Garlic Harvest

Jo is digging our garlic.  As with most things that happen around here, we're getting the garlic out of the ground a little behind schedule. That's really not a problem since our weather has been so dry.  Wetter weather would have caused the garlic bulbs to rot.  Voles and mice love dining on our potatoes while they are still in the ground, but don't care for garlic.

Rusty and Bucket think they deserve a share of everything harvested in the garden.  They are going through the motions of begging for garlic, but didn't really put up too much of a fuss since even Bucket won't munch out on a garlic bulb.

Jo is heading back to the garden cart with another handful of garlic.  We grow an older stiffneck (or hardneck) variety.  Our original bulbs were a gift from a friend.  I'm not certain of the exact variety, though it's probably a Rocambole.  As this garlic reaches maturity, it sends up shoots.  Tiny garlic bulbs (called scapes) form at the end of the shoots.  When the shoots first appear, they are curved into a circle.  As the garlic matures, the stems gradually straighten.   At full maturity, they are pointing straight up.  You are supposed to pinch off the scapes.  This secondary means of reproduction doesn't benefit the gardener and is said to rob some of the plants resources that would otherwise go into producing a larger underground bulb.  We failed to pinch off all the scapes this year.  In our very unscientific experiment, neither Jo nor I could see a difference in bulb size between plants with and without scapes.

A small part of our garlic harvest.  The bulbs now need to dry a bit more.  Jo will cut off the stems and select some of the cloves for replanting.  Here in Arkansas, we plant garlic in the fall.  The plants come up and then go dormant over winter.  Once spring arrives, the garlic begins growing again and completes its life cycle.  We'll use some of the garlic fresh, but most will go into the deep freeze providing us with a year around supply.

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Garlic Harvest

Begging For Zucchini

What happens when you take a short trip and leave the garden unattended for a couple of days? Monster zucchinis try to take over the place. Rusty and Bucket like raw zucchini and know Jo usually gives them a slice of the overgrown squash before tossing the rest in the compost. They are waiting not very patiently for their treat.

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Begging For Zucchini

Pointing The Way

Rusty may be an Australian Shepherd, but he seems to think he's a pointer. He was pointing at three rabbits at the back of our garden. I can guarantee you that every muscle in his body was tense. After a couple of more steps, he charged. He didn't come close to catching any of the rabbits, but after a shout from Jo and I, he did stay inside the garden instead of chasing the rabbits off into the woods.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Pointing The Way

Garden 2009: First Picking of Green Beans

Jo picked a little less than a half bushel of green beans Thursday afternoon. We've eaten some, but most went into the freezer. We should get two or three more large picking and then production will fall way off. Eventually, we'll leave the wire covering off the beans and let the rabbits have a treat, though I don't know what they've done to deserve a reward.

Jo also harvested some yellow squash, zucchini and cucumbers.

I made a trip into town Thusday. We were just in town this past Saturday, but I decided to make a special trip to buy a new thermostat for our hot water heater. The thermostat that's currently on the heater works okay most of the times, but every so often gets the water way too hot.
While in town, I made several other stops: Mailed a package, paid bills, went by the bank and, of course, bought groceries again. With all that running around, I managed to forget about buying the thermostat. Doh!

The price of gasoline jumped a dime per gallon since Saturday, up to $2.59/gallon. I reckon gas is bound to go up with Labor Day and our fall show season approaching.

We had to send our camera back to Olympus for a rebuild. The main control knob became so stiff it could not be turned. The photo above is from our archives. It was taken by Jo on 6/17/07.

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Garden 2009: First Picking of Green Beans

Journal: Saturday, 12/20/08

►  Not too bad here at the moment: Light south wind, clouds starting to build and 40ºF/4ºC @ 4:00 AM.  Bedtime.

►  Let the caffeine consumption begin.  (Overcast, moderate south wind and 47ºF/8ºC @ 10:30 AM)

►  Overcast and moderate south wind continue. Wood stove going to take the dampness out of the air. (53ºF/11ºC @ noon)

Sometimes it's amazing how quickly dogs can learn something you aren't even trying to teach them, something you don't even want them to know.  We have two windows on the north side of our house:  A small one in the bathroom and a full-sized window next to the kitchen table.

