the little wild kingdom

they've been out back at the neighbors redigging the pond, but it sure has been a lot of noise the past few days and it seems like a lot more digging going on than just the pond.
 
it was much easier yesterday for getting a garden put up. spent about a half hour weeding through it to make sure it was clear of potential seed droppers - it was in pretty good condition since i'd just been through it the past few weeks and it hadn't rained much. still a lot of thistles popping up all over, but i got them all. i also did some picking of what dry pods were left so those are ready to be shelled out some rainy day.

then right down the middle i raked back the bean plants and dug a trench and then raked all the garden debris into the trench. only saw one worm in there. all the worms are hiding as we've not really had much rain the past few months. as i was filling in the trench Mom was bringing me stuff that she was getting out of the daylilies nearby. so after distributing all that through the trench i walked on it and packed some of it down, but i left a little along the edge poking up so it will give worms a trail all the way down to the bottom if they want to follow it. i also did not fill the trench in all the ways as i want to move some of the dirt from that one garden into a low spot in another garden next to it so why move dirt twice? i'll have to wait for that though because i'm not done yet getting the stuff out of that garden or weeding and picking through it but that should happen sometime next week if the weather cooperates.

pretty much chugging along. :) the weather yesterday was perfect, not too hot and a nice breeze. chances of rain tonight and tomorrow. some nights now forecast to get down to the mid 30sF for next week so that may be a chance for frosts. most days mid-60sF and sunny. perfect weather for working outside and getting gardens put up or other heavier tasks now that it is cooler. at last... :) better take advantage of it too since we may only get a week of fall.

today i mostly need to get more dry beans picked from the last few gardens that were planted - that will take an hour or two.
 
it actually took me three to four hours (in two shifts) for the third picking - there were a lot more beans to pick this time. so nothing to complain about there for sure as i wasn't expecting much at all from these gardens as they'd been raided by the groundhog several times. i haven't even gotten into the back half yet even once to pick or check. it was raided even more heavily than the front part.

so far i'm happy with the results in terms of how many beans i may get, but until i shell them out i won't know how much and that may be Decembrrrrr or January at the rate things are going here...

i was excited Friday to see a green Praying Mantis and rescued her (the females are bigger and fatter this time of the year) by putting her on some purple Butterfly Bush plants so i could finish cleaning up that garden.
 
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with last night's light frost it was time today to get the last of the peppers picked and then get into the last bean patch and get as much of that picked as i wanted to rescue from the frosts. as i was picking i wasn't really thinking ahead much and then while shelling some of the beans out i wondered if there was any freezer space at all if i shell them all out and cook them? nope, no space up there at all. none. so i have to do a change of plans, but at least it means i don't have a bucket and a half more of beans to shell out now and can try to dry them down in the pods. i'm not sure for these beans if they will actually dry down decently or not so i guess i'll find out. :)

i could have picked another two full five gallon buckets of bean pods from that garden, but they are just going to have to hang there and dry down as they can. they may all not be very good after hard frosts get them so they become worm food if they're not worth shelling and eating.

there's several hundred tiny green peppers out there and i picked enough of the medium or larger peppers to fill up a bucket and a half, most of those will be given away. i can take a few to cut up and eat for me. Mom won't touch 'em...
 
cooked up shelled out beans this morning. wow they cook up faster, they may be a bit mushy, but that is ok, i'll be gentle... :)
 
some nice things came to me this past week and today too. (i may have written about this someplace else but i don't have time at the moment to search for it lol...)

i steel and a sharpening stone for knives. both things i've wanted for a long time and was looking for. a friend was having a yard sale and hardly anything moved so he was going to donate it to the resell shops. i asked him if he had anything for sharpening knives and he said he had a handheld hard wheel steel type of sharpener and i already have one of those but then later on he called back and said he had the steel and i gladly accepted that and in the meantime before Mom picked it up from him he found the sharpening stone. i told him i would remember him and his father (who's they were) and think of them each time i used them. :) yippee!

then today Mom came home with a few things and included in those were a pair of heat resistant oven gloves (not mittens!). i've wanted this sort of thing for so long and have burned myself enough that it keeps coming up during canning season most of the time and then i forget about it until next year. but also Mom could also probably benefit from using them for her baking. not sure she'll use them but we'll try... they feel fantastic to my touch (an important thing to me is texture and feel of fabrics).

so now the only thing remaining on my want and shopping list is a pair of good binoculars since my previous ones broke (they weren't that good to begin with).

simple things that make me happy. :)
 
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