What did you do in the garden today?

[pennyJo1960]

My day just got a lot slower! I did something to my back while bending over to get clothes out of the dryer. Getting older sucks.
I had to have my husband go with me to run errands. Wasn't sure if I could drive. Definitely couldn't lift bags of chicken feed.

We dropped off the Thanksgiving turkey to my niece ( it's her birthday toady!). Dropped off some homemade seasoned pumpkin seeds to a friend and then went to the feed store to get more chicken feed.
Was supposed to be cleaning the house when I got home, but now that has gotten moved to delay mode.
It's gorgeous out today! Sunny, high of 66. I wish I could be outside doing stuff.
Oh, I did rake a bunch of leaves into the garden this morning before I hurt my back. I notice a lot of green shoots sprouting in the garden. I was confused at first, but then I remembered I threw a bunch of rye seed in there at the end of the season. They are finally sprouting. I'll have to keep an eye on them and make sure I turn them under to compost and help my soil.

Yup hurt mine trying to lay a paver at the door to the main coop Snow had dug a hole made mud and a hole brought a paver over first mistake moved it 4 or 5 times last time I picked up the shovel bent could not stand straight for 3 hours lidocaine and tramadol moving again

 

[TropicalBabies]

@TropicalBabies great to see you back I am sorry you have a cold they are awful

Mahalo Penny,
Good to be back, sorry I went away . I guess I was a little disgusted or frustrated with myself an my lack of garden vision and action and our BLINKEN HOT WEATHER!!!!
I also had a really sick hen or two. One I lost to the heat at POL and right after that her sister got a cold (X10)... We battled that with some wonderful BYC help for over a month but I let her go last week. Poor thing. It was really hard. I spent a bundle of money and time trying to fix her but we just could not make it over the finish line healthy.

I doubt if I will win any awards for my garden this year. I'm setting my bar low but I hope I win the battle with a few of my nemesis's. The horrible Pickleworm and of course... my sweet (but very bad) chickens.

How did everyone do with their garden adventures? I poked my nose in to read a few times. I was hoping for more photos (never too late to share folks!). I briefly read about some pickling of something... tomatoes??? If anyone wants to relive their garden glory I am all eyes. I love show offs and garden proud. It aint always easy.

 

[karenerwin]

@TropicalBabies the deer hide project suffered a set back. My husband read on the internet that you should boil the deer hide in soapy water and that would get rid of all the fat and grease. He takes offence when I don't try his "good ideas" so I went ahead and tried this idea. It was a bad idea. I had the hide pretty well scraped and dried. There were still some bits of fat around the edges ( which I figured I would just cut off.
Anyway, I used Dawn dish soap and water in a big 50 gallon steel drum over a fire outside in a fire pit. The hide came out looking much dirtier than when it went in.
It also looks smaller ( but that could be my imagination or because it is rolled in on itself around the sides).
Now it is back to hanging on the fence trying to dry. It is very wet!! I need for it to dry a lot more and then to go back out and scrap it all again.
I saved the deer's brain ( because all animals have just enough brains to tan their hide!).
My fear is that we are having too warm of weather right now and it is going to go bad before it dries out enough for me to work with it.
I also want to remove the deer hair ( I need to look that process up) before I tan the hide. Another obstacle is the holidays and my brother and his wife coming on Wednesday to stay with us until Saturday. If I thought I could get away with it, I would roll up the hide and toss it in the deep freezer until after Thanksgiving! ( I may do that anyway).
I also didn't get to do anything with it today because I hurt my back taking clothes out of the dryer.
I will let you know how it all goes!

