Late Summer Garden Report

I'm still pulling in 5-10 pounds of tomatoes every other day, but blight or magnesium deficiency is taking a toll here. The tomatoes probably have a few more weeks of life. I've got enough tomatoes, juice, and sauce canned, but I think I still need more pizza sauce. I'm thinking of perhaps trying to make some soup as well.

I'm still picking about 2 quarts of green beans a day, freezing most of it now. The Kentucky Wonder pole beans and the Blue Lake bush beans are going crazy, and I expect to still be in beans a month from now. The red field peas that I planted turned out to be half runner types, and the 10x10 area is now about 20x20 and the runners are taking over like kudzu. They've covered my bush cherries, and are threatening the pole beans. I've picked dry pods as I see them, but 98% of the crop is still on the vine. Interestingly, at least to me, the peas look more like what I would call white acre peas than the red field peas I planted. They are small and white. Odd thing.

Round one of sweetcorn was a disaster, so we replanted a short season sweetcorn in mid-summer. We are about a week from eating corn again, but I don't want to count my ears before they are picked. On this farm, anything can happen to corn, and usually does. The Bloody Butcher corn lodged from a downburst in a thunderstorm, but much of it is still alive, even if it is laying over. I decided to leave it alone as when I tried to stand the stalks upright, they broke. I have no clue as to how this will affect pollination. It was planted June 12, so it has a few more weeks as well. My goal for the BB is to get a few ears for seed, one or two ears to roast, and enough to grind for 1 cup of corn meal. It seems like a lot to ask out of what I have in the garden. Can anyone tell me how much corn-how many ears or pounds, does it take to make a cup of corn meal?

I'm nursing along a watermelon(GA Rattlesnake), but it just isn't growing the way I'd like. It is more round than oblong. Another odd thing. I've got squash everywhere, quite a few butternuts still out there(I already harvested 30# or so) as well as acorn squashes. The squash vines are growing on the deer netting, and it looks funny to see acorn squash hanging 8 feet in the air. A few of the hanging squashes have holes bored into them, as if some kind of wasp or squash borer drilled hole in the fruit. I took a few pictures for the blog. The summer squashes are done and gone. Peppers are still producing, and I've canned or dried as much as possible: Anaheims, serranos, banana peppers, poblano(ancho), etc. I've also made homemade salsa, of course. The okra is just starting to really come in strong. I've pickled a few jars of it, and will pickle more. I have taken a liking to pickled okra. Yum! I have sweet potato vines everywhere and expect to get 30-50 pounds of sweet potatoes next month. I never did harvest my Yukon Golds, but yesterday I went out with that intention and found a bunch of new potatoes, beautiful little yellow golf ball sized things. I decided to leave them as seed.

I had to reorganize the shelves and such to make room for everything I've canned so far. I made grape jelly and elderberry jam, elderberry elixir, horehound cough syrup, blackberry jam, fig preserves, and blueberry jam. We harvested over 50 pounds of apples a bit early to keep the deer from getting them, and I've made applesauce and apple chips. I have discovered that if you dehydrate the peelings and mix them with blackberry leaves, blueberry leaves and dried huckleberries and blueberries, it makes a great tea, so I have made a few jars of that to give as gifts. I froze about 5 gallons of blueberries, and gave that many away. We did not have any peaches, pears, cherries, or plums this year, but I still have peaches in the freezer from last year, which was a banner year.

I've planted lettuce for the Fall, but a rabbit mowed it down in one day, so I will have to replant. All the neighbors have noted that the rabbit population is exploding, so it makes me wonder if folks have killed too many snakes or too many coyotes. I have no idea of how a rabbit got inside my garden fence unless the gate was left open just long enough for him to get in, eat my lettuce and my only honeydew melon, and get out. I've also got a few broccoli plants in the ground, some Osaka Purple mustard, several brussel sprouts in the ground, a small patch of kale(I've never tried it so this is a grand experiment in taste) a couple of 15 ft rows of collards, a few cabbage plants, a 32 ft row of intensively planted snowpeas and English peas(both sides of the panel are planted, 16 ft of English peas and 16 ft of snow peas. I have both turnips and turnip greens, and have yet to plant spinach. I also need to decide where I will plant my garlic next year. I need to get busy with all that. I have also replanted carrots, radishes, and beets in my carrot bed. The carrots I planted in the ground did not germinate, but the board trick worked well in the raised bed and the carrot greens are about 5 inches tall.

The herb garden has been very productive this year, too. I've made several batches of pesto and froze that, too. I've harvested enough kitchen herbs like thyme and oregano to fill several quart jars, and I still have herbs drying in the kitchen. You might be a redneck if you hang your herbs to dry on your antler chandelier in the kitchen. :) Of course, I also use window screens and my truck as a drying oven, as well as two dehydrators, which are running right now(more apple chips today, onions tomorrow) Seriously, I've harvested and dried oregano, marjoram, thyme, sage, tarragon, savory, fennel, dill, lemon balm, chocolate mint, peppermint, 3 kinds of basil, nasturtiums, chives, violets, dandelion flowers, passionflowers, and horehound. I dried all but maybe 15 bulbs of garlic, of which I'm using fresh in canning and cooking. The echinacea did well, so I will be able to harvest that in a few years, too. This year, I planted beans in the herb bed to fill the gaps. Next year, we've decided that the herb bed will support chili peppers quite nicely.

