Ducks4you 2021 Ragtag Thread

[ducks4you]

Comes the meltdown. LAST SATURDAY, this was my landscape, and DH and I used our tractor and snowblower to clear paths in front of the garage to the street, down the driveway, cleared in front of the barn, and made a tractor path so that I could clean stalls without pushing through snowdrifts. By mid week, most of the snow will have been eaten up. Even the firepit was covered.

 

[ducks4you]

The stalls were COVERED with straw this last week bc I didn't dare let the ponies out with ice. OUR temperatures have been much colder than -5, as it was mid last week, but we first got rain, THEN snow, THEN super cold. Yesterday I was slipping and sliding on ice that had thawed and refrozen. Today it's mud. The hardest thing was filling 6-8 buckets of water/day, carrying them up these stairs and 100+ steps (one way) to the barn stalls.

 

[ducks4you]

Been a ROUGH winter for many people here. I had my left leg ALMOST FULLY HEALED, then slipped on refrozen ice Monday. I couldn't avoid the ice on the way to the barn WITH water buckets.
Thought I'd share:

 

[ducks4you]

I am a baker. DD is a chef. I have mastered two new desserts this year:
Toll house Cookies
Banana Bread.
Here is my banana bread recipe. DD keeps buying me ingredients for it, so I guess it's pretty good.
Banana Bread (from several online recipes)
Ingredients:
2 sticks butter, salted or unsalted (don't use marjarine, PLEASE!)
1 cup tamped down brown sugar
3 large OR 4 small/medium bananas
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking SODA
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 cup (or more) chopped walnuts--Optional
2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour

Combine ingredients in the order above. Be SURE to microwave butter if it is cold, by cutting into pieces and softening in a mixing bowl. Mash in the brown sugar until mixed.
Add bananas and mash in with the butter and sugar with a potato masher and start mixing Hard.
Swtich to a whisk and add sour cream and keep mixing all ingredients to try to get out any lumps. Add vanilla, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add eggs and thoroughly mix.
Chop nuts and thoroughly mix.
THEN switch to a wooden spoon and add the flour, 1 cup at a time, and again, thoroughly mix.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray baking dish with baking spray.
Set the timer for 1 hour, 5 minutes.
Check for done by inserting a sharp knife all of the way through. If not done, put back in for 5 minute increments until the knife comes out clean.
Turn over onto a dinner plate to cool. Store in a gallon ziplock bag to keep it moist.
Should look just like this~

 

[ducks4you]

Rapidly this is turning into a FOOD thread.
**sigh**
DD wanted to make a black forest cake from scratch. She came over Saturday to my "bigger than her kitchen" to make it. I Don't care for chocolate, but I loved THIS cake! She has now ruined me from ever ordering it at any restaurant, just like her sister has ruined me ordering lasagna out.
Here is what it looked like, in process. The ONLY recipe change she made was a substitution. She didn't care for the idea of cherry preserves with More sugar, etc., so she substituted in my recipe for cherry pie filling. It was a Good call.

 

[ducks4you]

This is what lawyers do on their days off.
It was supposed to be a 3 tiered cake, but the glass cake display didn't have room. We found a small bundt pan and she made a 3rd cake, cut it in 2, filled/frosted it and had a small cake for herself and her sister saturday night.
Lasagna yesterday. I am home today and eating real good.

 

[ducks4you]

I am pasting from another thread, here.
Today I planted 2020 spinach seeds, 2019 (I Think?) onion seeds and 2020 leek seeds.
I kept them stored cool and dry, In fact they were out on the porch all winter.
I didn't do a germination test, but the spinach seeds should sprout. I planted them pretty thick.
The onions and leeks, not so likely. I planted all of them thickly, and into one of my 100 gallon Rubbermaid horse troughs, with last years compost, now VERY, VERY well rotted.
Funny, I dug down 6 inches to find ice. Should be interesting to see if the 60's for the next few days will melt much of it. Certainly it will keep the soil cool for awhile!
I am starting my 2021 spinach seeds INdoors for later transplant.
I plan to plant ALL of my old and saved seeds this year just to see what comes up. I really want to plant thickly around my vegetables this year with other vegetables and flowers. I don't care if any of the old cool weather vegetable seedlings bolt, just better than weeding.
We get rain wednesday night, so I didn't bother to water. The soil was already damp enough under the surface to suffice.
Btw, I disagree about transplants. I believe that if you put your transplant container in water and let the transplants lift themselves out and are gentle, transplanting is possible for most vegetables into super loose soil with compost. I have successfully transplanted tiny carrots. My meager carrot harvests have all been bc I didn't get them planted early enough.
When I planted my bed of french radishes this weekend I found a handful of leeks that had sprouted from last year. I dug sufficiently underneath them to not touch their roots and made a hole for them in the corners to give them a fighting chance. I didn't bother to water them either. We have high winds expected, and I have been down that road of planting seeds in the spring, watering, then the seeds dry out and don't germinate. Better to let them be rained in.
I plan to plant lettuce in the other rubbermaid trough and start it on the north side of the house. I believe that they will take longer to germinate there, with not total shade, but be less likely to bolt.
I can fill it from last year's potato bed, which was totally broken down ashes topped with compost from 2019-2020 soiled horse stall bedding, from fine pine shavings, soiled and broken down pine pellets, straw, urine and manure.
VERY rich and very well rotted.

 

[ducks4you]

I should point out that I turned this "pot" on it's side so that it wouldn't freeze and crack it, which it did not.

 

[ducks4you]

Spring has come to the Ducks4you homestead.

Ziege und Lamm legen sich zusammen. Sieht aus wie Frühling.
Goat and Lamb lie down together. Looks like Spring.
No, it isn't just the critters, who my DD's call "The Dali Lamb" and "The Jolly Goat."
It's the frogs!!
I Thought that what I was hearing was from wood frogs, which we have and which I have Seen, but, NO, it was peepers I have been hearing all along.

Spring Peepers, Wood Frogs, and a Spring Serenade

How do Wood Frogs survive winter? How do Spring Peepers make that piercing sound? Learn (and listen!) how these frogs make their sounds of spring.

www.almanac.com

 

[ducks4you]

Transplanted 11 garlic's this morning. 3 simply fell apart, starting them indoors is not something I will do again, but after this year I should be able to plant in the Fall and harvest in the summer.
I still have 4 garlic's that I grew in January, 2020 and transplanted in April. I think I will wait until garlic harvesting time to check on them.
I understand that deer hate garlic, along with other 4 legged pests, by intercropping it.

Garlic As Pest Control: Tips For Controlling Pests With Garlic

Insects either love garlic or detest it. Some don't mind it, but others avoid it like the plague. Learn how to use it to your advantage here.

www.gardeningknowhow.com