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Hi Everyone,

               If you enjoy cooler weather—then you enjoyed this morning’s temperatures. I will admit that it wasn’t bad—but I do prefer short sleeves and barefoot! Some people say that we need cold weather to kill the bugs—but if that was the case then Alaska would have no roaches and if I recall correctly the mosquitoes are the biggest where the winters are the coldest. In the meantime, I think that I shall continue to enjoy every day that I can wear short sleeves and run around barefoot.

               October is halfway over and it was time to move the greens from the greenhouse to the garden. It was also time to start the spring flowers in the greenhouse. I can honestly say that last week if I wasn’t milking the cows, bottling kefir, making yogurt, packaging eggs, teaching piano lessons, cooking meals or doing laundry—then I was outside with my hands in the dirt. Some rows were perfectly ready to have the little plants tucked into their new beds, but other rows were still housing weeds and needed to have their tenants evicted. We weeded, and composted and broadforked, leveled off the rows and then we filled the walkways with woodchips. We then transplanted 64 collards, 60 cabbages, 72 Siberian kales and 11 dinosaur kales, and 45 little lettuce plants. The garden beds are taking shape and are looking very neat and tidy—that is the rows under the tunnels (I will tell you about the others later). Come Thursday we finished up the transplanting, but I needed to plant spinach seeds and where I wanted to plant them had unwanted occupants. Nutgrass, volunteer zinnias and sunflowers, crabgrass, pigweed and other summer weeds had all taken up residence in the two rows where I wanted to plant spinach. In between those rows was a bed of carrots—and too my disgust they were keeping company with nutgrass. The challenge was to remove the nutgrass without disturbing the teeny-tiny carrots. On the other side of the soon to be planted spinach bed was the green onion bed—and they didn’t just have one roommate, they were having a block party. That party cost half of them their life. I had planted 50 bulbs—but only 25 actually had green stems on them. I weeded the onions, and Mom helped with the carrots, and Steve weeded the two rows where the spinach would be planted. In a few hours the uninvited guests were packed in bags and shipped to the dump, fresh compost was added to the beds and woodchips to the walkways. I then grabbed the row marker and marked where to plant the seeds and buried some hidden treasure in each spot. Then we added some water and now we sit back and wait until that buried treasure pokes its head out of the ground as little green spinach plants.

               Friday we exchanged gardening clothes for butchering clothes—and we spent the day processing 52 chickens. We were lacking two helpers—because one was sick, and the other had a run in with very hot water at his home. Everyone else stepped up to the plate and the process still went very smoothly—with some stations only getting bogged down a few times. When we were all done with the chickens Papa had to run to town to pick up the Gravely which had been at the mechanics for over a week—it hasn’t worked for months. It was nice to get it back. Mom and I were to have dinner done when he got home so that we could be at the Azure pickup by 7:00—but due to some road closures the pickup was delayed by a day and we got to have a relaxing evening instead.

