Early morn

6AM, standing in the factory parking lot facing west as the full moon heads for the mountains. The sun is an hour and a half from rising and it's 40F. Winter isn't far away.

About 7:30AM as the sun clears the horizon and sets this maple aflame! The landowners are unaware I'm about the place snapping pictures. They are just as unaware of the glory I witness as they go about their morning routines warm inside their house. Of course they live on the farm and I'm only visiting my garlic bed. I try not to disturb their routines with my quick visits.

From the garlic bed on Grandfather Cool's old farm. This is one of my earliest memories, this mountain to the west of most of my life. I always know where I am when I see that tree covered pile of rock.

The garlic is coming up! So are the weeds. :o)))))

I'm hoping for enough snow to keep the garlic safe this winter, but not so much that we have to deal with the cold white stuff ourselves. I wonder how the gods would manage that if I were to ask them? Localized snow fall?

Instead of worrying about what I can't control I'd best be figuring out how and where I'm going to dry and cure 770 bulbs come summer!

6 AM of a Friday and DW is working at "a job Americans wont do" just as she has been for more than 35 years. We still laugh about the two high school boys who worked at the factory one summer (about 25 years ago.) They quit after a couple months and filed for unemployment. Their argument for the benefit? "The work was demeaning." The state thought that good enough and granted them workers' welfare checks.

Demeaning? The 30 some other employees of the business asked. DEMEANING? How the hell was working for money to pay the rent, buy food, clothing and a car DEMEANING?

Demeaning is collecting a welfare check, be it through social services, unemployment or social security. Allowing anyone else to tell us what we are worth is demeaning!

Two more garlic varieties for 2010

This is the last of it. The bed will be pretty much full and a bit of snow down will be welcome. My, how my attitude about snow has changed! :o)

I'm not particularly pleased with the Pskem River I got from SSE. This is the second time I've bought the variety from them and each time I've had to toss out a bad bulb. If I had another source I'd probably not buy live plants from them at all. Seeds, yes! I've had very good success with their seeds!

The goal this growing season is to save enough garlic of each variety I've planted to double the amounts I plant next year. By the following year I should have a good idea as to which varieties will do well for us under our average growing conditions. If I get a really nice crop I'll try selling some of it locally. Or send some of it to my friend in Texas.

Yee haw! Hillbilly honey wine!

Ahhh honey wine. Or fermented bee spit if you like. I hesitate to call it mead as I've yet to create a drink that fits that word. I've had a taste of very dry mead that I didn't like much and I've had a commercial mead that was sweet like sugar water. It was best described as "insipid" by everyone who sampled it. At $15 a 5th I KNEW I could do better! Another commercial mead I tried was "Irish herb mead". Now that was good! I'm hoping to recreate that myself. It had the kick of my honey wine, but the flavor of honey! My"wines" are slightly sweet, (I use too much honey in the primary ferment) but have lost the honey flavor. I think I'm supposed to ferment the honey/water for a year before adding a bit of honey when I bottle? So much to learn, so long the wait to taste the results!


One thing I seem to have down pat is getting the mead to clear. This pic was taken through one of the gallon jugs. Poured into a clear glass I can read a book through the liquid!

Ah well, baby steps I guess. Eventually I want to sell mead kits with recipes for varieties I like. So far even my less than perfect attempts have proven economical. $15 worth of honey, $2 worth of yeast, a $2 airlock and a recycled gallon wine jug have produced as potent a drink as anything I've bought and made it by the gallon, not the fifth!

DW talks to Hank, the dairy farm Rott; a 140 pound, attention seeking puppy- during the day. After dark, more likely he'll bring what's left of a trespasser's leg bone to his master! Hank's owner, if anyone can be said to own the big boy, has asked us to help him breed the best line of Rotts in our area. We finally agreed after much thought and discussion with our DIL who works in an animal shelter. (She was, possibly is, very much against the idea.)

