I Know, I Know

I need to get myself completely transfered over to my new blog so that you don't have to come here and/or go there. But if I could just beg your patience a little longer? My actual post for the day, uh week actually, is over at It's_the_Dirt_dot_com.. I'm not going to double publish, mostly because.. well you don't need to know all my troubles do you Dear Reader?

And if you've got time while you're over there could you take a peak at some of my other pages? They are all in rough modes, really rough, but you could tell me what you think and then.... Just thinkin'.

The Crazy Life of Dirt

Dirt isn't just a sheep shearin' lawn mowing man, during the daylight hours on weekdays he is a school teacher, aviation mechanics to be precise, at Clover Park Technical College. And sometimes, just sometimes, that job calls for him to do something other than lecture to his students or hover over them in the lab. This week they asked him to be part of looking at the aviation curriculums throughout the state of Washington and brainstorm how Washington State can continue to retain their claim on being the place to come for the best in aviation education.

I on the other hand am an interloper for the week, I snuck myself into his duffle bag and came along for the ride. The state isn't paying for me, I'm cheap, well my finance manager is tight, so I am eating out of a cooler instead of enjoying the beautiful dining room that this group is. Had I known my first meal that Dirt bought me down at the dining hall was going to be my last I would have eaten more. Maybe not knowing was a good thing, because as it was I was bloated to the size of the Goodyear Blimp!

This is their meeting room, I crashed it this morning to take pictures. Everyone has been really nice to Dirt's wife, me, I feel bad because I am the only spouse along for the ride. Ummmm other spouses must actually have important things to do at home. Me, on the other hand? I think the girls and their helper were glad to see me drive out the driveway, now they can actually get some work done.

This is Laura, she is with AJAC, the folks that put this thing together for the guvner of our humble state. She's in charge. How do I know? She was the one who gracefully started the meeting.

But before she did, I managed to get in a few pics of the folks Dirts hangin' with this week.

This is Reckless Raymond, (I got the reckless part from a story he told the first night we were here, the first night Dirt splurged and let me eat in the restaurant here at the resort) he doesn't seem reckless to me. And in fact is very nice, he is from the Spokane area and has two small children, so small that he doesn't know about The Fantastic Mr. Fox. He should watch it any way.

This is Bonnie, she is very sweet, but then she is from Texas, and it seems everything from Texas is sweet.

This is Alex, he teaches in Everett and is a fellow motersickle rider.

The place where this is all happening is a nice resort just outside of Leavenworth, I'll show pics of the town and surroundings soon, but for now just know that as you drive through town you suddenly have an urge to braid your hair and start yodeling.

Nice eh? What image do you see in the silhouette of those hills? If you can figure it out, you know the name of the place we're staying.

Dear Reader, I am off for another adventure into this little slice of God's amazing creation. Poor Dirt, he has to stay in meetings all day, but he gets juice and cookies and everyone is very nice so I won't feel too bad for him. I am going off to see some more wildflowers...

The hillsides of Central Washington are covered with these beauties, Arrowleaf balsamroot - Balsamorhiza sagittata. Not sure how fond the locals are of them as they seem to grow anywhere and everywhere, but they sure caught my eye and my appreciation.

Have as sunny a day as this flower and I am today Dear Reader, stay workin' in the spirit and not in the flesh, do so as if you were doin' all unto the Lord our God, and I'll do my best to be right there with you.

Ah, the irony of it all, now that I have a WordPress, Blogger cooperates and WordPress throws a fit. Aww I'm chuckling at that! Now I need a nuther vacation to work out all my new kinks and a nuther one to set up a web site for Vicktory Farm & Gardens

Wart Doin?

We're keepin' our heads down and pluggin' away at the spring work. Glad for the new head space of no opening day, I seem to be working faster and harder even, just wish my lungs would keep up.

North Garden will be turning into my cut flower and or bouquet garden. I won't be changing the name 'cause in a year or two it is possible that I might change it to something else. For now, because of the soil we have built here it will be where I sow carrot and parsnip seed. But I think carrots and parsnips could look really cool in an arrangement, so I don't think that is fudging on the rules at all, besides they're not really rules, more like guidelines really.

Because Dirt is such a wise man and has come up with the idea for us to have one central killer compost area just inside the pasture gate partitioned off by ecology blocks, we are eliminating all our little compost piles. The girls are sifting through this one right now, using Dirt's and my old sod sifter from when we were first married and gardening new spaces together.

I'm a cold compost-er, I just throw it on as it comes, everything, I don't turn, I don't mess, so to keep the air that the aerobic microbes need to munch it all up, I mindfully toss in enough stuff the likes of this. I find it easier to sift a compost pile when all is said and done than to turn and toss, wet and fuss, and check its temperature all the time. Economy model mother, economy model gardener.

This particular compost pile was started when this garden was started and its true purpose was to cover the ginormous rock that lay on the edge of center in the garden. The rock seems to have moved, and shrunk, odd, very odd, Do you think I am so good that I can compost a giant rock?

It appears that I am, because this is all that is left of it and this wasn't even under the pile any more. Mind you, we had metal T-posts sunk around the edges of the rock, they held up palettes that held in the compost and they marked the edge of the rock for when Dirt came in with the tiller.

So Dear Reader, I am not of my rocker or rock, I know of what I speak! This rock has rolled, unless steel T-post go pogo stick at night, and in unison!