From the kitchen table window, one can see the garden, the gate at the end of the trail coming down from our upper pasture and the bird feeder (made by Jo) hanging just outside the window.  Long ago the dogs learned to occasionally look out this window to see if there were any cows at the gate or deer in the garden.  If critters were seen, the dogs barked.  Rusty and Bucket don't care anything about the birds at the feeder or even -- surprisingly enough -- a squirrel in the bird feeder.  Jo and I use this window for watching and, occasionally, photographing the birds and deer.  We don't care anything about the cows unless they've gotten out and are in the yard.

Now Rusty and Bucket (especially Rusty) are learning that if Jo or I is looking out the kitchen table window, there may be something outside for them to bark at, so they rush over and look outside too.  If they see critters at the gate or in the garden, they bark.  Their barking will scare away deer in the garden and their rushing over will frighten birds at the feeder.  If Jo or I were trying to take a photo, too bad.  Our subject is gone.  What's worse, the dogs are beginning to learn that one of us picking up the camera might mean that a barkable creature is outside and is reason enough to rush over to the window.  Dogs!

►  The wind has shifted to the north and is blowing briskly.  Temperature is beginning to fall.  Overcast skies remain.  47ºF/8ºC @ 3:00 PM.

►  Back from walking the pasture/woods loop.  We had a close encounter of the cow kind that got the dogs all upset.  Nothing serious.  She was just heading down a relatively narrow section of trail as we were going up -- probably didn't get within ten feet of her, but that's too close for the dogs to keep their cool.  Both Rusty and Bucket were off their leashes at the time, but I saw the cow first and we were able to get them releashed before they noticed the cow.  (37ºF/3ºC @ 4:30 PM)

►  Skies clearing and the temperature is falling fast.  Forecast temps revised downward. (27ºF/-2ºC @ 10:15 PM)

►  Chilling down.  23ºF/-5ºC @ midnight.  A northwest wind gusting to 30 mph/48 kph doesn't help with keeping warm.

►  Weather Summary:  High = 54ºF/12ºC.  Low = 23ºF/-5ºC.  Temperature @ midnight = 23ºF/-5ºC.  Our skies were overcast all day.  The wind shifted to the north and became gusty during the afternoon.  Temperatures dropped slowly and steadily.   Clearing occurred after dark permitting a rapid drop in temperature.  According to NOAA we have a north wind blowing at 10-15 mph and gusting to 30 mph.



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Journal: Saturday, 12/20/08

Journal: Thursday, 12/18/08

►  Melt water dripping off the eaves has been joined by drizzle.  (35ºF/1.5ºC @ 2:00 AM)

►  Blog post on Nature in the Ozarks:  Echinacea and Ice:  By Jo

►  I'm tired of fighting with this computer that keeps wanting to reboot. I never told it to go ahead and install that %$#$% Microsoft update, but now I must keep telling it not to restart. I'm going to bed.  (Still drizzling and getting warmer.  39ºF/4ºC @ 4:30 AM)

►  Drip, drip, drip:  Melting continues.  Overcast, light south wind and 43ºF/6ºC @ 10:30 AM.

►  SkyWatch Friday blog post of the Stephens Inc. building in downtown Little Rock on Hodgepodgery.

►  A very drippy kind of day.  First, there was all the snow and ice melting this morning.  Then, there was the fact that everything was cold while the air became warmer and damp.  Condensation was rampant.

►  Over in Jo's studio, her 8' fluorescent light fixture stopped working.  We used a test light to determine it was still getting electricity.  Jo ended up lighting her kerosene heater and letting it burn while we went on our walk.  When we returned, her light worked just fine.  All the moisture had caused a bad connection somewhere within the light fixture and the heater dried it out.

