Where is everybody???????

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Well, we were down for a while but I keep checking back here and NO ONE IS HOME!!!! Did we move to a new site and I missed it???

We have been eating mostly from our garden these days and I love it. What is everyone eating from their gardens these days??

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), July 20, 2002

Answers

I was anxiously awaiting for the forums top come back up. I had some questions that COULDNT wait,, but they did.

MY garden isnt doing much,, about the only thing I planted was onions anyways, and its been SOOOOoooo dry. I did plant some birdhouse gourds, that needs water everyday. But IM not eating out of the garden yet.

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), July 20, 2002.


Picked some string beans here the last few days, but they are not too good so far this year. I guess it has been too darn hot and dry here.

My son found a few green peppers tonight, and said that some of the tomatoes were turning orange. That sounds like a good sign.

Hope it gets wetter and cooler soon.

I hope your gardens are doing better than mine.

-- Bob in WI (bjwick@hotmail.com), July 20, 2002.


Hi Diane, wondering the same thing here. Anyone heard from Bren? Might be just a busy time of year for folks, don't know, but I hope so because I'd hate to loose this forum, too.

We're finally getting ripe tomatoes here. They taste soooooo good. The green beans are done and put up and I'm getting ready to put in a second crop. Gathered all the onions and am ready to cut and freeze them. I put them out really early in the spring and we got a bumper crop this year. The cucumbers are coming on sporadically, too darn hot here, but I'm up to my eyeballs in peppers this year! Good year for them. With a great tip from some nice lady :), I got some eggplant put up in the freezer. I planted a trial batch of corn, but it was tough, so probably won't mess with it next year. Don't have much room for it anyways. We've been eating potatoes from the garden for awhile and I've got the rest dug up and stored in the house. Will put out another crop in a few weeks for the winter. I'm looking forward to the fall garden. It's so much nicer to harvest the veggies in the fall when there's a cool fall breeze blowing. This heat and humidity is getting really old......:)

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), July 21, 2002.


Hey Diane!! I've been here...off and on! Like everyone else probably, we've been busy doing "summer" things.

Here in Maine, our garden is a little slow 'cause of the cool, wet spring we had. But I know we'll have a long fall for second plantings of cool weather crops!! Right now we're harvesting cherry tomatoes, baby squashes and getting ready for the green bean deluge. From the ocean we've been harvesting lots of crabs and some mackeral. Hope to get more lobsters soon!!!

This fall I'm hoping to put a deposit on an as yet unborn Am. alpine buck to replace the Nubian I've been using the last few years. I love the temperament of this Nubian, but I so want to get back to pure alpines again!!

Stan...I've had bird house gourds up for a couple of years now and non of the birds seem interested! Wonder why??

I haven't a clue as to where Bren is hiding out. Sure wish she'd let us know she's around :-)!!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), July 21, 2002.


"From the ocean we've been harvesting lots of crabs and some mackeral. Hope to get more lobsters soon!!!"

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! I'm dyiiiiiiiiiing! I want seafoooooood!

You do realize I'm going to barge right in one day and demand to eat lobster and crab till I can't move! I'll bring fresh butter if that is any consolation?! ;-)

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), July 21, 2002.



Patty, please stop by and pick me up on your way to Marcia's...

I've got fresh sweet corn ready right now; I'm thinking chowdah...

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), July 21, 2002.


I'm reading this book about a woman writer, who goes from a NY city existence to living alone in a cabin with no electricity, on the coast of Maine. She is learning to glean natures bounty as I read, wallowing in it in fact! All this sets me to being a bit "home sick".

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), July 21, 2002.

Hey, ya'll! I'm here!! We had a HUGE storm here on July 3rd which killed our modem. Actually, our neighbors told us it was 2 separate thunderstorms coming from different directions. (We were out of town for the day visiting family and missed it.) The storms "met" over our valley and it was bad. One neighbor, who's lived on this road all his life, said he had never seen it rain so hard. The other neighbor said he couldn't his workshop building from his kitchen window even though it is only 15-20 feet away. We came home to find most of the garden flat! No wind, it just rained that HARD!!! So much rain came down that it flooded our chimney! Luckily, no damage from that but our spring got flooded in mud and we couldn't drink the water for a couple of days. Never thought I'd have to worry about our water supply from a gravity fed spring!