The area that was once a rock and then a compost pile is going to be scraped flat along with adjoining spaces, level with the major pathways. This area will become a table and chairs area, to set and ponder the flowers. I'm thinkin' I want to have the table and chairs bar height so that it can also be an outdoor work area to do up bouquets and such right in the garden.

Here's a quick shot of my little tulip crop, these were just babies last year, most weren't large enough to bloom even and just tiny buds on one or two. I need to come and give them a little foliar spray to boost their nutrition.

The lettuces and mustards are getting spread out this week by the girls, planted equidistance apart. I don't thin well, when I come across a seedling that looks poorly, I always find a spot for it.

Planting out the onion plants has been a challenge in that regard, it is hard to toss the silly little ones that most likely won't grow nice.

Oh by the way Dear Reader, I just teleported you out to Market Garden at the north end of the pastures down by the highway. Just beyond the tilled soil is the old pumpkin patch, we've decided to create a buffer zone hedge row sort of area. It is seventy feet from fence to fence and we'll come in quite a ways from the highway fence just to make sure it all stays, all our work, nature can then have the space between the highway and our hedge row.

A place where people, determined to drive while sleeping can fly into with their trucks and not make me too crazy. Or if the highway department ever widens the now well traveled highway, well be ready for it.

Fruit trees, nut trees, flowery berry laden bushes for our little flighty friends and such, we'll most likely get to that in the fall or late winter. Bet and I might toss some wild flower seed in there for now just for the fun of it.

Here's a better view of the onions, the first crop to go in our Market Garden. They could be bigger that would be nice, but they have been on hold a little too long. Don't know what this crew was thinkin' last fall when we knew we were going to come over sometimes our brains are mush.

But all is well, they seem to be bouncing back just fine, our onions might be on the small side this year but what the heck we've planted about a thousand so far and are only half way through, so we'll have onions.

Bet and I perfected the furrow thing, I don't often plant in furrows so I forget often what really needs to happen. The dirt, soil, needs to stay, be pressed a bit to squish out some of the air, and an impression made for the seed or seedling. I usually make little holes, equidistance apart for optimum space usage. But I wasn't into making two-thousand little holes by hand.

But pulling a hoe across the soil to make a furrow causes soil loss at the edge of the bed. So we used the outside edge of our hands to just press in the furrow lines. It went way quicker, the soil stayed put and all is well.

Thought I'd show you a bit of how we are making the beds in Market Garden, not too different from how I always put together a first time bed.

Bet and Dirt had gone over the whole area seventy by four-hundred feet, with the pto tiller behind Orange Tractor. But due to time and hard sod and precious worms and such, we did not opt to till it to a fine powder, not even close really.

We mark out the beds with stakes and baling twined, scoop the busted sod and the soil from the path areas, heap it on the bed areas and then because the sod is still fairly clumpy and in need of being broke we just put straight barn cleanings right on the top of the soddy soil.

That straw you see is well soaked in urine and lots of dung is in there so it will rot in no time and it will break down the sod. That of course makes for a bit less nutrition available to the plant so we'll be foliar spraying with manure tea a lot this year.

Next year these beds will be ready to handle carrots and parsnips. With all this work going into the prep of the beds and changing up the focus of the other garden areas some ideas have changed quite a bit, but heck Dear Reader, you knew I was queen of change didn't you?

Well, I got some stuff a callin' my name, I'd love to stay and chat, let my lungs rest a bit longer, but my brain has gotta get out and do some real work, But you're right Dear Reader, I do need to keep better records than I have in the past, it's time, and all this plannin' and stuff takes up a bit of writin' space.

Have an excellent week, we've got a pile of things on our wanna do list so we won't be wandering the streets and carousing this weekend, maybe next weekend. Dear Reader, stay well, let's stay tuned to the Holy Spirit channel instead of the ol' flesh and we'll get on down the road lots better together.

By the way, This was the post that wouldn't load from Live Writer and has started all this shenanigans with getting a dot com and WordPress-ing it. But I think the problem was with my internet connection at my house.

Oh, and, Wart Doin' is a grandboyism for, what are you doing?

Oh yeah, and another thing, I'm now found at http://www.itsthedirt.com/ Plain and simple, itsthedirt.com. It is a WordPress blog on my own domain, looking forward to where this new step takes me. It is still a little rough but I thought maybe you'd like to watch my progess over there.

I Ran a Test

In case you didn't catch it, I've been feelin' lousy, so I guess I hope you didn't.

I've been coffin' and wheezen' up a storm for a couple of weeks now. I couldn't tell if it was a real life cold, knew some folks who had one, or just allergies. So I tried my darnedest to give it to those closest to me, Dirt, EBet, Anna Coleen. And nothin' nobody has so much as sneezed.

Test over. Now for the cure.

And because I am a bit preoccupied (with spring) and already feeling super lousy (with spring) and can barely get my regular work half done, nah, lets say I'm getting about a quarter done and that would be generous, well then Dear Reader I'm ditching my hippy and I'm reachin' for the quick and mainstream chemical cures. Seventeen bucks for forty days of breathing, works for me. Even as we speak it's workin', I can actually breathe and I think I might get to sleep not sitting upright tonight!