►  Back from a walk to the gate and back. Rusty and Bucket left as dogs, but returned as mud balls. (Overcast and damp ... moderate and building south wind ... 51ºF/10.5ºC @ 4:45 PM)

►  We had debated upon whether to walk in the woods/pastures or take our walk up the road.  We knew the road would be muddy, but also knew we'd get soaked from the waist down if we walked through the tall, wet grass in the pasture.  We finally opted for the muddy road.  Part of the problem is that the surface was disturbed by the bulldozer a few weeks back.  That loose dirt froze and heaved while our temperatures were below freezing, then turned to mush when it thawed.

►  South wind building. (45ºF/7ºC @ 9:00 PM)

►  Very strong and gusty south wind is blowing rain completely across the porch again. The prelude to another approaching cold front. This front isn't forecast to be as messy as the last -- just cold. Temperature rising rapidly at the moment. 53ºF/11ºC @ 11:30 PM.

►  Weather Summary:  High = 56ºF/13ºC.  Low = 35ºF/1.5ºC.  Temperature @ midnight = 56ºF/13ºC.  AM = Overcast ... a little foggy ... very damp.  PM = More of the same with rising temperatures and off and on rain showers beginning late.



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Journal: Thursday, 12/18/08

Journal: Sunday, 11/23/08

►  Started kiln on a glaze firing.  (Clear, moderate south wind and 35ºF/1ºC @ midnight)

►  Fully closed lid on kiln. Influence of south wind has caused temperature to rise a degree since midnight. Currently 36ºF/2ºC @ 3 AM.

►  Bedtime.  (37ºF/2ºC @ 5:30 AM)

►  The clothes Jo left on the clothesline overnight are not doing a lot more drying this overcast and damp morning. Drying insulated jeans takes a very long time. (46ºF/7ºC @ 11:00 AM)


►  Blog post on Nature in the Ozarks:  Green Cloverworm Moth.

►  Overcast has "progressed" into a light drizzle. Jo brought the clothes inside off the clothesline. Everything was dry except for the insulated jeans, which are now hanging in front of our wood stove. (46ºF/7ºC @ 1:45 PM)

►  Jo and I and the dogs took our full walk to the gate and back despite the damp overcast and occasional drizzle.  I've told Rusty and Bucket that I thought we should skip playing fetch today because of the funky weather.  They did not agree.  (44ºF/6ºC @ 4:30 PM)

►  Ended up playing a short session of fetch with our dogs. When it involves something they enjoy, dogs are very good at learning a daily routine. However, they are not so good at judging duration. Not going outside to play was unacceptable to them; just a few tosses of the tennis ball was okay.

►  One of those crazy weather days when the day's high temp occurred at midnight. A low pressure area to our north is pulling warm, moist air up from the Gulf of Mexico. Hence, warmer temps and drizzle, a fairly typical winter weather pattern between cold fronts. (54ºF/12ºC @ midnight)



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Journal: Sunday, 11/23/08

Journal: Monday, 10/27/08

Early Morning:

► Midnight: Down to 47ºF/7ºC and dropping. Gusty north wind has not abated. Chilly out considering I'm dressed for our mid-day 77º.


► 3:00 AM: Down to 41ºF/5ºC outside and 65ºF/18ºC inside. Time to crank up the wood stove before the house loses any more heat. Surprisingly, the north wind seems to have mostly laid, at least for the moment.

Late Morning:

► Sunny, breezy and 42º/5º @ 10 AM. Thermometer says temperature only fell to 36º/2º overnight, but there's a thin ice layer on the birdbath. Methinks the thermometer pickup is located too close to the house.

► Sunny and 51º/10º at noon. It would be almost pleasant outdoors were the north wind not gusty so strongly. Always staying in the sunshine and out of the wind is tricky.


Afternoon:

► Back from PM walk ... 51F/10C @ 5 PM. The north wind that came up again this AM seems to be laying now. Seems warm inside the house after walking. Wish I hadn't thrown those last couple of logs into the wood stove.



