the little wild kingdom

[frustratedearthmother]

I love your gardens! They are so beautiful and whimsical too.

 

[flowerbug]

putting up squash today. started at noon and the largest squash cleaned out and ready to be baked. exact time not known to my brain at the moment but i can zero it in by looking at the time stamps on the pictures i was taking. this time included the time to pack the two large pans with chunks so i was cutting up the squash to fit too. it took three hours to get the squash baked (big pans stuffed full along with some water in there to make sure they didn't dry out). then i finished the rest of the squash cleaning it and cutting it up so it is ready to go. i improved my processing techniques and time by quite a lot plus i also didn't waste time on a few of the smaller squash that just wouldn't have been that good plus i had a few that needed some surgery or just tossed them so that saved some time too. not saving all the seeds from every squash. yes, saved some time there too. already have a lot of seeds already. so just took some and labelled those from the ones i wanted the most and didn't need to get Every. Last. Seed.

waiting for the first batch to cool off while the 2nd batch is baking. not enough room in the oven to fit it all so i will need to bake another last batch. still it's going well in that i can fire and forget these pans for three hours now that i know how long it takes at what temperature and that means i can rest up before i have to start getting the squash off the skins and do the work of blending and mashing them. once that's done the packaging and putting in the freezer goes pretty quick. it does make for a busy day but i love the whole process plus i get to eat fresh baked squash for a snack if i want.

today i think the count was close to 20 squash processed and two of them were quite large. pictures eventually, i took about 35 pictures so far. will probably take some more too.

there are some things i can still improve upon. i'm considering cutting the skins off the squash before cooking it because then when it's done i'd just have to mash it and that would be it. so up front time spent on cutting off the skin v.s. backend time scraping cooked squash out of the skins. either way i think it takes a fair amount of time so may not gain anything other than being able to do something different for a change of pace. as it went i'm sure i saved at least 2 hours off my processing time because it was all going right along.

i have to have this done today because tomorrow Mom wants to bake some things. ok by me this all worked out well for timing, plus it is supposed to be warm and raining tomorrow so i can get the squash stuff buried in a garden - muddy for sure but it's ok...

 

[flowerbug]

I love your gardens! They are so beautiful and whimsical too.

i do too, Mom does all the decorating things with me commenting here or there on how to do it in such ways as i can actually garden or manage the water flows or critters or ... it all works for both of us.

the decorating i do is shaping the gardens and growing plants and working on edges for erosion control and fixing things or painting or staining or ... keeps me busy, keeps her happy to have stuff to putter around with. a lot of the things she makes do not last long and eventually we have to get rid of them somehow. i consider it the price of admission...

 

[flowerbug]

i've been cleaning up squash seeds the past few days. they are all dry enough to be planted or given away in the state they are in, but they do look much nicer to give away when they are cleaned up a bit more which is another step from separating them from the squash pulp and drying them out for storage.

three more trays to go and this seed saving task will be done.

having all the squash processed and in the freezer, eaten or packages of prepped squash given away is a good place to be and right about where i like to be this time of the year so i can start doing the seed package prep for giving things away and also to get my own bean collection back into shape. it needs to be organised better and things put away. when i'm getting ready for spring planting i take out the boxes and make up trays of potential things to plant and then i may not get those trays put back into boxes until about this time of the season.

part of the reason for not putting things away right away is if i've refreshed some seeds stocks then i can either consolidate old seed containers or replace some of them with fresher seeds. the other issue with putting seeds away too quickly is if i need to replant or fill in bare spots or someone comes along and asks me if i can recommend something. there they are, right there, i have them out and don't have to go looking. plus, well, horizontal empty surface just looks a bit too wrong to me without it having something on it, perhaps several layers of somethings... box tops with beans in them stack nicely.

