The Darwin Awards II

To get the worst news out of the way first: I was walking back from milking (barely over a half gallon all day today, the turkey!) when I came across another dead lamb, caught in the electric net. This one was painful. Chocolate, our only black lamb, so large, healthy, vibrant.

So that was awful, and takes up the majority of my thoughts at the moment. But there was much of interest today, not quite so sad.

Happily, the hobbles worked well on Reese. In appearance they look like enormous handcuffs that attach her back feet together. She realized right away that something was odd about her feet, and she kicked out, tentatively, once. I was happy she didn't kick hard and lose her balance. I had visions of being crushed under a tipped over cow.

Phil finished most of the rest of the frame for the greenhouse today. It looks great.

I have been working through my freezer of random meat, preparatory to the next pig slaughter. Last night was spare ribs with homemade barbecue sauce (which wasn't as good as I'd hoped). Tonight was pork backbone, which was surprisingly meaty. Paula Dean has a recipe with backbones cooked with butter, onion, pepper, salt, and bay leaves which turned out absolutely delicious. It made a huge pot.

I picked over ten pounds of jalapenos today. I'm not sure how much over ten pounds, since my scale only goes to ten, but the box sure felt heavy.

I like jalapenos probably more than the next person, and Phil delights in them. I intended to make a large quantity of hot sauce so we don't have to buy the overpriced ounces any more. I was seeding the peppers merrily when a seed flew into my eye.

The world stopped. I licked my fingertip to see if I could touch my eye, and my tongue, mouth, and lips were on fire. The eye heat was spreading down my cheek, so I turned on the bathroom shower head and tried to rinse my eye without touching any part of it. No good: the heat increased. I ran to the barn and got an ice cube, which was cold, but not strong enough.

Milk is supposed to break the heat, so I poured a bowl of milk and tried to bathe my eye. But nothing was working, and I could hardly breathe. Could I go permanently blind?

I called Phil, who was up the ladder working on the greenhouse. "Help me!" I said, panic rising.

He came and turned the shower faucet on, reminding me to open my eye so I could actually get water flushing it. So painful! But it worked. The heat began to subside, and I could again see.

Then my hands started to tingle. I hadn't worn gloves (though the thought had crossed my mind). Jalapenos, next to habaneros and "real" peppers seem so innocuous. And the heat of summer hasn't really arrived yet. How hot could they be?

Hot enough that, for the next several hours, my only thought was how to keep the burn out of my hands. I bathed them in everything I could find recommended online: milk, oil, dish soap, poison ivy soap, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, aloe. When none of those seemed to work, I held ice cubes constantly. Or tried to divert my attention: I cut rotting seed potatoes until my hands cramped in claws.

By milking time, though, the burn was better. And from now on: gloves and safety goggles!

I roasted green peppers (not so sweet as red) and cut up some for the freezer.

The white Feherozon peppers are extremely mild. I checked online to see if they are always white, and was gratified to read again why I had chosen them: they should ripen to orange, then red, and if I let them dry, they will powder to excellent paprika. Sounds multi-purpose to me! I'm not sure what to do with the large quantity of white peppers picked, but they are certainly interesting.

The garden by turns excites and exasperates me. We have plenty of tomatoes (Phil had a "ensalata caprese," or Capri salad today: tomatoes and basil, drizzled with olive oil and salt and pepper. Fresh mozzarella would have made it truly authentic, but we need more milk for mozzarella). But the tomato plants look nothing like their bold, tall counterparts in professional greenhouses. The scourge of Bitsy has decimated many plants, as she cavorts around, sampling and trampling tomatoes. I suppose it's just as well I planted 500, way more than needed. And, as foibles go, I'll take Bitsy's one annoying trait. It's not that bad.

The summer lettuce is holding its own. It's ridiculously small and won't be ready for some time, but it is yet living, and that counts for something.

I had such high hopes for my flower bed. Planted with asparagus, rhubarb, and many types of flowers, I had a vision of a perennial flower and edible bed right in the middle of the garden, like a lovely jewel. Instead, the foreground shows the weeded section, with nascent zinnias and cosmos, among others. But the background, where the asparagus and rhubarb reside, has become an incredible thicket of tall grass.

Phil and I feel gratified that our garden is growing such incredible plants. A year ago, this land wouldn't grow grass higher than half an inch. So to have grass waist high and some weeds over our heads feels like a sort of accomplishment. Just not at all what we expected. With the meager growth of last year, we weren't expecting to battle weeds much at all. I will probably transplant the rhubarb and asparagus at some point, and then till the garden. Some time.

To have a thick mat of grass where last year was only red clay is gratifying and beautiful, around the edge of the garden. When it starts to overrun the peppers, though, it becomes just a bit scary.



I went to the corn patch today. It's a mass of green: tall corn stalks, ground covering watermelon and squash vines (mostly watermelon, I think). An occasional bean plant, but those have not done well. And plenty of grass.

I had gone to look for summer squash. I had looked just on Friday, and seen nothing, but I apparently missed a zucchini, since when I looked today, there was one larger than my foot.

I am excited for summer squash. And I am eagerly awaiting okra, my favorite vegetable from last summer.

What a day. From burning eye to fiery hands; from greenhouse success to deceased lamb. The emotional swings of farming keep coming, and we just try to keep up.