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Monday, July 9, 2012

farmpics













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36 comments:

pansypoo said...

ooks like ou need a sammich.

the farmer said...

warmest year in 117 years (from NOAA):

[snip] Warmest 12-month consecutive periods for the CONUS
These are the warmest 12-month periods on record for the contiguous United States. During the June 2011-June 2012 period, each of the 13 months ranked among the warmest third of their historical distribution for the first time in the 1895-present record. The odds of this occurring randomly is 1 in 1,594,323. The July 2011-June 2012 12-month period surpassed the June 2011-May 2012 period as the warmest consecutive 12-months that the contiguous U.S. has experienced. [/snip]

www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/6/supplemental/page-6/

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pjk said...

Yay! New Post!

Hot, indeed. Not much snow, not much rain.

But plenty of bees/wasps.

pansypoo said...

WHAT GLOBAL WARMING? of course today is perfect. did i mention the carnvorous chippie?

the farmer said...

a carnimunk!?

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pansypoo said...

there was a baby bird/or adult female english sparrow, crap bird, sitting on the siewalk for a while. maybe an hour, may have hit a window. i was cooking + decided to open the kitchen window and noticed some flapping and saw a few male crap birds on the garage door step. i finally notice said bird is held in a chipmunks mouth flapping. the other birds fly away and the chippie drags the still slive bird down he craxk between the garage and the step to the chippie warren.
were there saber toothes chippies? and if they were much bigger, woould we have to worry?

the farmer said...

Thanksgiving dinner; only 131 days away.

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pansypoo said...

i need to get seeds.

the farmer said...

that sure musts been a pretty freaky thing to see.

on the wiki page about chippies it says they will eat frogs and baby mice and bugs too so i guess they can be carnivorous when the want to be. i wish they'd eat woodchucks because i have one in the back that needs to be eaten by something before it eats all my beansd and squash and anything else it can get its paws on.

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pansypoo said...

you need a dog.

i saw a chippie take down a baby bird years ago. but who doesn't like chicken.

pansypoo said...

RAIN! a little at least.

pjk said...

We've gotten it 2 or 3 times in the last 24, just enough to get the driveway wet, windshields dirty, and the humidity up.

Not much for lawns, shrubs, etc.

Hay goin' for $5/bale in these parts lately. How nice.

If we could get our hands on what they use to make ethanol, even AFTER they're done, herbivore feed would be a non-financial issue.

Think you're gettin' ripped off at a buck per lb on dog food? Be happy corn isn't a major component of Man's Best Friend chow (at least if you value your dog).

Gotta turn the back few acres into a suburban plantation. If for no other reason than to help feed the beasties. Local farmer proposed alfalfa and a split of sorts for his trouble.

May not be a bad idea under current circumstances. We're close in mileage terms, so it wouldn't be out of his way at all.

County Fair this coming week. Lots of preparation and petrol use coming up, not to mention the family fair fluids financial fiasco.

Another late car payment so's we can have a hobby- and car insurance. I would get no satisfaction from having a wrecked car repo'd, and well, fuck 'em; they can wait a bit longer.

I hope you're all NOT working on a tan, at least intentionally. It's so friggin' dry around here you could start a brush fire with one of those (George Hamilton) solar reflectors.

Must be why I'm so parched myself. Either that or I prefer Old Testament scourge relief in a can, and when ya get used to pints, those 12 oz cans seem like 5 Hour Energy bottles.

ChipZilla? NosChipFeratu? FrankenChip?

pansypoo said...

the park lawn was all pretty brown today.

pjk said...

Rain. Finally.

Thank the God figure, be it older established religions or a modern church of Shakira ass-worship.

We've got a kitten here running around outside like a lunatic tonight. It may have been alive but inside the last time it rained.

Probably never seen the stuff. Don't know what to make of it.

Wife & kids deep into the county fair this week thru weekend. At least they're out of the clown project; 90+ degrees, full-length costumes and face paint PLUS goat obligations don't make fer happy campers.

But they're taking up the slack by helping someone groom/handle/show their cows.

Brown Swiss, pansy. Those impossibly cute examples of the bovine community.

the farmer said...

just started raining here now. All praise be unto the rain kitten!

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pansypoo said...

the zoo had an impossably adorble brown cow.
MORE RAIN! now we probably will get in a field rotting rainy pattern.

had our 1st beans. stuntly little things. took forever to steam like the kohlrabi.

1st corn ok.

the farmer said...

been raining for 7 hours now!!!!!!!!!

i don't have beans yet. but they're getting there. zooks are the only thing i've been eating. plenty of green tomatoes starting and some peppers but for some reason the deer have been eating the tops off the pepper plants. finally had to put netting over them. little stand of corn doesn't look good. some of it might make it but its really not looking good at all. ya know the saying, knee high by the fourth of july? well, this year, its more like: wheres my god damned corn god damn it. this is the first year in years we didn't till up at least a half acre for sweet corn. boy, i'm glad i didn't waste any time with that lost cause. pumpkin plants look really good too. i just hope the drought breaks by the time they start makin babies.