 

[flowerbug]

[lifted from my thread on TEG ...]

i had fun today, i meant to get my squash project page done for the website, but first i had some snow to shovel and then before that Mom said "Hey look at these tracks outside my patio door in the snow!" they were mousie tracks. so...

i get out to shovel and first have to check out the mouse situation. i know there is a good chance they've put a nest someplace i don't want it but when i opened up the crawlspace cover there were four mice in there that weren't even in the nest, running around, and i'm not sure that was all of them but some ran over to where the air conditioner is at (right next to the crawlspace cover). so i went and got a shovel and tried to catch or kill as many as i could and also removed the large nest they'd put down there. next to it laying on the cement was a dead shrew. for some reason they didn't eat it. perhaps they were waiting for a different day but it all got scooped into a bucket and at the same time i'm trying to get any mice that are running around and get them in the bucket.

so i pound on the AC unit to see if i can shake any out of there and one comes running out and jumps into the crawlspace entrance and i happen to have the bucket there so it jumped right into the bucket.

after a few more moments of trying to make sure i've got them all killed before i go dump the bucket back out on the far corner weed pile then i tromp over and get that dumped back out.

ok, so back to shovelling, i also make sure to shovel around that back crawlspace entrance so i can set some traps later. and then i shovel.

a nice day really, not too windy and the sun shine is out. cold, but that's ok. i'm getting it all shovelled. hoping the sun will melt off any remaining snow that is still left on there. no, it was too cold out today for that, but perhaps tomorrow will get more of it to melt off there. tonight it is all sublimating directly into the air. it's cold out there... 19F and heading down to 10F at some point tonight.

after getting back inside and starting back in on where i was at before i was told about the mouse tracks in the snow. i got some pictures edited and then realized that i should write a program to do some of the coding that i've in the past been doing by hand. off down that rabbit hole i go for an hour or two and it's done and working so then i'm back to finishing up the first round of the squash page.

i'll add more to it eventually but for now this is good enough:

Squash | Anthive

My adventures in the squash patches...

www.anthive.com

if it weren't so late i'd want a nap...

 

[tortoise]

Wow that's a busy day! Shrews eat mice, too bad you found a dead one. My mouser cat ate the shrews in the barn... now we have mice. Good going, cat. (Love my cat, btw, she's the best barn/farm/family/cuddly cat I could hope for)

 

[flowerbug]

none of the six mouse traps i set last night were touched so perhaps the mice all went back to their original home on the berm. i hope they stay there and away from the AC and crawlspace entrance.

it is supposed to be warmer tomorrow and the next day so i should get out and pop the cover off the AC control panel and make sure there's no nest in there.

 

[flowerbug]

three more mice were eventually trapped around the crawlspace entrance cover and there was no more nest building going on under the cover. i'll keep an eye on things but for the moment i brought the traps in because i don't want to attract mice towards the house i just want to trap any that i notice are out there. there hasn't been any more recent fresh snows to be able to see new mouse tracks. owls sometimes visit and i hear them which is a good thing.

finally got a big chore done that i needed to do about a month ago. washed all my bedding/blankets and got under the futon dusted along with the floor around this area and part of the closet too since it also needed it and i was doing it anyways.

then flipped the futon over, also removed a memory foam mattress pad that was very old and starting to develop a very unique smell to it that probably wasn't great for my sinuses. cut it up and have it in the garage now so all those skin mites can freeze their little butts off. will set it out with the trash - i hope they burn it, it was made with soybean oil.

so now down lower a few inches here on the perch and also firmer which is ok. i do have a smaller piece of memory foam down still and that is good. just have to get used to it being more firm. still better than sleeping on the floor. so i can get this crossed off my list of things i needed to do. back to working on the bean collection reorganization and web site stuff.

 

[flowerbug]

checked and fed all the worm buckets yesterday. i had a few lbs of old beans culled from the bean collection and plenty of other things to get put in there. as i had last fed them around Christmas time i was curious to see how well they'd managed on all the squash skins i'd packed in those last few weeks of the year. it's always fun to me to see what they are up to and to also see what the rest of the soil community in those buckets is doing.

in all they'd managed to eat most of the squash but in a few spots there were lumps they were still working on. amazing to see baseball sized clumps of worms. so that would be a good way to gather worms in the future if i ever feel like i have to do that. normally i don't harvest worms from the buckets for any reason. instead they all go out into the gardens as fertilizer and some will survive and increase the worm populations out there (most worms will not as they are not natives and they have no tolerance for the hot or cold extremes we get - but i also have some native species in the buckets because they inhabit different soil layers and feed off different things).

old beans, buried deep, rehydrate and then will ferment if they don't sprout and grow. deep enough they won't do much. too close to the surface they can poke up at the top fine mesh fabric i use to keep the bugs/worms in/out.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Your worms kind of intrigue me. Maybe not enough to start an indoor worm farm though, lol! I do get a kick when I turn over some garden soil and see big, fat healthy worms.