always, and I spent most of the time in the hot tub (cold-water hot tub that is). Afterward we went to the farm to work on the drying screens for the plums. Rick C. had donated the uber stainless steel mesh, and fashioned a frame around it using wood we had left from the bar project. Then Rick J worked on the top screen. Again, he built a frame out of leftover wood, then stretched leftover window screen over it. The window screen is just to keep out bugs, but the fruit will rest on the nice, cleanable stainless steel.

He also tacked screen on the bottom of the frame around the drying rack. This rack will just always be the bottom one.

Here it is in action. We just set up sawhorses to prop the rack up, for now. If we make more racks, we can simply stack them.

Both Ricks check out their handiwork.

The vegetables have been excited by the heat and lots of water. Everything is growing like crazy. The beans are about to be harvestable size. These are "velour" a lovely, short filet bean. The hope is that they fit the jars better.

Last post I mentioned that I planted another row of beans on 6-30. By 7-4, we saw the first sprout, and more were up yesterday.

We have peppers fruiting up, and lots of baby tomatoes.

We carefully maneuvered the chicken pen into the back sectors of rows 2 and 3. Buddy also got a bunch of it dug up.

I didn't take a pic, because it was pretty dark and I was pretty tired when I was done, but I planted pumpkins and flowers in the other patch behind the house.

And back at my house, all my cupboard doors are off. Soon this boring white will be way less boring! I cleaned out all the drawers today too.

Pizza Party

Karen and Glen invited us, Rick and Catherine, and Buddy over for a pizza party. I made this salad, with great fresh ingredients from the farm and from Rick C's garden. Rick still had the last of his broccoli, at the same time as some of the first tomatoes! I gathered four different types of flowers (borage, sage, oregano, and chive) plus chard, arugula, red onion, and a cherry tomato.

We gathered at our house first, so we'd be ready on time.

It was a really fantastic evening, with excellent food and good conversation. It did get a bit hot, but we had plenty of beer and wine, and lots of shade. Of course, Glen's pizza were uber awesome as always. He made a bunch of different kinds, so lets see if I can get it right: Margarite, white pizza with grilled onions and sundried tomato, garlic buddy (garlic and seeds, no sauce or cheese), peppernade (red bell peppers stewed in garlic and olive oil!), spinach and broccoli, and another margarite. Plus there was smoked salmon, sausages, and grilled torpedo onions.

The torpedo onions were from Karen's little plot out front, and they were delicious! She clowns around with the harvest. Like us, she had just harvested them before the rain and had to run out and bring them into the garage to finish drying.

We all toasted to Glen's retirement.

Slab!

Come up to the lab, and see what's on the slab!

As it turned out, we could only be guaranteed of getting a cement mixer on a Saturday if we were lined up at 7:30 when Guy Rents opened. So... we were. Rick and Matt get the mixer, while I run over to the farm and take down the piece of fence. Here it is at the crack of dawn, just waiting for the mud.

Matt is such a pro! He expertly backs it up the alley.

Rick dumps while Buddy wheelbarrows and Rick rakes it forward. What am I doing? Taking pics of course!

Matt was the hero of the day. We totally couldn't have done this without him.

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What We're Eating
Catherine brought a big box of coffee from Starbucks, and a lovely selection of pan dulce. We had a picnic breakfast on the worksite. That hot coffee was nectar from the gods!
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Rick and Rick work on smoothing it out.

Later, Rick does a few finishing touches.

Then we proceed to doing what we do best. Notice that Billy shows up now that the work is done!

I dedicate the slab to Amberglen!

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Weather Note
Saturday was sunny and perfect temperature for the hard work of hauling mud.

But then on Tuesday it rained like crazy. Long hard steady rain all day long. This is weirdly late for rain in summer, but then again, we know nothing about what the weather will do. Gotta just roll with it, like farmers have from time immemorial.
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We harvested the onions in row 3A on the 23rd. I say "we" but honestly, Buddy did it all.

We put the chickens right to work. After a few days, it looks ready for replanting. Yesterday (6-30) I replanted this row in filet beans (green, yellow, and purple). I added sulfur and bean innoculant.

We had the first squash blossom on Saturday (6-25).

And by yesterday, 6-30, we had baby zuccs.

But just to be on the safe side, Dean brought us a bunch more.

The chickens appreciated the giant zucchini.

And the first of the cherry tomatoes are ripening.

The plums are almost ripe. We're just waiting a few more days for them to be really soft and sweet. We've picked and eaten the ripest ones already. Cindy brought some overripe apricots from her tree to the chickens, but she didn't plan ahead or we could have harvested them. We'll know next year.