Limed
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I pulled about 120 ears of corn today and since the wife didn't want to fool with it, I gave it away. I have a pretty strict personal rule for giving produce away...If you're able to grow it (with the exception of the preacher), you don't get it. There's plenty of old folks out there that ain't able to do.
Some folks, though, have got to give something when you go by their house. Johnny and Betty are that way. When I dropped by and brought in a box of corn, nothing would do, but he had to give me some taters.
His daughter had brought him a barrel of new potatoes a month back or so. So out we went to a shed in the backyard, where he had the taters spread out on a board floor, with a layer of lime sprinkled on them. Just don't see that much anymore.
Since I'd picked some snap beans this morning, the new potatoes will be very welcome. Gotta make sure to get all the lime off, as a little bit goes a long way...
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While we're talking garden stuff, I know people that still follow the practice of gleaning.
What is gleaning in a Biblical sense?
Leviticus 19:9-10
SHARE9 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. 10 And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God. - Leviticus 19:
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While we're talking garden stuff, I know people that still follow the practice of gleaning.
What is gleaning in a Biblical sense?
Leviticus 19:9-10
SHARE9 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. 10 And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God. - Leviticus 19:
I gleaned for ramps in my yoot. Also blackberries, but they kind of don't count. We had an absolute assload of bushes in both yards. Way more than we could use in a year. So we gave a lot to family members and our neighbors, who'd look after the house when we were away.
The ramps came from land outside my friend's parents' cabin in WV that was very much undeveloped.
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I picked a smidgen over a bushel of field peas this evening. We'll can those in the morning.
So far, the garden has been okay. We put up about 250-300 ears of corn (mostly creamed), 76 jars of snap beans, tomorrow will get me into the low 20's for pints of peas, and we've got a half dozen jars of pickles. Gotta get some water on my butterbeans so that they will fill out and it's too early for the okra. Throw in a few tomatoes, eggplant and squash, so far it's been a fair year...
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Got a good buddy from Wolf Creek, West-By-God. Owns a piece of a mountain overlooking Alderson.
He said by late spring, you could tell the heavy ramp eaters just by walking by them.
I love the crap out of WV, but unfortunately I've spent more time in the panhandles than on the southern end.
Been trying to plan a trip out to Dolly Sods at some point. Easily one of the craziest places I've ever hiked around in, and that includes the Presidential Range.
A long while back, there was a storm that came out of Canada and brought lichen and other weird things you normally only see in tundra down onto the mountain there. The ground is blood red with the stuff in certain parts of the year. Once it gets close to winter, it turns pinkish if it doesn't get dumped full of snow.
Speaking of snow, it's also one of those places that creates its own weather. I once went out there with a buddy in high school. We were only walking around for about 2 hours and in that time we had 80-degree sunshine, fog, rain and hail. When a storm formed, I had barely enough time to drop my shit, pull out a raincoat and put it on. It was that fast. And the storm's not just above you, it's all around you, too. The fog's actually part of the clouds and can get you just as damp as the rainfall.
Lightning is scary up there. And there are pine trees up there with branches that only grew on one side of the trunk because of the wind.
They're one of the few states that really do live up to their slogans.