Live Writer, my new favorite way to prep my posts no longer works for me, unless I want my posts to be three sentences long. Uhhhh that's what I have FaceBook for (and why I secretly hate it). So... I may be goin' Word Press, we'll see. But I think I need a degree in something or perhaps this process will give me a degree or two, of increased body temperature, it doesn't appear so easy as blogger, hope that means it is more reliable.

Oh For Cryin' Out Loud!

Just when you learn to say. "jelly" they change it to jam!

I've been using Windows Live Writer for a while now, digin' it for so many reasons, 'cept now it is givin' me a "timed out" message when I go to publish. Live Writer help says it's an issue with the server, to wait and publish later.

I'm hooked on Live Writer and I will only come back here to publish straight from Blogger if I absolutely have to.

When I can stop getting "timed out" you will see my latest post, nothin' special to wait around for and I don't know when that will be, so by all means head off to the park with great Aunt Lucy and maybe when you get back...

Hippy Hot Hut

I'm in!

Well, I'm in for a little bit then I'll clear out and let Dirt finish sometime around June. Well with this side any who. We've got some figger out on the other side.

Figgerin' and fightin'. It's the perennial problem when the finance manager is the builder but not the user and dreamer.

September is the date for the other side.

I'm reconciled.

Honest.

When last we talked we had gone up during Dirt's spring break to pick up the missing pieces and come home and finish the glazing, but that far from finishes the whole deal.

Good ol' Patty Whack greets us and wants to know what took so long, Tulips Patty, tulips, a fantastic lunch, a splendid trip around an inspiring valley and a perfect but all too short of a visit.

But here we are now, back to work and happy, so happy to be working with this wonderful material.

Dirt is tapping the sheet down into place, tap, tap, tap, see the sheet moving down into place...

And the glazing was done, the twenty-ninth of March!

Two weeks later, enough holes have been filled and enough has been done that Dirt says as long as I give him room to work, I can move some of my plants down here. Others might just head to a cold frame or water walls, but... cough, cough, I'm not sure.

After supper yesterday, which we actually ate down here, the girls and Dirt helped me move all my fuchsias into the Hippy Hot Hut.

Dirt put up the crossy things and then put up a couple of pipes to hang the baskets. The crossy things will come in handy when I throw a little shade cloth over them to keep the fuchsias from burning.

They won't be in here long, I hope. Then I need to figure out where to hang all of them outside while they continue to grow. The crash and being in where I couldn't water them without walking them in and out has been hard on them, guess I shouldn't have been so eager to start certain endeavors before having the right spot to do it. Oh well, I'll learn that lesson for sure, when I'm sixty, or seventy, by then Bet will be in charge.

Well gotta get my coffin' head out of bed and go move the brugs and all the rest of everything. Maybe do a little seeding...

Workin' just a bit slower today, heck have been goin' slower for a few days now. But its all good, obviously I needed to slow down so I could do more deep thinking. Arencha lucky Dear Reader, you get to read the result of my brain matter sloshing around!

By the way, Ralph has noted that I managed to skip Colorado in my list of Arbor Day party state dates. Didn't mean to. But as I was clicking around the map on the Arbor Day web site I musta gottin a bit confused with all those square states down there Ralph. Duly noted and the date will be added and we will have a special cookie eatin' party, nah, we'll have Colorado Carrot Cake! in honor of a tree partyin' resident of said state!

Wadding Waddles

What happens when your panties get in too tight of a wad? You have a tendency to waddle and not get anything done correctly. But I managed to buck up, concentrate, ah the source of my migraine perhaps, and figure out the best way to address some bites made by our perennial pest, Satan.

So day before yesterday I posted a title, three times in a row. Without the snarky quips that went with it. And I have such dedicated and sweet Dear Readers that two of them went above the call of duty and came up with comments for my nonsensical title. So to honor their diligence as Dear Readers, even though I deleted my three posts of utter ridiculous proportions (no words from Lanny!) I retained their comments and am republishing them here.

The title? What No Blogging?


The diligent commenters and their awesome and meaningful comments:

LindaSueBuhl just sometimes - not blogging means doing life so que sera sera

KathyB. You're NOT blogging? If the rest of your blog is any example of what is goin' on at Vicktory Farm I am amazed you're blogging at all! You are getting a LOT done outside in the mud there.

Thanks ladies, for reaching deep and coming up with great comments to my nonsense, you are second to no one, not even Blue Tarp Camper.

Something on My Side Board for a While

The following was on my side board for a while recently I decided to take it off but I wanted to save the thoughts. Now however, I am cleaning up my drafts and eliminating them so I've turned this into a post where it was just a draft. I wish there was a way to save what your whole blog looks like from time to time. Oh well.....



Start looking at and reading the Bible differently. Perhaps it was never meant to be turned into a "word for the day" calendar.

The "letters" were meant to be read as such, not sliced and diced.

Think of yourself discovering a pack of letters written between your grandparents when they were courting and first married. You untie the ribbon, open the fourth letter in the stack, read the third line of the fourth paragraph because you see that it has an explaination mark behind it?
Or do you untie the packet and read all the letters completely, trying to figure out the order from the post mark, reading each one, sometimes over and over. Comparing how they spoke in the first one and the later ones. Essentially blowing a whole day in the attic; crying, weeping, laughing, gaining a sense of who your grandparents really were in those days.