The big plan for this Fall is to plant and grow more asparagus. We have decided to plant a 3x50 ft wide row of asparagus crowns as the little patch I have is 10 years old and just isn't enough now that Skyguy has decided he likes asparagus, too. If will take a lot of ground prep and double digging, as well as mulch to make this happen. Earlier this year, I planted a 8x15 area with Jerusalem artichokes-a gift from Rob(thanks again!)-and they are 9 feet tall and beautiful right now. The blooms are awesome. I'm not sure what the protocol is on digging the chokes, but I figure I will give them a few years, like I would asparagus, before I try to dig anything. I'm super psyched about that.

This year's garden has been the largest garden I've ever planted. I've tried to keep something going all the time. I will continue to do that, but I'm afraid that this might be my last big garden for a while. There is no way that I could have this size garden working full time. It saddens me. It is like giving up a part of myself. I guess I've been spoiled after a year at home. We all have to sacrifice I suppose. This is probably my last extensive garden update before I start working full time. :(

No phone or internet for 60 hours

At 12:30 pm on Tuesday, my phone line went dead. It may not seem like a big deal, but when you live in the boonies, a phone is a lifeline. Many of my neighbors lose service for 3 or 4 days when it rains. My line just gets a lot of static when it is wet outside. The phone lines here are above ground and date probably back to the 1950's, if they are that new. Seriously, in 1996, my neighbors finally lost their party line. You know, a party line is one phone line for several residences that is shared. There is not much privacy on a party line, but that was the way things worked out here. Normal dial-up speed is 56 Kbps. You get that if your city has copper lines and you live reasonably close to the telephone switching office. I have no clue as to the metallic makeup of our antiquated phone lines, but I'd bet that it is not copper, and the fastest I've ever connected is 26 Kbps. The more usual speeds are in the teens. Still, if I have an internet connection, I can check weather and mail, which is important when you are expecting an important email from your future boss.

I think I miss email the most. I can watch television for news and weather in a pinch, it is just not as convenient or specific to my location and needs. I've never been one to chat on the phone, but I do miss hearing from my daughter, and there is a feeling of isolation that is hard to describe. When I was sick, I went for several days without logging on or making phone calls, but I knew it was there. I knew that if I needed to call 911 or someone else to help, that I could. With no phone, there is no help. Most of my neighbors are in the same boat as me. None of us has a cell phone. Of my seven nearest neighbors, only one other couple has a computer. I think they may have a cell phone, but they also have a land-line. Cell phones just don't work in this valley. Almost no one can get a signal strong enough to dial out, and if a phone rings, usually you lose the call when you try to answer.

So when we lose power or telephone service, and need to call in to report such, we have to drive out of the valley to get a signal out-for those who do have a work related cell phone, or find some nearby Good Samaritan who will let you use their phone if they have a working line. Once, I drove 8 miles to the nearest payphone, but now even that phone no longer exists. So, assuming I find a friend a few miles away who has phone service, and call Bellsouth/AT&T to report the outtage. AT&T treats me rudely, acting as if I am a second class citizen because I don't have a cellphone. They assume it is because I can't afford one. They do not believe that there are places where there is no service. They stupidly ask for an email address as a contact, forgetting that when one has dialup, one does not have email access. My elderly neighbors have it worse than I do. All of them are in ill health. The women have suffered heart attacks and strokes, the men have suffered heart attacks and cancer. They NEED 911 service. Today, my neighbor with cancer drove all the way to town to his daughter's house(almost 20 miles) to report the outtage. When he contacted AT&T, he got the same attitude as I did. The neighbor who loses service every time it rains gets even worse treatment. Bellsouth/AT&T does not seem to care that she's had a couple of heart attacks and lives alone. They send people out, each one with a different excuse or reason why she loses service and why it is now fixed after they work on it. Of course, it is only 'fixed' until the next time it rains. Bellsouth/AT&T doesn't seem to care about the poor people who live on this loop. Cell phones are the wave of the future for most of America, so I doubt that Bellsouth/AT&T will even consider spending the money to upgrade the phone lines for the 32 people who live on our road in this pocket valley. We don't matter.

