Yesterday was one of those comfy days. After reading your comments I was feeling well and cared for and worked all day in a little blog cuddle bubble. Daisy gave 36 pounds of milk in the morning and 26 in the afternoon. The weather was mild and the weeds pulled easily. 
The Tall Teenager found a frog in the pigsty, hiding under their filthy paddling pool and afraid that the big pigs would eat it (after our discussion about them being omnivores) he caught it and we released it into the frog garden where there is a pond under the path. 
Everything grows well in this little self watering garden but all the frogs disappeared in the heatwave.
I started some watermelon rind pickle. 
The recipe is here – foodblogandthedog. Natalie also has a beautiful feta and watermelon salad. I would like to say that these are my own watermelons but the plants have died, as have most of the zuchinni. So John came home with fruit from the store the other day. And miserably I think all my cucumbers are going to die next. Just too hot and too dry in those back gardens. But I am still trying very hard to grow the majority of what we eat. Soon we will be living off tomatoes!
Of course the zuchinni we just keep reseeding in a different spot in the hopes of it out running the bad bug and the drought. These butternut squash are doing well though but did you see that bug. They are my nemisis. 
I needed some heavy lifting help at The Old Codgers yesterday and so I took the Tall Teenager with me for the first time and out of the blue there was a little miracle. They struck up a friendship. Talking model battleships. These connections often jump generations. So tomorrow the young man is going to bike over to visit the old man (seven miles) with some of his models and visit again. How wonderful is THAT! 
Good morning. All the garden shots are tight because there are big gaps in the gardens now from the unusual number of plants that have died in the heat and dry. I cannot water every garden every day. However so far we are managing to feed ourselves. And we are much better off than many. After all I made strawberry ice cream yesterday with the last of the strawberry preserves. Every time I make ice cream I hide a tub of it in the big freezer for winter treats.
You all have a lovely day. I am going into the hives today to see about harvesting some honey as last years last jar was scraped clean a week ago.
celi
PS Here is what was happening on the farmy on this date last year. Housing the captured swarm. bees move house. We are much further along this summer. Last year we had piles of rain.
The Kitchen's Garden 
71 responses to “Little miracles”
Good morning, c, and the farmy! How lovely for the tall boy and Dale to find mutual interests. I love when time and age have no meaning; one offers interest and the other offers experience.
That is an excellent way of putting it misky! c
I am sorry about the garden and these hot weather but your tour of your garden was lovely and I was loving the picture of the zucchini flowers and tomatoes. You can make a lovely pasta with that and of course some garlic. Take care, BAM
Ah yes bam, and our garlic was a success this year and is drying in the dark! good idea.. c
Wonderful that the tall teenager and the Old Codger connected. Your poor garden, wilting in the heat: maybe you need to get a few strategic shade trees going? Or make some awnings you can drag or wheel around? Not that you don’t already have plenty to do already, but there must be a way to protect some of your food supply (besides the part that is on the hoof).
You are right this is my food supply, I do have trees growing, but OH they take such a long time, in fact today is watering baby trees day so i am dashing back and forth moving my dripping hose, John has gardens that get some shade and that is where he plants the late summer stuff.. but we need them to be bigger! c
Very cool about the Tall Teenager becoming friends with The Old Codger!!! Now, as for the hives. I must admit I’m still trying to figure it all out, as a beginning beekeeper. I thought any new box added to the original brood box was a super. But a friend told me it’s not a super unless you put the queen excluder on and then a super that will be for honey storage. Is that correct? So, if there are too many bees, do you raise up the super with the excluder and add another brood box under it for the queen to continue laying, and thus still increase the colony in the new brood box and continue to collect honey (in the super with the queen excluder) for human and bee consumption during the winter? Thanks Celi! Di
I have investigated and used queen excluders but I can never FIND my queen, so i gave that up a few years ago. If a tray has brood in it i just don;t take that one in for honey and watch out for the queen. In my tiny experience i find that the bees do either OR, so I don’t get brood in my honey. My hives have two major big supers on the bottom. (this gives them between 60 and 80 pounds of honey for the winter. I never touch these except to inspect for disease once in a while). At the moment they also have Honey supers on top as well, These smaller honey ones are the ones I will take off and steal from. Then i will put them back out on the grass for the bees to clean, then they are wrapped and stored for next year.
So the quick answer is no, I do not use a queen excluder. and also it is a choice as to whether you do. You do not have to.
c
Strawberry ice cream…yum!! I think it’s wonderful that the Teenager and the Old Codger have made friends! I hope the Teenager will be allowed to take a camera along so we can see their fun with model battle ships.
~ April
He is starting to see shots too so we should get him a camera at some point! Good idea.. c
As hot as it’s been, I bet the lack of rain has been the real killer. I wonder how the corn crop is doing? I guess we’ll all find out soon enough at the grocery. Sorry to read your garden has suffered so, but you couldn’t possibly keep up with it. Your tomatoes look great, though, and your ice cream delicious. Sometimes all we can do is make the best of what we have.
Have a great morning, Celi. I’m off to “my” market! 🙂
yes .. we need rain.. but there you are. And you are very right, I will just put ‘up’ icecream! have fun at the market! c
Dear, you are a little miracle in a hot, dry world. Thanks for writing.
Morning melissa and thank you.. there are many little miracles in this world aren’t there.. c
Those pigs are smart – I’d be tempted to eat the frog too!
I’m sorry to hear about your courgettes, but your tomatoes look fab 😉
He had nice fat legs too Mad, you would have liked him!! c
Now you are making me hungry 😉
How wonderful for both the Tall Teenager and the Old Codger that they have become friends. So much life for them to share there. Glad some of your garden is still doing well. I have my first teensy cherry tomato growing in a pot on the deck, and just planted some zucchini. I know it’s late, but with shade it doesn’t really matter. Maybe I’ve avoided the bugs…they are such a beastly problem!
What a hard year this has been for so many. {{{{Hugs}}}} to you. You are doing an amazing job as it is…hope the rain finds you soon.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
That’s a lot of milk! Impressive!
Gardens all over North America are the same. Here in Canada, they’ve declared a level 2 Drought….and that is NOT good. I’m spot watering as much as I can!
Have a good day…….hope you/we have a good rain soon…….real soon.
yikes .. ;level 2, well i am sure we are not that bad yet.. choosing what NOT not water is the hardest.. c
This is the truth: Last night as I was picking large tomato worms off of an almost destroyed plant, I laughed (sort of) and thought of you! My internal comment went something like, “You have this piddly little plot of garden and you can’t even keep it worm free, think of how much garden Celi has to manage!” I really did…Don’t worry, I don’t really make many comparisons, but I’m always in awe of how much you must do to manage your farmy! So when you tell me about the loss of some of your well-loved veggie plants, I can see that no matter what one does, there are conditions beyond our control! Like you, I took pictures of the worms…I gotta at least get a good blog post out of their damage! So glad to hear that Dale has a new friend. How marvelous for the pair of them! 🙂 Debra
well i do have big gardens but this is my full time job! So i should be more on top of it than i am!! I know those big tomato caterpillars are they green the same shade as the leaf?.. we have not seen any yet but when we do john gets his bucket and goes from plant to plant cursing and swearing, pulling them off then races over and feeds them to the chooks! ghoulish fellow!! c
What a Bounty – thanks for sharing! Have a Great Day:)
that was a beautiful story, and i could see myself living this life, if i had some help. love peace and quiet, and i think sometimes this is why i hide in my own skin, because life is chaos most days here
I hope that the chaos lifts every now and then so you can get out and get some sun for a bit.. sounds like you are having a hard time.. take good care .. c
thanks my friend