Too Much Of A Good Thing?

or "Why Do We Grow This Stuff If We Aren't Gonna Use It?"

Usually, one thing or another goes wrong and we don't get many "fruits from our labors."  But this year has been unusually productive here in Ohio.  When we put all of the trees, bees, grapevines, strawberry beds, raspberry bushes, etc., in, I didn't work full-time and had summers off.  Now I work retail hours that take the prime parts of most days and I barely get the basic chores done!  Mark works out of state often.

A few of the 60 or so trees that make up our orchard.  Usually, the only "fruits" that live here are us!
This year the trees went crazy!

As they say, "when it rains, it pours" and we have had great weather most of the summer.  We didn't have time to spray though, so our zillions of apples are not pretty (with two exceptions) and are either rotting on the ground or might be okay for cider or applesauce.  (One of the exceptions was a picture perfect one that Mark suspects one of the neighbors stuck under a tree to make us feel better, because ours are ugly!)  But that requires desire and effort, neither of which any of us appear to want to spend.

Our pitiful pear trees sagging under the load.

What do you do with Asian pears???

I did go out for a few minutes in July and pick some fabulous peaches that the bugs and birds missed.  Only maybe 10 survived and they had to be eaten right away... so I did.  Then, the grapes came on and I have several varieties, but can't remember which is which.  (It is fun watching the hens jump up and grab them!)  So, it appears only the sour ones made it, but I picked a big bowl full.  Not wanting to waste them, and after several days in the fridge, I fed them to the hens.

Which leads me to another dilemma, my hens produce way more eggs then we eat (pretty much none) so I give them away as they don't keep forever.  I know you can freeze them, but heck, more eggs just keep coming so why bother?  People think I'm crazy when I say they are really my pets and I have no intention of ever eating them.  So what if they quit laying???  I didn't eat my 50 year old parrot who never has laid an egg.  We don't eat our dogs when we are done breeding them either!  So enough of the snide remarks about me stewing the hens!

My strawberry patch went bananas this year and is still producing.  I sometimes can beat the rabbits and birds to them and just stand there and eat them on my way to the mower.  The half-eaten ones go to the hens, as well as apples and pears off the ground.  They like to find the worms!  Speaking of pears, Mark and I have no idea what to do with the dozens we have on the trees (regular and Asian.)  They are either rotten or hard as a rock.  We tried the paper bag thing and that didn't work.

Strawberries in September!

Just when I think I have the fruit under control, I see raspberries!  In September?  Well, a few anyway...  I feel guilty because I don't really want to can anything, so if it can't be frozen, it rots.  To add to my guilt, a wonderful friend of the family surprised me with a huge box of sweet corn!  Well, I did manage to freeze that but it took all afternoon.  It really will be good for the holiday meals though.

Mark's bees have been producing honey for years.  He has about 1500 lbs. of it sitting in the barn at any given time and he just keeps giving it back to them.  We have "harvested" only a few tablespoons in all that time.  But, that is mainly because he wants a certain extractor and they are expensive.

So I guess the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for!  You can have too much of a good thing (and that's a bad thing!)

Until next time, enjoy the harvest!  Come pick some ugly apples or pears if you want!

Gale

Life In The 'Hood: A View From My Front Porch

(If you are new to the 'Creek, I hope will check out the index by topic in the upper right corner for an eclectic mix of stories.  Enjoy! --GW-T)

I sat on my porch today for the first time this year.  I had forgotten it can be a "window to the world."  Since my beloved rocking chair broke, I've been going out back to my swing to visit with the dogs or hens.  Now the swing is broken (author's note--Mark just fixed it for good I think---thank you!) so out front I go. 

Usually, my 'hood is fairly quiet in the afternoon.  The birds, bugs and breeze can sound like a relaxation tape only occasionally interrupted by planes, trains and automobiles/motorcycles.  When the lilac blooms it smells heavenly.  I've done a lot of reading, knitting, cross stitching and convalescing on this little porch.  If it could talk it would tell you lots of unusual things have happened.  

But since it can't, I will.  For instance, my next-door neighbor used to take off and land his ultralight craft in our front yard until he crashed in the field across the road (directly in front of the porch), fortunately walking away with only some cracked ribs, but "totalling" the ultralight.

This is a view from my front porch looking across the road at a double rainbow!

Whenever the winds are right during the All-Ohio Balloon Festival, we hear the familiar hissing of hot air balloons and the eventual landing of them all around us.  One year two landed on either side of us in the front yard.   Today they went over my house in the morning and landed a few doors down this evening.

Last weekend balloons flew over the house twice in one day!  The is taken on the front porch...the center of the universe it seems!

Our county also hosts an aerobatic show weekend. The airport is near and on clear days you can sit on the porch and watch them for free. The one drawback is the somewhat irritating noise of the constant climbing, stalling and diving, then pulling out.

During football season, you can sit on the porch and listen to the bands play.  Our little road happens to be a short cut on the Union County Covered Bridge Trail.  It's not uncommon to watch dozens of motorcycles stream by the house or even bicyclists.  But it is uncommon to watch probably 100 Model Ts go by taking the bridge tour during one of their conventions.  That was cool!  Unfortunately, I've also seen several funeral processions.

Lots of planes go over us because we are on the flight path from Columbus to Chicago.  But sometimes we are treated to large Air Force formations heading to and from Wright Pat AFB in Dayton.  At least once we heard the surreal droning of a B-17 going overhead because it was giving rides for $300 a seat at area airports.

During Summer we've watched fireworks, incoming storms, Taylor and the neighbor boy hitting golf balls or throwing baseballs, the kids playing ball with the dogs and watch fireflies in the evening or find the big dipper...a gal down the road would ride her Clydesdale by and there seems to always be something going on at the neighbor's across the road.  They watch our house from their porch and we watch theirs LOL!

Taylor and Ivy playing in the front yard many years ago.  We would sit on the porch and watch her greet Mark near the end of the driveway, then "race" him back to the garage or porch...cutting corners of course so she would "win."

In the Spring and Fall there is a constant parade of farm equipment traveling our road.  I love to sit and stare at the colorful trees in the woods across the road when we have a good October.  Folks like to watch Mark drive his antique tractors, steam engines and trucks up and down the drive.  A fellow from church said, "Your house is just like Disneyland!"  I replied, "Yep, a lot of goofy people live here!"

The newest occupants of the front porch.  These baby doves have a flighty mama, so I could never get a photo of her sitting in this hanging fern.  Lucky for them, I forget to water the porch stuff, so I didn't drown them!  Did you know that Doves always lay two eggs?  My mom told me that a few weeks ago!

Then there is the life on the porch, well-known for its "Howdy, Now Git!" sign that we love.  We have had nests of finches, robins and others, not to mention frequent visits by hummingbirds when the right plants are in bloom (I gave up feeding them, but several neighbors do.)   I've even witnessed hummingbird fights.  Some bold mommas would nest right in the window boxes which are pretty low.  There are always birds in the ferns, bushes and trees.  Lynard Skynard ("our" mockingbird) sits atop the weeping cherry and sings away.   You can hear the babies cheep when they are getting dinner.  Before a house was built next door we had lots of bluebirds.  Once I opened the front door looking for Taylor's bus and saw a nearly leafless tree FULL of them.  I ran for my camera, but of course they split in the meantime.

So the next time you are looking entertainment that takes zero gas or travel time, grab a drink and sit on your porch.  You never know what could happen!

Enjoy the weather while you can!

Gale