We Have Squash!!

I love growing squash! It's so much fun and so interesting! I am a little nuts about squash like other people are about heirloom tomatoes. I know people that grow three dozen different types of tomatoes! I like to grow several different types of squash, whatever kind I find interesting.

The picture at the top is the acorn squash growing on the fence along the driveway. There has been a battle this summer between the acorn squash and the morning glories, to see who would take over the fence. It sure is beautiful!

Most of the squash that I planted this year has done very well and there have been some surprises! This is an ambercup and blue hubbard cross, bound to be delicious with those two for parents! Who knows, maybe it will be fabulous. If I keep pollinating it back to itself for a few generations, I might have a stable new variety of maxima squash. Wouldn`t that be fun!

This is our favourite winter squash variety, ambercup. It is so sweet and delicious without being overly stringy. It`s also small and easy to peel and bake, easier than hubbard, anyway. Those giant hubbard have to be cut with the axe!


We also like buttercup. I planted very decorative buttercup squash this year. Aren't they beautiful! I have about two dozen of these growing in the squash field. These are "turban" squash, also called "Turk`s cap", and are a type of buttercup. Buttercup squash are easy to handle, sweet and delicious, and I like these for fall decorating. The only drawback I have found with the buttercup is that they don't keep as well throughout the winter in the cold cellar. The softer skin that makes them a little easier to peel and cook, also prevents them from keeping as long.

This is a Hopi black squash. The Hopi indians used to grow them in the three sisters fasion. I also planted Hopi pale gray squash, which are suppose to be very good "keepers" but I don't think they did very well. I couldn't find one out there, anyway. Perhaps when the large squash leaves, weeds and grass has died back I will find a few. I hope so.

I planted a few spaghetti squash this year for the first time. Someone told me that the stringy inner part looks and tastes like spaghetti noodles and is good with sauce on it, much like you would eat spaghetti. I planted a few, just a few to try. There are four of them growing out there now and they look like they are doing very well. I don't know how the guys will go for having squash instead of noodles, time will tell. It's bound to be healthier but that's no necessarily a "seller" at our house, unfortunately.

I planted three other types of interesting squash, "upper ground sweet potato" squash that is suppose to taste a lot like sweet potatoes, (we love sweet potatoes!), "sweet mama" squash which should be very sweet and "pink banana" squash, just because it was interesting.

The "sweet potato" squash" are huge, the size of a very large pumpkin! Isn't it lovely and big! There are two of them! That should give us quite a lot of "sweet potato" squash.

These are the pink banana squash. They don't look pink to me. I thought they were suppose to be pink. Maybe they'll turn pink when they ripen? I'm sure they'll be good, nonetheless.

The "sweet mama" squash are smaller and grew on a trellis. I have two of those growing with the tomatoes.

I have already received a few seeds for "Sweet dumpling" squash to grow next year.

Squash is so easy to grow and so much fun! Because most of what I grow are maxima, they do tend to cross a bit even though I do hand pollinate most of it, but I'm ok with that.

I would love to plant a very large field full of various squash and have a "pick your own squash" week in the fall. Maybe next year I'll do that. I could grow some jack-o-lantern pumpkins in there too.

I have a surprise jack-o-lantern pumpkin plant growing in the old chicken pen now. We don't have chickens at the moment and the growth in there is amazing. It is so thick with huge weeds, and this pumkin, due to the old chicken manure in there. I am looking forward to seeing the size of those pumpkins! The stems on this pumpkin plant stretch to the roof of the 6' pen and have leaves to match in size. Amazing growth! The massive weeds in there with it prevent any pumpkin viewing at this time, but they will all die back with fall comes.

I also have a squash or pumpkin growing in the old compost pile. Its so weedy I can't see what it is either, right now.

I have never seen a squash borer but I have planted the squash in a different field so far every year. Maybe it's just not a problem up here. Something has to compensate us for the winters!

I can grow squash! I cannot, however, seem to grow luffahs...

