Wildflower bonanza

Now that we seem to have broken the back of winter (this has been, what, the second-coldest June on record or something?)...

...we're seeing wildflowers blooming in abundance. I took advantage of a rare sunny day last week and photographed some.

Here's my inventory.

Last-gasp holdouts of arrowleaf balsam root. These are definitely early spring flowers, so their time has come and gone.

Also a few last-gasp arnica, another early spring wildflower.

Daisies. Early summer is daisy season around here. I love this flower so much I had it in my wedding bouquet.

Clover.

Lots of clover.

Sheep sorrel (genus Rumex).

Ninebark. This time of year we have frothy bushes everywhere. Very lovely.

Triteleia, sometimes called Fool's Onion.

Wild roses. They smell as sweet as they look.

Honeysuckle.

Tufted elk weed.

This is neither groundsel (note the leaves) nor St. John's wort (note the flowers). My flower ID books are packed away. Thoughts?

Stonecrop.

Orange hawkweed, prettier cousin to the much-loathed invasive yellow hawkweed.

Snowberry.

Salsify.

Nine-leafed biscuit root.

Pearly everlasting, not quite fully bloomed yet.

(Its leaves.)

Lupine.

Wild strawberry.

Big-leaf avens.

Thimbleberry. This relative of the raspberry is perfectly edible, but very bland.

Wild mustard.

Vetch.

Yarrow.

Western blue flax.

Phlox.

Creeping buttercup. Lovely to look at in the forest, but NOT something I like in the garden. It can be very aggressive.

So that's our wildflower bonanza so far. Next to bloom will be the beautiful oceanspray. Yep, we're living in paradise.

At least it wasn't us

The other morning a sound woke me up very very early. It's something I'm conditioned to hear and worry about, even though (at least for now) it's no longer necessary, kinda like how I still snap to attention when a kid yells "Mom!"

I refer to a "moo."

You see, whenever I hear a cow "moo" -- especially around dawn -- I snap awake and wonder what's wrong. What cows got out, and how?

Sure enough, my instincts were correct. Behold, a cow where she shouldn't be.

Actually, behold many cows (and calves) where they shouldn't be.

These cows belong to one neighbor, and they escaped to graze on another neighbor's property.

I called the first neighbor, just in case he wasn't aware, but he knew about it and was getting ready to repair to breached fence.

Which, sure enough, he did.

At least this time, it wasn't our cows who escaped (since we currently don't have any).

But that instinct. It just doesn't go away. "Moo!"

C-c-c-cold

We're coming up on the first day of summer, and the weather around here has been nothing short of c-c-c-cold.

As I write this (5:30 am), it's 39F outside. Or is it 38F? You decide.

Yesterday and the day before, it was so chilly we lit the woodstove. In June. And boy did it feel good.

With daytime temperatures topping out at 49F, can you blame us?

Couple this scenery with a high wind, and you'll get a better (colder) picture.

The barn cat has been spending a lot of time in his cozy cat box in the shop.

Even the robins look chilly.

The garden isn't too happy. Despite all the peppy suggestions that certain seeds shouldn't be planted "until soil temps reach 70F" or whatever, I can't wait until late June for that to happen.

We have a couple warm days coming up this week, but the temperature swings are all over the place. I mean, look at the graph below. Between today and tomorrow, we'll climb 20 degrees. Between Friday and Saturday, we'll drop 20 degrees.

It just goes to show ya, you never know how a season will unfold. Life on a homestead. Roll with the punches.

Rules of homesteading

Some time ago, I read a post on "Rules of Homesteading." These were considered "unwritten rules" – y'know, just stuff you learn as you go.

I thought it would be interesting to make up our own list of Rules of Homesteading. Here is what we came up with:

• Always – always! – make fences stronger, higher, deeper, and beefier than you think you'll need. Once upon a (naïve) time, we actually thought three strands of barbed wire would keep a bull in. Yes, we were really that gullible.

• Avoid debt. Sometimes it's necessary (such as the purchase of a large, important thing), in which case pay it off as quickly as possible.

• Failure happens. Things rarely work perfectly the first time. Anyone who is a "successful" homesteader has simply made all the mistakes already.

• Tolerate repetitive work. Shelling beans, weeding, mucking out the barn … if repetitive tasks are not your cup of tea, then likely neither is homesteading.

• Exercise. Working on a homestead is exercise; but not enough, especially as you get older. Make sure you keep fit. Lift weights, run, or even just take long walks.

• Put spare change aside. It can add up quicker than you think and cover a bill you didn't expect.

• Don't try to do everything at once. Space major projects out over years, not weeks, otherwise you'll get overwhelmed.

• Sometimes putting the cart before the horse is the best way to get a project done. Mind you, I don't recommend this; but there's no question it can act as a spur.

• Make sure that you are capable of putting down an injured animal and have the tools to do so humanly. It's an ugly reality on a homestead.

• Dry socks are better than a dry shirt.

• Have two pairs of muck-boots. You never know when you'll need that second pair.

• Be willing to accept "good enough." Not everything can be perfect on a homestead, so the ability to accept "good enough" can go a long way.

• Three is two, two is one, one is none. This classic prepper strategy simply means you have fall-back options if something breaks or becomes unusable. Very handy philosophy to abide by.

• Carry more tools than you think you need. You'll need them.

• Make good neighbors. Don't just meet your neighbors, be a good neighbor as well.

• Stop and smell the roses. You chose this lifestyle to be closer to God's creation. Don't forget to enjoy it!

Okay, let's hear your own contribution to our list.

Cleaning out the freezers

Apparently it's become a national pastime to clean out corners during the lock downs. Goodwill and other charities have seen donations skyrocket as people examine the contents of closets they haven't seen in years.

We, too, have been cleaning out corners, more because of our imminent move than for any other reason. But one neglected place we hadn't touched was the freezers.

As often happens, our chest freezers had become chaotic and disorganized. You know how it is with chest freezers. They're more efficient (energy-wise) than upright freezers, but it's easy to pile things on top and lose track of the fossils at the bottom. So Don and I decided to disembowel the appliances, inventory the contents, reorganize as needed, and discard the unneeded.

After a great deal of effort, we sorted the freezers so that one is dedicated to meats...

...and the other to everything else.

I also took out a large number of random bags of...stuff. Fossils. I have a baaaad habit of frugally bagging something up for future use, but not labeling it because of course I'll remember what it is. If I'm so clever, why the bleep don't I just label things?

With a few items, I actually did identify what it was. Wasn't this clever of me? Why can't I remember to do this all the time?

After defrosting the items just enough to identify the contents, I sorted everything for canning. For fruits, I had a bit of peach purée, some juice from our cherry bushes, and miscellaneous raspberries.

I had enough raspberries that I thought about making jam. I'm a highly experienced canner, but jams and jellies are beyond me. Why? Because I don't like them (too sweet). But what else could I do with the raspberries? So I bought some low-sugar pectin and prepared to make raspberry jam.

But after reading the intimidating instructions...

...I changed my mind. Why should I go through so much effort to make something we wouldn't eat anyway? But I didn't want to waste the wonderful raspberries. In the end, I simply packed the berries in jars and canned them in a water bath, along with the peach purée and cherry juice. I like fruit purée in yogurt, and raspberry purée is perfect. Easy peasy, problem solved.

For meats, I had beef gravy, sweet and sour meatballs, and teriyaki pot roast. I divvied everything into jars and pressure-canned the lot. Meats are always pressure-canned for the same amount of time, so I could mix-and-match jars without a problem.

Now our freezers are better organized, and I have a few more jars of preserved food in the pantry. Not a bad project.