Would you know that from picking out all the sentences that cousin Judy told you you should focus on and memorizing them so you could recite them at the next family picnic?

Okay, I Give In

I have often said since November that I think Facebook is ridiculous. I've said if it is not completely ridiculous, it is at least a major waste of people's time or it is a blatant display of how much time people waste. Something like those type of complaints have ushered from my lips or at least rolled around in my grey matter.

But I give in. I have to declare Facebook as being a nifty tool. Someone got a facebook account just so she could find me. Me. Little ol' grumpy-pants,-yell-at-the-world,-sack-cloth-and-ashes,-we-are-screwed-up" me. And because I have a Facebook account and I am actually attempting to use it, even though it requires that I say no more than a sentence or two (that is torturous quite frankly), she did indeed find me.

So for about a month and a half now, an old friend (clear back to seventh grade folks!) and I have had a couple of conversations, visited in person and on Facebook. And today she is coming for another visit to Vicktory Farm and Gardens so I won't tarry here long so that I can run the girls into little town this morning, return a movie to BB and books to the library and be back to greet her with a fire in the woodstove, a cup of something warm and some little toasty things to nibble on.

And I suppose I would have to say that some of last weekend's basking in an old friendship with a family we don't see but once a year, accidentally at the Fair, would also have to be attributed to stupid Facebook. It is just too easy to say, "hi, come on over for dinner" when you "see" a person on Facebook often.

And not to mention Facebook is going to be instrumental in the girls and I getting to know the sister of a good friend just a little better than seeing her occasionally at said friend's house for events that we would both be there, like wedding and house warming and moving days. Because she is going to come and make applesauce donuts with us next week! Just because of some silly little banter on Facebook, and because another Facebookian who knows both of us in real life, a reluctant and grumpy sort (kinda like me only far more pessimistic) who doubted the accuracy of our being able to say we are friends said, "oh, yeah and you guys are going to be real friends and actually talk?" or something to that effect. Well Bucky, this is Facebook Throwdown with Lanny.

So there it is, I cave, I cave to Facebook. But I admit I am not sure how some people can have 450 "friends". I just have 45 and I run to keep up with them. Yes, only 45 Facebook friends, isn't that like way sad?

Hey, is sad the only word these days that is still used in it's original manner or did I just say that it is actually cool that I have only 45 Facebook friend or something equally weird?

Have an awesome day Sweet Listener and Brave Converser. I'd have included a picture here but you can just see Facebook for yourself on your own computer. Maybe, just maybe, I will have some illustrations for you tomorrow. Oh wait, I will be without computer tomorrow, so you will not be hearing from me 'til at the very least Sunday. Because, yes, I am trying to get back to posting nearly every day. We'll see how that goal works.

Tute ta lue

Would You Mind Terribly?

Vacation in the mountains was great. No, I did not end up getting sick (vitamin C, calcium, vitamins A and D and a little Salmon Oil thrown in). But would you mind terribly Dear Reader, if I didn't tell you all about our amazing trip and the berries we picked and the dog we almost lost in a near snow storm (not a complete repeat of last year but within inches or degrees rather)?

Would you mind terribly if I didn't tell you all the things around the farm that I am doing or that I'm not getting to or that Dirt and the girls are or are not doing? Would it be a bad thing if I didn't report the concrete things of my life? Didn't tell you of all the things we are doing to get ready to be down at the Puyallup Fair next Wednesday morning? Would you mind terribly?

Because I just want to plop my Dear Reader down in the middle of my mind. It has a lovely easy chair in it and a little side table set with some little goodies; fresh fruit, some cookies and a toasty cup of Earl Grey along with a tall glass of ice water.



We've danced around the room of my concrete tangible life and done so quite a bit and we, you and I, have actually dabbled in the doorway of my mind some, but if it wasn't too scary and you knew you could pick up and leave anytime you wished, that I hold no one to any sort of social contract, would you mind coming in and sitting a spell in my mind?

It, my mind, has been chewing up a lot of ground lately. A lot prompted by events or things others have said. A little peep into the window: when in Christ, is there or ought there to be anything we see as futile? Should we voluntarily participate in perceived futility or perceive difficulty or such as futility?

I actually do have to go and do something right now Dear Reader so I'm going to leave you here, with my question for you and someone's question for me, well a statement actually, that I then turned into a question and answered nearly immediately and emphatically.

I'll be trying to take a spin around the neighborhood while I "pen" out some of my thoughts of late. But remember I hold no one to a social contract. Because I visit, listen and enjoy, doesn't mean I hold you to what others may see as "fair trade." I know my "stuff" can be convoluted, hard to chew through and just doesn't make a hill of beans to the majority of lives not to mention I can be just plain boring. So, even if you tell me you wouldn't mind if I got all thoughts and feelings-ish some what poetic maybe and pretended to be profound, I won't make you stay if I go where you never suspected a person could go.

So there you have it Dear Reader, that's where I'm at journal-wise, now I am going to slip out to the kitchen to make some Lanny-ized Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner for some impromptu company while you mull that over. Sneak out when ever you wish after you tell me what you think, or not, and I'll catch up with you in the next day or two, maybe not all of your ten thousand posts my G. Reader tells me is waiting for me, not even close, but I will swing by your place for a bit.

