stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

I have problems with Winter squash maturing. Several varieties of kabocha have had a chance after I discovered Cha Cha. Avoiding those with longer days to maturity didn't help. Cha Cha seems to have less availability so I should continue with exploring.

I prefer that kabocha to Burgess Buttercup because of that blossom end "cup" wasted space. Buttercup doesn't have a very short dtm but it has worked for me for many years.

I wonder if your high water table is a squash problem. Mine is likely the cool nights.

@Branching Out , pumpkin bisque is very tasty. DW and I need to get more into that - here in the middle of Soup Season .

Steve

there were a lot of things going on this season which made it hard to get a good squash crop. most of it i would put down to deer trampling and grazing damage and a very long dry spell.

 

[flowerbug]

actual real blue sky and sunshine today. yes, i'm writing this down because it's been a long stretch of cloudy days with very little full sunlight. it hurts my eyes to look out the patio doors at the horizon. my eyes are too used to weaker light.

no snow on the ground. going to warm up again too. plants and animals must be very confused.

 

[flowerbug]

new person showed up for the garden club meeting, since i'd been warned that the other two regulars were not going to be there today i wasn't sure i'd be busy or not and made sure to take things with me to do. spent almost three hours running my mouth and answering questions. i get a whole month's worth of talking done once a month.

gave him some beans seeds to go with his other sprouts he has starting up. also will bring him some empty vinegar bottles which are more sturdy than milk jugs to use as pots for plants. he has a history of growing things and it should be fun to see where this goes.

also got some peas put into the seed library and packaged some up for the seed swap.

 

[flowerbug]

another interesting note about the grain elevator fire that has burned for over a month, since i was driving by last Tuesday i could see the change from the previous month. it is still burning at times when they expose hot spots where they can get more air, the walls that used to be there holding the grain were gone and it was down quite a bit from where it was before. i'm not sure if they are trucking it someplace to use it or what but it used to hold 3 million bushels of corn. could it have burned a million bushels? perhaps, but i don't know. they've dumped a lot of water on it in putting out the fire and also the rains that have come along in recent weeks. when i saw it towards the end of December it was mostly an intact pile with just the top of the elevator burned of (it was a wooden cover with a metal frame underneath).

ah, here's an article with more details.

https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-business/andersons-grain-pile-still-burning-weeks-after-fire

looks like they may be able to salvage some of that grain eventually. clean it up and use it for animal feed or ethanol production. they'll need to get that done before it gets too warm or all that is going to start to rot, especially with all the water they've dumped on it and rains and such. no room in other local grain elevators so i'm not sure how they're going to manage that...

 

[flowerbug]

continuing to make progress on my goals so that is nice. it means i'm not here on TEG quite as much but that will eventually change back again since i'm nearly at a good stopping point for changing back to bean and seed saving sorts of things...

what i like about winter projects like this is that it keeps my mind busy and the busier i am doing things the less time i'm likely to thinking about raiding the fridge or cupboards.

 

[flowerbug]

wow, yesterday finally broke through and was able to get all of my 20 files scanned without errors. there's some fiddling around i have to do yet but this was the major first thing i had to get over. been learning a lot and enjoying it all as it is like a big puzzle where you just keep chipping away at it and learning as you go along what you need to do next. having written programs of over a million lines of code before this is quite simple stuff in comparison.

so on to the next parts.

sunny beautiful day outside. the deer have been eating the trees again. no surprise.

propane delivery a few minutes ago so we're set for another 6-10 weeks depending upon what the weather does. this will be a three delivery season and we'll have quite a bit left over to get us through most of the fall and winter of next heating season. we don't use it for anything else. price had not changed so that was ok.

 

[flowerbug]

a few weeks ago when i went through the squash to see which were good for processing and those that were rejects i'd taken all those rejects and put them on the weed pile.

the past night the deer found that pile and went through it pretty well.

Mom went out and fixed her fence around some trees (i think she was just getting stir crazy and wanted to do something outside) but admits that it may be impossible to protect those trees as the deer can come in from other other side. it'd be a shame to have them all get eaten. i don't have any more funds for putting up more fence and it's too late now anyways along with the fact that i'd have to cut down other trees to be able too run a fence along there anyways.

basically, if you have deer around, don't plant cedars. they do make a nice barrier and hedge tree but deer will eat them.

 

[flowerbug]

if you are on a diet it is ok to replace a pound of butter and a cup of sour cream on your baked potato by a dozen Jr Mints...

 

[Branching Out]

There are some foods that never go out of style, and a loaded baked potato is definitely one of them!

 

[meadow]

if you are on a diet it is ok to replace a pound of butter and a cup of sour cream on your baked potato by a dozen Jr Mints...

Now THAT is one I hadn't thought of. Do Jr. Mints go well with potato? I love Jr. Mints. Haven't had them in years, but I can almost taste them right now just by thinking of them.