To Thin or Not to Thin

     

     For two days I've gone out to my garden, sat on a stool bent over for about an hour, and diligently thinned my carrots. They were thick, thick, and it seems I've yet to figure out how to plant them thinner though I try (I mix them with coffee grounds). 
      

     And this is the first thinning! I usually do it twice. 

     I was talking to a friend the other day and she said, "You know, I never thin my carrots. They get thinned a bit as I harvest the small ones, but that's all I do!"

     Hmmm. But old habits die hard. I can't help but wonder if I'd get as good of a crop with no thinning. Do I want to take that chance? Obviously not - just ask my aching back.

     I was chatting on FaceTime with my sister this morning - I love FaceTime, I was doing my dishes at the same time, showing her my garden, etc. Anyhow I mentioned carrot thinning to her and she said, "Why don't you leave some un-thinned and make a comparison?"

     Duh!

I have three wide row sections of carrots, one a little smaller than the other two, so, yep, I'm gonna try that no thinning idea on the smallest section. Wish me luck. If I could avoid that chore I'd be pretty pleased. 

 

Landscape Artist

 

    

My sister is a watercolor artist, a paint medium I find to be very unforgiving. With the right techniques though it's possible to produce beautiful paintings, and she does. Many of her works are influenced by her love of Italy, especially Assisi, and by her love for cats. The one shown here was her impression of a canola field down the road from our home.

 

       

My Dad was a landscape artist. He took photos, picked the ones he liked best, sketched, then painted. His technique evolved over time, using oils sparingly at first and eventually layering paints to enhance the 3 dimensional effect of perspective.

   

 

  But Dad was also a landscape artist in the natural world. He designed and built beautiful houses, ones that blended with their surroundings, and his love for growing both ornamental and vegetable plants together, often in rock gardens, surrounded these homes with additional beauty. 

     

 

Although I never seemed to inherit Dad's skill as an artist, I have always shared his joy of gardening. But flower beds and hanging pots, rock gardens and ornamental bushes will never grace my home yard. Why? Our sheep graze our lawn. Anything I don't want to be grazed upon must be planted behind a fence. There are advantages - less mowing, natural fertilizer, the pleasure of seeing our critters munching away just outside the window - and, even though I suppose it would break the heart of the flower enthusiast to have such a yard, it suits me just fine. I have some flowers interspersed here and there in my two vegetable gardens, splashes of colored attractant for the bees, but they're mainly practical gardens. Planting, weeding, harvesting and preserving keeps me plenty busy, and I think there's beauty in growing food - good, organic, fresh produce...yummmm. I also have a berry garden - raspberries, currants, honey berries (Haskap), apples, and rhubarb which I transform into jams, juices, wines, and desserts.

 

 

 

     My husband and I share the responsibilities of our home yard landscape. We both mow the lawn. I plant, weed, thin, harvest and preserve the garden; he tills, cultivates, adds manure and maintains the fences. We both plant the potatoes and harvest them and the carrots together. He also uses a brush mower to maintain our fields and we both have our own weed whacker.

     Today was a perfect day. Right after my husband finished cultivating we got a beautiful rain. Great timing. You can almost watch the plants grow. The season may be short North of 54, but our long days make up for it.

Brain Teaser

RANT!
    Once again, I see my blogging app has thrown a curve and an older blog just got sent as though it were new. I've been searching for a better app to no avail. I even tried changing my blog address from blogspot to Wordpress but it was turning out to be just as difficult. Main problem is managing photos. Just text - not hard - now that I've figured out the optimum size (the only readable size). But pics! Pics end up in wrong places, repeat themselves, are crowded, disappear. Arghhh!
     I shall try to master BlogTouchPro. I am trying, I am... But I suspect it's faulty, and I can't find another app that works with blogspot. I need my grandchildren to visit for a few days. They could probably help me out. 😥

Land of the Midnight Sun

The day before the summer solstice, sunrise, June 19, 4:40 a.m.

 

Still light, June 19, at 11:00 p.m.

 

Gotta love summer!!!

 

Shearing Day

Struggling with a stubborn ewe. The shearer is as old as I am!

 

All done and ready to bag.

 

Stuffing the fleeces into the bagger.

 

All bagged and ready to go to the wool depot.

 

Such a fine flock of lovely ewes!

 

International Traveler - Not

June 1, 2016

     Day one of my holiday to visit my sister in Colorado... and I'm still sitting at my kitchen table. My husband and I headed for the airport early, made some stops in town and stopped for a $6 meal deal complete with a hot fudge sundae cause we knew we had plenty of time. The International Destination area at the airport was strangely absent of people when we arrived. I was trying to figure out how to use one of the machines to get my boarding pass when a fellow came along to help, asked what airline, then said, "You're late for that flight."

     "Late? How can I be late? It doesn't leave for an hour!" I said.

     Well, I was indeed late, 4 minutes late for their 1 hour prior to flight minimum check in time, and there was no way they would let me go on that flight. They offered an alternative through Cincinnati arriving in Denver after midnight, but I'd have to catch a bus to Boulder when I got there and my sis doesn't like to drive after dark. The idea of being stranded at the bus stop when I got there didn't sound like a very good alternative. So I got a boarding pass for the same flight, but for June 2nd, and we drove the 2 1/2 hours home.

     I thought I was pretty much resigned to all this, called my sister and let her know what happened and that I'd be coming a day later. But my clearly remembered overnight dreams may indicate I was a bit frazzled by the situation. I dreamed of rescuing my neighbour's turtle (tortoise? about the size of a dinner plate) from under the snow while he greedily munched on last night's leftover vegetables. Then I spotted a very large lizard like creature struggling to exit from our barn loft. He had eaten so much he was having a hard time getting his big belly out of the window. Freaking, I ran for help and found a hunting party standing around in my kitchen comparing guns. I frantically attempted to get in a word edgewise to remind my husband that we had to leave for the airport, SOON, but I was ignored. I spent some time trying to figure out how to hold the turtle, cradled upside down like a baby didn't seem appropriate, turtles would surely be uncomfortable that way. I settled on an over the shoulder baby burping style position, headed off to take him home - then I woke up. We did see "Neighbourhood Watch" on Netflix a couple nights ago. That may have influenced my brain bit

June 2, 2016

     So, day two. We left earlier, not stopping. I'd planned to spend my 2 hours of regulation arriving before flight time reading a book I'm halfway into. Oops, I left my Kindle plugged in at home...

     Arrived at the airport a little after noon and had lunch. My husband hung around long enough to see that I got through customs. Cripes! Shoes off; liquids, gels, etc. in a separate Baggie - I knew this. Electronics, i.e. Laptops, also separated. Everything is done by machines with, thankfully, a human aiding the uninitiated. Your passport is pretty much all you need, stick it in a machine and it knows all about you and your flight (I'd booked on-line). Time - 1:37, two hours to wait before departure, one and a half before loading. But at least I'm here!

     Going from the Edmonton Airport to the Denver Airport could be compared to being a bumble bee, happily buzzing with a few other bees around a rose bush, flying into a pop can, and on exiting the can finding himself in a colony with a million other drones. Busy does not describe it! You take moving sidewalk after moving sidewalk, an escalator, and a train to get to the main terminal. Thinking I knew where I was going and knowing if I hurried I'd catch the 6:20 bus to Boulder, I quickly phoned my sister at the free phones available (my cell doesn't work outside of 

Canada) and zoomed out to catch it. No bus, missed it. Went back inside, fortunately made an inquiry and found out they moved the place to catch the bus! So I called her back and told her I'd be on the 7:20 bus. Then I had a leisurely coffee and decided I'd wait for the bus out at the new bus station. With a certain amount of confusion and some wandering around I managed to 

locate the new ground transportation area and discovered the bus was already there! Almost missed it again!

     Touring along toward the mountains at 8:00 p.m. I noticed the sun was on the verge of dropping behind the mountains. At home it would be bright daylight. Those latitudinal parallels and proximity to the mountains make quite a difference. My sister was late picking me up, the bus was in early, but here I am at last eating a meal saved for me, settled down in my sister's home and ready for a nice long sleep.

June 3-9, 2016

     It's always a trip down memory lane to go to Boulder, the town where I went to high school and college, met my man, married and soon thereafter departed for Canada to start a brand new chapter of my life. It's grown, lots, but the places I knew are still there though some of them have been repurposed. My old high school is now a classy senior housing facility - the spacious grounds now filled with cottages. The movie theatres I worked at from the age of 16 through 22 or so are now all real theatres, for plays. Downtown Boulder is an upscale pedestrian mall and Boulder Creek has walking/biking trails and parks where it runs through town. The University has grown dramatically. But the mountains haven't changed, most older neighbourhoods are much the same, and it is still one of the most beautiful places a person could live if you want to be a city dweller.

     I had a great visit with my sister, looked at old photos, ate some fine meals, walked around the lake in a park near her and talked old and new times, shopped a bit... And when it was time to go I made very sure I arrived at the airport 3 hours in advance of my flight!

     Here's some holiday pics...

 

One of two customs line-ups at the Denver Airport

 

Moving sidewalks at DIA

 

"The Sink", an old college hangout.

 

The amphitheatre

 

My old Alma Mater

 

View from Flagstaff Mountain

 

Pearl Street Mall

 

Me and my sister on Boulder Creek

Josie's Pups

Josie is our Maremma guardian dog. She watches over our sheep flock with the help of her 2 year old pup Thor. When the snow was still on the ground, pregnant Josie (on her territorial rounds or chasing a coyote - who knows?) disappeared for three days. We looked everywhere to no avail. Fortunately she reappeared but with a deep wide cut all around her hips and belly area. It looked like she was snared or caught up somehow in some downed smooth wire. How she got loose we'll never know. 

 

Anyhow, she (and the vet) took good care of that cut and it was well healed before her litter of 7 pups was born. We found them in the corner of the barn all snuggled up and nursing voraciously on the morning they were expected to arrive. My, oh my, it's quite incredible how quickly those puppies have grown! Starting at 5 weeks they practically inhaled their meals of lamb milk replacer and puppy chow. Now, at 9 weeks, they're getting regular dog crumbles and water and I always wonder if I'm giving them enough. It goes down so quickly! But I don't want to overfeed because the experts all say you don't want big breed dogs to grow too fast, makes for future arthritic and hip problems. I just keep checking their condition and activity level and they're looking good, thriving in fact.

    

Josie is a wonderful mom. She and Thor take the pups on tours around the farm, making sure they know every little place of interest. We have a regular feeding time ritual every day at 7:00 a.m and 4:00 p.m. I head for their pen in the barn with a bucket of chow and all the puppies underfoot. I spread an old sheet on the straw and put 2 roasting pans on the sheet. While doing this the pups wait politely (really, they stand aside and wait!) until I pour their food in the pan. Then it's gobble gobble till it's gone. We play a tumble down game while I roll them off the sheet, then I sneak away through the lambing barn so they won't follow me to the house.

Because these dogs are meant to be sheep guardians rather than be pets, raising them has proven to be a mixed bag of joy and frustration. Just try to tell your friends, neighbors and grandchildren that they aren't to be cuddled and loved, that they must be chased away if they try to hang around human activity. They look like tiny white fluffy polar bears, stare at you with sad puppy eyes, and wag their tails in innocent expectation like they'd really enjoy being petted. 

 

On the other hand they chase your bottle lamb away while you're trying to feed him; wait up by the barn until you look the other way then sneak under the yurt to enjoy a nap on the cool ground underneath;  howl and cry like something is killing them if they find themselves all alone in a strange situation; and they really enjoyed frolicking in my seeded garden playing chase, jump and roll until we added page wire to the rail fence they were crawling through.

But they're settling in. Josie parades a string of them on a round of the home yard in the morning while the sheep are accomplishing their daily chore of keeping our grass under control. They're curious about everything, setting up dominance patterns which may change completely when they get to their permanent homes. They alternate between activity and sleep, more sleep, more activity. Josie took 3 pups across the beaver dam one day and one fell in. You should have heard the hullabaloo! For some reason the wet one was pounced on by the other two and I had to grab them by the scruff of their necks to stop the chaos. Josie just looked on, didn't seem to think there was any reason to fuss.

 

Last night I went up to the barnyard to feed my bottle lamb. I was so pleased. The pups were all relaxing among the sheep, bonding to their family. It seems like the older they get the more this is happening. You see the sheep and the pups and grown guardian dogs are there amongst them.

I'll miss them when they're all gone, but it sure will be peaceful around here.