Fishin'

We decided to head to the hills this past weekend to gather those killer nettles for more tea and go fishin'. There is still snow on those far mountains. We're following that silver truck up ahead. That contains the people who do the fishing. Our truck held the people who did the nettle collecting , fish gutting and cooking . Certain people are too squeamish to touch the fish they catch so they leave that to the girls. Is that right? Actually, we don't care really... the gutting is the fun part. Fishing takes too much patience. You have to wait and wait and wait for the fish to bite. Gutting just requires whacking the fish on the head and going at it with a knife. No patience necessary!!! Always a plus in my book. I don't exactly ooze the virtue of patience. In case you were wondering.

Elly May with the first fish..

Whack it sista!!!

I know you wanted to see what was inside..

My fish... dad caught him.

So I get to gut him. After whacking him of course. But I don't have a picture of that. I have video... but I'm not posting that. So there. I really don't mind the feel of fish so I'm not wearing gloves because of that. Just that water does nasty things to my hands so I try to stay out of it as much as possible.

Look at the slime!!

Ve scale de feeesh

The deer are so bold there...

And the frogs are out!

Now that we are home comes the cooking part. Well, first, we must tease the dogs. Because they go bonkers at everything.

I will bite you!!. Jesse was really curious and seemed to be okay with the thing until he brushed his nose up against the fish's teeth. Then I guess he thought it had bit him and that was that. He knew he didn't like it. Frank licked it at first.... then went ballistic.

Okay, now on to cooking. We rinse the suckers again and put them on tin foil. I hate using tin foil but .... well.. I didn't have any alternatives here . Maybe if I lined it with parchment....next time.

Can't get any fresher than that.

We salted and peppered them inside and out, tucked in lots of butter, onions and parsley. Then buried them in the same.

Then Elly May made a cute little packet for them. It still leaked butter....We baked them for 40 min in a 375-400F oven.

Look at the steam...

Help ! it is hot in here!!

They were fall apart tender.

I am dead.

But I am more dead than you! These suckers have very sharp teeth.

Mmmmm, nothing like a meal that can look you in the eye. It was incredibly tender and flavorful and fresh. Very very very good. And not at all fishy . I've had some very fishy trout before but I think what they eat has a huge effect on what they taste like. Well , that is true with anything. Anyway, it was a fun if not exhausting day full of , nettle stings, mushroom throwing, bug bites, fish slime, fish teeth and good eating.

More Room to Plant Stuff

This is kind of a scary sight in February. It isn't supposed to be spring yet!! These apple blossoms didn't get the memo apparently

There was an old grape arbor going over ramp up this hill that was torn down earlier in the year. It left this big open section that I wanted to plant in. Originally I was thinking I would just get all the weeds out and put containers up there but a better use of space would be to just do terraced beds. So that was the plan.

Before shots.

All the weeds torn out. Not by me... but torn out just the same.

Now voila! Wow, are you impressed? I was.. after spending a few days mostly in bed then getting to come out to this was rather cool. I want to plant pole beans along the fence... and summer squash I think.....

Those are compost piles in the background up in the upper bed. We have four piles going right now . One got up to 155 F . Not bad.

So pretty.

That white thing is a water filter that will take out the chlorine from our city water . Plants do not like chlorine. Nor do my hands. I have to finish getting the soil just so in the new beds. I'm waiting for my rock dust to get here. Then it will be planting time!

Garden Stuff

Someone around here had a birthday this past week and there were a few roses left in the yard and some blooming field peas (from the cover crop put in last fall) to decorate the cake with... I don't have a picture of that but I do have a picture of the flowers .

After all the flowers were ripped off and the candles blown out. ... Yes.. it is really tall. Elly May thought it would be grand to combine all these layers to make one giant cake. Kind of ironic since the birthday girl isn't really supposed to be eating sugar.... ahem.... but she did taste a little....

And it was very very good...

The Nut Brown Ale in the second fermenter. After it ages awhile here we will have to bottle it... Oh the joy. My favorite part.

Here is a giant block of Grow-Coir or coco peat. Coconut fiber . It is a less acidic alternative to peat moss. I'm going to be making a soil mix for starting seedlings and coir holds an amazing amount of water and lightens up the planting medium . It comes in bricks or bales and you have to expand it with water. Supposedly you just pour water on and wait an hour. But we aren't that patient and had to start poking at it to make it happen faster.

It gets so fluffy.

Didn't think it would get that big did you?

Then we have another wheelbarrow full of sifted compost and then some sand. It was moist and it had been so long since I played in a sand box I couldn't help myself . We spent a ridiculous amount of time playing in it before we finally got around to mixing it in . My sand fish. I want a sand box again . People have those zen rock garden things that they rake through for relaxation and meditation or whatever they do with them. I want a sand box . Is 26 too old for one?

After I mixed all my ingredients together (which consisted of a hefty amount of compost, some plain garden dirt, coir, sand, vermiculite, volcanic pumice, dolomite lime, kelp meal, guano , and some bone meal ) , I added water and started making soil blocks.

I had some very interested observers who kept trying to be participants. They liked to eat my dirt. Guano is very tasty I hear. Or maybe it was the bone meal.

On a roll here

Those messy ones had been molested by various dog noses.... Thanks a lot guys. I now have 100 tomato plugs planted and 50 with chili peppers. Some of the tomatoes are already up! Yay!

And what have we hear? This is brewing nettle tea. You combine nettles and rain water (ideally) and stir every day til it stinks really bad . That is a few weeks. Then you dilute the mixture about 1/10 with water and foliar spray your seedlings/plants etc. Or use on the compost pile (it is really high in nitrogen) . It is very high in nutrients .

For some reason the boys LOVE to drink this stuff. Every time I uncover it to stir it they are right there chugging it down. I guess it is kind of like vitamin water for them. I just hope there is enough for me to use by the time it is ready.

These are sissy, domesticated nettles . They still sting, but nothing like the ones you find up in our canyons and mountains along streams. We went and collected some of those the other day and the stings went through my gloves and I had welts on my hands 24 hours later and they were still stinging. Those were some serious nettles. Next time..... I'm taking gauntlet gloves... all the way to the elbow. Anyway , those are now in a much larger barrel and stewing in more rain water. There are more exciting things happening in the garden but I'll save that for another post.

I found exhibit B....

Okay.. I knew I had the second guy around here somewhere . And just because he shouldn't be left out.. he gets a post all his own .
Now I know this is blurry but you can still see.. He is pinching my onions!!!! I have proof.

Moving on.. Here is our exhibit B.

He had a very nice pattern .

Sugar Babe.. get your head out of there..

Just like peeling a banana.. Well, sort of.... Anyway, I just didn't want him to be left out of the whole thing. So now we are finished with snakes. I promise. For now anyway.