Thistle War

I'm pleased to report we are winning our war against the thistles. In the pasture at least. 

Last year we had tons of thistles in this area. G went out many times to cut the flowers off before they turned to seed. The thistles put so much energy into producing flowers, they don't make it over winter, or so the experts say. 

This year, there's clover and grasses. It worked! Jaron and I checked it the other day and were pleased to see just a few. We did chop off the thistle flowers we saw, much to Jaron's delight. "Chop!"

The battle in our garden continues however. The worst corner with thistles looks better, but thistles are popping through the mulch/cardboard. Again, we made sure to chop the flowers off. 

Another potential issue is that the chickens found the garden... 

They've been seen crawling under the garden gate. That's an easy fix. But I'm not sure if they're hopping over the chicken wire too. That will take more work. 

So far the chickens have just scratched around the mulch and pecked a couple peppers. But if they decide to go to town on the rest of our veggies, that will be a major issue. 

Never underestimate your animals is our unofficial motto. I guess that means I better fix the fence. 😅

Shoes Everywhere

There's a shoe problem at our house. Shoes everywhere! Fancy shoes, work shoes, wet weather shoes, casual shoes, sandals... I know it's only going to get worse. 

We have a bench in our entryway with a shelf underneath that's been our shoe home, but we've long outgrown it. I had the idea to add on a second shelf above the first to get double the shoe storage space. The concept is basically my "between the studs" style of shelving. 

To the garage! Lots of spare wood in there. 

While I dug around, I also unearthed a kid work bench set I got at a garage sale last fall. Jaron got to work right away. 

So cute. He's a handy guy! 😉

Back to the project! 

Unfortunately, we didn't have any wide boards long enough to stretch the length of the bench. What about two thinner boards? That should work! So that's what I did. Jaron's work bench also worked as a saw horse in a pinch. 😅

I decided that screwing the long boards onto the side supports ahead of time would be smart. 

It also would've been smart to start the side screws before lifting it into place. It was a little hard to see where I was going. Originally, I plan planned to use one screw and hope that the tightness would keep the shelf from tipping. No such luck. But there was room for a second screw on the cross board of the bench, so that solved the problem. 

Tada! 🥳 Much neater entryway. 

Potato Volunteers

A few weeks ago, G brought home the leftover seed potatoes and onions from the garden center. I wish I had known about it before he tossed them on there (or had thought to pick through them for the good ones). I would've told him to put them in our potato bed in the garden. 

But at the time I just let it go. 

Now we have potatoes volunteering in the compost pile...

Is it worth it it replant them in the garden??? 🤔😂 Not going to do it of course, but I will admit, I did consider it for a few minutes. 😂

Unripe Apple Pectin

Apparently, it's a bumper year for apples. One of our young apple trees had a couple of branches loaded with apples. G asked me if I thought he should prop those branches up so they wouldn't break. I said no, the tree should be able to tell it's weighted down and shore up its own branches. 

Well, I should've listened to G. 

The two heaviest branches broke. ☹️ There are still apples on the tree, so all is not lost. But we did lose a decent chunk. With unripe plums on the brain, I wondered if I could put the unripe apples to use too... 

Some I have in the fridge to bake a pie. The rest I turned into apple pectin. 

Super easy recipe. Coarsly chop the apples, leaving the skins and cores. Put in a pot with just enough water to cover the apples and cook for one hour. 

Strain through a cheesecloth without squeezing. 

Let it rest overnight. Then reduce the strained liquid by half.

And boom, your pectin is ready. You can freeze it or can it for later use. Mine is in the freezer. TBD what I'll use it with...

Unripe Plums - Pickles

Even after all the syrup making, I still had unripe plums to work with. I found this recipe for pickled plums. Very simple and sounds like something I'd enjoy. 

I weighed the plums, scoring them as I put them in the jar. Then I figured out what 7% of the weight was and put in the equivalent grams of salt. I didn't have any star anise, but I did have whole coriander, so I put in about one tablespoon. Cover with slightly cooled boiled water and once it's completely cooled, store in the fridge for one week. Then they're ready! 

I am a little concerned that the salt I put in didn't dissolve all the way. I used a kettle of tea water I had heated in the morning but forgot to make tea with it. 😅 It was warm when I poured it in, but not anywhere close to hot. But chat gpt says it should be fine and the salt will even out over time. 🤷‍♀️ 

Before I moved it to the fridge, I added a glass fermentation weight just to keep the plums under the water. 

We'll see how they taste in one week! 

Pears

A friend of mine from the Fulda area has a couple of pear trees that produce more fruit than she knows what to do with. Last year she gifted me a number of 5 gallon pails of ripe pears, which I freeze dried. 

This year we planned ahead a little more. Pears are supposed to be picked when they are still green because they ripen from the inside out. If you pick them when they look ripe, you need to do something with them all immediately because they are pretty much overripe. 

She's been keeping an eye on the tree and let me know Wednesday night that they would be ready to pick. I happened to be going to Fulda on Thursday for a "farm field trip day" with my dad, and I recruited one of my sisters to help pick the tree after we got back.

Her height plus the extendable apple picker let us access most of the pears on the tree. 

If I had been thinking, we would've sorted pears as we went- "perfect" ones and damaged ones. As it was, we sorted them at her house later. 

The nieces and nephew got involved. As you can see, the youngest two were most interested in sampling the pears. 

We ended up with one 5gal pail of good ones and about 3/4th of a pail of ones to watch. 

Jaron helped me lay them out on the counter at home to let them ripen. My plan is to freeze dry the bulk of them. Hopefully the timing works out! I have a few busy days next week...

Unripe Plums- Syrup

A coworker of G's was looking for an unripe plum source once upon a time. She wanted to make a Korean plum syrup and the recipe calls for unripe plums. The concept intrigued me, but since I didn't have a source, I filed the idea away until our plum trees got much bigger. 

Then, we made a plum connection through our hosting of international college students at MSU. I got a message from her saying they pruned their tree and had a bunch of unripe plums to get rid of. G swung by after work and voila! We're in business! 

First the sorting - green, half green, ripe-ish, and damaged. And compost. 

G said that washing produce in ozone water is really good for getting rid of bacteria, etc. We have an ozone generator on our washer with an external spigot, so I washed the plums downstairs. 

After that it's simple- equal weights of plums and sugar. Score the plums, then pack them together with the sugar in a jar. The sugar will cause the plums to release juices and make a syrup. Let it sit for 100 days. 

It wasn't until the next day I realized I forgot to score the plums. 🤦‍♀️ I thought about taking them out and redoing it, but the process should still work. It'll just be slower. 

I had enough plums that I could make a second batch. This time I did score the plums! I washed this second batch in vinegar water instead of ozone. And I didn't dry them off. There's so much sugar I figured it would be okay. 

So, both batches need to be kept an eye on ...

There were some riper plums I left in a bowl on the counter to finish ripening. Unfortunately, I got in my head about fruit flies and set another bowl on top to be a lid. When I checked them the next day, almost every one had mold growing. 😭 Parts of most could be salvaged, so I made a plum sauce with the rest. And Jaron ate a few of the ones that survived without mold. 

The sauce turned out great! Just plums and a little water, so it was pretty tart. Perfect over ice cream. 😋