Old Tools and New Chickens

It's been a sunny and warm week!  Excellent weather to get lots of stuff done.  One item was an inherited chunk of metal of dubious use.  Thanks mom!  What the heck is this?

It came with handles, and after finding the right bolts, and fabricating a few other cross pieces, here we go!

It's a Kentucky wheel hoe, that was apparently my grandfathers, then in use by my uncle, and now I'm tilling the soil with it.  Neat!

And the machine in action, probably 80 years after it was built.

Meanwhile, over at the cooler-in-progress,  I got foam board installed on all the walls.

And the AC unit is roughly in place.  No earthquakes please...
It just needs insulation for the interior roof, and a roof roof.  This is a rather odd order of building a shed, but it's an odd building to begin with.

Back in the field, porcupines have taken out my melons.  Grrr!  They first, ate melons, so I covered them with row cover.  Then they dug under the row cover,  so I buried the edges.  Then they realized it was flimsy stuff all along and chewed right through.  The arms race may not be successful for melons this year.  Next step, a big fence.  Or perhaps robot guards with giant pincushions to trap em.

Yeah, those are my melons this porcupine is serving.

I take solace in my Jalapenos though.  Gorgeous!

And the storage onions we pulled out today.  After a bit of curing, these will last well into winter.

Golly I love how Sungolds look in the hoop house.

Ah yes, new chickens have been added to the flock to keep up with egg demand.  This weekend a neighbor had a small flock of layers he was parting with.  Hooray! I'll take em.  However, this is a feisty bunch.  After introducing them to their new accommodations, several of them tried to make a break for it.  I could not find one of them for a while, but later I found it trying to hot wire my truck!

Maybe I'll train it to change the oil.

Whatcha Eatin?

Potato Salad

Adapted from NY Times, somewhere around 2008.  You have a bunch of the ingredients in your box this week!

Dressing:
1 Tablespoon white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
salt to taste
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 garlic clove minced or pureed
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil.  (low fat version: 1/4 C plain yogurt, 2 T olive oil)

Salad
~1.5 lbs potatoes
salt and pepper to taste
2-4 Tablespoons finely chopped onion, rinsed with cold water and drained.  (knocks down the raw onion flavor a tad)
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley

Dressing:
Whisk together all dressing ingredients except the olive oil/yogurt.  Then add the olive oil/yogurt.

The Potatoes:
Dice potatoes to 3/4" cubes.  Steam above 1" boiling water until tender, but not mushy, 10-12 min.  Remove potatoes from heat.  Toss with remaining ingredients and dressing while the potatoes are hot!  (then the taters pick up all the flavor).

Mojitos

You got a warm afternoon? just add Mojito.

5-10 mint leaves

1 Tablespoon Lime Juice

Lime Wedge

2 teaspoons sugar

1 oz Light Rum

Soda Water

Ice

Place the mint leaves, lime juice, sugar and rum in a glass and muddle. (smoosh the leaves with a blunt object to bruise the leaves and release the minty goodness to the rum).  Add ice and soda water.  Garnish with a lime wedge, and a pretty sprig of unmuddled mint.  You can even use the mint stem as a stir stick.