Adventures with Mom!

Last week my Mom was here to visit and since she is thinking about moving down here in the next couple of years, I think it was a good thing for her to come in mid-July to see just how much she still liked North Carolina when it is 95 degrees and humid every day. She has always hated the cold and weighs in at a whopping 95 pounds (which amounts to zero insulation), so needless to say the heat didn't bother her in the least. We had a great time together and

Preview

crammed a ton of activities into the week she was here. The first night we took her to Ace Speedway which is just a couple miles from our house (you can hear the cars from our back deck on Friday nights, so cool!) and spent half the time watching the race and the other half watching the people... both were very entertaining!
Saturday we went to Reidsville to pick up some canning supplies at Saunders Hardware, which is a fun place to go because they actually still have appliances from the 70's that are still brand new in the box (but with updated prices!) Picture a harvest yellow waffle maker and the original Osterizer blender, brand new...crazy!!

On Sunday we invited Melissa and Ronnie over to shoot skeet...we all had a great time and it was nice to know I can still shoot pretty well after several years without practice. Neither Melissa or Ronnie had ever shot skeet before, and if you've never done it you'll quickly realize it's a lot tougher to hit a moving target than a stationary one, but they were quick learners and busted up a few skeet before the day was over. Then we celebrated our victory over the clay pigeons with some margaritas and steaks on the grill (and turkey brats for me), it was a perfect day :)
Later in the week Mom and I visited the local winery and were quite impressed with their wines! Who'd have thought NC had any decent wines? I am proud to admit that I am finally starting to acquire a taste for red wine (although the full-bodied ones are still bit too much for me). I feel all grown up and semi-sophisticated now...ok not really I know I'm still mostly a redneck...but I can pretend! :) Mom also helped me make garlic-dill pickles with our over-abundance of cucumbers, I can't wait to try them! Right now the tomatoes are only producing a couple of ripe ones each day, but there are a ton of green ones on the vine, so I'll bet next week it will be time to start canning and making salsa, who hoo!!

Who needs rain anyway....?

It is nearing that time of year where I become overloaded with veggies and subsequently give half of them away because I can't keep up with all the canning. Last year we were inundated with squash and zucchini, this year we seem to have too many cukes. Sadly there seems to be a lot fewer options for fun ways to eat cucumbers compared to squash and zucchini...anyone have any suggestions? Actually, I have eaten so many of them that I feel like I am in a perpetual state of "cucumber bloat"... maybe I ought to lay off the cukes for a few days :) Anyway! So here is what my garden looked like on the 5th of June (the day I left for Maine)...


And here it is 2 and a half weeks later on the day after I came home from Maine (many many thanks to Shawn for weeding while I was gone!!) What you can see in the picture is that things are growing fast (especially the tomatoes and corn!), what you can't see is almost all of my peas and many of my green beans either died from the 100+ degree heat wave or got eaten by rabbits, bummer! It's embarrassing to say I have had to plant my green beans three times this year, but I will have fresh green beans dammit!! Also we have had a major infestation of Colorado potato beetles which nearly was the demise for our potatoes, but thankfully we have it under control now with the help of Sevin Dust (not the band).

We have also found an effective solution to the heat/lack of rain problem...it was a bit on the pricey side, but is a one time investment that we will reap the benefits of for years to come. We purchased a large amount of used irrigation equipment from Shawn's grandfather, and now we are able to keep the garden alive no matter how hot or dry it gets without draining our well, yay! We are very lucky to have a farm pond on our property that is currently only being used for fishing, so this makes it possible for us to have a nearly unlimited (and renewable, since it is spring fed) source of water. Since we don't have quite enough pipe to reach all the way from the garden to the pond, instead we fill up a 1000 gallon tank and haul it up to the garden where we hook it to the pump and wala! We have water! The first time we ran it we discovered we can put down 1000 gal of water in about 40 minutes, incredible! I was so excited I was dancing in the "rain" (along with the dog) :) Check it out:


And as for our rabbit problem, well that solved itself once the wheat got cut, now they have no where to hide from their predators, so they seem to be staying closer to the woods these days. And that is fine with me! Here is a shot of the combine harvesting the wheat from our back deck: