Late summer evenings

It's been nearly a month since I wrote in the blog.  A lot of good has happened in that month mainly in the form of rain.  Not that all the bad from the drought has been erased, but at least some of the vegetable plants are really starting to look good.  It is this time of year that my husband and I enjoy walking the field in the evening and look at the results of the last 4 months of hard work.  The evenings are cooler and this year especially the bugs are minimal.  An idyllic setting for a nice evening walk.

Yesterday I was outside doing poultry chores and just thoroughly enjoying the late afternoon.  Directly across the road from our chicken barn is our neighbor's cow pasture.  Years ago when I was a youngin', I used to do a little bit of work with dairy cows.  Occasionally I miss being around them, but with a dairy farmer as a neighbor, I get to enjoy watching the cows without any of the work.  I like this arrangement.  Best part is that in the summer, the cows give birth out on pasture so every once in awhile I will catch a view of a cow and calf before the farmer makes it out to the field to take the calf away.  There ain't nothing much cuter than a baby cow.

And an equally fun part of cow watching is that they are so darn curious.  It doesn't take much for them to walk up to the edge of the pasture and watch the human that is watching them.

After chores were done, Mike asked me if I wanted to walk back to the garden with him.  On such a fine evening, there was no way I could say no.  I had already turned the beagles loose in the pasture behind the barn about an hour earlier and they were happily baying and trailing rabbits round and round.  That is a sound I never get tired of hearing.

The cabbage is looking very good.  I particularly like the Savoy cabbage.  The plants are beautiful and the heads of cabbage that form are just as beautiful.  There are banana peppers to the left of the Savoy cabbage.  All is well in this part of the garden.

The purple bell peppers are doing well too.

And the eggplant is doing very well.  Somehow Mike has become the king of eggplant.  He jokes about it because neither one of us likes the taste of eggplant at all.  But he has a knack for growing gorgeous eggplant that is in high demand.

We spent a good bit of time walking up and down the rows of cauliflower searching for signs they were forming heads.  The plants are tall and gorgeous, but only a couple of plants have formed cauliflower heads so far.  It is a little bizarre to see these beautiful plants not doing what they are suppose to do - an effect of the drought for sure.  On the other hand, as miserable looking at the first planting of broccoli turned out, the next planting of broccoli is turning out some awesome looking heads.  These are a few that went to market last week and tonight for dinner, I steamed an equally beautiful looking head of broccoli.  Good stuff right here.

And at the very back of the garden, the soybean field starts.  The beans are starting to turn and in spite of the mild weather, this is a sure sign on the farm that fall is just around the corner.

Brocco-lee, Brocco-li, Brocco-lum

Combine two college grads who are old enough to remember when Latin was taught in high school with heaping bins of a vegetable with a name like "broccoli" then throw in a little silliness on top and you get two farmers who walk around conjugating the verb "broccoli".  Brocco-lee.  Brocco-li.  Brocco-lum.  Easy.  Ok we really do know that broccoli isn't a verb, but that's the kind of thing that happens when you pick, sort, pack, eat and breathe vegetables all summer long.

This week another big (for us) order rolled on out of the farm.  450 heads of broccoli, 200 red cabbage and 30 1/2 bushel boxes of summer squash.  Mike and Ed were busy busy boys getting everything ready.  Plus of course they had to pick for the CSA's and the markets.  Mike said they picked close to 1000 squash during the week along with everything else they picked. 

I came home from work Wednesday evening to find three large bins of broccoli hanging out in the garage.  These are the same sized large cardboard bins filled with watermelon that you sometimes see sitting on the floor in the produce section of the grocery store.  That's a lot of broccoli!  It looked so good too.  Perfect maturity.  It took all my willpower not to snatch a few heads out of the bin and go make dinner.

I had a crazy week too at the clinic and this always makes it interesting when I have to come home and tend to the chickens.  The laying hens are no problem to feed, water and collect eggs in the dark if I get home late.  But I still have about 50 meat chickens out on the grass that are old enough (7 weeks) that they need their pens moved twice a day.  It's just that they are bigger now and they poop a lot more now.  If I don't move the pens twice a day when they are this age, the grass gets too messy and there is nothing that bothers me more than animals that don't have a clean place to lay down and sleep.  The pasture pens have no bottom so as I move the pens, the chickens must walk along inside the pen to keep up.  And chickens won't walk in the dark.  So that means rush home from the clinic, change clothes and get to work on the farm without a minute to sit and relax.  The next two weeks until butchering day are going to more of the same. 

Molly, our Brittany, loves to follow me out to do chores.  She is more than eager to look for a few fresh "snacks" when I move the pens.  What a farm dog she turned into.

I took a couple walks out to the garden this week too.  Not sure how I had time to do that, but there are pictures in my camera to prove I was there and I do remember being back there so I must have a moment or two. 

I believe these are black-eyed peas that are coming along quite nicely.  There are some shelling peas further to the left and lots of nice yellow wax and green beans out of the picture to the right.

And a view of some of the cauliflower that is looking really good.  There might be some cabbage in this picture too.  Can't quite remember.  But then it has been kind of a crazy week.