Vintage Home and Farm

Living next to a creek, we expect to see various wild animals coming and going, as this land is their home, too. We've got deer, chipmunks, raccoons, and a wide variety of birds, including birds of prey like barn owls and bald eagles. Once, a black bear was spotted behind our milk shed down by the creek, and our neighbor has seen cougar tracks on the trail that runs behind our house. Occasionally, we get word that someone has seen a cougar along Morse Creek. Even so, we were rather surprised when we spotted five coyote pups hanging out around here. They are not hiding from anyone and are present during the day. If they spot you, they don't run away too quickly, so they aren't all that afraid of people.  The coyote pups look like small dogs, and they spend much of their time hunting for field mice and other rodents in the fields on and around our property. All five pups were hunting together for rodents in the newly hayed field across the road at Elton's farm. We noticed...

We've been busy freezing, canning, dehydrating, and curing what we've harvested from our garden and blueberry patch. I thought I'd share a few photos from recent harvests. There have been LOTS of potatoes, and this latest harvest had the largest of them! After canning several jars of beets, I later discovered a donor beet plant growing out at the far edge of the garden. It was the most lush of all the beets I grew, with an enormous root. Often, it's the donor plants that are the hardiest. The zucchini has been coming in like crazy. I've made 12 jars of zucchini relish, and at least 6 loaves of zucchini bread so far. Plus, we eat steamed zucchini several nights a week. I'll be making zucchini lasagna and zoodles with our next few batches. I was able to grow one giant head of cabbage. It was beautiful all the way through to the middle. We also grew four or five small heads of cauliflower - below is one of the most recent that we brought in. We canned several batch...

This year's garden is not as overgrown as it was in past years. We put down cloth along each pathway and have kept up with pulling or trimming the weeds. And we sure have been enjoying the harvests! So far, we've had peas, spinach, kale, Swiss chard, beets, artichokes, potatoes, onions, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, green beans, and more. There's been enough to eat now, preserve some, and share with family and friends. Above, the short row of corn is growing well and we've got several winter squash varieties, which you can see below. Sadly, though, there is still a vole or two running amok, digging holes, chopping down pea plants, and even slicing through a winter squash vine in several places, which caused the whole thing to die. I planted a lot of extra seeds this year to ensure that I would have food to enjoy from the garden, even if a vole or two did some damage. The vole situation improved drastically from last year, but it may be a year or two more befo...