Chichiquelite and Grape Jelly

Today I had time to make some jelly. I didn't really have the time to spare, but I took it anyway. Sometimes you have to just "Do it, anyway". The fence is not finished, but it is at a place where Buck is running free now, so we can slow down a bit. The chichiquelites are producing very well and I had to do something with the berries or lose them.

I made jam. I made grape jelly from Welch's grape juice and I made a combination chichiquelite and grape jelly with the berries and the left over juice. Both turned out to be delicious, although the grape jelly did not gel. I made is exactly according to the directions in the pectin box, but that doesn't surprise me. I sometimes have problems getting the pectin to gel properly. Its finicky stuff and a tricky worker. The acid balance and sugar amount has to be right or it doesn't work. I used the recipe on the paper that comes with the pectin, followed exactly, and it still didn't gel. It will have to be done again. Oh well, its only half a dozen pint jars.

Lately I have been making jam with gelatine and am finding it much easier and more foolproof. It always gels, sometimes too hard if not enough juice is used with the package of gelatine. You can use unflavoured genatine, if you want to keep it organic and all natural. I sometimes use flavoured jelly powder too, like Jell-O, but generic, to add even more flavour to the jelly I am making. If your berries or fruit do not have a lot of flavour, the addition of flavoured jelly powder can give it a real boost!

The combination chichiquelite and grape jelly I made today was made with flavoured jelly powder. I used grape and berry flavours.

This is the recipe for all types of juice made with jelly powder:
1 small box jelly powder
2 cups juice
2 cups sugar

Directions: Bring the juice to a boil, stir in the jelly powder until dissolved, add sugar. You need the sugar to help preserve the jelly at room temperature if using a water bath to seal the jars. If you are going to keep this jelly in the freezer, you can use whatever amount of sugar you want. You don't need to sugar to make it gel.

Stir it all until the sugar and jelly powder are well dissolved. Pour into hot, sterilized jars. Wipe the rims, put on the new seals and rings. Lower gently into boiling water deep enough to cover the jars with about 1" of water above the tops of the jars. Boil for 10 minutes. Start the 10 minute count after the water has returned to a boil. Remove gently and sit on a towel until cool. Label and store in a dry, fairly cool location. Jellies and jams preserved in this manner will keep for many months.

I ran my bowl of chichiquelites through a juicer and used just the juice. I had about 5 cups of juice. I added 1 cup of Welch's grape juice that I had left over from making the grape jelly that didn't gel. That gave me 6 cups of juice. I added 2 boxes of berry jelly powder and one box of grape and added 6 cups of sugar. After following the recipe above, I put it in the storage room and left it to gel. This morning I tested it. Wow! It's great stuff!

Hubby pronounced it "Delicious!". Since he is the one who usually eats it, that's important. That's also the reason I made jelly instead of jam. Hubby prefers it. I do make strawberry freezer jam too, but we are trying to cut back on our freezer use. The corn is going in there in another month or so.

I don't think all of the corn I planted this year will fit in our freezer. We will give what corn we cannot freeze or eat to the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen in town. They get all our excess food. I wonder if they are a bit overwhelmed with all the zucchini they have received this year? I have some stored in the cold cellar to take to them in another couple of months, just to spread them out some. I took them an armload of flowers with the veggies one week simply because I had them to give. They seemed to be appreciated.

I realize that flavoured jelly powder is not organic but it sure has made jelly making a lot easier and fool proof for me. Even plain, unflavoured gelatine, which is organic, makes a big difference in the ease of jelly making!

UPDATE: I have since been told that the grape jelly didn't set because it was made from the frozen can. If it had been made from the jug of pure juice then it would have gelled properly. I don't know what the difference is. Next time I will be using grape juice from the jug.

Making Pickles

We had a break from fence building today, due to the rain so I had a chance to make pickles from all those cucumbers I picked in the garden last week. When I picked them, I didn't really have pickles in mind, I just picked what was there.