I now have a idea of what flash flooding is all about. You could see where our cute little creek had flowed out the banks and down our gravel road for a quarter of a mile. It dug a 16" gulley in the road in one spot. Where it flowed back into the banks, on our property, there was so much water it flatted the old locust post and barbedwire fence. Most of the gravel roads and people's driveways got totally washed away. The damage to the roads was just incredible! But, go a half a mile away in either direction, and everything was normal.

After we got the modem fixed, Lusenet went down so I haven't been checking in much. Our garden is okay. Luckily, we planted late so we missed that very late freeze in late May. Now this. The garden did recover on it's own but it was very disheartening to come home to see it flat. We've had one ripe cherry tomatoe! We planted lots of tomatoes and peppers but not too much else since we are in the process (still!) of moving our main garden. I need to get some green beans to freeze.

Polly, drive up here and Patty can pick us both up on her way to Maine! :o) Hey, Annie! Thanks for asking about me! And you, too, Marcia! I've missed "talking" to everyone!

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), July 22, 2002.


Good to see ya Bren! We have had a few of those outrageous storms, as well! My front creek was up 20 feet in a half hour a few weeks ago!

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), July 22, 2002.

You folks are more than welcome to stop in and visit...BUT...you all have to promise to bring something delicious from your part of the country!! Can't you just imagine the "smorgasborg" of food??!! BTW...I'm looking for a good recipe for deep-fried crab cakes. Anyone have one they'd be willing to share??

Polly...bring some strawberries with that sweet corn! Patty...being stranded on a deserted island (like that Survivor episode) would be like a vacation for us! There is so much food in the ocean and on the shore!!! What's the name of that book?

Bren...thank goodness no one was hurt in that flash flood!! We have a small stream out behind our house, but it's never overflowed it's banks. Around here, folks that live a little too close to the ocean have to worry about storm surge at high tides! Those can be pretty scary! We're about 2 miles away from the shore at an elevation of almost 300 ft.

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), July 22, 2002.



300 ft!!? That's so cool! Our elevation is about 3500 ft! Well, the black raspberries are about all gone but how 'bout I bring some blackberries. One good thing about all this rain is the bumper crop of LARGE, sweet blackberries.

Hey, Patty! We were kind of sad we missed this storm (Gilly and I are weather junkies) but figured it was probably for the best. It might have really scared the kids... or us! I would have like to seen the all that water flowing by (with me safely above it all! :o)

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), July 22, 2002.


Marcia, The book is called, Drinking the Rain, it's by Alix Kates Shulman. I found it the 'odd' way I find some very interesting books. I just wander the aisles...stop at random and grab a book. Open it and read a few lines, if it looks interesting, I check it out. ;-)

I'm reading the back cover now...she wrote two books on the anarchist- feminist Emma Goldman. The book I'm reading is a memoir.

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), July 22, 2002.


Thanks for the info, Patty! We have a "Books By Mail" program here (based in Augusta, Me.) and they specialize in books about Maine. I think I'll give them a call and see if they can send me a copy.

Bren...Wow!!! 3500 ft.?! Geesh, I'm always walking around with my head in the clouds enough now at 300 ft. I'd be "air-born" at your altitude :-)!!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), July 22, 2002.


Hey Bren! Good to "see" ya. Glad your garden bounced back, sounds like it was some kind of storm.

I want to go to Marcia's too! Patty and Polly, you can swing down to I40 and I'll be standing out there with a sack of tomatoes for the supper, waiting on ya! :)

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), July 23, 2002.


Oh Marcia, the book isn't really 'about' Maine per say. It's more about self discovery, definition of.....like I said, a memoir.

She leaves NYC and a 'lifestyle', to hole up in a cabin on the coast of Maine. She goes there to write, but it evolves into...well, I'm only halfway through! :-)

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), July 23, 2002.



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