This weekend Tom is camping on Baker Lake with his kids and their friends. We have tickets to the Mariners so I hung out on the small farm and did chores then the game. The goats ate up the back of the property’s grass and blackberries so I move the electric netting to surround the vegetable garden and let them loose on almost the whole backyard and the back of the property to eat what they can find. I would like them to eat around the garden to minimize the slug hiding spots. The slugs aren’t doing as much damage this time of year, but they sure do like lettuce. You have to admire the tenacity of these slimy creatures.

I checked the orchard- there are a lot of apples and pears this year! I picked the plums I could reach- they sure are good. I’m going to break down and buy a fruit picker this year so I don’t have to climb up and down the ladder to get the fruit. The crab apples are ready- I need to pick and preserve them until pressing time somehow- they add great flavor to cider.

About a week ago I noticed some moths in the fiber studio- they had found an open bag of wool I had forgotten about. I cleaned out all the open wool, bombed the room and then swept up the dead moths. Then I noticed one of the sheep skins we inherited with the property had one living moth on it. I took the two sheep skins I hadn’t washed yet and washed them. I am told that the moths especially like dirty wool- particularly with sweat. Since I hadn’t gotten around to washing these last two sheep skins yet I wonder if they are helping attract the moths. Anyway, I washed them in the bath tub (don’t tell Tom) and then hosed them off and dried them on the porch railing. One of them has a lot of fiber bits in the wool still, and I may donate it as a dog bed to our spoiled rotten pooches, but the other looks quite nice.

The filberts are looking like they are almost ready. I’m noticing some
shells on the property so some critter thinks they’re ready. The other years we have missed harvesting them, and the critters have eaten them all, but this year I’m going to try to pick them a little early (before they’re all eaten up) to see if we can have some too.