Many of the cucumbers I picked are too large for pickles, having gone to seed with a watery center. The larger ones had enough solid flesh to make long strips after the seedy center was cut out. I was making long sandwich pickes, anyway. We love the Strub's garlic dill sandwich pickles and I have their recipe from their website!

I sliced all of the cucumbers into long slices with my very old "Vegematic". We don't have a slicer but plan to buy a slicer "one day soon", along with a lot of other things we can use. We do have a 20 year old vegetmatic, however, that makes slices, julienne, fries, etc. and works very well. It made short work of the cucumber slicing for today's pickles.

After slicing enough cucumbers to fill all 8 quart jars, I had this scrap left. Some will be saved for salad and sandwiches, the rest will go tino the compost.

This is the Strub's Sandwich Pickle Recipe

Make brine: 6 ml salt, 250 ml vinegar, 1 litre water (x3 for 8 quarts).
Into each jar put 4 cloves garlic chopped and 2 tablespoons dill. I used fresh dill.
I put two cloves of chopped garlic with 1 tablespoon dill into the bottom of each sterilized jar. Stiffed as many sliced cucumbers into the jar as I could and topped with another 2 cloves of chopped garlic and another tablespoon dill.

I put all the jars into my waterbath canner, covered with 1/2" of water and boiled for 10 minutes. When they were cooled I heard the seals pop, removed the lids and put away into the pantry.

In a week I will open a jar and try them! We are all excited about these pickles as we love the commercial Strub's garlic dill sandwich pickles.

Buck and Fences

These are pictures of Buck at 3.5 - 4 months old. Even then you can see his majestic, wise and calm personality. He is truly a "Gentle Giant". He does have one glaring problem, however, he tries his hardest to ignore any and all fencing.

We started out with an electronic underground wire shock collar invisible dog fence. It worked great for months until Buck started growing the thick, adult ruff around his neck and chest and discovered that the tickle wasn't injuring him. He began to just walk right through the wire.

I knew he was getting a little shock, as I got one too if I touch his collar when he was near the wire. Yikes!!! We have also decided that we don't want him to live with that shock when it isn't necessary, even though it is his decision to walk through the wire. Most dogs who wear these collars rarely get shocked. Its just for training. This doesn't seem to be the case with Buck. He's just too stubborn!

Oh well, so much for that electronic fence. It was worth a try! It did work very well while it lasted and would still work great, I am sure, on a short haired dog.

I buried all 1000' of wire by myself initially. Then I repaired half that length when it stopped working due to some breaks in it. The fact that I caused the breaks is beside the point.

Last week I finally said, "I am sick and tired of working on this fence! I don't want to use it anymore!" About that time, Buck, at 6.5 months of age, decided the same thing. So out it went. That's when I came up with a plan for a real fence that works so well, we don't need a gate across the driveway.

That driveway gate is the reason we avoided a real fence in the first place, since hubby drives a school bus during the school year and backs it down the driveway. There's also the snow to consider in the winter. We just can't have a gate across it. My new plan avoids all of that and seems to work very well.




This is Buck's submissive "belly rub" pose at 5 months of age. How could you not rub that belly!







Buck is very intelligent and has learned a lot of things in his 6.5 months, he's just stubborn. It's not an assertive alpha stubbornness, thankfully. He's extremely docile, sweet, and gentle with everyone. It's more like a passive-aggressive stubbornness.


If he doesn't want to go outside, instead of resisting, he just rolls over on the floor and goes limp. What can I do with an 80+ lb dog that's limp on the floor and refuses to get up? We have hard wood floors so I have been just sliding him to the door and rolling him over onto the porch but he's gotten wise to that and keeps himself turned around making it harder to do.

