Of Crazy Growth in the garden and a new AA Canner......

So...... with warm and wet days everything is going CRAZY in the garden growing at double speed and it is not hard to get a sense of OVERWHELMED at times..... one of the disadvantages of a large garden... you turn your back for five minutes and BAM weeds have emerged where there were none and the tiny weeds DOUBLE in size..... the potatoes all need hilling, the tomatoes need pruning before they take over the planet and i need to harvest some parsley and summer squash.... Life is good and my tailbone is sore! 

Yes well i finally went ahead and bought the bright and shiny new All American Canner 921 as it is on special at the moment at  AMAZON  for a VERY good price. It arrived very quickly (3 days) and i can't WAIT to use it..... but I will give it a test run first to check the seal and my technique for closing it since it appears people sometimes have troubles with steam escaping out the rim..... I must say i am pretty excited about being able to do ANYTHING in cans now and not be limited to just acid based foods.

If you have never canned your own food before go HERE for a quick read up.

FOOD STORAGE LONG TERM

You tube has a WEALTH of video's on canning......go on explore a little! 

Strawberry Moon

To be perfectly honest i really do have a thing for taking photographs of what i call *skyscapes* and interesting things in the sky...... so my day started super early because i happened to see the moon before it set.......


THIS MORNING

THIS EVENING

amazing the difference a cup of coffee makes..... he he.

Follow this link to the names of the full moons for each month of the year.

 Full Strawberry Moon – June This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!

.....did you look UP tonight?


And for those that didn't see it.... there is images HERE of the eclipse that we here in the north east did not get to see.....except online.

Baby Red Fox

This morning on the way home from the hardware store for paint i came across these three baby fox in the driveway of a neighbour.... with the help of a long lens and patience i got close enough for a good shot. They were very wary ..... as they should be.... but were warming themselves out on the open which I didn't think was good.... but also I didn't want to interfere it is a fine line. I suspect their mother has been shot. 

Spring Storms...

So from my initial assessment that there wasn't much damaged... about 40% of the apples are dented ......as is my new car! GHAAAA what a pita!

Luckily the garden survived with a few holes in leaves but nothing too tragic.....
Time to sort out a parking bay for the vehicle in the barn.......

The weather this year is nothing short of EXTREME.... extreme heat and unusual storms... and the season has only barely begun.

Critters around the place..... and things start to grow.

The last week has been spent testing using the P.A.S.S. Testing materials for the boys and the tests have been sent off to be marked. Will be interesting to see how they went.

It has been a week of juggling time between the inside and outside needs of the homestead. Inside... a big clean up and rearrange... and outside planting weeding sorting and even some harvesting of herbs... drying them out in the dehydrator...at this stage focusing on the lemon balm and the catnip.

We have also had our fair share of critters..... mostly rescued from the cats or fallen out of tree's during the early in the week big winds we had here on the hill.

First product from the dehydrator is this lemon balm tea...... spring goodness packed away for winter tea.....
It takes  A LOT of leaves dried to make one jar.... luckily it is now possible to do large amounts and being I started early in the season i should be able to get a decent amount put away.

The first Zucchini flowers!

We moved the Golden Comet's down to the Summer Chicken coop.... and the settled in very quickly and we have had no trouble with the Pecking Order this time!