Month: June 2013

vegetating

present participle of veg·e·tate(Verb)

The garden is awesome this year — bigger than ever and thriving with the rain!  Thankfully we have’t had a washout – the plants were all well established before the downpours that have been occuring, so the roots are holding them fast.

Here are our snow peas, beets (with a second planting of beets just added between them), and mixed lettuce – with a bit of the purple carrots visible on the far right.  Behind them you can see the potato patch…

Here you can see the shelling peas on the left, followed by rows and rows of green beans, again with the potato patch behind.

And here’s the potato patch.  And to the far right are the sweet potato vines.

And how do we keep it looking so nice?  LOTS of weeding on the weekends, evenings, and any time we can!

Our Mantis tiller is one of our favorite tools!

Our second favorite tool is our selection of Warren hoes:

And here are some shots of vegetating goodness!

The garlic:

We should be harvesting it next month!

 

Onion:

 

Some of the tomatoes:

A little closer…

Summer Squash:

Cukes:

Butternut squash:

Baby grapes:

Sweet potato vines:

Sweet corn…will it be “Knee High by the Fourth of July”???

Guess it depends on who’s knee!

Lamboflage!

 

Lisa and Luigi – great shot of them with the house and barn in the background!

 

Here’s their mom, Roxanne, feasting!

 

 

 

Here are Bruna’s twins in already mown pasture

 

Hey!  What are you eating?!

 

Here’s how I get the lambs to come a bit closer to me – they can’t resist checking out my hat!

 

Millie has headed off for a rest – her lambs followed, of course, but there was another who followed – Millie’s granddaughter, Chesta (the black ewe).  She was playing with her Auntie Guadalupe (moorit – brown lamb) and forgot about her mom, who is a few hundred yards away!

 

Chesta picks a fight with Guadalupe.  NOT a nice way to treat your Auntie, Chesta!

 

They call a truce.  Guadalupe strikes a pose for me.  Both of these lambs are going to have gorgeous fleece this fall!

 

 

Here’s Millie’s other lamb – Guadalupe’s sister, yet to be  named.   She played it smart and stayed out of the fight!

 

Millie took her lambs up to the barn to loaf – but Chesta followed, still forgetting her mom for a little while longer…see what I mean about the gorgeous fleece?!

 

It wasn’t long after this that Chesta realized Mom wasn’t there and panicked!  Wish I had a video of her flying down the hill and across the pasture to her!

 

 

And here’s dear Millie – 10 years old and just made to be a mom – she’s loving life!  Her lamb was nuzzling her ear and Millie wasn’t complaining!

 

Ever get lured by those end-cap items at the grocery store?

Psychologically speaking, those pretty items, wrapped in packages colored to stimulate the appetite, are called “impulse buys” when one (sorry, but usually one of the male “species) succumbs to their beckoning and brings them home to stock their pantry.

Well, the same impulse sometimes overtakes me in the garden.

I call it an “impulse pick.”

Impulse picks are MUCH healthier and cheaper than impulse buys.

Here’s what I mean…

Impulse buy:

Impulse pick:

Yep, those gorgeous Red Russian kale leaves were caling out to me as I passed them by after weeding tonight…”Kale chips…kale chips,” they called.  I just couldn’t help myself – I didn’t even have anything to put them in so I just loaded up my arms…

Now to try to fit them into my fridge!