Schoonover Farm Blog

We have been busy utilizing our produce. A lot of the fruit we are fermenting including the apples, pears, plums and blueberries.  Here is one of my plum wine carboys going crazy!

I have been creative with my eating, trying to use all of our fresh vegetables.  Every lunch I have a salad with our lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  Last night I made a Savory Clafoutis with our swiss chard, dill and eggs.  It was really good.

I have been feeding the critters with some of the produce too.  Here are some incredibly large turnips I have been giving them.

And here is one of the red mammoth fodder beets that I grew for them that I have been giving them.

The grass isn’t really growing with the lack of rain and all the smoke blocking the sun so it is nice to offer them additional feed.

Tom racked up some fallen apples and Asian pears.

He started by feeding them to the goats, but the donkeys really wanted some too.

He did give some to the donkeys and then fed them to the pigs and the cows.  Here is the video he took of the cows enjoying them.

It is a busy time of year, now hampered by the unhealthy levels of smoke.  I am not liking 2020.  It is just one thing after another.

Health Update (only for those who are interested):

Speaking of 2020 sucking, my health has not been good.  But a slight glimmer of hope is that my rheumatologist started me on prednisone again, and my knee warmth and swelling improved as did my sweats, palpitations and shortness of breath.  Due to my improvement with the steroids he started me on methotrexate last week.  I am dropping down on the prednisone dose, and my knee is swollen and warm again, and my sweats are worsening again.  But so far my heart and breathing are still improved.  Last week I had a brain MRI to look for a cause for my right facial numbness.  It just had some mild non-specific white matter changes that could be related to small vessel disease, diabetes, hypertension, vasculitis or MS.  I do not have diabetes or hypertension.  I still do wonder about a vasculitis from COVID but can’t confirm it.  But no obvious cause for the numbness, which is some good news.  I had my 7th negative COVID test on Monday, and today had pulmonary function testing.  It showed evidence of some restrictive lung disease and gas diffusion issues (FVC 73% and DLCO 75% of predicted).  I have a follow up appointment with my pulmonologist later in the month to understand this better.  But maybe, just maybe, I will get a diagnosis.  That is what I am hoping for at this point.

Friday morning it was starting to get more smokey here.  I did the animal chores wearing an N95 mask.  We have purchased these masks in the past due to the wildfire smoke that tends to happen here now every summer.  Here is Bambam looking especially golden in the smokey sunlight yesterday morning.

And here is how it looked facing to the east.

And here I am in my mask and hat.

I noticed that the most recent hay loft chicks are starting to feather out.

I threw some turnips to the sheep and noticed it was getting smokier.

I did some harvesting in the garden with my mask on.

And then hid in the house.  The AQI was 152 at 11:00.

In the afternoon it became much smokier.  You couldn’t see the field across the road.

I tossed some harvest cuttings to the animals, and it was thickening more.

The crows on the right of the photo were acting oddly.

By 3:00 PM the AQI was 180.

I stayed inside and cooked with my harvest.  First I made Winter Vegetable Refrigerator Pickles with carrots, parsnips, beets, and rutabagas.

Next I started another batch of zucchini chips.

Then I started slicing zucchini for Zucchini Lasagna.  By the way, if you did not know, all of the recipes I have tried and liked from the internet I keep track of on my pinterest page.

Then I made the lasagne.  I made a traditional one for Tom.

After dinner we cut, blanched and froze the thinner green beans I had picked.  I didn’t feel well so went to bed early.  Not sure if it was related to the smoke or not.

This morning the AQI was much worse at 196.  It was foggy as well so almost no visibility.

After the chores I went to our trailer and racked 3 carboys of wine (two plum and one blackberry).  Here are all of my carboys so far.

I brought the leftover, slightly fermented plums and blackberries to the pigs.  They were not interested, probably because they had already eaten a lot.

And here it is looking east.  You cannot see the mountain to the right at all.

So I hid in the house again.  This time I cleaned and prepped the rest of the green beans for canning.  They are in the pressure canner right now.  Tomorrow I work so hopefully will not be exposed to the smoke.  This summer kind of sucks.

But on the bright side- Go Hawks!