This year i tried eggplants in containers (so i can keep a close eye on em) because i never had much luck with them in the ground in the past (soil to cold, not enough water, insects etc...) Not this year, they are doing great because they get babied, plenty of watering and they love the heat.

Snake in the pool last night. Had to jump in and wrestle it out of there. I think it was a water moccasin. Or maybe a fer de lance. Could have been a garter snake too. In any event... i took care of it.

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the farmer said...

forgot to mention i hung up the radios too. so far its one of the best ways to keep the deer menace away.

buy some cheap transistor radios (i got some, with wrist straps, at radio shack for under $10 each).

Use the wrist strap to suspend the radio up inside something like a plastic clorox bottle or milk jug with the bottom cut out and hang em on posts among the plants. Tune the radios to the craziest all night shit you can find (AM wingnut talk radio and death metal stations and squawking sports radio morons are the best but most any commercial radio station is obnoxious enough to do the trick).

It makes a horrible eerie racket and the deer stay away. You can turn it all down low enough so it won't scare anyone but the deeries.

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pjk said...

Or a monster of a green eel that stalks the land in times of rain after drought, seeking out unsuspectin' dirt farmin' pool ownin' blog postin' individuals setch as yerself.

Maybe we could turn that into a local legend, but it'd never have the global appeal of a Huma story.

the farmer said...

you need a dog.

can't let the dogs run loose anymore. and standing on the porch and barking like a loon doesn't pack the wallop you might expect. even if ya jump off the porch and pee on the hydrangea.

i like the monster eel idea though. they got plenty of those in cayuga lake they'd like to get rid of. if only i could train them to walk upon on the land.

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pansypoo said...

if i make pickles, can leave them in a bowl in the fridge?

the farmer said...

can leave them in a bowl in the fridge?

yes. or in a jar (might be better). then let em sit and stew in their juices for a month or two.

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pansypoo said...

i gots jars.

the farmer said...

i always use jars. i pretty much use a 1 to 1 ratio of water to vinegar too. or something like 6 cups water to 5 or 5 and a half cups of vinegar with a half cup of kosher salt. heat it up to a rapid boil to dissolve the salt then let it cool completely and pour it over the pickles in jars. keep em in a fridge and the pickles will stay crisp for years. don't forget the fresh dill. I use the same mix for pickled peppers.

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the farmer said...

also too, if this matters or not, i like burpee bush champion cukes best for pickles. i've tried about a dozen different varieties for pickles (including pickler varieties) but the bush champions were best. they'll grow into full size cukes but if you pick them at about 4" for pickling they'll retain that crisp-snap freshness for a long long time. just sayin, in case you want to grow a couple plants next year.

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the farmer said...

that rain lasted almost 2 days. like to see some more of that. cooled down too. looks like 100 degree temps and maybe some more rain headed you guys way on monday.

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the farmer said...

$5 hay. yeah, thats not good. is it even good hay? bein' so dry and all.

Local farmer proposed alfalfa and a split of sorts for his trouble.

doesn't sound bad. for cutting? as opposed to grazing.

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Realist said...

I've seen garden gnomes before, but this is the first garden goon I've spotted.

pansypoo said...

i have my grandma's bread + butter pickle recipe. if they turn out well, i have familiy to share w/. i once took a jar to my uncle in manhattan. all he wanted. his mom's pickles. why her canned toms made her spaghetti sauce unique.

the farmer said...

i have my grandma's bread + butter pickle recipe

bread and butter recipes are usually sealed and processed in a hot water bath. if thats what you are going to make that is different than what i was talking about which doesn't reguire hot bath processing and sealing - just refrigeration. I have one of those little mini fridges i use to store cold pickled peppers and dill pickles and stuff like that.

just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing here.

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the farmer said...

I'm Popeye the garden goon
I'm Popeye the garden goon
I gots knuckles like nickles
Cause I eats me dill pickles
I'm Popeye the garden goon.

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pansypoo said...

i will haver to sterilize jars.

the farmer said...

i will haver to sterilize jars.

You should sterilize the jars in any case. Even if you aren't going to process them in the hot water bath later.

You can also "chemical" sterilize the jars by letting them soak in bleach and hot water for 15 minutes or half an hour. Then rinse them and let them dry. You can do that if you don't want to boil a big pot of water to sterilize.

You can make bread and butter pickles and store them in the fridge without heat sealing (canning) them. But you'll still want to sterilize the jars beforehand. Obviously if you plan to heat seal them so you don't have to store them in the fridge then you can sterilize the jars before you fill them using the same hot water bath you use to process the filled and sealed jars.

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pansypoo said...

no bleach. boiled everything, but will keep in the fridge. give most away. i ain't gonna pretend these are safe. wrong kind of jars.

the farmer said...

wrong kind of jars.

won't matter in the fridge. and theres normally enough vinegar in a pickle recipe to keep it safe for a long time.

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pansypoo said...

yeah, make em fridge pickles.