Tomorrow Schmarrow

"See you tomorrow with a long post about pickles and bees, mean unidentifiable bees, and harvesting things." quote from Lanny's last post, not yesterday.

Not today but soon, I'll tell you all about my bee battle, okay, okay yellow jackets, not bees, shoot me down like the dog I am, yes I've been taking short cuts and calling everything that flies and stings a bee and it is not fair and yes, I could have sworn that the flying stinging little buggers in the soil by my irises were indeed fuzzy and therefore a bee, however, on closer inspection they are indeed yellow jackets not solitary ground bees that suddenly had changed their habits and became angry colonists. (Confessions usually call for run on sentences.)



But as I began with, I will tell you all about it in another post, date tba. Today I have decided to try to stick to one subject. I will say here that I am inside lounging with the laptop in the middle of the day, not because it is raining, I would love to be in the rain, but because I am researching overseeding pastures and such and I am doing that mostly because I am sportin' another bee sting that has given me an extra elbow and a rather queezy and fluctuating thermostat. (Justifications also call for run on sentences.)



This clearly is the summer of ketchup so catch up I shall.



Monday found me very excited. It was raining and it was time to get into a pickle with Tipper and a couple of her readers! Fourteen Day Pickles are underway.



Here is my photomontage of my Monday morning. Hope you can follow along. I should have a bouncing pickle like sing along with Mitch's little bouncing ball.







These are the cukes I purchased at Duris Pickle Farm down in the big valley. They were labled extra small but there were ones labeled exta extra small. I'm the only adult, grown-up, ahhh parent here at Vicktory Farms that eats sweet picks so I'm making them to my liking and I like sweet picks at about a two bite affair.




I ended up using one hundred even though Tipper's recipe called for three dozen. Even at that I was still short of her volume measure of two gallons, mine equalled just a bit over a gallon.


Even though I had a crock, two actually, and Tipper's recipe called for a three gallon crock, I have that, I went out and bought a two gallon glass crock at the forbidden store. Knowing on Saturday afternoon that my hundred cukes barely measured a gallon and a half and Tipper was using two gallons of cukes in a three gallon crock I figured that her ratio of cukes to size of crock would be like me using a two gallon crock for my barely gallon and a half cukes.

Crocks are notorious for having cracks and also for being expensive. So I had Anna check with Grandma and Grandpa Vick to make sure nothing untoward was ever stored in them and then I filled them with water and set them on newspaper to check for cracks. I also measure the level of the water from the rim, but little mister Howel used the ten gallon crock as his personal bowl so I was glad for the newspaper trick I began with. There are no cracks in either crock so I am very very excited.

Look at these two silly cukes that slipped past me at the Cuke farm! Ooops I don't think I counted the two klingons. but I couldn't use them anyway they were already slimey. I am looking forward to not having issues with my cucumber plants next year and for the ones I do plant to be producing way sooner than this years will.

I'm leaning toward putting in a full bed (four feet by two hundred feet) of just pickling produce. It will be covered with a hoop so I ought to be, God willing, a month ahead and in abundance of pickles next year. I'm in love with next year can ya tell! Oh wait not all of you see my bumpersticker notes on Facebook, nevermind. I tell you all about my "next year" thing in a future post, maybe.

This is the murky waters after all the little sweet cukes got brished up and into the two gallon glass crock.

And these are two bad boys that slipped by my notice Saturday afternoon when I counted to one hundred while inspecting my picks for picks.



At first I was not excited to hand count out one hundred of the two types of cukes I had come to get. But when I was washing them up I was glad that I had to buy them by count not by weight or volume. Counting forced me to touch each and every one I chose. So yes, I have two I shouldn't have had but if I had bought them by anyother means I would most likely have ended up with way more duds than that.

Next came the brine. Both Tipper's and the recipe I found for my garlic dills called for a ten percent brine solution. (salt solution) In regular water an egg, fresh egg, sinks. Like a rock, no tettering no tottering.

But in a ten percent brine solution the very same egg floats! I just did that to check it out. I actually just measured one pint of salt to one gallon water. Once again, I am glad that I live on well water. In preparation for the day I read a lot that says that you can have trouble trying to do pickles in this manner if you use city tap water that is treated with chlorine and such. Not a problem for me. I love my house and where I live. Have I ever mentioned that Dear Reader? I am so thankful for my nice big house. I can have all the things I need and a lot of what I don't really need all inside my sweet house. And it is chalk a block full of history and stories.



That was pretty much all I needed to do for Tipper's pickles until the eighteenth. And my recipe for garlic dills follows nearly the same except that I am layering dill and garlic in the bottom and middle of the slightly larger cukes. But the same brine, salt, solution is poured over the dill, garlic and cuke layers.

The dill was looking a little droopy but man alive it perked up after it was in this glass of water.

For this batch I am using the three gallon crock crock. My mind is twirling with what to put in the ten gallon one. Bet and I are sauerkraut eaters and I would love to eat real sauerkraut.

Even though I harvested thirty pounds of garlic recently I spotted these big fellas at the local grocer's. They were incredibly cheap. Er.. inexpensive. Especially when compared to the seed garlic I had just ordered a few days ago. I will be planting back each of the varieties I harvested from last fall's plantings that I bought from FilareeFarm. They were great! and all four performed beyond expectations, but I want to expand my current repertoire so I have ordered four more varieties to add to next year's (by the way, I just realized I sort of already explained my "next year" thing in How the Heck!?! so I am off the hook for further explaination, but that isn't to say I won't).

