The Queen of Blackberries

I am the Queen of Blackberries. I've got the scars to prove it.

It has been cool and rainy for several days. This is a blessing, but I scurry to take advantage of it and don't know what to do first: weed, pick blackberries before they're gone, clean out barns...

As a result, I overdo.

This morning, I'll pick blackberries first in order to stockpile as much as possible in the freezer. I've made the first batch of wine, which will be transferred to a large carboy to continue fermentation. Once things calm down, I'll be taking gallon bags of berries out of the freezer and making more.

What I don't pick shrivel and dry up. This is a window of opportunity which will soon close. The berries just won't be here in a week, a month...

The sopranos are doing great. They were surgically castrated on Tuesday and are just fine. They'll be tenors one day, but never basses.

Their care and feeding, however, takes up a lot of each day. When it's dry, we go for a walk up and down hills. Well, it's a little hard to walk without tripping with three little guys keeping close to my ankles. We'll need to make a gradual transition to the herd so that eventually they can go to the big barn.

Dinky cow has a new little heifer.

There are lots of cucumbers and tasty green tint patty pan squash to pick. I picked the first zucchini. Watermelons and pink banana squash are forming. The pink banana squash looks like an overlarge yellow summer squash at this point, but I know it's a winter squash. I wish someone would let me know how to tell when it's ready to pick. Maybe you go by the stem as in other winter squash -- when it comes away from the fruit, it's ready.