I do have one ace up my sleeve, chips. He loves tortilla chips and is still young and naive enough to trick into coming outside for a treat. He seems happy enough with that, since he gets a treat out of it. We have the front porch fenced so there is no escape from it and that has been where we put him at night and when we were gone for very long, especially since the electronic fence quit stopping him, but the gates at the porch door are only 3' tall. That now hits him at his waist (slight exaggeration) when he stands up and leans his elbows on them. When we sit together on the steps, he is now taller than I am and I'm 5'4"! Today he stepped/climbed over the gate and down the stairs so nonchlantly, like it wasn't even there and he'd been doing that all his life, so now he is chained for a few days. We are building the fence as fast as we can!

He doesn't mind the chain if he is on the porch and we are in the house. He's used to that and is perfectly happy. He barks incessantly if he is chained away from the house or I go out into the garden and he can't come with me.

I hope this fence works. Buck is a digger, so it might not stop him. There are steps we can take to prevent him from digging under the fence when the ground is not frozen. We will just have to wait and see.



He spends his afternoons in the house these days, in the heat. Great Pyrenees dogs really suffer in the heat. They are made for living outdoors in the cold north snow, guarding the animals.

He still takes his baby nap, soundly sleeping for 2-3 hours every afternoon, usually in the house.



He loves his spot on the sofa! This was taken when he was 4.5 months old.









This is Buck the day we got him at 10 weeks of age. He was so adorable, then and now! He is still very much a baby, even if he can calmly climb/step over a three foot gate. Its so easy to forget just how young he is because of his size. He's only about 6.5 months old now!

This is Buck watching the cat, Shadow.

This is Buck two seconds later, chaisng the cat.

We have to make sure we push all food away from the outer side of the kitchen counter as he can reach just about anything he wants that's on the counter, if he wants to. He's very good, however, and doesn't usually take anything that is not his. Still, he's only a puppy. He is begging here, from hubby but he does it sitting. He has learned to sit for all food and treats - a must for a big dog!


Those of you who have read my blog for awhile will remember that we originally had two pups, brothers, Jake and Buck. Due to some personal reasons of our own and Jake's rather aggressive alpha personality traits, we had him neutered and found another good home for him. He is now living with a wonderful family who already had a Newfoundland pup a year old and wanted a same size playmate for her. He is doing very well and is healthy and happy!

As soon as this fence is finished, I am going to post a lot more. It's this fence that is slowing me down but we are beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel! I have lots of activities and posts planned for the near future. I am going to make pickles, my own laundry detergent gel, more jellies and jams, then I am going to start a new mulched layered garden with cardboard. I am going to post about all of those. I also plan to write a post about the blossom end rot on all the tomatoes and the successful squash bed, BUT FIRST WE HAVE TO FINISH THIS FENCE! Its a big job and seems to be taking all of our time and effort right now. I am up before 5 am in the morning and outside around 7 am. When I am not working on the fence, I am in the garden or picking berries or doing laundry, you know the normal things we do daily so we can focus on the important job: THE FENCE! We are not, however, wasting our time cutting the grass, so visit at your own peril! (You might get lost in it!)

With a real fence, we can have a real goat, sheep or pig, IF we decide that we can afford the winter feed and that it is worth the cost. I would like a dairy goat and our own milk, but I know it's not that easy or that simple.

I will have to fence off my wine garden in the spring, as it is in the fenced area and I don't want to move it. We are going to have to fence the asparagus bed too. Goats, sheep or just dog, they have to be fenced. Buck is enough of a destructive force by himself. When he is bored and teething he can be extremely destructive and he loves to dig huge holes everywhere, especially in the soft garden dirt. A dog his size can destroy just about anything in a short flurry of unsupervised activity in the garden and if he decides that he likes strawberries, we'll never get any!

We are very excited about finishing the fence and are securing the back pastures too, so there's no escape. We are using skids for fencing at the back at the forest side. Skids, wired together and wired to a fence post make a very good, strong and impenetrable fence. Its free too!

Poor Buck! I feel so sorry for him chained up, but its only for a few days. We will finish that fence shortly, to everyone's relief!