When we first started visiting the farm, 10 years ago, the place was ruled by some rather nasty dogs; rescues from households with cruel owners, those who deliberately made their dogs vicious to the point they became uncontrollable. The farmer rehabilitated the dogs by gaining their trust, but my family was never comfortable around the dogs in daylight and we NEVER got out of our vehicle after dark until the farmer lit up the yard and came out of the house to call the dogs to heel. Even he'd been bitten in the dark by a dog that didn't recognize his scent before it clamped down on his leg.

Over time the guard dogs changed in nature as the old ones died off and new ones arrived. Where local shelters used to call the farm when they had dogs too nasty to place in homes, they are now killing such animals. The farmer was forced to look elsewhere for dogs. Rottweilers were his first choice, though he had a pair of silver German shepherds that were absolute sweethearts.

He had been breeding, or allowing the dogs to mate randomly, long before we began visiting the farm. In those days there were more farms in the area and more people wanting dogs for guard duty. He made some extra cash selling the occasional litter. Back then his customers understood the dogs they were buying were farm dogs, not pampered pets. The puppies came with no warranty other than the parents were big, strong and probably dangerous if not handled properly.

Getting purebred dogs changed the type of customer he found driving to the farm every time he advertised a litter of Rotts or shepherds. These customers were willing to pay a good deal more for a puppy, but they wanted the farmer to do more too. First shots, worming, tails docked, proof the parents had good hips, papers proving the puppies were pure Rotts or shepherds.

The farmer is one of those people you can't come at all demanding and superior. Well, you can, but you'd likely be cursed and ordered off the farm. Those visitors who've taken a different approach with the man have found an eager listener to their requests. Once he understood his customers wanted pets as much, or more, than farm guard dogs he asked DW and I for help. "How do I dock the Rotties tails? Where do I get Parvo vaccine and wormer? I can't afford the vets coming here and sure can't take the puppies to them. Will you bring your family out to help socialize the puppies? Can you help me with all this? Can you help me produce a line of solid, healthy, sweetheart Rotts?"

Well he had us with that last question. Everyone here still misses the one Rott we had years ago. While all the dogs we've had, and currently have, are parts of the household, none of them are Rotts, or even close to a Rott. They are dogs, but a Rott is family!

So yeah, we're helping the farmer as long as his goals don't stray from ours- solid, healthy, sweetheart Rotts!

The oldest female Rott, Lyn, came into heat recently, was bred to Hank and is due sometime in December. We wanted a female from her litter, but the farmer asked that we take one from his second bitch, Simona, which is coming into season now. He wants to mate her to a different male so there is no blood connection between the litters at all, he'll breed the female we hold (when she's 2 years old) to his current male and keep a male out of that litter to replace his male when he retires. We have yet to see the new stud dog, but know Simona is a what we'd want in a Rott. She was passed through several owners before the farmer got her and he considered giving her back because she was such a nut case. How he dealt with her convinced us to consider joining him in building a good line of Rotts. He took her into his home, treated her with respect, allowed her on the sofa with him, was always gentle no matter how angry he got with her. After a month we couldn't tell her from the older female!

So yeah, we're in. The world may not need another litter of puppies, but as he's going to bring them into the world anyhow. We're going to help ensure they are as good a litter of dogs as they can be.

Well the rains that soaked the East Coast didn't seem to hurt the newly tilled garden beds. The middle bed has 690 cloves of garlic in it and not a one washed out. The far bed has asparagus, sort of, in it. Out of 25 "all male" hybrids I planted this spring I found 6 green tops when we finally weeded the bed yesterday. The other side of the bed was planted with an OP "purple passion" (I think.) Of the 25 roots that went in the ground I counted about 16 up and green. We didn't water the bed all summer so I'm surprised anything but weeds survived the drought!

I was told to wait until next spring to see if any of the roots send up new shoots. I talked to my cousin, who owns the land, and we've decided planting OPs makes more sense considering the way we garden. I have seeds from a stand of "gone wild" asparagus from a farmstead in Oklahoma. I'm thinking "wild" asparagus that survives the OK wild lands should do as well here. Now I got to learn how to grow the roots from seed. I've always bought roots.