My first skein of yarn

 I promised it way back in May. I told you a long story about getting rabbits and promised a post about making yarn. This is sort of that post. 

I'm not going to go into the details about spinning yet. The fact is, I'm still learning and I'm not very good at it. I can't really speak confidently about spinning. But I finally had enough fiber spun to make this little skein of yarn.

It is lumpy and not very good but I did spin it entirely by hand. How much is there and what gauge is it? I have no idea which makes coming up with a plan for it tricky. I'm open to suggestions.

Would you like a process video? Links to the supplies I use? Let me know in the comments.

Volunteers

 Let's talk about volunteer plants.

When you have your garden in the same spot several years in the row you're likely to get volunteers, plants that have self-seeded where you did not plant them. Sometimes we treat them like weeds and pull them. This is especially true of vining plants. You don't want squash taking over your lettuce.

Sometimes it's beneficial. This year our kale and dill were hampered by frost and we lost some of the plants. But we lucked out and had volunteers elsewhere in the garden that added to the harvest.

But those aren't the volunteers that interest me the most.

This is Herb.

This pumpkin was one of the only things that grew in my herb garden. We have never grown pumpkins in that spot. We dumped a rotten pumpkin there two years ago. And Herb is the result.

I'm also amused by these tomatoes. I picked them from a plant that sprouted on the edge of my compost pile.

Do you have any volunteer plant stories?

Egg!

 This is just a quick note to say: the chickens are now laying! The little chicks that I bought this spring have reached the age where they now lay eggs. We celebrated with corn.

Black walnuts

We have several black walnut trees on our property. A handful of them grow right along the road, making collecting the nuts much simpler. It was nice and sunny yesterday so we donned our rubber boots and work gloves and set to collecting. We like to remove the husks while they are still fresh. This makes harvesting the nutmeats once they are dry much easier.

Here's our haul:

 I've read that you can pry open the dry nuts with a knife or a screwdriver but I haven't had much luck with that method. Generally, my dad cuts them with his scroll saw and uses the sliced shells for crafts. 

Do you have a trick for collecting these nuts? 

Birdhouse gourds

 I decided to experiment in the garden this year and planted some birdhouse gourds. I'd hoped to harvest maybe a dozen of them. This is what we got:

There are two piles because they grew on either side of a fence.

Obviously, they won't all dry. Everything I've read says that some of them will rot before they can cure. But we got enough that I think we'll have some for crafting next year.

Who can say no to free pears?

 We've been buying our apples from the same orchard my entire life, so we already knew the owner fairly well. More recently, we've started growing dill that he sells from his stand alongside his cucumbers. He knows us well now and a stop for apples usually includes a long conversation. 

We stopped yesterday for a quarter bushel of apples, just enough to eat fresh.  As we were leaving, Bob offered us a bushel of ripe pears. For free. Now, we had just been talking about how we didn't really need any pears this year but we'd be fools to turn away free food. Into the truck they went. 

Does it mean that we spent a couple of hours yesterday making pear sauce and the bulk of today canning, drying, and baking with pears? Sure. Do we regret it? Absolutely not.

Cucumber chips

 My Armenian cucumbers have been producing abundantly. I've frozen, pickled, made countless salads, and given them away. And still I have a bucket full of cucumbers. So today I dried some. 

 

just a few of the many

 Dried cucumber slices are crispy and have a surprising depth of flavor. Slice your cucumbers nice and thin (a mandolin slicer helps if you have one). 

 

Lay out the slices on your dehydrator trays and season lightly if desired. I sprinkled a little chili lime on these.

Close up the dehydrator and let it run, usually about 6 hours depending on the thickness of your slices and the humidity in your space. Store them in air tight containers. We always have an abundance of empty glass jars around, so my veggie chips are often kept in old peanut butter jars.