But I saw, well Bet and I saw, these in the local grocer's produce collection at such a dirt cheap price and they are so nice and big and appear to be softneck and therefore braidable, that I thought I would add them to my collection to plant in October. These are the garlics that I used for in the garlic dill's crock. I wanted to see what these little big guys looked like out of their skins. They're pretty stinkin' good looking (no pun originally intended there but I'll go with the stinkin').

Hey I just looked at the begining of that paragraph and saw another unintentional pun, dirt cheap. But then I guess you gotta know my running battle with my dear Dirt in order to see that one.

These are my garlic dills set in brine supposedly for about three weeks. There is a clear plate on top to hold the picks down in the brine. Come to find out, none of my plates work very well for either crock. They were either too small or too big. So Dirt picked up some oak for me and is making me two oak "lids" for my crocks. I keep having little cukes slip past the plate and the silly garlic is determined to float.

So now that I finished that, here is a little note about the long awaited rain. I am definitely a PNW girl. I need my rain, and I need my walls of green. I love green, not real thrilled about the subversion of the name of my favorite color as a living concept, I actually love the color green.

Ooops, sidetrack, about the rain and sleeping and what I had to say Tuesday when I woke up, when this post was actually started. But now it is Thursday. I confuse myself a lot because my posts are never really posted when they say they are being posted and not because I am clever like A. Joy and "schedule" the post but instead I begin it and then I am distracted for a few hours or for a few days.

Arencha glad I'm sticking to one subject for this post Dear Reader?!?

So here it is Tuesday morning's thoughts from Lanny.

That was the worst night of sleep I have had in months. But I don't really mind too much, except that now I am behind because I finally fell asleep an hour before I was suppose to get up.

First couple of hours I wondered about what I might have left out in the rain. Dirt too. Then we both remembered that he left one of the tillers out. He's the mechanic. He wasn't worried, why would I get up and try and get it in?

But then I spent the rest of the night awake alone. I could tell you exactly what times it rained, when it was just misting, when it stopped completely and how many inches we got. I'm not kidding.

I was excited to go to bed and fall asleep listening to the rain. We, Dirt and I, have been in the trailer all summer, the bed is better out there, and when you're in the trailer the rain is hard to miss. You're right Susie, I was so looking forward to the sound of the rain lulling me to sleep.

Instead, I ended up being more excited about exactly how good it was going to rain. I'm looking forward to it being a soaker.

Well off to play with my bees.

Which I did and then I managed to get stung by a "not bee" down here at the house.

Since I wandered from my pickle main topic already let me go further by saying that Facebook has caused me to become even crankier with culture. So here, in the PNW, it hasn't rained for over a month and the last rain was hardly measurable, yet facebook is crowded with people who are upset that the rain is ruining their summer. Eh?

But the worst recent cultural run in on Facebook was a lovely Christian's woman's statement about her sons, young teenagers, being studs.

Studs!!! Does she call her daughters "hot little tarts" too!

Folks, it is one thing to say of some guy on tv that he is a stud, he very well may be, even in the true sense of the word, but for crying out loud, if you call a young man a stud don't be so stinking surprised if he comes home with some preganant girls in tow! Oh, but it is cool to be thought of as a stud. Really? Really? How far are you going to go with that cool?! A stud is a male animal, kept for the purpose of breeding. Stallions are studs, dogs are studs, owners of such charge a stud fee.

"Oh but that's not how we are using the word?"

Really? really?

That is a large pile of manure. So large that if I had that pile I could fertilize my entire pasture with that one pile of manure. Lets all get our heads out of the manure pile and think about the words we choose and the culture we insist on chasing after. The results of where our heads have been aren't looking so good folks. Lets get both feet on the same side of the fence.

Catch up to you in a couple of days Dear Reader but for now I need to step away from the computer, put down the key board..... so that no one gets hurt...

How the Heck!?! or Quick, Before a Week Goes By!

Warning: Pictures on this blog often have nothing to do with what I am talking about and sometimes they illustrate my words nicely, today they do both.

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One of my favorite posts of recent, (A Flag On the Ceiling and a Promise Kept ) I found had been turned from a post (it actually had two comments) into a draft. How the heck did that happen?

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Bucha know, I think that I will say that that will be my last promise kept. No, I mean that I won't be taking in any more awards or tags for quizzes into my dark secret life.

Mr. Howell would like some of that Otter Pop please.

I don't really deserve any awards and I have no dark secret life. What you see is what you get. But mostly because they, awards and such, take me a century to attend to and I go to bed with that same "you have a paper due in a couple of days" gut ache I used to have when I was a student. Sometimes assignments are not helpful.

Aksel says, "No one goes in unless they come out with an Otter Pop,

and not a banana flavored one either."

But iffen' you really want to know something, ask, I'll tell, eventually. But it will be with a huge long verbose explaination. That I am good at. I can't get through anything without a lot of words. Must be why I'm not all that into Facebook. I don't have bumperstickers on my car and I don't do Faceboook very well at all.

Steph and the boys enjoying Otter Pops

in the Bedouin style tenting I have up around the house to keep it cool.

