October is Fire Safety Month

 You might just enjoy the Chiefs' messages on fire safety!  Fire Inspector Bobbi Clauson put this together to get to our kindergarten kids for Fire Prevention Month!!  Take a look at the video by clicking on the video below! 

Mr. Fitzgerald and Mrs. Palermo!

 Gray clouds and drizzle brought in the fall afternoon as guests of Todd and Janet made their way to the river side setting at Broken Arrow Ranch.  Pop up tents covered hay bales (Trumbower hay, of course) and an arbor stood front and center.  The bride dressed while the gathering of dearly beloved waited.  

Pictures may best reflect this great afternoon.  The rain quit.  The sun actually came out a bit too.  A wonderful time was had by all as Todd & Janet finally tied the knot!  They've been together for 20 years!!  I think their relationship has stood the test of time! 

Red Cabbage

 It was harvest time last weekend in the Freedom garden.  Thanks to the generosity of Heather, the gal who runs Riverside Greenhouse in Thayne, I ended up with 49 cabbage plants; two of which turned out to be cauliflower plants.  

The cabbages were lovely in the garden, their giant palmed leaves backlit by the sun.  One of the great things about having copious amounts of dirt, is doing something frivolous like planting 49 cabbage plants.  I watched the white butterflies flitting around knowing that the cabbage worms were right coming soon.  For some reason, the cabbage worms do not like red cabbage. 

I did not count how many cabbage heads were harvested for 2020.  Not all plants made a head worth picking.  But there are plenty, for sure.  

The first batch of kraut included zucchini and onions from the garden.  I threw in a few caraway seeds as well.  Another batch of the same ingredients minus the caraway seeds.  The red cabbage was combined with peeled red beets (one only makes the mistake of not peeling the bitter, acrid skins away once!) and ginger.  This is a nice combination which I have done with great success already.  In two weeks or so, the fermentation will have done its magic and the bright-tasting kraut will be ready to enjoy on a burger or an egg. 

Did you know you can use red cabbage juice to check for the pH of your soil?  I noticed one of the outside red cabbage leaves was a bit green, leaving me to think that this might mean our soil is a bit more alkaline.  Hmmm. And, turns out, red cabbage is very high in vitamin C and vitamin K, which incidentally, is an important vitamin for blood clotting.  Who knew??

Here are some garden shots.  More chopping to happen soon.  Any suggestions for kraut flavors?  

  Wheel barrel of cabbage heads. 

After the harvest, below. 

Meet Lucky

There is a new often-seen critter at K Lazy M Ranch.  Meet Lucky.  This black rabbit showed up a couple of months ago and continues to surprise us that he still is alive.  Hence the name, Lucky!! 

Often seen around the corrals, in the hay barn, or hippitie hoppitieing out to the giant manure pile (why, we do not know), this once-pet rabbit amuses us and entertains the mules and dogs.  

Guessing Lucky was someone's pet and they got tired of the rabbit.  Dropped him off.  No way to know if he was deposited here or roamed over from somewhere else.  But, he seems to like it here.  Lucky left my garden alone or Lucky would not have been so lucky!! 

The hard frost of last week left the sunflowers and cosmos dead.  The cabbages may continue to grow, we shall see. 

A big harvest of honey was made and prep work for winter on other hives.  Count on getting honey for holiday gifting!! 

Changing Seasons

 We worked hard over the weekend.  Temperatures on Sunday soared at a 93 degree high with winds and low humidity.  The hay on the field was drying out.  A storm, promised to arrive on Monday, was our threat for success.  We need to bale and pickup a whole lot of hay before the storm arrived. 

Thanks to very few breakdowns and some help from neighbor Lou, we succeeded.  I took this picture as we were pulling the rest of the equipment out of the field, lightning bolts flashed to the north. 

It was quite a storm.  Jackson experienced a blizzard followed by a hurricane.  Trees toppled down all over the place in town.  On brand new Subaru cars, onto powerlines, blocking driveways, and causing all kinds of havoc.  The event was a strong cold front which terminated any further discussion of summer or zucchini picking from the garden. 

I picked a bunch of pink cosmo flowers to put on the counter as a tribute to the summer that really was productive.  Ten cabbages were lopped off their stems, onions harvested, potatoes dug, and peas, well, I've had enough peas for this year.  They froze!