► After our end of season harvesting over the past couple of days, we didn't bother turning the electric fence back on. There really wasn't anything needing protection from the deer left out in the garden. This afternoon I saw a doe cautiously approach the garden and then slip inside. She never made it as far as any ot the plants before getting spooked. Now, does the deer entering the garden on the first day the fence was off demonstrate how well the fence is keeping out the deer? Or, was it just a coincidence? I don't know but suspect a little of both -- and probably more of a coincidence. The fence has been off many times.

Evening:

► Spent some time in the basement getting som spoons made.

All photos take on today's afternoon walk.

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Journal: Monday, 10/27/08

Journal: Monday, 10/20/08

Morning: Each new day warmer than the last as our last cool front fades away. Mostly clear skies with only a few high, thin clouds. Light to moderate south wind. Weather conditions have not gone downhill as rapidly as I expected. Rain is still in our forecast for mid-week, though. 75º F (23º C) at noon.

Researching, cropping photos, etc. for a blog post on squash bugs, but I need to get on with my day leaving the post unfinished until this evening.

Afternoon: Lots of little projects. None of them really worth talking about.

This photo was taken about a month ago and shows poison ivy growing up a pine tree providing our earliest fall color.

Dogs: Play with the dogs for a while again this afternoon. When I discussed playing fetch with Rusty and Bucket yesterday, I made it sound like a purely altruistic activity. It isn't. Yes, I am concerned about them becoming total couch potatoes and preventing that is one of the reasons we play, but we also play fetch to burn off some of their energy. Someone once said, "A good dog is a tired dog." There's a lot of truth to that. Our cooler fall temps have boosted the dogs' energy level several steps. We burn off a little of that excess energy playing fetch, helping protect the inside of the house from being totally destroyed when Rusty and Bucket play with each other.

Cucumber: Jo harvested a cuke this afternoon. That's got to be a late season record for our garden. Of course, this cuke did not come from one of the vines we planted. Those sucuumbed to wilt before producing more than a half dozen fruits. A volunteer cucumber vine in the strawberry bed produced several cukes and this is the latest of those.

Temperatures: 79º/55º. 61º at midnight.

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Journal: Monday, 10/20/08

Journal: Sunday, 10/19/08

Early Morning: Blog post on Nature in the Ozarks:  Cloudless Sulphur butterfly (Phoebis sennae)

Late Morning: Getting into the downside of our last cold front:  A little warmer, a few high clouds around and south wind picking up.  64º @ noon.

Afternoon: South wind picked up some more, but the day was still what I'd call nice.  We've really enjoyed these sunny days, which is good because rain moves into our forecast by mid-week.

Played with the dog:  During the longer days of summer, I figure Rusty and Bucket get enough exercise.  They spend more time outside and come out into the garden with Jo and I in the late afternoon.  While we work, they play -- at least part of the time.  However, starting about now and through the winter, the dogs spend almost all their time just laying around in the house.  So, in the winter when the weather permits, I spend a little time playing fetch with them after our afternoon walk.

What's amazing is how much Rusty and Bucket remember about our little ritual, not just the basics of chasing the tennis ball and bringing it back, but also which dog plays first, where we play, how we end a session and, especially, when I dispense dog treats.  You'd think we last played yesterday instead of six months ago.  I wish they remembered how to behave even half as well.

Evening: I often take a little nap in the early evening which is my mid-day.  This evening I didn't get my timer set right and ended up sleeping for two and a half hours.  I guess that was good since I evidently needed the sleep, but I didn't get much else accomplished this evening.

Temperature range:  71º/49º.  56º @ midnight.

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Journal: Sunday, 10/19/08

Journal: Saturday, 10/18/08

Early Morning: Chilling down, but not quite as much as last night.  52º F (11º C) @ 2:00 AM.

Late Morning: Another beautiful fall day in the Ozarks.  (Yes, that's redundant, but I will never tire of saying it.)  A little warmer than yesterday.  The wind has become variable and picked up a little -- probably in the process of shifting around to the south.  66º F (18º C) at 11 AM.

Afternoon:

Houseplants:  Jo finished transporting all our potted plants and hanging baskets into the house for the winter.  I helped by carrying a few of the larger ones.