I picked this place for its remoteness and beauty. I seriously doubt we will ever have cable TV, garbage service, county water, pizza delivery, or reliable cell service without a satellite directly overhead. We do have satellite television, and at least one person can afford satellite internet. The cheapest satellite ISP runs about $70/month, and that is the only option other than our 26Kbps dialup, and since most valley residents are of my generation and older, most do not have a computer at all, and if they do, it is certainly hard to afford $70-$100 a month on a fixed income or a rural Georgia income. Why can't the phone company upgrade the lines so that we could have DSL or cable ISP as a part of President Obama's surge to give everyone equal access to phone and internet. I know there are programs for free trackphones, but that wouldn't solve the problem here. Why can't they make a cell phone that can find a satellite or bounce a signal over the ridge to find a cell tower? The people of this valley would just like to have the same service as everyone else. I'd settle for 56K dial-up. Soon, I will have to give up my internet service, not because I can't afford it, but because downloading updates takes days and very often the files are corrupted. I already had to give up Google Earth because I could not download the updates and the program quit working without that update. My Adobe reader has a similar issue and needs upgrading. If the phone rings while the update is downloading, about 50% of the time the file is corrupted. Thunderbird, Mozilla, Adobe, AVG, and other programs update frequently, and when data is transferring at 14 Kbps and the file is 35Mb, you do the math on how long it takes. Realize, too, that even though the math says 840kbpm, the line isn't continuous, and in reality is takes about 5 or 6 minutes to download something that is 1 Megabyte in size. For a 35 MB file, it would take at least 6 hours, and you just hope that no one calls during that time as that corrupts the file.


A long time ago I heard a rumor that this valley might be made into a reservoir for power generation. It would be a small but deep reservoir, 4 miles from the dam end to the opposite end, and about a mile wide. The ridge tops are at 1400 ft and the valley is between 750 and 900 feet. The lake would be several hundred feet deep, and some quick math yields that such a reservoir would hold 6.7x10 11th power, or 6,700,000,000,000 gallons. I guess they decided to use Antioch and Heath Lakes instead and Oglethorpe Power developed a plant 20 miles to the west of here over at Rocky Mountain, which is now a state fishing and recreational area. When I first heard these rumors, I did not give them much thought. Then a few years ago, I read about imminent domain, how the government could come in and basically take your land 'for the public good'. I know my ridges are National Forest and that the government already owns them, but the idea that the Forest Service would annex my land as greenspace or biosphere space still seemed like a remote possibility. Perhaps I have read too many conspiracy theories, but I am beginning to wonder why no utilities or county offices seem to care about our valley. I wonder if they could know something we do not? So I stop and think about what that could be. What could they know? My conspiracy theory got legs a few months ago while watching the news. As it turns out, the Army Corp of Engineers has forbidden the state of Georgia to use the water from Lake Lanier as drinking water. Currently Atlanta and her suburbs, as well as a few other Georgia communities downstream, remove water from the Chattahoochee River and use it as drinking water. Wastewater is treated and returned to the river, which then flows to Alabama and Florida. The Corp has ruled that the massive lake and it's emerging river can only be used by the state of Georgia for recreation, not drinking water. Florida and Alabama have those rights. So,,,,, I ask myself, what will the city of Atlanta do? Would they not be in the market for another reservoir, one they could control without Army CoE involvement, a reservoir that would probably be 3000 acres in size? The ridges that would hold this reservoir are already Federal land, part of the Chattahoochee National Forest. The valley floor is private land and in this day and age, no one would think twice about taking the land via imminent domain for the greater public good. Could that be the reason for the lack of development and repair or maintenance of existing infrastructure like roads and phone lines? I hope not.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Back to Work I Go

It is a done deal. I start back to work on October 1st at XL Brands as their 'Lab Coordinator'. XL makes carpet and flooring adhesives and installation systems. The people seem to be very nice, and it looks to be a well run operation. The lab is much nicer and cleaner than the last place I worked. My working hours are normal daytime working hours with no shift work and no weekends. The company is quite a ways from my house, almost 45 minutes away on the south side of Dalton, but I'm hoping that Skyguy and I can carpool some to take the edge off the gasoline bill. I don't trust gasoline prices to stay low.

XL Brands is a division of Textile Rubber and Chemical Corporation, a global chemical and manufacturing company that is headquartered right up the road in Dalton. The following quote comes from their website: "XL Brands leads the industry with environmentally-safe flooring installation products. We have introduced industry first products that are SCS Certified, (Scientific Certification Systems), and contain PCC, (Post Consumer Content). XL Brands adhesives also care the CRI Green Label Plus seal for indoor air quality." It is so rare to find an adhesives company that is environmentally conscious. That's important to me.

I feel very fortunate and honored. There are so many people out there who are pounding the pavement looking for a good job. I was not looking, and had given up on working again. It is a crazy world and I definitely feel guilty because I know so many people are desperately looking for work. While I had first interviewed with this company over a year ago, nothing became of that and I had written it off as a lost opportunity. Then in July, out of the blue, they called, and I went in for another interview. There have been a couple of other meetings over the last month or so, culminating in yesterday's job offer. I have yet to fill out a job application. It is odd how life can twist and turn. You just never know what might be around the corner.

This will allow us to hopefully pay off debt and complete some projects that have been sitting on the back burner. We will be able to regrade the driveway and fix the ruts; we will be able to replace the bay window in the kitchen before it falls out; we will be able to add insulation to the attic. If President Obama goes through with his Dollars for Dishwashers plan, or whatever he ends up calling it, we might actually be able to afford a new refrigerator this year! Woot! Mostly though , having an additional income takes stress off Skyguy as he changes careers. Money makes him happy. I'm generally not materialistic at all, but I have wanted a jacuzzi for the last 20 years, and I might finally get one. I think I deserve it.