               Saturday morning I made my list, I checked it twice, and I was determined to use every second of my day wisely. We milked the cows, and packed the orders for the Gainesville delivery. I played the piano for a little bit and then I headed to the garden to harvest the okra and cayenne peppers. I needed to make kombucha, do a little sewing, order a few items, and iron some more clothes. I had fresh okra to wash, trim and freeze—but first I had frozen okra that needed to be vacuum sealed. I had fresh cayenne to wash and put on the dehydrator—but first I had cayenne on the dehydrator that needed to have their tops removed and the peppers placed in a glass jar for storage. I also needed to have dinner done by 5:00 so that we could be at the Azure pickup on time. BUT SOMETHING HAPPENED!!!!!! I got the okra and the cayenne harvested, and then I wanted some fresh sweet potatoes for dinner so I headed into the “jungle” where we have a raised bed garden in which we grow roses, lilies, herbs, fruit trees, vegetables, wildflowers, various kinds of flowers—and did I mention WEEDS? Everyone I talk to agrees that the Spanish needle is horrible this year—but the tiny yellow centered white flowers attract honeybees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects so I guess they are enjoying it. I don’t enjoy it because the plant is extremely aggressive and produces needle-like seeds that cling to everything they touch, including hair, fabric, and fur. I could not imagine having wooly sheep with Spanish needle anywhere around. I do not know how you would ever get the wool “seed free”—no wonder our neighbor always picked them and threw them away in the garbage. Well, a good portion of our raised bed garden has been overtaken by Spanish needle—may I say that no one entrance is free of the pesky weed. To make matters worse—they have gone to seed. We are about a month or two late for weeding them out before they drop their seeds—and I just read that each plant can drop around 1200 seeds that will be viable for up to 5 years. UGH! Well, I decided to brave the Spanish needle in order to harvest me some sweet potatoes. I got halfway into the garden when the thought occurred to me—“Why not pull up every weed I pass (the walkways were lined) and then drop them in the walkway.” I got halfway to the sweet potato bed and realized that I needed some gloves—to pull up the weeds and to dig up the sweet potatoes. I still had half the garden to walk through before I hit an “EXIT” and could get to the garden shed for my gloves. I continued to pull weeds and the walkways got thicker and thicker—but I finally got a path cleared to one of the entrances. I grabbed my gloves and then I uncovered a grape vine and a rose vine that were climbing up one of the arbors. Then I pulled up the entire Spanish needle forest from around the garden sink. Two of the big beautiful pink roses that were a gift for my 40th birthday had giant Spanish needles growing in the middle of them—and I evicted them. I found dog fennel growing in my gladiola bed—which is a total “no-no” so I drug them out, and found out that the rest of the weeds in that bed were “ripe unto harvest” which means you could easily grab handfuls of them and just pick them up out of the bed. In just a few minutes the gladiola bed was nothing but dirt—ready to be composted and mulched. By this time my determination to clear out the walkways was running into some complications—I was becoming exhausted (never mind the word “becoming”, my energy had suddenly taken a leave of absence and I was parched with nothing to quench my thirst. At that point I almost forgot the reason for entering that weedy jungle—I wanted sweet potatoes for dinner! So I mustered up what little energy I had left and pulled up a few more weeds so that I could get to the sweet potatoes. None of them were very big, and in a month they would have provided lots more than one meal—but I was desperate and a handful of small potatoes worked just fine for dinner (I added apples to make them go further). I then made my way back to the other end of the garden—and back through the section I had not weeded. With my garden produce in hand I headed for the house hoping that it was no later than 3:30—because I was going to need a shower before I could cook dinner. On my way to the house I spotted one of the rams on the wrong side of the fence—and I had to open the gate and chase him out. Yes, I mean chase from one end of the field to the other and back again and again. I greatly rejoiced when he finally saw the open gate. When I got to the house I had to work to transform myself back into a human being—you see, I looked like a porcupine with all those black Spanish needle seeds stuck all over my shoes, socks, shirt head covering and hair. The shoes were the easiest to clean up because they are rubber with only a thin piece of material around the opening. Then I tackled my socks with sheer determination—one seed at a time. I worked on my shirt sleeves for a little bit, and then gave up and headed for a shower. When I walked inside the clock chimed—and it was 4:00. Dinner would be late. I was a little concerned about how in the world I was going to recover my hair—the seeds had created mattes in my hair, but thankfully a comb made quick work of them. Once I was clean and back in the kitchen my Spanish needle woes were gone—for the time being. Did I mention that we had not done our breakfast dishes yet? Therefore, before I could start on my already late dinner, I had to clean up the kitchen (some mornings don’t go smoothly and we have to head out to milk before the dishes get done). It was 4:50 by the time I could start dinner, and I thought for sure that I could peel and slice potatoes, wash and cut up bok choy and make and fry up some fish cakes by 5:15. I was wrong! It was 5:45 by the time I finished dinner—but that was okay because it was 5:45 before Mom came back from mowing out in the fields behind the heifers. We ate dinner, Mom got herself cleaned up and at 6:30 we left to pick up our Azure order which was due to arrive at 7:00—and we had to drive 25 minutes to get there. It was after 8:00 by the time we got home. We put all the groceries away, and then we were very thankful that Papa had emptied the dishwasher so that it was ready for us to do the dinner dishes. Mom and I were both very grateful that we already had our showers. It was 8:45 and I decided to head to my room to do a little reading before I headed to bed early for once. To my dismay though—a little reading was not to be! My bathroom floor and sink counter were covered in close to 100 Spanish needle seeds—and my shirt and head covering were still looking like porcupines. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and cleaned up my floor and sink and then I sat down to rescue my shirt from its tormentors. It was after 9:00 by the time I finished—but I still managed to get to bed early (9:23 to be exact).

               Tomorrow is a new week and the “To Do List” for tomorrow is very long—unrealistically long. Somehow I also have to find the time to do the things I was supposed to do on Saturday before the garden took me hostage and turned me into a porcupine! I have to say though—the experience gave me much encouragement that it really is possible to reclaim the garden and turn it back into the “Little bit of Paradise” that it once was. If you like to make beauty out of chaos—you are more than welcome to help.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare