It's Hot, Radiation Hot!

Temperatures have been in the mid to high 90’s (with some triple digit temps) for the last 4 weeks and so hot that our newest resident had to don his protective lead lined suit to ward off the dangerous radiation. That’s right, Box’s Rods and Rails has the Man of Steel keeping watch on premises and all decked out in his kryptonite suit.

And in other news…

We took in our first harvest!

Cheryl harvested some several zucchini, Ronde de Nice (a French zucchini), beets, and some pickling cucumbers and I picked one cherry tomato – I was just doing my share of the work. Anyway, in the weeks to come we should have hundreds of tomatoes, a lot more beets and squash, and pickling cucumbers. I see some canning and pickling in our future.

We also harvested some wild blackberries and Cheryl and her mom made blackberry jam. This year we are getting to the berries earlier in order to harvest them before the bears do.

Honey! Besides our garden and the berry bushes producing, the bees are kicking it out. We have plans to harvest the honey the old fashioned way. Much more on this later!

I am excited that we are finally starting to see some results from all of the work. We have already incorporated our early harvest into our meal planning which is forcing us to get out of our food rut of going to the same choices.

As a side note, we thought today that we might have had our first egg from the chickens. One of the chickens sounded off this morning and we thought YES fresh eggs! But alas no - soon though, we hope. I can see it now, a fresh omelet with sun-dried tomatoes, toast with fresh honey or wild blackberry jam. That sounds like a good breakfast.

So what’s happening with the B&B?

I am playing the waiting game on the B&B. I have submitted the application for the TOT certificate and have had the water tested and I am waiting on the septic test and once that comes back okay we then need to contact the county health, building, and planning departments for their inspections. All the prep work has been done for the inspections including the completion of the handrails. Assuming all the inspections go well, we will be ready to open the doors. Still targeting late July and fingers are crossed.

The last word on Poison Oak

I know I know it’s a fixation. It seems that the stuff that has caused me the most irritation is what gets most of my attention. Anyway I sprayed the oak for the second time and found that my initial spraying from a month ago had pushed back the perimeter and that is encouraging! We may yet find our way clear to eradicating the nasty stuff. It will however require a lot of Round Up Pro and rubber gloves!

Getting back to the heat. There is a high-pressure system sitting over the whole western U.S. and there appears to be no relief in sight. The impact of this is dry conditions and fires. We have had thus far 4 fires in our vicinity. We have taken all the precautions by trimming the weeds, clearing the lower branches and brush for a 200’ perimeter. The heat has also changed my routine on when I work outside – early mornings and evenings when the sun is low and temperatures are more manageable.

So I have determined to start making breakfasts for lunch when I am inside during the heat of the day. I need to practice. I recently made eggs benedict and still need to improve on the benedict sauce, everything else in the preparation turned out fine. I have had my mother-in-law find me recipes from all over the Internet and collect them on Pinterest. Everything from savory to spicy to sweet along with vegetarian and vegan and of course everything is unapologetically gluten free. Today I am looking to improve on my second attempt at gluten free Cinnabon cinnamon roles. Probably not the best choice for lunch but tasty nonetheless!

Next post… something made with our local honey and a full report on our harvest technique with pictures.