Have YOU Ever Seen the Rain?

Boy, have I seen the rain!  It has rained eight days this month, and it's only the ninth day of the month!  It rained fifteen out of thirty days last month.  

Though the rain destroyed almost all of our strawberries (we only had two weeks of harvest), it has been quite a lovely thing for the blueberries.

 We grow about half a dozen blueberry varieties.  The first to ripen are a true treat.  They have delicate vanilla undertones that give them rockstar status around here.  We'll do our first harvest this Friday!

So, how do we know when they're sweet?  The berries are ready to pick when the base of the stem turns blue.  As you can see, the berries above are preparing themselves for market on Saturday.

Much to the birds' delight, we don't use wildlife netting on the blueberries.  We have so many bushes that it just wouldn't be practical.  Luckily, the birds have been kind enough to share the bounty with us.  Unfortunately for the deer, we do have an electric fence to keep them at bay. 

While watching the berries ripen, we've been keeping ourselves busy harvesting, drying, and cleaning garlic.  I've had a lot of fun making braids this week.  The garlic braids will be tagging along with the blueberries this weekend at market!

Birdwatching

Aren't these little ones adorable?   I wonder if their mother is the same bird that nested atop our porch light last year.  Anyhow, she's definitely of the same species, whatever that may be.  It made me so happy to see them doing well this evening.  

What a face!

Can you see the Saint Bernard hairs in the nest?  Thurgood's and Miles' fur is always highly sought-after building material.

Safe and sound.

Sadly, tragedy struck the Mourning Dove nest last night.  A black snake got one of the two newly hatched Mourning Doves.  Ben was able to rescue the second chick, but the nest was completely empty this morning.  Mama Dove sat on her eggs for weeks without moving much at all.  She grew on me, and I admired her dedication.  I was very disappointed about the way things turned out for her family.

Damn, it's a rough life out there.

First Came The Rain, Now The Heat Is On!

 We have had beaucoup rain this spring.  If it wasn't raining cats and dogs, then it was Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  I'm not one to complain about rain (I've seen plenty of droughts, and that ain't pretty either), but we really needed a drying-out period.  It feels like summer now, and it is H-O-T.

The lettuce and asparagus are handling the change in weather just fine, but we've eighty-sixed the spinach in the high tunnel.  The heat-loving crops are now having fun in the sun!

All eleven varieties of tomato are flowering in the high tunnel.

 Some of the plants even have lil'maters on them!

I love the bamboo stakes Ben procured for us.  They are sky high.

Cilantro on a hot day means it's salsa time!

Basil + Tomatoes = Heaven on Earth

The blueberries are putting on quite a show.

We'll be picking a little over a month from now.  My favorite.

I'm glad that we have enough strawberries to share with the birds.  They've been polite about pilfering so far.

 Strawberry shortcake is in my future.  Whipped cream or ice cream?  Hmmm...

Scatterbrained

I was all over the place today, both mentally and physically.  I was a busy-body and completely unable to focus.  I wish Ritalin were available over the counter.  Here are some snapshots of my scattered day.

Mama Mourning Dove is sitting on two eggs.  She is fierce.

All three elderberry bushes are fruiting!  We planted "Variegated," "Thundercloud," and "Emerald Lace" two years ago.  Here's a photo of the "Emerald Lace."

"Thundercloud"  has pretty pink flowers.  The birds eat the berries as soon as they appear.  I will never see their glory.

I picked strawberries today!

The "Gaviota" are the first to ripen.

This puts a smile on my face.

The butterhead lettuce is enjoying the weather.

The red butterhead lettuce is ready for market.  We'll offer both red and green this week.

I'm off to feed and walk the boys now.  If they weren't around to keep me on schedule, I don't know if anything would ever get done. 

 Dog is totally my co-pilot.

Fat Bear Feast

 The spinach in the high tunnel is still thriving.  The leaves probably grow about an inch a day.  It's a challenge keeping it picked between markets, and we eat it nonstop.

So, what to do with leaves the size of a human hand?

SPANAKOPITA NIGHT!

I used about three pounds of homegrown spinach, garlic, eggs, and herbs.  I added some feta and onions to the mix, wrapped it in frozen phyllo dough, and we had ourselves an easy meal.   I think I'll add some shiitakes next time.   We roasted some of our beets and sweet potatoes to go along with it. 

Now, for dessert.

Ben's wonderful mother has a gorgeous rhubarb patch in her garden.  She was very kind to share some of it with us.  I immediately made a strawberry rhubarb cobbler with it.

None of our strawberries were ripe yet, but I had back-up.  We froze a ton of fruit last year, so we still have several quarts of strawberries in the deep freezer.  Lucky ducks, we are!

If the weather is kind to us, it looks like we'll have ripe, plump strawberries to bring to market next week!  I must also keep my fingers crossed that the birds will be kind to us.  It seems like the bird population has exploded this year.  We have two nests on our front porch (we've only had one nest for the past two years), and there are Mourning Doves and Whatchamacallits everywhere.  Hopefully, the birds will opt to eat cicadas instead of strawberries.