In the garden: June 25

Joining in with SouleMama for a tour of what is growing and thriving and green:

You will notice that I just discovered an app that lets me
write on photos!

The garden this year is still small, but its growing food (and flowers)!  It is a nice change, this year, to actually be home this year - instead of away at Yoga School - through the heart of the summer.  Wildfire smoke notwithstanding.

Fireweed, calendula, and baby sunflowers

You can't see it in this photo, but there's parsley here, just about ready for a trimming that will be the first harvest from the garden!

This is what I'm probably most excited about!  I planted a couple dozen strawberry plants last year, and was so good about pinching off all the flowers, so that the plant's energy could go into root growth.  And it worked!  16 of them came back this year, and a couple are sending out runners.  Many had an abundance of delicate white flowers, and are now showing promise of a handful of fruit!

My dear friends over at Maple&Me gave me starts of a Siberian tomato from local heirloom seed folks at Pingo Farms. 
I planted these two out in the garden, and the rest in pots on the upstairs (sunny! warm(er)!) porch:

We shall see, but so far, the garden planted tomatoes seem happier and more robust and vigorous.  Which totally disproves my hypothesis that they would be happier in containers on the porch.  Isn't science fun??  The real test, of course will be in another year or three when we get the greenhouse built!


P.S.  All photos were taken at 10 pm last night.  Three cheers for the Solstice sunlight that penetrates through the thickest smoke!

Sugaring Part 2: Syrup

Darlin'Man brings in sap.
Note the yoke.  It is amazing.

We have one quart and one pint of birch syrup sitting in the fridge.  It is so sweet and so so good.

We boiled it down in the crock pot, and on stove top pans.  Both work.  The crockpot requires less supervision but takes longer.  

Next spring, we hope to have a cinderblock woodstove built in the yard with a ginormous pot or two for the boiling.  

And if one of us ever learns to weld, we've got a great idea from the man who runs the brewing supply store.  Weld stainless steel into a giant 100s of gallon vat, paint it in heat absorbent black paint, and set it up basically like a still, so it'll evaporate out the water by the (direct) power of the sun.

Syruping

The Woodsman brings in sap.

more boiling.

Slightly singed syrup. 
Please note the alliteration!

Instead of clubbing...

My housemate's father is visiting this week, and managed to time his visit to another streak of forty below weather.  I'm sure he's pleased as punch about that (not).

We were all gathered around the woodstove last night, me and darlin' man, my breda, her father, and her partner (also a homesteading dreamer).  We were drinking Sleepytime, yarrow, and green teas respectively.  It was a lovely gathering of the hearts, enjoying the warmth of tea and fire and laughing at the antics of two huskies, winding down from the day to go to bed.  We showed her father the particularities of our woodstove as we are all off at work today, leaving him with the house.  And conversation, inevitably turned to talking of spruce vs birch, and relative time for seasoning wood, and how and where it is stacked.  We got some bone dry spruce this season, that isn't as good as birch - birch burns much hotter and longer (no maple or oak up here!).  So we weren't burning alot of it, but its stacked exactly where I want the garden come spring/summer time; so we're making a concerted effort to burn it all rather than having to restack.  The leftover birch will benefit from another year of seasoning...

We were engaged in our discussion, when into a brief lull, my breda laughs and comments "look at us!  Anyone else our age would be out clubbing!"  Because there we were, four young folk ranging in age from 26 to 32, perfectly happy having an age old discussion as fitting of 60 year olds as ourselves.  We all have plenty of friends who were probably at a bar, or at a club....  Funny how life changes you.  Lets you grow.

2012: Goals and Resolutions

My birthday falls just shortly after the new year, and every year I write letters to my variously older self, and read the letters of previous years.  It makes for a very reflective beginning of the year that has little to do with toasts of champagne and resolutions that are made while in one's heart one knows they will be broken before the snow melts. 

My resolutions this year are to be kinder to myself and try to release the pursuit of perfection.
To commit to my yoga practice.
To embrace seasonality.

But there is a vast difference between resolutions and goals, and with the approach of Imbolc, when the roots of the rest of the year begin to stir, I have been thinking about my goals for the coming year.
Firstly - to drink more water.  I believe I may even make this a belated resolution : to drink water everyday.  I subsit on coffee too frequently, and while I have taken to drinking tea in the afternoon sometimes, it is also good to just hydrate.  Without the caffeine.

Over at Weeding for Godot, she has a sidebar list of goals, which she crosses out.  I may have to steal the idea!  But for now, I'm still contemplating, weighting the reality of work to be accomplished with my grandiose long term plans.
A few things I'm fairly certain will make the list:
Dig in the garden and prep for next year's planting
Grow tomatoes and basil on the deck
Plant kitchen garden of herbs and flowers
Dig in rhubarb and asparagus beds, or at least figure out where these will be.
Weed raspberry patches, and run wire strings between rows for orderliness and support
build coop
get chickens
Start (and hopefully finish) greenhouse.

Plan and plot as to eventual location of barn, pasture, garden, orchard, bramble, sauna, greenhouse, windmill, yard, tree house, woodstacks,  etc.