Buck is such a wonderful fellow! He has the most gentle, sweet and loving temperament that I have ever seen in a dog and will be a very good guardian. Already he is protective and warning, with an unbelievably deep and loud warning bark. He is also going to be an awesome size!

He has markings that are rare for an adult Great Pyrenees dog. Most Great Pyrenees dogs are born with the badger markings but they usually disappear as they reach adulthood. Only a few have them to such an extreme that they keep a bit as an adult. Buck's markings are fading as he gets his adult hair in, but we believe that he will keep the badger stripe on his face and the dark eyelashes. Its part of what makes him so beautiful!




Buck is unregistered and is 100% Great Pyrenees with the black eye rims and double dew claws indicative of a pure bred Great Pyrenees dog.

Great Pyrenees dogs belong to the class of "Livestock Guardian Dogs". He is such a magnificent example of a livestock guardian dog that we will probably mate him next summer, in an approved mating, when he is about 1.5 years old. All will depend on the female and her qualities. I think a lot of farmers would like to have Buck mate their guardian dogs to improve their stock of livestock guardians, so we are not neutering him but will be letting him act as stud next summer, judiciously, in a few approved matings. We would love to have another Great Pyrenees pup, one of his sons, with Buck's personality and markings, from a Great Pyrenees female as wonderful and amazing as Buck!

I know that my posting has slowed these past couple of weeks. Don't give up hope! It will pick up again when the fence is finished and we can relax a bit, but just a little bit. There's winter wood to do now, the garden to prepare for next year and we are looking for new hens, about half a dozen or so. Work is always there in the country, but we wouldn't have it any other way. We love country living!

With Blood On My Hands

This is a post from another blog. The blog of a Christian woman who is on the journey to live a life that pleases the Lord. Her post "With Blood On My Hands" is such an insightful description of today's Christian. It truly touched me to the core, so much that I just had to share it with anyone who will read it.

If you are a true Christian, seeking His will in your life and all that you do, you cannot help but be changed by this post. I know I am.

"With Blood On My Hands" from The Pink Homestead blog.

Chichiquelites

From Seed to Berry in One Season! Our chichiquelites were finally ready yesterday! These little berries are also called "Garden Huckleberries" (Solanum nigrum). They resemble the small wild blueberries but without the flavour of the fresh berry. Chichiquelites do have sweetness and flavour but only when they are fully ripe. Just black and shiny is not ripe enough. You have to wait for them to get dull and a bit softer, then they are very good raw.

The best way to pick chichiquelites at the peak of ripeness is to pick by cluster, rather than berry. If the entire cluster is black, pick them. If there are a few green berries still in the cluster, leave them until they are all ripe. This is the rule of thumb that I have been using and they are very good ripe. They are not bitter or bad tasting when they are not ripe enough. There is just not much flavor there until they are cooked down.

These little gems really come into their own when they are cooked, however! When cooked down with sugar, they do resemble blueberries in taste and are very good! Chichiquelites look like blueberries when they are cooked. They have the same dark purple colour and will probably make excellent organic soap colour, if we don't eat them all. They produce a lot for such a small space and short time!

I do have other berry bushes in my berry and wine garden, but they take years to produce. I needed something that would produce fruit immediately. I got that with the chichiquelites and ground cherries and I am very happy with them both. I have not yet made pie with the ground cherries but intend to do so in the next few days.

Do remember to save seeds for planting next year. I saved a lot of chichiquelite seed this weekend. We'll be planting many more next year than we did this year. I now have an envelope full of dried chichiquelite seed for next year!

This being our first year to grow them, I had to test the chichiquelites out in a pastry. I used some bits of leftover pastry from a previous pie baking last week to make these two little turnovers. Hubby and son pronounced them "fantastic" and "delicious!" They are shocked and pleased that we grew these berries ourselves this year.

I will be making some chichiquelite jelly in the coming week, I think.

We will definitely plant chichiquelites and ground cherries again next year!

How about you? Do you grow these and do have a favourite recipe?