You know when a Holiday falls on a Monday it throws me all kinds of out of whack!
It's like Monday just doesn't exist or something. Don't get me wrong. I'm OK with this fact. It means I've had one less day sitting behind my desk at work. ;-)
This past weeks harvest is kind of important though so I wanted to tell you about it. Not in so much as what I harvested but what I didn't harvest.
My blackberry bushes are forming berries again. The second crop is always much smaller than the first. I'm pretty good with this as it's usually sweeter as well. The larger berries are better for juice/jelly and such but these berries are better for fresh eating.
To wit - this is the only berry I managed to remember to take a picture of. This time of year the stalks are longer and weep closer or even all the way to the ground so it's a fight with the chickens over these if I forget to tie them up before I let the hens out for the afternoon over the weekends.
Not to mention I have to fight with the kids and myself over not just popping them in our mouths and eating them. Actually getting them inside for a picture is a feat in itself. This one got mangled on the way in. Then no one wanted to eat it because it wasn't as pretty. Well - boo hoo to them. It still tasted just as good!
It being September means the sweet potatoes have been in the ground for seven months now and I like to pull them up sometime between September and October. So I rooted around and found a few potatoes. What I found wasn't very encouraging. So I stripped the plants of any formed potatoes. My hope is that if I give the plants another 6 weeks I might have a last round of sweet potatoes to carry me through. What I got out form under the plants? 10 pounds of extremely split sweet potatoes and about 2 and a half pounds of usable ones. I also got a rogue carrot, and a snake skin. LOL. Never know what you'll find in such dense vegetation 'round here!
Split potato in front (vast majority were this way) only usuable ones in back. Snake skin and carrot on table, too. The kids thought it was funny that the little carrot formed. It wasn't bad considering it was a summer carrot. The shade from the heavy foliage must have helped the carrot but it was still rather bitter. Snake looks like a rat snake or garter. Both are very common here.
Last but certainly not least the eggs. This is what my eggs looked like this past week on Friday...
I had been getting 3 every day. Just like usual with a skip by the large bird about once a week, sometimes twice. She's not meant to lay 7 days a week so that's just not a shock there.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday I got 2 eggs a day and this is what the nest looked like:
Oh, my. I guess we know what is going on here. It's just that time of year after all. Thankfully for my birds they are going to be getting naked while it's still quite warm out. I feel bad for the birds up north that get naked when it's so cool at night, and even in the SNOW! BRRRRr..... Yesterday, on Monday? Only one egg. So it looks like egg production is down, feather production is up and my birdies will be looking rather disheveled for a while. I'm hoping it won't take too long. I'm also hoping it will set little Miss red on her rear! She's been pecking on Dusty when she's in the nest box and has managed to pick all of her neck feathers out. It would be good if this helped to change her temperament a little bit. *crossing fingers* If not I'll be buying two chicks in the spring to replace her and while my soup pot will be fat the hen house will get skinny. LOL. Just don't tell the kids. I don't mind them knowing where our food comes from, but these hens are their pets. After all they watch us quarter the hogs and deer. Meat and butchering is not a surprise to them.
Ah, so that was my Labor Day weekend. We enjoyed ourselves, puttered around the garden. Replanted the corn that didn't come up...(Oh, yes that is another post) This week I'll tear out the squash that just up and died on me. *pout* and the circle of garden life continues on.
See you soon!
Barbie~
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