This morning's low in Hoback was 19 degrees.  Killing frost.  

Now, the maples are turning colors down Snake River Canyon.  The temperature at noon is warm and luxurious bring back memories of hunting camp with huge breakfasts followed by deep-sleep naps in tents warmed by the afternoon summer sun.  That was a good chapter!

Fall can stick around awhile, methinks.  But, snow is on its way.  This we know.  

How Does Your Garden Grow

 It's full-swing garden time in Star Valley!!  This year's main attraction are the weeds; the scourge of all gardeners.  Taking a walk in the garden in the cool morning air is medicine for the mind and soul.  

A few of the 75 cabbages are cauliflower, I have come to observe.  Cauliflower is a waste of time.  Maybe there is something I do not know, but reproducing the compact snowy white heads like one finds in the grocery store is, so far, not possible.  You will only find cauliflower in my garden when one shows up accidentally in a free four-pack from my nursery friend!!

I have harvested 50 garlic plants.  There are 50 more to go.  And 50 harvested in Hoback.  The garlic did well, again, this year.  I've got garlic down!!  

The fava beans are shooting out their fat, squishy pods filled with the delectable fava bean.  Goes well with liver and Chianti.  What movie did that come from?  Anyone know?  They are a lot of work for a very little amount of reward, but oh so good......

The sunflowers are starting to bloom which makes the bees and me so happy!!  The sunflower plot is right out the front window - what a great thing to gaze upon in the morning!!  I will be planting red clover as a ground cover next time I have time. 

And there is that amazing petunia.  It has grown to touch the ground.  Amazing thing.  Worth every penny!!  

I hope your garden grows well this year too.  

Grandma June Collected Antiques

 It occurs to me, as I write this piece about Grandma June - which we never called her, she was just "Grandma" to Sandy and me - that I do not remember Grandma's middle name.  

Grandma (June) was Dad's mother.  She lived in the house that Dad and Linda now live in.  Once there was an apricot tree out the front door.  I have a vague memory of a dark night when their garage burnt down.  She cut Sandy's and my bangs.  She enjoyed filling the front room up with family.  I had to work hard for it, but I now carry on her delicious fresh lettuce salad dressing recipe.  I know her maiden name was Bagley, but I do not recall her middle name. 

Mom's mother's middle name was Minerva.  Mom donned her brace with that name.  The brace she had to wear for months after we rolled down the hill in Oregon and she ended up quite injured.  It was a big deal. 

Grandma (June) was a collector and seller of antiques.  Tables ran the east-west length of the out-of-service old dairy barn.  The tables hefted the weight of old items; glass fancy painted kerosene lantern, dishes, cups, salt and pepper shakers, jewelry boxes, and more.  She had a neat collection of old stuff and made sure we kids knew we were not to be poking around there by ourselves.  There were items there rumored to be worth quite a bit of money. 

I have a porcelain musical jewelry box from Grandma's collection.  It is lovely and looks to be hand painted.  Sadly, the hinges have broken and what was once one piece is now two.  The music will still play.  

Some things seem so genetically inspired.  My interest in old things is most likely a genetic thread I acquired from my father's lineage as my DNA formed in Mom's womb.  

When I got a call from a friend who had conversed with another friend and determined her old furniture pieces should be up for me to consider, I (of course) went to her house for a look.  No one was home, but in the place she described sat a nice heavy oak desk chair.  A serious upgrade to the dingy POS chair I have at my sewing machine.  The other piece looked like a large end table with something galvanized attached.  What was it, I pondered.  No room in the work truck for such a thing, I opted to grab it the next day when Mike came to town with a truck. 

As things sometime roll, he was not able to meet me the next day with a truck.  I ventured over to the friend's house, committed to figure out a way to get it stuffed in my work rig.  Many of you don't know what my work rig looks like.  Imagine a Chevy 1500 with a topper.  In the back under the topper, there is a pullout (very handy).  On that pullout are "Accident Ahead" traffic sign; a set of collapsible traffic cones; a personal flotation device (PFD); a tool box for fire investigations; two 5 gallon buckets filled with sand (for weight in the winter; which clearly should have been removed months ago, but will remain because winter is right around the corner!); a container with a bag of incident vests and a wildland pack; a container with jumper cables, helmets, and filter mask; bunker gear (pants and jacket); SCBA bottle; fire extinguisher; a box with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff; and a broom, a flat shovel, a round shovel, a scoop shovel, and a wildland tool called a combination tool. There are times when it can be a bit of a junk show back there, but it all works for me and that's all that matters.  

