Raising our Flag

Posted on September 4, 2020 by TJ

I haven’t written much this summer, although I have thought all summer about writing. 🙂

Our weather has become very autumnish. The temperatures are cooler so that on some days–especially in the mornings, I have begun wearing sweaters. I’ve even seen a couple trees with colorful leaves.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been harvesting and drying my herbs. Usually, I buy herb plants so they have time to grow and spread but this year, because of the lockdowns, I bought seeds, which means they took longer to grow and I don’t have as many. I’m hoping I’ll have enough dried herbs to get me through the winter. Next year, I’d like to plant more. Also, a friend told me she puts herb stems in water to sprout and replant. I’d like to try that.

A couple weeks ago EJ harvested his carrots. This is the first year we’ve really had a good harvest of carrots. I wasn’t sure what to do with them all until EJ commented that I could freeze them. Duh. I should have thought of that. I spent that afternoon peeling, cutting, blanching, and freezing them.

The corn didn’t do very well, which was a bit disappointing. Sigh. We struggle with our soil, which is really just sand. It’s one reason why we have raised garden beds filled with store-bought dirt. The other reason being that raised beds are easier on our backs to care for–much less bending to weed. We’d really like to have a truckload of good soil brought in for our garden, but so far we haven’t been able to afford it. So instead we experiment and tweak. Some things work. Some things don’t.

Our squash harvest was good though. We’ve been having summer squash with many meals. 🙂

Some of our apple trees are also producing apples for the first year. Not a lot, mind you, but the trees are young and we are just getting started.

I found a recipe for homemade taco seasoning and made up a batch. Actually, I think I made a quadruple batch x3 so I won’t have to make it very often. It turned out quite tasty. It’s quite fun making our own mixes. I used some of my own herbs in the seasoning.

My most-regular egg customers told their friend how much they loved my eggs, and then they started picking up a few dozen for her too whenever they bought for themselves. Last week the wife brought the friend over to show her the way to our house so she could pick them up for herself. That way, she could get eggs whenever she needed eggs, rather than have to wait on them. I always offer to let new (or old) customers visit the chickens if they want, which maybe sounds kind of childish, but I think most of us don’t have much experience with chickens. My customers always remark on how beautiful my chickens are, as I explain how I care for them and their interesting characteristics. I jokingly told EJ that we should get more animals and open a petting zoo or something because I have fun “educating” people about the animals.

We like to try to buy enough poultry feed to (mostly) last through the winter so we ordered 20 bags of poultry feed on-line and then went to pick it up at the store last Sunday. I spent the next 2-3 days scooping the feed into kitty litter buckets to keep it safe from mice. Each bag fills two empty buckets. I had enough empty buckets to put all except five bags in. Now we just have to get cracked corn for the chickens, and bags of dog and cat food and we will be ready for winter.

The other day EJ looked out the bedroom window and exclaimed that there was a large flock of turkeys outside. Then he noticed that one of the turkeys was IN the garden. I was concerned it was trapped in the garden, so I went out to open the big gate so it could have an exit. Before I could get the gate opened, the turkey flew out of the garden and rejoined its flock. Well, duh. Turkeys can fly. I felt kind of silly, but I had been thinking of our chickens, who don’t fly and who get upset when they get separated from the flock.

I’ve seen a Mama deer and her two little ones a few times this year. Like, maybe three times; once when the fawns were very tiny. I have to be careful because if Hannah Joy suspects that I see something outside, she will look out the window and then bark and scare them away. I tell Hannah “Shhhh!” but she gets too excited to listen–or maybe she has too much fun scaring them. Here is a video I took of the Mama and fawns. I just love living here in our Enchanted Forest.

We used to put up our flag every day when we lived downstate, but I couldn’t find it after we moved. This July, we finally ordered another flag. We thought we had a pole to hang it on, but we finally said “screw it” and ordered a sturdy 20-foot pole, which is much taller than I imagined! It arrived last week and EJ made a cement base for it last weekend. On Tuesday we were able to have our flag raising. We put the flag out by the big rocks. I love looking out my windows and seeing the flag waving in the breeze. I love our flag and what it represents. I love our country.

This is a video I took of EJ raising our flag for the first time. I figured out how to add music to it on Youtube. I think music enhances this video.

One of the reasons I haven’t posted much this summer is because when I’m not doing my various chores and tasks, I’ve been on-line keeping up with what is happening in our country. I follow a number of researchers who understand what is happening, why, and what is being done about it. One of them posts two interesting daily videos–one about the economy and the other about the political/geopolitical events–which you can see here: X22 Report. Because of people like this, I am not overly worried about our country. I think we will be ok. If you are stressed by current events, I suggest you check the videos out.