So today I was out weeding our 'salad garden' that has our early crops of lettuce and peas, as well as our perennial herbs. In the corner is a chive plant that is in full bloom now and the bees absolutely love it. So I got inspired to honor these little aerodynamic wonders and ran to get the camera.
These bees were so intent on their task today that they paid no mind to me. I weeded my bed all around this plant and even leaned into and across the chives a few times and when I got close they just flitted to another flower. I couldn't get a good picture of all of them at once, but I counted at least 20 bees working this plant over.
I wanted to show a few pictures of the fruit that they are responsible for pollinating. Here is a picture of little baby blueberries. This is the 2nd year for these plants and they are doing well after kind of being in shock from their transplanting last year. We'll have to be netting them fairly soon so the chickens don't get them before we do! Darn chickens again!
We have two types of plum trees here on our property. I can't even tell you which is my favorite! This is a picture of the baby prune plums. They are the little dusty purple egg-shaped ones that are sooo sweet. This is the kind that prunes are made from. I tried it one year, but my dryer didn't dehydrate them fast enough and they molded. I'll have to come up with Plan B this year.
I don't know the name of the other type of plum that we have, but this one is red, round and baseball sized. When it's really ripe the flesh turns from yellow to a deep ruby red. These are the kind that when you take a bite out of them, there is no way to avoid the juice that runs down your face. I have to give a lot of these away as there is no way to use them all when they're ripe. I also have a wonderful recipe for a plum tart that I will make several times before the season is over! Of course I'll take pictures of that too!!
We also have two mature apple trees that we were blessed with when we bought this property. Here is an example of the apples that are setting now. I was concerned that the bees might not be able to pollinate the apples as the weather was so bad (rainy and cold) when the apple trees were blooming, but apparently they got the job done. The horses will be especially happy for this!
Even thought I don't even have everything even planted in the garden yet, everything I have planted so far is coming up. Here is radishes on the right and bok choy on the left. They are both cold season crops so I was able to get them in earlier. I was also tickled to see that the corn is up. I hope to get a lot more things in tomorrow including beets, broccoli, cucumbers, leeks, basil, parsley...and maybe some bought tomato plants. Sounds like fun!
Frank and I always chuckle about the things we're really lame at. One thing that we can't seem to do wrong, no matter what dumb thing we do to them, is grow potatoes. Like our friend Don Duty said to us once, "They WANT to grow" and we have discovered that this is true. We saved potatoes from last year's crop to use as seed potatoes this year (the first time we have ever done that) and so far they are growing well. We like this variety especially for its good shelf life; we're eating the last of them tonight with dinner, NINE months after they were harvested. WOW.
Of course I can't have a blog without a picture or two of my good horses. The neighbor has a strip of land along his driveway that borders our pasture and he came by and said to fence it off and put the horses on it, which we jumped right on. Here is Bailey enjoying the riches of this new grass. In the thick of it, the grass is up well past his belly, and LB can't even be seen unless he raises his head! They were overgrazing the short grasses in their regular pasture and ignoring the long stuff, so this forces them to eat the more mature stuff and gives their pasture a rest.
There is nothing better than having a big friend who will provide shade for you when you need to take a nap. I actually see this happening just about every day and I love it. These guys are such good friends; they pretty much do everything together. I often have to walk them down about 100 yards of road from their pasture to the barn (when the farrier is coming, etc) and I lead them together, Bailey on the right and Little Bit on the left. Occasionally, a car will come by and talk to us, exclaiming how difficult it must be to lead two horses, especially that BIG one! I just chuckle and tell them first, that they know they better behave or they'd be in BIG trouble. And if one of them actually was to give me any grief, it surely wouldn't be the big one!!
Well, I hoped you liked hearing about what's going on here at Red Pony Ranch. It feels good that school is winding down for the year and we're looking forward to our first summer up here in Washington that we're not teaching summer school. That means we'll have lots of time to take a few trips including one to the beach (my Mom's) right after school gets out, then driving to Wisconsin after the 4th of July and then off to San Diego in mid-August. We're also looking forward to a visit from Frank's brother and his lovely wife. Our doors are always open and we love to feed people, so feel free to give us a call and come on by!
No comments:
Post a Comment