Young Buck:  A young buck came down for a drink at the small pond visible from our kitchen window.  Doesn't he know this is the fist day of muzzle loading deer season and he should stay hidden in the woods?  Having never been a hunter, I am not familiar with the terminology describing a young buck's antlers -- the degree of antler formation necessary before he can be legally shot.  This one had a long and a short tine on each side of his head.

Another Fall Art Fair:  Both Jo and I applied to the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Covington, LA.  Jo did the show last year for the first time.  Considering the distance from our place to southern Louisiana plus all the great things we'd heard about the show, Jo's sales were not up to our expectations, but they were good enough for us to give it another shot.  However, neither Jo nor I got into the show this year.  Both of us were placed on the standby list.  Today, Jo received an email saying someone had cancelled and inviting her to exhibit in the show.  Jo accepted.

Blog posts from last year's Three Rivers show:

• Thursday:  The trip south.
• Friday:  Setting up for the show.
• Saturday and Sunday:  At the show.

So, it looks as if Jo and I will be heading south in a few weeks.  That means Jo will be busy, busy, busy in her pottery studio.  It also means that we need to find a new place for boarding Rusty and Bucket that's south of us.  In years past we boarded the dogs at our local vet's.  Her office was right on the way if we were heading south and only slightly out of the way if we were heading north.  However, due to a variety of unfortunate circumstances, she was forced to close her office early last spring -- and we were forced to find new places for boarding our dogs.  We found a vet up in Harrison that we like for boarding, but that's an extra 80 mile round trip if we're heading south.  We also used a vet's office to the south for boarding last spring, but did not think our dogs received adequate care.  We must find a new boarding facility.

Weather:  Temperature range = 74/48.  Clear skies.  Light and variable wind. 

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Journal: Saturday, 10/18/08

Journal: Thursday, 10/16/08

Early Morning:

Light rain continues off and on.  56º @ 3:00 AM.

Late Morning:

Woke up to a ruckus of dog barking.  Rusty periodically checks the windows, seeing if there's anything outside requiring a barking session.  Bucket readily adds her voice to the din.  Seldom does she know exactly what she's barking at, but never lets that curb her enthusiasm.

We received a new cool front ushering in more fall-like temperatures.  A half inch of rain fell last evening and overnight.  58º @ noon.

Afternoon:

Made a routine trip into town.  We needed a few groceries and I needed to get the checks from our last show into the bank.  Absolutely nothing in town has changed since I was last there.  I lie!  The price of gasoline is down to $2.79/gallon.  It was $2.49/gallon in Missouri on Monday.

An odd aspect of shopping in a small town in a rural area is that you often keep encountering the same people as you visit various businesses and services.  Most everyone saves up his/her errands and combines several stops into one trip.  And, there are only a limited number of places where one can go when in town:  Feed store (1), grocery store (1), library (1), lumber yard (1), auto supply (2), bank (4).  (I don't know why we have so damned many banks in town.  You'd think there was a lot of money in the county and that's certainly not the case.)  Anyway, it's not at all unusual to encounter the same person in more than one establishment while in town.  Today, I saw the same friend three different times.

Evening:

The temperature dipped down to 47º.  I really ought to start thinking about cleaning out the stove pipe so that we can have a fire in the wood stove.

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Journal: Thursday, 10/16/08

Journal: Monday, 10/06/08

Jo and I got a none too early start leaving St. Louis. It was around eight o'clock by the time we'd eaten our fill of sausage biscuits and pulled away from the hotel.

I'd hoped to make it all the way back to Ozark, MO, before stopping for "the cheapest gasoline in Missouri." However, we encountered a strong headwind along the way and the van began gulping gasoline even faster than normal. Paying a little more for gas was preferable to running out along the way. We filled up at Redmond's Candy Factory about fifty miles east of Springfield. The Candy Factory and adjoining Gift Store are really out in the middle of nowhere and I've never seen more that a few cars around. I don't see how they stay in business, but they've been open for several years. Their gasoline was $2.99/gallon. (Gas in Ozark was only $2.79, but we didn't need any.)

