Cedar Writes

Author: cedarlili

  • Moving Critters and Raspberries!

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    cedarlili
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    Well, we didn’t move the raspberries, but I found the first ripe ones today. The wild ones ripen first, and I found a patch that are jsut starting to come on! The domestic razzes will be on in a week or two. Then I will make jam! Today the handful I picked was fed to…

  • Farm Pretties

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    cedarlili
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    It has been rainy, chilly, busy, and I have been sick. We had a first-time doe kit out last night and she didn’t stay with the bunnies so we lost the litter. Sad, but at least we know that the junior buck is viable. We’ll breed her again in a few days, but if she…

  • Planting Blueberries

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    cedarlili
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    Dad and I planted 35 blueberries over this last week. We’d bought them eariler in the season, put them in pots in the greenhouse temporarily, and now finally had the time to put them in the ground. We chose to plant them where the wild blueberries are happiest, and we marked out the area the…

  • Strawberry Jam

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    cedarlili
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    I went out for another hour this morning and picked strawberries with Johann. Actually, he chased butterflies and I picked. I seem to be averaging a cup of berries in an hour. When I came back in and took a look at my berries we had 6 cups total, 5 when mashed up a little.…

  • Wild Strawberries

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    cedarlili
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    Our pasture is half wild, come up to brush and brambles over the last twenty years. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. True, we plan to reclaim at least part of it to field so we can grow our own grain, but a good amount of it will be kept just as it…

  • Power Outage Minestrone

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    cedarlili
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    We’d had a power outage the other day, the result of a particularly violent thunderstorm moving through. I came home from work in the middle of it, and made dinner in the dark. This is the reason I insist on always having a gas stove. I can light it even without the automatic starter. I’d…

  • Herb Garden

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    cedarlili
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    I have been wanting to put in a raised bed herb garden for a long time. This year I finally got the opportunity, partly because I’d been able to get 12 landscape timbers for free. Determining where I was going to build the bed was to longest part of the whole process, as I knew…

  • Alaska Memories

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    cedarlili
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    I bought myself a treat yesterday. I found real Tang and came home with it. I was telling Mica this morning that it brought back memories of Alaska. We came to New Hampshire straight from the big state twenty years ago. My favorite thing to do with Tang up there was to make an Alaskan…

  • Poultry and More

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    cedarlili
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  • Hugelculture

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    cedarlili
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    It’s a funny word – I like to say it. Hoo-Gull-culture. And I love the concept even more. Hugelculture is the concept of using wood, particularly decaying wood, in the garden to boost productivity and reduce the need for irrigation. Well, here on Stonycroft the one thing we have lots of is rotting wood (and…

  • Planting the Garden and Distractions

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    cedarlili
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    I’ve been working on getting the garden planted. I had a ton of melon and squash starts to get in, finished those today. I planted cucumbers, golden and blue Hubbard squash, watermelon sugar baby, Melons Jenny Lind, Crenshaw, Sweet Granite, Pixie, Charentais, and one that Johann lost the label to. I put in butternut squash…

  • Gardening

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    cedarlili
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    Dad and I bought a contractor’s underlayment day before yesterday. 20’x100′ of black plastic, 6 mil thick. That was the foundation of my garden. Today I unrolled the plastic, realizing in the process that before today I had no concept of how long 100′ really is. I used the area the pigs have been “tractoring”…