 

[TropicalBabies]

@TropicalBabies the deer hide project suffered a set back. My husband read on the internet that you should boil the deer hide in soapy water and that would get rid of all the fat and grease. He takes offence when I don't try his "good ideas" so I went ahead and tried this idea. It was a bad idea. I had the hide pretty well scraped and dried. There were still some bits of fat around the edges ( which I figured I would just cut off.
Anyway, I used Dawn dish soap and water in a big 50 gallon steel drum over a fire outside in a fire pit. The hide came out looking much dirtier than when it went in.
It also looks smaller ( but that could be my imagination or because it is rolled in on itself around the sides).
Now it is back to hanging on the fence trying to dry. It is very wet!! I need for it to dry a lot more and then to go back out and scrap it all again.
I saved the deer's brain ( because all animals have just enough brains to tan their hide!).
My fear is that we are having too warm of weather right now and it is going to go bad before it dries out enough for me to work with it.
I also want to remove the deer hair ( I need to look that process up) before I tan the hide. Another obstacle is the holidays and my brother and his wife coming on Wednesday to stay with us until Saturday. If I thought I could get away with it, I would roll up the hide and toss it in the deep freezer until after Thanksgiving! ( I may do that anyway).
I also didn't get to do anything with it today because I hurt my back taking clothes out of the dryer.
I will let you know how it all goes!

I think there may be a moral to that story... Husband should been seen and not heard while doing the laundry... if only.
I was looking for a way to clean our cow hide and read anything but water! Water was bad. I also have a hunting son and daughter in law. They don't tan but they do freeze b4 taking the skins in sometimes. They gave us a beautiful Axis deer skin a few years back. It cost them a lot ($250?) to have cured. Most of the time they throw away these beautiful skins because of that cost. It's too bad. You are pretty awesome brave and I am curious about how it goes. May want to take your lead one day. Seems pretty darn cool thing to know.

 

[karenerwin]

I think there may be a moral to that story... Husband should been seen and not heard while doing the laundry... if only.
I was looking for a way to clean our cow hide and read anything but water! Water was bad. I also have a hunting son and daughter in law. They don't tan but they do freeze b4 taking the skins in sometimes. They gave us a beautiful Axis deer skin a few years back. It cost them a lot ($250?) to have cured. Most of the time they throw away these beautiful skins because of that cost. It's too bad. You are pretty awesome brave and I am curious about how it goes. May want to take your lead one day. Seems pretty darn cool thing to know.

I was just reading on the hobby contest page and saw that HomesteaderWife listed tanning hides as her first hobby! I just sent her a PM with questions!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Really she is getting active on the threads a pretty smart cookie

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning all and a big Mahalo to you @TropicalBabies. It's great you're back with us. Love the garden pictures, keep them coming. Yesterday's weather was great. I got the chickens "big yard" fence tidied up and neater looking. I'm hoping the weather holds today for a little work in the raised garden beds. I was very surprised to find some healthy looking parsley, sage and thyme in the herb garden yesterday. The parsley was the most surprising because it's not a perennial but with all the bitter temps we've had recently it still looks good and usable. I'll be picking some of those for Thursday's turkey dinner. Last night I used a jar of the green tomato salsa verde I canned to make green chile turkey enchiladas. I used the turkey meat that was leftover from making the turkey stock and seasoned it up a bit. Super yummy. None of the salsas I made were very spicy, but it's easy to add more heat and this time I used cayenne. Very tasty. I'm by far an expert on this subject @karenerwin, but I recall (from goodness knows where) that the deerskin needs to be stretched out on a frame. You can build a frame with 2" x 4"s and stretch it out on that Perhaps if you wet it again the wet hide could be re-shaped close to it's original side. Just a thought. Good luck with that. Have a great day everyone and keep those "Winter" garden photos coming. They are a real treat to those of us in colder climates.

 

[Acre4Me]

If anyone wants to relive their garden glory I am all eyes. I love show offs and garden proud. It aint always easy.