Around one o'clock we made it to the rest area just outside of Harrison, AR, where we ate lunch. After eating, we drove a bit further down the road to Wally World and then to the vet's. Bailing out Rusty and Bucket was expensive. In addition to their boarding, both had a heart worm test and we picked up a three-month supply of heart worm pills.

After driving on into Marshall and filling up the van's gas tank one final time for this trip ($3.29/gallon), we finally made it home around four o'clock. (772 miles round trip, plus to and from show.) Jo and I unloaded our personal stuff from the van. A light mist began falling while we were unloading. The mist progressed into rain overnight.

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Journal: Monday, 10/06/08

Journal: Friday, 10/03/08

► Leave the house heading for St. Louis around eight o'clock.

► First Stop: Harp's grocery in Marshall. We need to buy gasoline before we can travel much of anywhere. ($3.55/gallon)


► Second stop: The vet's in Harrison where we drop off Rusty and Bucket for the weekend.

Rest Area n I-44 just west of Rolla. Where Jo and I ate lunch.

► Filled the tank again in Cuba. (Yes, there is a Cuba, Missouri) Gas had been only $2.94 at the Quik Trip in Ozark, MO, but was back up to $3.30 in Cuba. Unfortunately, we didn't really need any gas when we were through Ozark.

► Pulled into the hotel a little before three o'clock. (337 miles) Only stayed long enough to get our personal stuff unloaded. When we do a show in St. Louis, we usually stay in Fenton, a suburb on the west side. That means we must drive a bit farther to the show, but we don't have to fight rush hour traffic when we leave Monday morning.


► Arrive at the show site at the Historic Shaw Art Fair around four o'clock. (15 miles from hotel.)

Jo's surveying her booth spot before we begin setting up -- a good time for a yogurt break.

► We spent around three hours getting the canopy erected, the shelving set up and the boxes of merchandise unloaded from the van. That's about the same amount of time we usually devote to setting up both our booths. I reckon this was one of those situations where the work expanded to fill the time we allotted for it.

► For several years after this show began, Friday afternoon set up was not allowed. Check in began at 6 AM on Saturday morning. You had to get checked in, find your booth location and begin setting up in the dark.

The canopy is up and Jo is working on levelling her shelving.

It was during one of these early morning set ups that Jo and I got our first introduction to the fruit of the ginko tree. The show is held on a beautiful tree line boulevard. Some of those trees are female ginkos which bare a small fruit that looks something like a persimmon. The fruit smells exactly like dog poop. As we set up, both Jo and I kept checking the bottoms of our shoes, trying to find the source of the smell. Even after the show started, I saw several customers enter our booth and then check the bottoms of their shoes. Later in the day, more knowledgeable exhibitors clued us in on the source of the stink.

Jo's booth spot wasn't exactly level.

This time around, I think the entire boulevard had been given a good raking earlier in the day. There was a female ginko nearby, but few fruit were on the ground. The main inconvenience while setting up was mosquitoes -- not something one normally expects during a fall show in St. Louis, but temperatures have been mild and a lot of rain has fallen during early fall.

► We left the show and drove straight back to the hotel where we ate a little supper, watched TV for a short while and went to bed.

Journal: Friday, 10/03/08

Camera Critters: Bucket and Rusty

Bucket and Rusty

Taken by Jo after our last significant snowfall in early March. Jo took Bucket (Boo-kay) and Rusty for a walk up the road while I remained at home trying to finish up some project before it got dark. Jo said she had no idea why both dogs were staring up the road so intently. Perhaps they were anticipating an SPCA rescue party.

Shortly after this photo was taken, Jo put Rusty back on his leash because he was expressing too much interest in something going on out in the woods. A little while after that, Jo decided to take more photos. She had Russ sit, but left Bucket free to roam. Boo quickly got bored with the photo session. (She usually does.) When Jo looked up from the camera, not only was Bucket already heading home, she'd picked up Rusty's leash and was leading him back to the house as well.

To participate in Camera Critters, please visit Misty's blog.
Many thanks to Misty for hosting Camera Critters.

Camera Critters: Bucket and Rusty