The garden is providing us healthy hearty meals everyday. We spend our morning tour picking cucumbers, peppers, onions, eggplants, potatoes, beans, basil, spinach, green lettuce, tomatoes and the fresh eggs from our hens creates a wonderful breakfast omelet. A combo of the veggies is added to a lunch/supper soups and a fresh salad. And it's officially pear season! The spring pears are ripe and crisp.
And we got a little sticky this week. Collecting several buckets of our white and black mulberries to smash and strain. We made another around of pekmez aka mulberry molasses.
And we handpicked a few mulberries to attempt preserving via drying along with some pears, an apple, and a banana. After 10 hours they were still plump and not dried at all. But the pears, apples and bananas were fantastic.
We may try once more but we are on to other projects. I am dubbing this as the 'Pig Chalet'.
Art poured the foundation a few weeks ago and this week we put up the walls. He plans to keep a side of it for storage and the other side as a new shelter for the pig (our current one backs up to the building we are knocking down soon). The roof, interior dividing wall and doors are still a work in progress.
The grapes in the vineyard seem to be doubling overnight. We are anticipating quality and ample size grapes this fall.
The other fruit and nut trees are progressing along well.
We have a collection of tea in the garden this year including a native mountain green tea that we've foraged while hiking over the last few years. It's second attempt grow it and it's blooming. Even the bees are enjoying the bounty.
We look forward to our 'breaks' in the hammocks under the vines. It's a great chance to relax and recharge. So we purchased a third to share with anyone that may want to stop by and join us.
And drum roll please! We have two new mama hens with a total of 16 baby chicks this week alone. That brings the total of new chickens to 26. Art built two chick condos to accommodate the hens and their flocks. We have a third hen scheduled to hatch her flock at the end of the month. So a third condo is on the to do list.
And for the first time in ages I am writing again. Guide Time Inside, Book Four in the Ember in Time Series on progressing along. No expected date of release so far but fingers crossed I'll have it ready before Christmas.
Happy Summer days here, stay cool and well my friends.