I will say, that in a day or two I will have a Facebook prompted scathing review of nonsensical and poor use of words. And folks, its not just a word choice nit pick. You say something to kids, young men and women (known by some people as teenagers) and nine times outta ten the crap sticks and it fosters a mess. We need to be mindful of what we set up in young people. Luke 17:1-2, (oh and the warning is also in Matthew and Mark just in case you think it is a fluke)

Mind you I am not talking about being bold with the fledgling adults and saying harsh stuff to them, they often need, especially in this current its-all-about-the-kids culture, to hear that the universe does not revolve around them and they are not Queen or King Bee or a little Prince or Princess. I am talking about words that.... Oh what the heck I said a future post. This one is about catching up (again with the ketchup), the heat wave and garden stuff and other loose ends not starting another one.

King Brug standing guard at Dirt's Arbor Entrance to the Croquet Lawns.

Several of you asked what a brug was. Brug is shorthand for Brugmansia. You know, like Mum for Chrysanthemum. In actuality it is a water guzzling, fertilizer slurping monster as bad if not worse than tomatoes in small pots.

A Brug is a big fat baby when it comes to winter so not only am I its food and beverage slave all summer, but then I have to give it indoor lodging half the year. Sheesh! And since I love to have a crowd around me at all times, tossing roasted somethings here and pouring a porter there, I don't just have one of these I have five.

King Brug's courtier, Peach, actually beginning to bloom

(where's your bloom KB?)

Their leaves are quite holey this year because the uninvited Leaf Hopper Gangs have moved in in record numbers, bikes, leathers and all, but at least this year they will actually bloom outside. Last year I brought them in but didn't tuck them in bed for a couple of months because they had just budded in late September.

Next year's goal, get these lazy party boys to bloom in June or at least July!

If you have been a good "Dear Reader" and read my side board, you will know that I do a lot of "next year..." this time of year. For me August is "evaluation month" and September is actual "sit down and map out next year month" making September the real "New Year," resolutions and all, in my book. (Yes, if it were not for the ridiculousness of current academia Lanny would still be a student. I could address this issue right after I crack the whip on silly numbheaded "we wanna be cool" parents.)

Fragrant Cloud Hybrid Tea Rose in the Lawn Border Garden

Ahhh what better time that one's birthday month to go around and beat the tar out of one's self for the stupid stunts they tried to get away with. Or let others talk them into.
But not all "next year..." s are because of failures, sometimes they are because a "hey, I can do this, I might even get away with doing more" sweeps over you, while attempting to stay honest and humble.

North Garden sweet peas. Taken Tuesday of Extreme Heat Week

The pictures of Stephanie and the boys were taken at the height of our heat wave. It had been building for quite sometime and then peaked mid-week last week. Well this is also a picture taken last week. My sweet peas appreciated the knock down blast and the "now stay off" spritz of Neem oil and Epsom salts I gave the aphids a while back and now they are continuing to bloom with the promise of going all the way into fall.

In my two gallon sprayer I put in a splash of hippy dish soap, two and a half-ish tablespoons of Neem oil and a couple of tsp. of Epsom salts. I had blasted the the aphids hard with this (turn the tip of your sprayer to stream like your kitchen spray bottle in a water fight) and then went back over the whole plant with a lovely stay-on-the-leaves-you-great-little-solution misting spritz.

Princess Elizabeth Sweet Pea perfuming the North Garden
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I only did this because the sweet peas were heading south (no offense you southerners) before they really wanted to. And it was all the aphids' fault. My brugs may be holey and not blooming but the not blooming thing is from them not getting sun early enough in the year and not being fed steak and eggs for breakfast, two double deluxe cheese burgers and fries for lunch and a baron of beef for dinner every day.

And the holey thing isn't all that crucial. I'm not raising them for exhibition. So I would rather let the leaf hoppers think that they are safe and hopefully the lady bugs and lace wings will come in, knock their pompous rears off their bikes, and arrest the lot of them, while leaving a few to snack on later.

I do give them a spritz of Epsom salts. It helps their cell walls and bad bugs don't like crisp vegetation. Another reason to suspect them as evil greasers. Remember the bad guy in Ever After (1998)? The guy who hauled off Danielle (Drew Barrymore), when Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (Anjelica Huston) couldn't pay her bills anymore?

Pierre le Pieu?
Yeah that guy. He is who I think of when I think of nasty plant chomping bugs. Or slugs. Or...

Last Friday's harvest from the North Garden

So the sweet peas keep a coming and I am reminded that even in a summer like this one (slightly unusual for us, doncha think) they are not all that hard to keep blooming. They are one of my favorite flowers and I was glad to hear that a fellow at the flower market in Portland told my sister (a non-professional wedding flower doer) that more brides should carry sweet peas. I could not agree with him more.

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So my flower garden will always have sweet peas just in case there is a lovely bride who may need the perfect bouquet and not have the bucks to hire a zillion dollar florist. One of my secret dreams (that really isn't a secret) is to have Vicktory Farm and Gardens be used as a wedding place by people who understand what a wedding is. One of the other not-so-secret dreams is to own a tavern with a farm near by.

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Back to the sweet peas, I have always attempted to grow them but often succumb to some foil or another. Usually it is defeatism at the hands of moles, yeah I know they are suppose to be omnivorous but funny how I lose my just planted pea seeds to fresh mole tunnels.