Well, due to not much glory in the garden this year and a hugely wet winter/spring combined with fairly flat land in my area, our big project was getting 102 tons of dirt delivered to smooth out the low spots where water collected, and raise up the ground a bit. Then we moved around some of our raised beds. Then we got a truckload of "garden dirt" to create a new, large garden bed on the south/full sun part of the now-raised-up-with-purchased-dirt area. Then we dug a ditch to re-route the water via pipes from the barn gutters onto the farm field behind us. Then, we removed sod and lowered the ground for about 200ft, to make the already existing channel (between our yard and the neighbors yard), more obviously low so the extra water that comes from the pipe under the road in high rains only goes where we want it to go - which is to the farmers field behind us!. Whew! "It ain't easy" is right. But, everything we did should not need to be re-done. Next year we can hopefully have some great garden stories. I did order some seeds for next year, so that is always fun to look forward to!

 

[TropicalBabies]

Well, due to not much glory in the garden this year and a hugely wet winter/spring combined with fairly flat land in my area, our big project was getting 102 tons of dirt delivered to smooth out the low spots where water collected, and raise up the ground a bit. Then we moved around some of our raised beds. Then we got a truckload of "garden dirt" to create a new, large garden bed on the south/full sun part of the now-raised-up-with-purchased-dirt area. Then we dug a ditch to re-route the water via pipes from the barn gutters onto the farm field behind us. Then, we removed sod and lowered the ground for about 200ft, to make the already existing channel (between our yard and the neighbors yard), more obviously low so the extra water that comes from the pipe under the road in high rains only goes where we want it to go - which is to the farmers field behind us!. Whew! "It ain't easy" is right. But, everything we did should not need to be re-done. Next year we can hopefully have some great garden stories. I did order some seeds for next year, so that is always fun to look forward to!

That sounds divine. Lots of hard work but a dreamy project really. Congratulations on the tons of soil and a job well done. I'm sure it was no fun cleaning up after and I hope all of that time/$$/effort pays off for you folks. I look forward to seeing the photos this spring and any you want to share now. Did you post any already? I can hunt for them.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Good morning all and a big Mahalo to you @TropicalBabies. It's great you're back with us. Love the garden pictures, keep them coming. Yesterday's weather was great. I got the chickens "big yard" fence tidied up and neater looking. I'm hoping the weather holds today for a little work in the raised garden beds. I was very surprised to find some healthy looking parsley, sage and thyme in the herb garden yesterday. The parsley was the most surprising because it's not a perennial but with all the bitter temps we've had recently it still looks good and usable. I'll be picking some of those for Thursday's turkey dinner. Last night I used a jar of the green tomato salsa verde I canned to make green chile turkey enchiladas. I used the turkey meat that was leftover from making the turkey stock and seasoned it up a bit. Super yummy. None of the salsas I made were very spicy, but it's easy to add more heat and this time I used cayenne. Very tasty. I'm by far an expert on this subject @karenerwin, but I recall (from goodness knows where) that the deerskin needs to be stretched out on a frame. You can build a frame with 2" x 4"s and stretch it out on that Perhaps if you wet it again the wet hide could be re-shaped close to it's original side. Just a thought. Good luck with that. Have a great day everyone and keep those "Winter" garden photos coming. They are a real treat to those of us in colder climates.

Oh my goodness you are clever. How many folks for TG dinner for you? I bet it is going to be something . I am going to BBQ a roast plus fixings this year. Kids will be working and auntie will already have had 3 TG dinners, DH is not crazy about turkey meat so instead of heating our already warm home up i'm taking it outside! Wish I had an imu pit. Many years back a friend and I dug one at the beach and had friends trow in their turkeys and roasts. It made a big ol luau and lots of good fun. I always wanted one at my home... hmm...
I got my tomatoes trimmed and staked last eve, then caged the PVC frame with the black fencing I had left. It was not enough so I rigged a -chicken no go barricade- out of a chicken wire scrap and lite rope. I will be super sad if those little sneaky chickens attack my Heilani Bush tom's b4 I get it secured, we will only get so many blooms.
I have a bunch of banana's ready to cut and oranges to harvest. After 9 hours of sleep last night my cold/flu is almost all gone! I only got up because DH was hungry lol. cough, cough..