Too soon for fall

It's interesting around this time of year how you get that spurt of energy and wonder why you didn't have it all summer. It's been about ten degrees cooler and the thought that a wedding is a little over a month away kind of gets your gears moving too. We had a good apple harvest this year and instead of canning I decided to freeze both apple pie filling and just plain apples that can be used for whatever. All my herbs save the hyssop and the horehound have been dried and put away but I still need to pick the elecampane and burdock roots out of the ground. I'm happy though, I got a good herb harvest this year although I did use most of my favorite thing, peppermint, to make a tincture. Just the smell of it is enough to clear your sinuses right up.
   I got a lot of peppers this year. Although I am stretching out picking them, I can't go past a week from this Saturday lest I loose all of them to the temperature dropping. Surprisingly I also have pumpkins growing along with watermelon and cucumbers. I don't think the tomatoes will be ready in time but I am at fault for that because I planted them much too late.
   My seed collection is growing this year also. I added a different type of watermelon seed, cherry seed, hyssop seed and chive seed so far.
   I finally got a compost started this year for the garden. Its something I've been wanting to do for the past couple of years but just kept putting it off. We've thrown everything in from leaves to grass, coffee grounds, used apple parts and whatever else we can come up with.
   Soon I will be including peach parts because I was given a box of peaches to make peach jam with for someone else. I have never done that before but I have no doubt that I can do it, my mother did this kind of stuff all the time and she never failed to include us kids. What I would rather be doing honestly though, is teaching the lady that gave me peaches how to make jam. Not so that I don't have to do it for her, because I am reaping the reward of keeping some of the jam for myself. But so that she can have the satisfaction of being able to do it anytime she wants to and knowing that she made it herself. A lot of things like this are becoming a lost art and it's sad.
   These things probably aren't the most exciting of things really but when you are driven to become more self sufficient it's more of a reassurance and a relief that you will have a better fighting chance against whatever is coming. Skills are what will save us, panic is what will kill us.

Life in Liberty - Photo of the day

Just snapped this really quick this morning. Baling with a John Deere and a baler started about 6am and it's kind of a nice sound to hear in the morning. It reminds you that you are still in the country.

Time to play catch up

 It's so interesting how each summer is different. Last year was a year for a lot of pictures and blog posting. This year not so much. This year was a year of the irrigation main breaking three different times and finally staying fixed after that. The year of racing to get the garden in. The year of the garage still isn't built but getting much closer, and the year that my grandson turned six (just last Friday).

 We got a good number of strawberries this year, just waiting to make strawberry shortcake with them.

 This is a volunteer plant which means that I didn't plant it, not purposely anyway. It started growing on it's own in the same place where I had my acorn squash last year. It's impossible to tell what it is right now but it could be anything from, New England pie pumpkin, Connecticut field pumpkin, Jack O Lantern pumpkin or Acorn squash.

 I decided to go all out on peppers this year because I suck at growing them. As you can see however I've been able to do very well. I have 22 pepper plants and nearly all of them have at least one pepper growing. I have grown everything with out the help of any fertilizer from the store because I want to know how to do it. This is a product of chicken manure, fireplace ash, and bone meal (I could use egg shells also but it's more of a pain in the rear).

Little baby pepper here.

Continuing on, this is why I love living in a small unincorporated town. The fourth of July parades are the best.

More to come later.

 

More gardening

Almost anything I post this time of year is going to be about gardening. It's something I've come to love over the past few years, more so for the fact that we can get fresh fruits and veggies right out of the garden. This year I decided to grow a lot more herbs than I have in the past and I've got everything from Lavender to Lemon Balm to Eccinacia and much more. I haven't been so great at taking photos like I was last year but here are a few.

This is an actual baby watermelon. I've never had one growing this early in the year before.

 Baby pepper. These plants have been through a lot outside including their plastic covering falling on top of them. They are quite the troopers and have managed to produce a baby pepper on this plant and two more on another plant.

 And strawberries. I'm pretty sure these are the fort Laramie strawberries I got last year.

I also found narrow leaf plantain in my driveway, lots of it. Some call it a weed but it's actually an herb.

More to come later.

General Johnathan Richard Mills

The following is from Major Johnathan Richard Mills whose daughter was kidnapped by the Lakota.

   I suppose that when we finally caught up with Mighty Buffalo's people for good we had expected things to be pretty much the same. Maybe Rebecca (His kidnapped daughter) would be the little girl I remember her as, or for her husband to still be the strong ageless warrior, and for Mighty Buffalo to be the young chief I had met. But twenty two years can do a lot to a people who were once strong , proud, and free. The young warriors were fierce, unafraid, and relentless. But now they stand before us starving and scarcely clothed. Many are sick and I can see in all of them that they are tired. Tired of running, tired of fighting to save what little they have left to call their own, tired of hoping that the whites would eventually see the error of their ways and let the Lakota free to live and hunt again.

   What have we done?

   I myself once agreed that Indians were no more than savage, uncivilized beasts and we pursued them into becoming just like us because we only saw that they were uncivilized because they were not like us. What have we done? Today I throw down my weapon and will never more use it against the Lakota. I would join them, but considering the hell that I have put them through and the hatred in their eyes I can understand why they would not accept me.

   I have wasted twenty two years of my life fighting to destroy the very essence of the Lakota and now I want to give it all back, but I cannot. Once you take something like that away it is much too late to say that you are sorry.

   What have we done?

   General Johnathan Richard Mills
   11 November 1890

Never enough time

When you have twelve garden boxes that all need weeding before you can plant your plants that are outgrowing their pots there is a race to get everything weeded. I got the two worst boxes done and out of the way though. Adding to the potential problems are the fact that both the lawn tractor and the push mower are waiting for parts so my garden area is literally overgrown with grass.
The cool thing is that this is the first year I have grown peppers from seed that have done very well and there are a lot of them. I also have watermelon plants that are producing baby watermelons. I am also expanding the number of herb plants in my garden as well.

Here is what everything looks like.

 It needs to be mowed BAD

The white flowers are where the peppers will grow.

Fighting Wolf Chronicles

Within the past year I found some papers full of stories that I had written years ago especially when discovered who may be our ancestor. I will post short or long clips here from time to time and they might not always be in chronological order. If they concern Fighting Wolf or any of the people he was with I will label it as Fighting Wolf Chronicles. If it's stories other than Fighting Wolf I will label it as Stories of the people.
   Fighting Wolf was the second son of a holy man called White Cloud. He had an older brother and a younger sister and also made quite an interesting history for himself. It sure would be interesting to find out if anyone other than myself knows of him (yes you Tawnee) but this is where we start.

   September 12th 1868 was a day that changed many peoples lives forever starting with the cost of two bullets and two warriors lives. The chain of events that followed and the pursuit of a band of over 200 Oglala for over twenty two years afterward until the massacre at wounded knee in 1890 is a story that you will not find in any history book anywhere.

More to come later.