cold lunch

The basic: cellentani/cavatappi, mayonnaise, feta, relish.

Excellent hot-weather lunch. Also supper. Sometimes also breakfast.

Yesterday was a pleasant day weather-wise and I was able to spend the whole afternoon outdoors for the first time in weeks. Maybe not the smartest choice considering the ongoing air quality warnings due to smoke from the northern wildfires, but it just felt so good to be outside.

Sometimes with sweet corn.

Thank you all for your ideas about the raccoons, and I am sorry to hear there are so many kinds of critters making free with our gardens. My favorite solution was the rubber snakes, and "buy snakes" is now on my list. I also checked my spices box for red pepper but only found a little tin of smoked paprika from Portugal. However, I did find lots of coriander and sprinkled it liberally around the garden fence and the bean rows. I never cook with coriander, so it was worth sacrificing it to an experiment. The mystery is why I had not one but three jars of a seasoning I never, ever use.

Occasionally with avocado!

The family of raccoons has since appeared about the place in early morning and early evening, trundling along in single file with the tiny youngster bringing up the rear. They are either living very close by, or under one of my outbuildings. I'm afraid it's the latter, because I've noticed most of the goats haven't been escaping the heat and biting bugs by tucking themselves into the cooler, darker space beneath the shelters as they usually do.

Or mushrooms.

I've been tearing the house and workshop apart looking for my sprayer bottle that attaches to a garden hose and dilutes a liquid (usually fertilizer or pest spray) as you water. I bought it ages ago and have never needed to use it, and now that it is needed, it seems to have disappeared. If I buy another we all know how that will turn out, so the search goes frustratingly on. My plan is to spray a mist of diluted wine (stay with me) under the shelters and barn and around the workshop. Because: one raccoon recommendation was using a vinegar spray. Gathering dust in my tiny kitchen is a rack of wine bottles looking for a job. I haven't bought - or drunk - wine in many years now, so my thought is that most of those bottles probably now contain vinegar. It would be very satisfying to put them to good use. Just need to find that sprayer bottle!

~~~~~

planting beans

 

    This morning I planted beans again.

This is the third time.

The same beans.

Not the same *type* of bean.

The same actual beans.

Raccoons are not my friends.

After finding bean plants uprooted, scattered, and buried under dug-up soil a week ago, I hastily replanted them. The poor beans rallied and continued to grow, which was remarkable considering their ordeal.

This morning I found the same rows dug up again.

Disheartening, to say the least.

Again I replanted any intact plants I could find.

I'll keep watering and hope for the best.

But I need to better protect the garden from varmints.

(Yes, I said varmints. Strong word, I know, but this destructive behavior is unacceptable. Raccoons have plenty to eat without digging up my beans in search of worms, or whatever the heck they are doing.)

Earlier this season I experimented with planting hills of beans instead of rows.

This is the tidy garden the day I planted the seeds:

And this is the same garden the very next morning.

The three hills and a row of cucumber seeds.

Excavated.

Faced with such devastation, Moxie and I had to have a little sit-down.

The main thing needed: a fence around the new garden area.

Done. 

But since putting up the fence, rows of bean plants have been churned up twice.

Does anyone have a tried-and-true method for keeping raccoons out of a fenced garden? Burying the fence a foot deep isn't an option here. I tried scattering cinnamon sticks along the fence and even along the bean rows. 

For a few days, all was well.

Until this morning.

~~~~~

open

The first thing I did this morning, after opening the door for the cats to go out, was open windows throughout the house. Because at 530 AM it was cooler outside than in, for the first time in many days.

It was also raining, and I got absolutely soaked doing chores. I usually do come in dripping these days, but this time it was mostly rainwater instead of sweat, so it was sort of enjoyable.

A package had been "delivered" roadside last night, so before starting goat chores I trundled down with my little cart to fetch it up before the wet cardboard got any wetter. 

So I got to see this:

 This daylily is my favorite, and has survived the rigors of the bank garden by the lower driveway for many years. For at least five years now (maybe ten) I've thought it needs to be dug up, separated into multiple plants, and planted in more locations. For it's own good. The only thing holding me back is a fear of killing it.

But now it is being crowded beyond what I can change in it's present location, and challenged by the increasing shade of a growing tree. This will be the year. 

Wish me luck. Send advice.

~~~~~

climate control

Vincent 1885

We're having unpleasant weather here in north-central Massachusetts. Sweating begins the moment you step out the door. All the goats are spending most of their time being still.

The heat is uncomfortable but with the added humidity it is stultifying. Livestock and gardening chores are best finished early, because even the morning air feels like breathing through a warm, wet flannel. The cats and I are usually outside by 5:30 or 6, and any tasks not finished before ten will probably have to wait til evening.   

Moxie and Della usually make their own schedules, although the bear has curtailed evening activity and the cats now miss the prime mouse-hunting hours of dusk to bedtime. But they are still out and in a few times throughout the day, as am I. Usually. Yesterday afternoon when the temperature was 93 in the shade, we had a debate about whether cats should sometimes be required to stay indoors where at least one room is cooler and breathable, thanks to the combined efforts of a floor fan, a dehumidifier, an air cleaner, and intermittent air conditioning. Despite all this relative comfort, Moxie and Della both wanted to be out. I won the debate, but only because they can't reach the doorknob.

I hope wherever you are the temperature is comfortable and the air is clear.

~~~~~

ten

Moxie and Della are ten.

Don't they look great?

But seriously, how did that happen?

~~~~~