Got a large portion of the weed trees down by the raspberries whacked down today. Yeah, they are making quite the heap along the fence line now. By the time I'm done cutting down the other half, it should stretch quite a ways up the fence line. Who needs black plastic to smother the grass under garden row when I can just let all the branches sit to dry there? After I'm done clearing, it's just a simple task to relay the wood, then in with the raspberry transplants from the rest of the yard. I will have to snip suckers for a while off what stump action is left though. Ah well.
Got the stakes in along the arch drive, which is good. I almost air blasted them mowing the lawn last weekend, lol. Now that the stakes are in place, I know where to align the closed side of the deck.
Got the first batch of mulberries picked and dried. Still got lots and lots to go on the tree. Looks like there will be at least a goodly month of picking there. I will use them reconstituted in muffins and pancakes over the winter, yay! Sadly, not one single motherlorn cherry is still on any of the cherry trees, I have no idea why. The peaches are coming along questionably, but the pears are looking spectacular so far. The apples are sort of iffy- some of them look great, some of them for sure will need to be pressed instead.
Harvested quite a bit of daisy seed today. Sadly, I spilled half of it twice while gathering, lol. Once I caught my hand on a plant, and the second time something big as hell landed on my hand and bit me, making me jump. I will have to go out a couple more times for more seed gathering, there's plenty there still ripening. Gonna sprinkle that seed along the open line of the firepit sanctuary. The wild carrot in the yard is coming along well too thankfully. There should be enough seed for mixing with the daisy seed and still have some for the spice shelf.
The chicory is blooming like mad. It looks quite striking alongside the ditch lilies. I can hardly wait to start digging up roots for roasting. The plantains in the FoH garden are slowly ripening, but I think there's enough of them to really make a nice fill in for next year if I broadcast the seed carefully.
There may be a blackberry growing in the yard- one of my friends pointed it out when visiting. She also confirmed the lilacs growing in the FoH garden, so yep, those are going to get dug up for along the easement drive. Now that most of the ditch lilies are all blooming, I get to look forward to transplanting most of them to the drive in a few weeks too.
We have had a couple of good bonfires from all the maple scrap. Actually cleared a whole pile of the stuff now, and working on the big pile finally. Took a bit to get the fire going for the fourth, but it was pretty nice once it got going. We lit off a bunch of the little fountain fireworks in the driveway- it was cool.
Got some good advice on how to deal with the spookies on the property during the weekend too. Mom dang near gave me a heart attack with her fade out while we were discussing it. I will have to remember not to bring it up with her around anymore, I have forgotten that she is more frail now, and that can be a bad thing with her being as sensitive as she is. We got a full moon coming up next week, so I'm thinking of doing an offering that night :) I can hardly wait till we get the chainsaw action done on the fallen maple so I can have my outdoor altar down in the firepit sanctuary. I think it will be rather nice for offerings.
Tippy and friends are doing well, running all over. The chickens are happy that I've cleaned up the back patio- they were scratching and dust bathing back there today. Saw a turtle in the tall grass while collecting daisy seed today too. Heh, kind of spooked me at first because it moved so close to me. He was pretty big, larger than my spread hand. But I knew better than to pick it up without gloves. Those guys can have some icky stuff on them that isn't so good for humans. The white cat has become an almost nightly visitor to the patio door, much to Pookums dismay. He sits on the stair landing and hates on white cat, and white cat sits and messes with Pookums. I know there's nothing to be done about that, so Pooks will just have to learn to deal with it.
Nothing much going on in the tec front. My love has been working on other stuff. So have I, making other crafty stuff. Almost got the costume room cleaned up enough to start working on the altar in there too. Found a good design for a DIY pantograph, so I want to blow up a fantastic celtic pentacle I have for an altar cloth. Good thing I have the large standing hoop to stretch the fabric on. Honestly, it's kind of nice having a season break from faire so I can work on making other stuff, lol.
Food- hmmm, been dinking off and on with food. Just picked up some rather interesting cookbooks, so I'm looking forward to making some stuff out of those. Mostly rustic foods, with a rather nice seafood one, and an interesting non-alcolholic drinks one. The summer salads quests have been sort of meh. I did do a rather tasty dish of green beans and yellow squash in bacon fat to go along with steak- super yummy and freshly picked from a local produce place.
Garlic potatoes too- super easy. Coarse chop some unpeeled potatoes, cream a large clove of garlic per potato, a bit of salt and pepper, some butter to lube it all up, toss, and bake till the potatoes are soft and yummy, all garlic stinky.
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