Okay, there have been a lot more than four chores, but that turn of phrase had a delightful ring to it.
It's been in the mid to upper seventies for the past week, so of course everything exploded into being all at once, especially the rhubarb.
We have three rhubarb plants, although the one in the horse and cattle pasture is the size of a VW Beetle. It's so big that I refer to it as the forest, and I get all a gleeful when gaze upon it daily this time of year.
In fact, the hubs and I just harvested the first batch from that plant, about twenty pounds or so. We chopped the stalks into chunks, placed them into garbage bags, and chucked them into our freezer, as that round will be made into rhubarb wine when we get back from shotgun state.
The hubs reserved some of the reddest stalks, chopped them up, placed them into a glass jar, and poured a gifted bottle of tequila over them. Rhubarbarian is an infused alcohol that the hubs makes every spring, to the delight of many of our friends. It is an amazing imbibement. I will do another post on that concoction at some point.
I also took some rhubarb the other evening, chopped it up, and made a quick rhubarb crisp for after dinner dessert reasons. All of my grandmas were fond of making crisps it seems, in my inherited recipe collection from my great grandma there are multiple recipe cards for rhubarb crisp, so I guess I am just carrying on the tradition. My family doesn't seem to be too sad about it.
Aside from a surplus of rhubarb, there's been a ton of bulb blooms to enjoy. I planted a bunch of different types of daffodils last fall, and I my face has been in various shapes of delight as I walk by them conducting chorin' activities.
Speaking of homestead chores, I spent a bit of time yesterday morning potting on the pepper sprouts. I'm sorta behind this year, but as the weather is supposed to dip back down into the upper thirties at night this coming week, that doesn't seem to be a bad thing.
I sat in the greenhouse, listening to a regenerative farming podcast while I carefully potted on the tender little sprouts. I'm really excited about my four ghost pepper sprouts, as I want to do some experimenting with lacto-fermented hot sauce recipes this fall.
Yesterday, it was especially blissful in the climate department, and since I was home alone, I tackled a big chore, renovating and weeding the long flower beds. Two of the 5'X60' beds already have a couple of rows of mammoth sunflowers growing in them, but I needed to clear the others out.
So I did. Me, the Corg, and a few cat supervisors passed the afternoon removing weeds and enjoying music and spoken word. I even did one bed whilst enjoying the soundtrack that is the ambiance of my farm. Good times.
As I was finishing up with that task, I had to smile at the garlic. We've been blessed with the biggest garlic plants I have ever grown. The fall application of alfalfa pellets really paid off!
And after all that workin', I finally found myself reclining on my front deck, ice water in hand, freshly scrubbed from a much needed shower, and giggling at amusement of how my dogs were all passed out like they had actually done all the work. Typical.