The cab of the truck is an extra cab.  The seats behind the two front seats have the following on top or along side them.  BLS (basic life support) bag, open tool bag with radios, batteries, programming cables, sunscreen, incident guide books.  A USPS box (sorry, I'm just "borrowing" it!) filled with more local information, guide books, binoculars, and incident job descriptions.  A box of N95 masks.  A box of BSI (body substance isolation) gloves.  Extrication tools in a hanging pouch behind the driver's seat as well as a MCI (mass casualty incident) kit (we had it out on Monday for the balloon crash).  A nomex jump suit.  Bags for the grocery store.  It's kind of cluttered there too. 

Anyway, with a little work, I got most of the stuff stuffed into the cab and was able to load the piece of furniture that Lori told me when I arrived was an egg incubator.  Wow!!  Now I was even more inspired to get it loaded up in case she changed her mind about giving it away!!  This thing was made by a company called Buckeye.  

Here is a picture of what it looks like off an internet search. And this is a pretty much what it looks like in person.  The round thing is the water chamber.  The tube that sticks into it goes inside and around the box to heat the eggs.  The long piece of metal wire thing has a round cap on it that cover a hole through the water chamber.  When it gets too hot inside, there is some mechanism that lifts the wire with the lid up so the chamber will cool off!  How cool is that?!!  The research I've done leads me to think it is made of redwood.  This is such a unique piece!!  

Here it is in our Freedom bedroom with the incubator and the super cool copper fire extinguisher lamp.  I have now been given two of these lamps by people in this valley which really warms my heart!!  

So now that I am here in this story, I realize a lot of people have given me some pretty cool things!!  The egg incubator and the two fire extinguisher lamps. Grandma would have been impressed with this antique piece, I am certain.  

 

We Didn't Do it For The Money!!

When Mike brought the paper home advertising the Star Valley Barn Quilt contest late last summer/early fall, I did notice there was a big prize money award.  Although, I promptly forgot about the prize and went to work planning and scheming.  Mom, being a big quilt maker, was who we wanted to honor with this effort.  And one of the quilts she has made me, my very favorite, is the Sunflower Quilt.  We plant sunflowers on the farm every year, so it seemed like a good pattern choice! 

Then the research started.  How to design it - the 8"x 8" square was magnified to an 8' x 8' design. Priming, painting, assembling framing, and then - the hardest part of all - hanging, the latter, not for the weak of heart. 

I was finished with the painting pre-COVID and took on another 8' x 8' to keep my mind off COVID, that barn quilt ending up in Jackson.  

We learned we won first place about a week ago.  Shirley and Donna from the Star Valley Quilt Guild arrived, with check in hand and first place banner, to take our picture and do a short interview.  Our Star Valley moment of fame will come out in next week's paper - a full feature on the barn quilt competition.  

And the prize money was big, it turns out.  Big enough to make three more barn quilts!!  We were presented with a check for $1500!  I didn't get the exact details, but the Guild got the money through some sort of Lincoln County Business group that funded the endevour.  Barn Quilt trails are popular across the United States.  The hope is that people will travel around the county going to look at the quilts, stopping along the way to spend their money while gaping at the artwork.  

The whole thing was started by Donna Sue Clark who wanted to honor her mother's quilt making.  She started a trend and we became part of this neat, national public display! 

There is one sad part to this story.  It was my hope that Mom could stand below our barn quilt holding her Sunflower quilt for a photo.  With COVID, that has not been possible and it is the one disappointment to our Barn Quilt Story.  

Like Donna Sue, Mike and I too want to honor the amazing woman who has done so many awesome things in her life and who made the Sunflower Barn quilt back in 1998, cursing and swearing every stitch of the way.  Thank you Mom!

Things Are Not Improving....