Irene Visits the Farm

August 30th: Hurricane Irene did not do much damage here in Saco. We only got about two inches of rain in total. The pictures below show the only damage. A lot of small branches littered the yard and my third planting of corn suffered significantly. The biggest impact was the loss of a fairly large black walnut tree between my property line and the large Field Garden. It split off on the top and now needs to come down and be turned into firewood. It will be a challenge to cut down since the large upper part of it is hung up in a nearby tree. This project will be tackled in the weeks ahead.  I do have sufficient firewood cut, split and stacked for the coming winter.  This will start the stockpile for the following year.

I continue to enjoy a good harvest and a busy canning season. As of today the tally has reached 235 jars of various items, mainly jam and pickles so far.  My neighbor's peach tree needed to be completely picked before the storm hit as all the fruit was ripe and ready and would have been knocked off the tree for sure in the high wind. I turned this bounty into jam, peach butter and canned peach halves in syrup in addition to some baked goods.  I am looking forward to the next fruit harvest, namely the first grape harvest from the now three year old grape arbor.

The first ripen regular tomatoes have now been picked and soon a ton of them will follow.  The grape and cherry tomatoes are endless as is the neverending cucumber harvest. The green and yellow beans continue to flourish and the pepper harvest is doing well.  My sweet corn is being attacked by racoons as well as wind storms but I have enjoy a fair amount of tasty corn ears this year. I even managed to put some in the freezer for a mid-winter treat.

Cotton at "Summer Camp"

August 18th  I am writing this late in the evening on the night before Cotton's parents return from Brooklyn to reclaim their son after his eleven day stint with "Pops", his second 2011 stay at "summer Camp" with me. We had quite a time together! He certainly loves his time here on Ferry Road but I am sure will be glad to see his parents tomorrow.  The garden may have been neglected a bit during this period of time but it is mainly at the point when it is simply growing food and triggering a lot of harvesting while the weeds finally play second fiddle.

Before Roxi and Julian left to return to New York and their busy work schedules they managed to do tons of work here on the farm organizing the garage, working in the gardens and helping me further organize the new kitchen and prepare for the canning season. Roxi has plunged into the wonders of jucing fruit and veggies for nutritional beverages so I resurrected my old, but good juicer that has been pretty dormant for many a year. Cotton sure loves to watch the "vegetable poop" (pulp) it produces.

He enjoys my neighber, Pipe Smoking Paul's backhoe and other machinery as well as sitting on my knee on the riding mower among other activities. He is also shown here watching Ms. Clarence the rabbit that sits in his garage hutch, enjoying the fruits of the garden and adds her fair share to the compost pile.

The most exciting outing of Cotton's visit here happened just yesterday when we traveled to Portland and took a ride on the old narrow gauge railroad along the shoreline of the harbor in the city and visited the attached museum. Cotton is quite the train buff and loves anything related to trains. He rode in the cabbose and sat up in the "cupola" part of it where the train crew would observe the condition of the many freight cars in days gone by.  He managed to persuade me to buy him a wooden train set in the museum gift shop that he is constantly now playing with here.

We also had a great day at the nearby ocean beach last weekend. He is constantly visiting the gardens and like to stand there and pick blueberries, blackberries and cherry tomatoes right off the plants and eat them. He eats bowlfuls of sliced cucumbers as well.  This coming Saturday we all will take a boat ride to the Wood Island Lighthouse off of Biddeford Pool for a visit. That activity should cap a great August time in Maine.

I should certainly give a brief garden harvest report for the faithful readers, though. The cucumbers are growing like crazy as well as the zucchini. I am ahead of last year's canning totals for the pre-tomato harvest point in time. I have done 175 jars of just jam and pickled products and there appears to be no let up in the harvest so that total will climb. I am a little worried about the tomato crop for this year as few are red yet but the weather has pointed to a later harvest so maybe all will be well if the rest of August is hot and so is September.  The sweet corn is almost ready and should be a bumper crop.  Potatoes are plentiful and most are still underground. The garlic was all harvested and with great results.