If they, moles, aren't eating the seeds and it is really herbevorous voles coming down the mole tunnels then all I've got to say is Grahame missed by not having a vole in his story and Lobel should have done Mole and Vole instead of Frog and Toad, 'cause my two fellas must be a knock out communicaten' team!

Hmmm

Did you see what Janie saw in the harvest shot?

Speaking of moles?

I'm beginning to think that Dirt now has pet moles or has formed a coalition with the enemy. I never see them in the lawn anymore. Only in my gardens. And I really have a hard time with the Ratters going after them in my gardens. They may go after them on the edge or in the lawn, I don't mind, but the Ratters are about as mindful of my plants as Dirt is. And trust me, that ain't much!

" You know, you could have called on me. I've gotten them before you know. You didn't need to waste your time setting this trap. I could have gotten it and shook the living daylights outta it!"

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I think Dirt is sending them to my gardens so that I will let him keep his lawn and desist in edging farther and farther into his domain. Mmmm.

Well Dirt, you are stuck with me, my fat... and my flowers. Your mole coalition will not deter me. I heard you say that you like my flowers, yes, I had to eaves drop to hear the compliment, but it was there all the same. I know how you really feel. Not unlike sleeping under flowery, billowy white sheets and comforters, you like what I bring to the party.

"I think I will sink into depression"

I waited too long to harvest my garlic, (some of it is in the basket here), we got over thirty pounds but only one batch of softnecks were worth braiding, the others went into net sleeves like the hard necks.

Thirty pounds outta get Dirt at least to Christmas before I have to buy it from Cash n' Carry in large food service sized boxes. In the middle of winter there is a certain constant odor in my bedroom. (He smells like a hippy-girl-massage-therapist, minus the patuouli oil of course.) I'm glad I don't have an over zealous fear of burning a candle while I sleep. The off beat snoring is hard enough to sleep by, then you add nut job radio playing all night long and the smell of garlic drenched pores and I am driven to the couch, which really only last about a half-hour or so before I realize I can't sleep there either.

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I am not married to my best friend. I like my best friends, every single one of them. But I would not take all that from them, trust me.

Unmarked Lily in the Lawn Border Garden

And no best friend of mine would be able to step on my twenty blossom Casa Blanca lily as it begins to emerge from its winter slumber and live to tell about it let alone continue to be my "best" friend. Dirt and I friendly and pals, no doubt. But best friends don't marry, men and women marry, and the bond is far far beyond that of best friendness.

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If my best friend and I "break up" I am free to have another, quite frankly in my world I have scads of "best" friends, I am not monobestfriendous. But I do not have such a loose connection to my spouse. We are now one. We were the moment, the very split second we said, "I do." Neither one of us can sever that bond, no court of law can, no amount of miles can. It was a done deal twenty-eight years and ten months ago.

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Saved and replanted "Easter Lilies"

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It doesn't matter what he sounds like or smells like; it matters little what he says or doesn't say; it doesn't matter if he has grown too much in a direction I chose not to or too little in an area I did; it doesn't matter if he changed and is no longer the man I married; it doesn't matter if he still is the man I married and not the man I thought he would become; it doesn't matter if he makes a hundred little mistakes or one giant one that even the Pope might say was too much; it doesn't even matter if he made forty-sixty zillion kabillion of those giant mistakes.

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We are one.

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We will always be one. Until one of us departs and goes to heaven. And then when we are both there we won't care that the other is there because all we will "care" for is the face to face presence of Christ our Lord.

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Oh wait, this post is about the heat wave and gardening.

Jackie O's Lipstick Abutilon

Container planting takes lots o' water. And when something takes lots o' water it takes lots o' feeding. Fortunately not everything in containers at Vicktory Farm and Gardens is a out of control thirsty hunger tyrant like the brugs. Jackie is very pleasant and very thankful for her daily portion of water and weekly feeding.

Petunias in flower pockets growing slowly for the end of September at the fair.

This flower pouch thing though, I'm not so stinking sure about. The verdict is out on this one for now. Jackie gets to stick around 'cause she is easy going, King Brug and his buddies are still on because they are eventually handsome and exotic. But these flower pouch things are a lot of nusince. I will do them again next year with some modifications in water and fert. delivery but if they are not performing better, read that, easier, then replaced they will be!

What is this?

I really enjoy participating in Fishing_Guy's weekly "What's It?" game. Well, that is when I remember to get over there pronto on Tuesday's. And while I am no master at macro lens (my camera matches my ability - limited and small) I thought I could toss this one out there and perhaps stump a few of you.

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Hints? Come on, do you really need one Dear Reader? Okay after that rambling yappy post I suppose you are a little tired.

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Remember this was taken durring the hottest days we have seen in the PNW in a lifetime (Jim Foremanesque hyperbole there). My dad loved watching Marcus Welby M.D. and he, Dr. Welby, was always seen eating a type of this at the end of each show. And now with all those hints and the full picture I really must insist that you hit it square on the nose, flavor and all.

Dear Reader, I pray that you can unmistakeably see the working of God, His mercy, His grace and His miracles in your life and through your life this week. I have seen great things these last few days. I've become free-er in Him every moment. And more a bonded servant to Him each second of my journey on the race. I feel I can race no faster than I am right now. Yet I feel I can not not race faster than I am at this moment. My joy could not be greater than it is today. Until I tell you tomorrow.