Ducks4you for 2022

[ducks4you]

I will take a picture tomorrow, but I brought in even More tomatoes today!
Gotta watch the green ones and blushing tomatoes. They often start to ripen, then start to rot.
Gotta go through them every other day or so.

 

[heirloomgal]

What a beautiful harvest of tomatoes. The spread on the table is just GORGEOUS, my DD said 'wow! it's Iike from a magazine!' when I showed her that picture. Looks like you'll be having some delicious tomato inspired dishes this winter. I love adding tomatoes to vegetable soup!

 

[baymule]

I still have tomatoes from my spring/summer 2021 garden. I had so many, I canned spaghetti sauce, picante, half pints of pizza sauce, BBQ sauce ( made 2 recipes) and plain tomato sauce. Wealth from the garden!

 

[ducks4you]

MORE tomatoes. How did I miss these until yesterday?!?!?
The first is in a damaged roaster gifted by DD's, that I use now for gardening. Doesn't everybody?!?
The 2nd is the overflow.
I will probably take an accounting of my tomato quarts when all of these are processed, or rot and get recycled in the garden, as some do. I think that my oldest jars are now only from 2021.
Don't have time to go segregate tomatoes today.
I need to cut up and freeze sweet peppers, although I messaged DD about maybe stuffed peppers on Friday, since I have 4 that are mostly colored.
I will take a head count of the peppers and add the 12 missing ones (6 for party chili and other DD took 6 and made sausage and peppers with them.
I think it costs $1/pepper now, maybe more, so freezing for future cooking is a win-win.

 

[ducks4you]

Bad cold snap for most of this week.

Dark pink is freeze warnings, and light pink is frost warnings. This is 2 weeks ahead of average. Funny, my friend at my party on the 8th was noticing that we had more average temperatures 9 days ago and I had had my party on the 12th and had highs in the 80's, in the past, and one year a t storm blew through.
Gotta get my geraniums out of the garage beds, potted and inside (upstairs by the east bedroom weekend will work for them,) and harvest some most basil, basil seeds, including cinnamon basil seeds, and harvest some thyme, and dig up and bring in my small rosemary. DD's rosemary is still in my car, will bring that in today, too.

 

[ducks4you]

I used lawn/leaf bags to cover DD's pots. I am pretty sure that they will survive until this weekend, when I have more time to deal with them. After that, we will empty/save soil, and store them upside down in their garage, on top of an old wooden door that somebody left, which is face down in the NW corner of the garage. No rain this week, so no freezing/cracking.
About 8 years ago I bought the blue/cream pot on sale at Lowe's. Original price (then) was $75
I Wish I had bought several of them at $15/each.
I LOVE glazed ceramic pots! Hard to beat for general beauty.
Can't see, but the other two pots are medium blue/purple glazed.
The other plant is a canterbury bells. Got it on sale in August, but it never got planted. That will accompany my geraniums to the upstairs east facing window to over winter. Since it is a biennial, the winter chill upstairs shouldn't bother it. NOT enought roots would kill it if planted now.

 

[ducks4you]

FYI article:

A Meditation on Slaughter - Modern Farmer

What raising and harvesting chickens taught me about killing in the service of living.

modernfarmer.com

Caution: RANT
I have raised/"slaughtered" chickens.
The worst thing that happened to my chickens was a weasel chasing/killing them in their enclosure.
When I butcher, I thank my bird and I make it quick so the pain is brief.
I have been proud of how I have kept birds in a clean coop, with clean water and plenty of food, often leftovers like tomato and other vegetable pieces we didn't want to eat.
I don't have any chickens at the moment bc that creepy weasel might come back, and I need to put in some time and effort on my setup. Next year, again, for Sure.
Sometimes I will drive by where others keep livestock...badly. Cattle in small enclosures on dirt, yes, with hay, but cramped. Pigs crowded in together, falling apart chicken coops/runs, one time I saw horses in a smallish turnout that had a farming disc stored in the middle, an accident waiting to happen.
Not to make anybody uncomfortable, but sometimes livestock owners gamble that winter weather without a run in building won't kill their cattle. Those are the stories we hear every winter when herds are wiped out by severe cold.
Cattle can tolerate manure on the floor, the extreme cold and wind can do them in. That is cruel, IMHO.
I often wonder about the customers that my hay man delivers to in the winter that do NOT have hay storage.
If any of them "show" their horses, and took only one season Off, they could afford a morton metal building to store hay. Not great for stalls, bc Cold in the winter, hot in the summer, but hay doesn't care, as long as it stays dry.
Same building could stop the wind for cattle, and often that is all that they need.
If butchering hens makes you uncomfortable, don't do it. Sell your old hens to somebody who wants them, and then wonder how They "slaughter" them.
If the idea of killing your food makes your uncomfortable, join the large number of vegetarians.
Btw, purchased eggs were Never fertilized, so you can still eat them.
I make no apologies for criticizing "bleeding hearts virtue signalling."

 

[baymule]

Quandary. Do I start reading immediately or do I gnaw the meat off the pork chop bone on my lunch plate?


I chose the bone. Now I’ll read!

 

[baymule]

I also have raised and slaughtered chickens and pigs too. Any animal I own will have the best I can give it. Plus a whole lot of spoiling. Any animal I kill will be dealt with as humanely as possible. I say a prayer over every one of them. It’s only right.

I just moved. My sheep and dogs have shelter. It’s not fancy, but they can get out of the rain if they want to and wind.

 

[ducks4you]

Some more FYI~

Are Invasive Species Always Bad? - Modern Farmer

Researchers at Brown University want to emphasize the positive impacts of some non-native species.

modernfarmer.com