After the storms moved past yesterday morning was foggy for a while until the sun came up and burned it off. It was a cool look on the farm and it hasn't been foggy for the whole summer.
Peppers needed to be picked and I got a nice tub full 6.5 pounds of red, orange, and green bells. The plants are still loaded and I am trying to let the yellow and red actually turn color before picking them. I need to get them all into the freeze dryer for a run as I have about enough for 3 or 4 trays full.
Lots of tomatoes were ready or at least colored enough that they will ripen in the house. I got 7.25 pounds which gives us about 15 pounds in the house. I would like another picking if possible before I run another batch for canning.
Much of my day was spent splitting logs. With 2 trees to split I want it done sooner than later. I got a couple of rounds split and started stacking.
After eating some lunch I went out and picked through the cucumbers and make sure I had enough for the delivery this morning. I ended up barely having the 20 I needed to fill the 60 order, but I made it. Got a couple more of the Armenian Cucumbers as well.
My tomatoes get water from a main feed that feeds the rest of the rows. I've never installed valves in the lines so in order to shut a line off I have too clamp the line closed. The tomatoes don't need anymore water if I want them to actually start ripening en-mass.
MY log splitting PSA.
For anyone who has to split logs by hand you know about the metal splitting wedges. Many of you will understand how dangerous they can be when the metal deforms on the head and mushrooms over. Pieces of the wedge can and do fly off at immense speeds. I know from experience. As a kid I was pounding on a splitting wedge with a sledge hammer trying to split a piece of oak when a piece of the wedge shot of and hit me in the shin. The piece of metal hit my shin bone and went up along the bone so that they had to do surgery to get it out of my leg. I was lucky it only hit my leg and didn't go for more critical parts of my body. While I still will use splitting wedges I have a much easier and safer way.
2 splitting mauls.
I swing the maul into one side of the log then I grab the other maul and swing it into the opposite side of the log. I pull the first maul out and swing once more and the log is split in half. There are a number of times it only takes the second swing to pop the log in 2. It is far safer than using a splitting wedge as long as you have solid aim and don't smack 2 mauls into each other.
The wood I brought down from the forest is a super nice straight grained fir and it makes splitting much nicer than the bull pines that are a twisted mess of grain and massive branch knots.
I got a good start on the splitting and made it through about 20% of the logs.
Evening was spent soaking the soreness away and working on the muscles.
This morning I have to go deliver the co-op order, then I have more logs to split, cleanup and raking around the yard, get the freeze dryer going with a new batch, and keep getting the farm ready for Fall and the inbound Winter.
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